Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Khüchüleg | Gog and Magog

Khüchüleg, born the Son Of A Khan in Mongolia, had no intention of playing second fiddle to the Gür Khan. He quickly set about assembling an army that was loyal to him alone. According to Juvaini: 

. . . from all sides his tribesmen assembled around him. And he assaulted divers places and plundered them, striking one after another; and so he obtained a numerous army and his retinue and army was multiplied and reinforced. 

One reason Khüchüleg so quickly gained adherents was that he allowed his men to loot and plunder at will; the Gür Khan had kept a tight reign on his own troops and paid them a salary in lieu of the right to indiscriminate plunder, a policy almost unheard of at the time. Not only the exiled tribesmen from the Mongolian Plateau were attracted to Khüchüleg’s free-booting ways; soon soldiers were deserting the Gür Khan’s own army and joining up the Naiman adventurer’s marauders. He was still fighting under the banner of the Khara Khitai, however, and in the autumn of 1209 the Gür Khan sent Khüchüleg east to deal with the rebellious Uighurs In Uighurstan, formerly clients of the Khara-Khitai who had thrown in their lot with Chingis Khan earlier that year. The sortie east no doubt provided plentifully opportunities for looting the countryside, but the Uighurs were not to be budged from Chingis’s camp. The Gür Khan, meanwhile, had ridden west to confront the Khwarezmshah. In 1210, personally leading an army of 30,000 men, he seized the Samarkand from the Sultan, but in line with his polices did not allow his men to plunder the city. Hearing that the Gür Khan was engaged in Transoxiania, Khüchüleg now showed his true colors. “ . . . Turning on the gür-khan, he ravaged and plundered his territory, now attacking and now retreating,” according to Juvaini. First he sacked the Khara Khitai imperial treasury at Özkend, on the Syr Darya River, then occupied the Khara Khitai capital of Balasagun  . . . Continued . .  .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Khüchüleg and the Naiman

While Events Played Out In Otrār yet other drama were unfolding high up in the hidden recesses of the Pamir Mountains on the southern edge of Inner Asia. Situated at the convergence of five other great mountains ranges—the Tian Shan, Kun Lun, Himalaya, Hindu Kush, and Karakoram—the range is often referred to as the Pamir Knot, the nexus which ties all the other ranges together. 

The Pamir Knot from south of Kashgar. This is right where the Kun Lun and the Pamir ranges come together. 

Although much of the range consists high, grassy plateaus, it also lays claim to some of the world’s highest summits, including 24,590-foot Ismoili Somoni Peak, 23,310-foot Evgenia Korjenevskaya Peak, and 23,406-foot Peak Lenin. Some geographers also include 24,757-foot Muztagh-Ata in the Pamirs, although most consider it part of the Kun Luns . . . Continued. . .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Catastrophe at Otrār

The governor of Otrār was a man named Inalchuq, the nephew of the Khwarezmshah’s mother, Turkān-Khātün. Perhaps because of his close relations with the Shah’s family he had been granted the lofty title of Gāyer Khan. Although accounts maintain that all 450 of the traders sponsored by the Mongols were Muslims, a Hindu merchant from India had also managed to attach himself to the caravan. This man had met Inalchuq previously, before he had become the Gāyer Khan and the governor of Otrār, and apparently he had not been impressed. Now this Indian merchant, who was in Juvaini’s words, “rendered proud by reason of the power and might of his own Khan [Chingis]”, addressed his old acquaintance in a condescending manner, calling him by his common name of Inalchuq instead of by his title. The proud governor was infuriated by the Indian’s haughty, patronizing behaviour, and Juvaini insinuates that he used this incident as a pretext to put the entire trade mission under house arrest and confiscate their merchandize. Other sources say nothing about the Indian merchant and say simply that Gāyer Khan coveted their merchandize and soon concocted an excuse to seize it. He decided that the merchants were in fact spies and then fired off a letter to the Khwarezmshah in which he accused them of engaging in espionage  . . . Continued . .  .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Silk Road City of Otrār

