But his administrative genius could not work miracles.

His vast Empire, founded on conquest and composed of the most heterogeneous elements, had no principle of organic life in it, and could not possibly be long-lived.
It had been created by him, and it perished with him.

For some time after his death the dignity of Grand Khan was held by some one of his descendants, and the centralised administration was nominally preserved; but the local rulers rapidly emancipated themselves from the central authority, and within half a century after the death of its founder the great Mongol Empire was little more than "a geographical expression." With the dismemberment of the short-lived Empire the danger for Eastern Europe was by no means at an end.

The independent hordes were scarcely less formidable than the Empire itself.

A grandson of Genghis formed on the Russian frontier a new State, commonly known as Kiptchak, or the Golden Horde, and built a capital called Serai, on one of the arms of the Lower Volga.