Baljinnyam and his wife, Zhang Jixia, read one of the books about Genghis Khan they've collected during their travels around the world over the past few decades. [Photo provided to China Daily]

For Baljinnyam, a man from the Mongolian ethnic group, rummaging through the world's bookshelves for the legends of his "emperor lord" is a pilgrimage.

The 78-year-old, who lives in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region's capital, Hohhot, has collected about 12,000 copies of books in 58 languages, from home and abroad, related to Genghis Khan (1162-1227), the Mongol ruler who established a mighty Eurasian empire.

"Everyone in the Mongolian ethnic group admires Genghis Khan and treats him like a god," Baljinnyam says.

"But many of us don't know much about him as an individual. My impression of him was limited until I began to collect the written material."

In 1998, Baljinnyam retired from his job at a local newspaper. After that when he went to visit his younger daughter in Shanghai, he read a Washington Post story that quoted a public poll as saying Genghis Khan was "the most important man of the last millennium".

Many people in the West call the Mongol emperor a conqueror and an invader, so Baljinnyam says he was surprised to read such a "positive comment" in the Post.

"That inspired me to have a complete view of Genghis Khan."