Today there is no city known as Otrār, and very few people have even heard of the Otrār which flourished back at the beginning of the thirteen century. The scattered ruins of this once-sizable metropolis which still do exist turn up on the itineraries of only the most determined tourists who venture into what is now southern Kazakhstan. Yet when the Mongol-Sponsored Caravan of 450 Muslim Traders turned up at its gates in 1218 it was one of the most famous trade centers in Inner Asia and renowned for its arts and crafts and the intellectual accomplishments of its citizens. The caravan men were no doubt looking forward to resting in the city’s well-appointed caravanserais and refreshing themselves in its famous bathhouses. Little did they know that the events which soon overwhelmed them would, in the words of nineteenth-century Orientalist E. G. Browne, trigger: 

. . . a catastrophe which, though probably quite unforeseen, even on the very eve of its incidence, changed the face of the world, set in motion forces which are still effective, and inflicted more suffering on the human race than any other event in the world’s history which records are preserved to us; I mean the Mongol Invasion. 

Browne, who translated into English many of the thirteen-century documents which recorded the Mongol irruption, may from the vantage point of the twenty-first century sound overwrought here, but his appraisal did contain a kernel of truth. The events which followed in the wake of the calamity at Otrār did rock all of Inner Asia, led to the fall of at least two empires, and inflicted on the entire Islamic geosphere a blow from which some might argue it has never fully recovered. 

Otrār was located on the north bank of the middle stretches of the Syr Darya River (the Jaxartes of Classical Antiquity) near its confluence with the Arys River, about 105 miles northwest of the current-day city of Shymkent in Kazakhstan. It was situated just west of the so-called Zhetysu, or Seven Rivers, Region, an area which included the watersheds of the Talas, Ili, Chu, and other rivers in eastern current-day Kazakhstan and western China (Xinjiang Province) which flowed into either Lake Alakol or Lake Balkash or petered out into the barren desert-steppes to the west. Much later this area would become known as Semireche, Russian for “Seven Rivers”. As one geographer points out, “Semireche is an area where sedentaries and nomads have met at various points in history—coexisting, overlapping, or competing—because it lends itself to both ways of life . . .” 

Otrār’s location on the boundaries of vast Kazakh Steppe to the north and the fertile valleys of Transoxiana to the south made it natural entrepôt for trade between these two divergent cultures. It was also at the nexus of several east-west trending Silk Road trading. One branch of the Silk Road went east along the Arys to Taraz and Balasagun (current-day Tolmak in Kyrgystan). From here a southern branch went on over the Tian Shan Mountains to Aksu (in current-day Xinjiang Province, China), on the Silk Road route that ran along the northern side of the vast Tarim Basin and on through the Gansu Corridor into northern China. From Balasagun a northern branch proceeded up the valley of the Ili River and over the spurs of the Borohogo Shan Range to the Zungarian Basin on the north side of the Tian Shan. From here routes went to both Mongolia and China. Another route followed the Syr Darya to Shash (modern-day Tashkent) and then versed southwest to Merv (Mary) in current-day Turkmenistan and Nishapur in what was in the thirteen century known as Khorasan, now western Iran. From here various routes continued on the Mediterranean. The road west from Otrār followed the Syr Darya to the Aral Sea before continuing on to the Caspian Steppe Straddling The Volga River. From the old city of Xacitarxan on the Volga, just upstream from Modern-Day Astrakhan, branches led north up the Volga into Kievan Russia and east to the Black Sea, where land and water routes continued on to Istanbul, the main western terminus of the Silk Road. On this vast network of trade routes moved a wealth of various fabrics and textiles, leather, furs, porcelain, pottery, salt, spices, honey, jade and precious stones, musk, herbal medicines, weapons, slaves, and much else. By attempting to open trade with Otrār Chingis Khan hoped to gain access to the rest of the world. 

The Silk Road trade had made Otrār a rich and influential city. It had its own mint, the coins of which now grace museums, was famous for its locally produced pottery, including beautifully decorated bowls, and boasted of one of the biggest libraries of Inner Asia, with a collection of over 33,000 items, including such exotica as Babylonian clay tablets and Egyptian papyrus scrolls which had somehow found their way hither. The library also contained the works of the city’s most famous intellectual, Abu Naṣr Moḥammad Fārābi (died c. 950), a polymathic Philosopher, mathematician, linguist, poet, and composer who was called “the Second Teacher” by his students, meaning that he played second fiddle only to Aristotle. He is also credited with heavily influencing Abū Alī Sīnā, a.k.a. Avicenna (c. 980–1037) perhaps the greatest Medieval Islamic philosopher, who was born near Bukhara, also in the Khwarezmshah’s domains. 

By the early thirteen-century the city consisted of the triangular-shaped Ark, or citadel, located within the tightly packed Shahristan (walled inner city). The Shahristan itself was in the shape of a pentagon and covered about 200,000 square meters, or about fifty acres The city was famous for its baths and most homes were served by a city-wide sewage system. The big Friday mosque was also probably within the Shahristan. Surrounding the Shahristan was the Rabad, or trade quarter, which was also walled. Covering some 420 acres, it contained the extensive markets and caravanserais connected with Silk Road trade, local bazaars, craft shops, and low-class residential areas. The medieval Arabic historian Moqaddasi claimed the city had 70,000 inhabitants, but at least one modern historican has opined that this was a misprint and that he must have meant 7,000. In any case, numerous small towns and villages in the immediate environs of the city contributed to a sizable urban conurbation.

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Emissaries and Trade Caravans

Having already received an Embassy from the Khwarezmshah and met with Traders from the Khwarezm Empire, Chingis decided to respond in kind by sending his own emissaries to the Sultan’s realm. He took a two-pronged approach. A diplomatic mission would make contact with the Khwarezmshah himself in hopes of establishing the peaceful relations necessary for further trade, and an officially sanctioned trading mission would demonstrate to the Khwarezmshah and his subjects just how how lucrative trading with Mongols could be. The three merchants who had just visited Chingis would accompany the Mongol-sponsored caravan of traders back to Khwarezm and presumably act as intermediaries. According to one account, the embassy was dispatched before the trading mission left for Khwarezm. Another maintains that the embassy left at the same time as the trading mission but then at some point en route hurried on ahead for a meeting with the Khwarezmshah himself. 

The leaders of the diplomatic embassy were three Muslim traders who were themselves from the domains of the Khwarezmshah: Mahmud, from somewhere in Khwarezm; Ali Khwajah from the city of Bukhara, and Yusuf Kanka from the city of Otrār. It is significant that these three men were nominal subjects of the Khwarezmshah but had now engaged themselves as agents of Chingis Khan. That Muslim traders like themselves would work for Chingis demonstrates the ever-widening gap between the ambitions of the Khwarezmshah and the interests of mercantile class of his own empire. As Silk Road traders they might well have considered their services available to the highest bidder, and it would seem that they were not hesitant about throwing their lot in with Chingis Khan, the rising power of the East. For Chingis’s part, he was no doubt eager to use their knowledge of trade networks, their language skills, and their familiarity with the social conventions of Inner Asian Muslims for his own purposes. The fact that they were Muslims obviously did not bother him at all. Since at least the time of the Baljuna Covenant he had dealt with Muslim traders and apparently interacted well with them (except of course for those who tried to cheat him). 

The three emissaries reached the court of the Khwarezmshah sometime in the spring of 1218. Some sources suggest that his court was in Bukhara at the time. The embassy, which did not involve itself in actual trading, did bring numerous gifts from Chingis Khan to the Khwarezmshah. These included a gold nugget “as large as a camel’s hump” which was so heavy it had to be carried in its own cart; ingots of various precious metals, walrus ivory from the northern shores of Asia which had somehow fallen into the hands of the Mongols; musk; and fine fabrics, including a material known as targhu, made from the wool of white camels, each length of which was worth fifty or more dinars. 

The Khwarezmshah deigned to accept the gifts and granted the three ambassadors a public audience where they relayed the messages sent by Chingis Khan. The Khwarazm Shah, they pointed out, must already know about the great victories of Chingis Khan in the East, including the subjugation of Northern China. The Mongol chieftain now controlled the eastern end of the Silk Road and the riches of the northern Chinese provinces. Likewise, Chingis Khan was fully aware that the Khwarezmshah’s many victories had made him the master of as vast swath of territory from the edge of the Iranian Plateau to the Tian Shan, an area which straddled the great trade routes connecting the Occident and Orient. Chingis was therefore proposing a peace treaty between the two powers and a normalization of trade relations which would allow trade and commerce to flourish between the two powers. Such a relationship, they pointed out, would be equally advantageous to both sides. The merchants added that if Khwarezmshah agreed to this proposal Chingis Khan would consider him “‘on a level with the dearest of his sons’” These men were merchants, not professional diplomats, and thus may not have fully realized how the Khwarezmshah would interpret this remark and what import it would have. 

The next day the Khwarezmshah called in Malmud of Khwarezm for a private interview. The Shah pointed out first that Malmud was a native of Khwarezm and thus nominally one of the his subjects. He then demanded to know the unvarnished truth about the conquests of Chingis Khan. Was it really true that he had conquered all of northern China? Malmud allowed that Chingis had taken the Central Capital  of the Jin and subjugated large portions of China bordering on Mongolia. The Khwarezmshah countered with what was really bothering him. Even if he had conquered North China, the Khwarezmshah thundered, this gave Chingis Khan—who was after all an infidel whose true religious convictions were hazy at best—absolutely no right to call him, the mighty Khwarezmshah, the ruler of a great Islamic empire, his son. In the Khwarezmshah’s eyes “son” was synonymous with  “vassal” and the use of the word implied that Chingis Khan considered himself the Shah’s superior. Such an assumption was an outrage and the Shah was infuriated 

Frightened by the Khwarezmshah’s anger over this issue, the merchant quickly backtracked. While it was true Chingis Khan had conquered much of northern China his armies were vastly outnumbered by those of the Shah and he in no way way posed a threat to Khwarazm Empire and its mighty Sultan. Mollified by this flattery the Khwarezmshah finally agreed in principle to a peace treaty between the two powers. But he was not done with the merchant. Malmud must now agree to work as the Khwarezmshah’s spy in the court of Chingis Khan. Fearful for his life, Malmud quickly agreed to act a double agent and was given a precious jewel as advance payment of services to be rendered, thus sealing the deal. 

Armed with a document signed by the Khwarezmshah which apparently proposed a peace treaty but made no mention of trade relations, the merchant-emissaries started back to the court of Chingis Khan. Meanwhile the trade mission which Chingis had authorized was still on its way to Khwarezm. As mentioned, the embassy and the trade mission may have left together and the three emissaries had hurried on ahead of the slower-moving trade caravan. In any case, the caravan continued on to Otrār, one of the first major entrepôts in the Khwarezmshah’s empire. The members of the mission may not have been aware of the outcome of the diplomatic mission. If they were, they might well have assumed that the peace treaty proposal also sanctioned trade, or at least their safe conduct. This would lead to a fatal misunderstanding. The Khwarezmshah had no interest in either peace or trade. 

Chingis himself believed that trade in itself promoted peace, and that the trade mission would contribute to a mutually beneficial relationship between the Mongols and the Khwarezmshah. In a personal message for the Sultan which he sent with the traders he affirmed these beliefs: 

Merchants from your country have come among us, and we have sent them back in a manner that you shall hear. And we have likewise dispatched to your country in their company a group of merchants in order that they may acquire the wondrous wares of those regions; and that henceforth the abscess of evil thoughts may be lanced by the improvement of relations and agreement between us, and the pus of sedition and rebellion removed. 

The trade mission was a sizable undertaking. As an indication of how much importance Chingis placed on it, he ordered his sons and his top army commanders to each provide two or three men from their retinues to make up the party and to provide each of them with a balish of gold or silver as capital for trading ventures. A total of about 450 men were thus selected, all of them Muslims, since Muslims were much more experienced in the Silk Road trade than the Mongols and it was thought they would be better able to deal with their co-religionists in Khwarezm. From this it would appear that Chingis’s sons and army commanders already had sizable contingents of Muslims in their ranks, some of them from Islamic areas which Chingis had already conquered and others from Khwarezm who had already thrown in their lot with the Mongols. Along with the 450 merchants, who were presumable riding camels, the caravan had 500 pack camels laden with trade goods, including gold, silver, Chinese silk, targhu, as mentioned a fabric made from the wool of white camels; and various furs, including sable and beaver. Throw in camel men, cooks, and the usual assortment of hangers-on (religious pilgrims had a way of attaching themselves leech-like to such caravans) and we are probably looking at a string of a thousand or more camels.

The trade caravan was led by four men: Omar Khwajah Utrari (his name implies that he was from Otrār); Hammāl Marāghi; Fakhr al-Din Dizaki Bukhari (apparently from Bukhara); and Amin al-Din Harawi. At least two of these men were apparently from Khwarezm itself, demonstrating yet again that the Khwarezm mercantile class favored trade with the Mongols and vice-versa. As the Russian Orientalist Barthold points out, “the interests of [Chingis Khan] fully coincided with those of the Muslim capitalists.” He adds, however, that “There was not the same harmony between Muhammad’s [the Khwarezmshah] and the interests of the merchants of his kingdom.” This became painfully apparent when the caravan finally reached Otrār.

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Fine Fabrics

In the account of the Three Merchants from Khwarezm it is perhaps significant that only fabrics were mentioned. The Mongols were in need of much else from sedentary societies, including metals for weapons, tools, and utensils, pottery, and grains, but these utilitarian items were seldom discussed. The foremost among trade items, or at least those which attracted the most interest, were silks, satins, damasks, brocades, and other fine textiles. There is no doubt that Mongols loved luxurious fabrics. As shown by the incident in which Chingis showed the three Khwarezm merchants a warehouse stuffed with expensive textiles, the Mongol upper-crust was by 1215 already well-supplied with these expensive trade items. Clothes made from luxurious fabrics were status symbols, and on ceremonial occasions Mongol leaders liked to drape themselves in gold brocades that “would gladden the heart of a Liberace,” as historian of textiles within the Mongol Empire Thomas Allsen puts it  . . . Continued . .  .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Three Muslim Traders

Since at least the second century B.C. the people known as Sogdians, inhabitants of the oasis cities of Transoxiania, the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, had been trading with China far off to the east. Sogdian merchants around this time were familiar with Chang’an (the Current City Of Xian), which would later became perhaps the most important eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and they also initiated trade with the Xiongnu (Hunni) peoples of current-day Mongolia. According to Chinese sources, 

At birth honey was put in their mouth [so they would be adept at the sweet talk often needed to seal a deal] and gum was put on their hands [so that any money they touched would stick to them] . . . they learned the trade from the age of five . . . and at twelve were sent to do business in a neighboring state.

To the west they eventually extend their trade networks into Iran and across Asia Minor to Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire . . . Continued. . .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Chingis Khan and the Khwarezmshah

One ruler who could not help but take note of Chingis Khan’s sudden rise to power in the East was Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, the Sultan of the Khwarezm Empire, also known as the Khwarezmshah. The empire over which he reigned was by 1215 the most powerful state in Central Asia. Centered around the ancient province on Khwarezm on the lower valley of Amu Darya River—the Oxus of Antiquity—and the delta of the river where it flowed into the Aral Sea, the Khwarezmshah’s domains extended westward to the edge of the Iranian Plateau and south to the Persian Gulf, encompassing much of current-day Iran. HIs territories abutted Mesopotamia, home of the long-ruling ((750-1258) Abassid Caliphate whose ruler an-Nasir was the Caliph—the Commander of the Faithful—of the Muslim world. The Khwarezmshah had even launched an attack on the Abbasid Dynasty in an attempt to overthrow the Caliph an-Nasir and name one of his own nobles as “Commander of the Faithful”, thus making himself Islam’s most powerful figure. This venture had failed, but in 1215 he still posed a threat to the Abbasids. In the east he had defeated the Kara-Khitai, the remnants of the old Khitan Dynasty in China who after being overthrown by the Jin had migrated westward and founded their own state in Inner Asia, thereby extending his empire up the Amu Darya River valley into current-day Kyrgyzstan Thus in the northeast his empire had reached the ramparts of the Tian Shan, on the other side of which lie Uighuristan, now part of Chingis Khan’s burgeoning empire  . . . Continued . .  .

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Jurchens | Jin Dynasty | Part IV

The Mongols would not have long to enjoy their plunder. In July of 1214, when they were fattening their horses on the steppe, came the disturbing news that Emperor Xuanzong had abandoned Zhongdu, the Northern Capital. On 30,000 carts, and accompanied by 3000 camel loads of treasure, the Jin court and government had left Zhongdu and was on its way to the Southern Capital (current-day Kaifeng), hopefully out of reach of further Mongol incursions. Many Jurchens viewed this apparent refusal to face the Mongol threat head-on as abject cowardice on their part of their leadership. Mutinies broke about among Jurchen troops and even more units defected to the Mongols. The Southern Sung Dynasty, sensing the impotence of the Jin, refused to cough up the tribute it had previously promised to pay them. Chingis Khan, after the humiliating terms he had early imposed on the Jin, considered them to be subordinate to the Mongols, indeed part of the nascent Mongol Empire, and he viewed the move south as a treacherous attempt on the part to Jin Emperor to regroup and continue the fighting, despite the treaty agreements of early 1214. Obviously the war with the Jin was not over. 

In the autumn of 1214 Mongols armies again poured off the Mongolian Plateau, and by the end of the year the Northern Capital of Zhongdu was once more invested. The court and government may have fled, but the inhabitants of Zhongdu, including the army units that had remained, were by no means ready to surrender their walled and well-fortified city. In their earlier battles with the Xi Xia the Mongols had failed to take any major fortified cities due to their ignorance of siege techniques. This weakness again manifested itself. The walls of the city refused to yield, and a brutal war of attrition played out through the winter and spring of 1215. Food supplies within the city were soon exhausted and according to the Secret History, “the remaining soldiers, who began to grow thin and die, ate human flesh.” 

When a relief train sent to the beleaguered city was captured by the Mongols the defenders knew they were doomed. The commandant of the Northern Capital, Wayen Fuxing, committed suicide, and in late May or early June of 1215 troops led by the Khitan Shimo Mingan, who as we have seen had defected to the Mongols back in 1211, forced their way into the city. A month-long orgy of looting and mayhem ensued. According to one account, 60,000 women and girls committed suicide by throwing themselves from the city walls in order to avoid capture by the Mongols. This was no doubt an exaggeration, but a large part of the populace was massacred and much of city burned, but not before huge amounts of loot was seized. 

Chingis then ordered an inventory of the gold, silver, fine fabrics and other valuable goods that had been plundered in the city and sent three men, Öngür, Arkhai Khasar, and Shigikhutug to take control of the looted goods. The Vice-regent of the vanquished city, a man named Khada met them, in the words of the Secret History, “face to face, taking with him some gold-embroidered and patterned satins.” There are hints that near the end of the siege this man had opened the gates of Zhongdu to the Mongols, apparently in an effort to save his own life. 

Now it appeared he was offered gifts—bribes, that is—to the three Mongols, in an effort to ensure their good will. Shigikhutug, a member of the Tatar tribe who as a small boy had been captured by the Mongols and adopted by Chingis’s mother, refused to take the gift. Pointing out that the city of Zhongdu and everything in it belonged to Chingis Khan., he said, “How can you steal Chingis Khan’s goods and satins and bring them here and give to us behind his back? I will not take them.” The other two men took the gifts. Later Chingis, perhaps expecting that Khada would attempt to bribe them, asked the three men if they had offered them any gifts. Shigikhutug replied that Khada had offered them “gold-embroidered and patterned satins,” adding he had refused the gift but the other two had taken it. Chingis “angrily rebuked” the two other men but praised Shigiikhutukh for his honesty. He asked Shigiikhutukh, “Will you not become my seeing eyes, my listening ears?” This might be construed to mean that Chingis was asking him to become a spy and informer; in any case, Chingis later appointed him as a judge and he would play an increasingly important role in the Mongol court. For our purposes, this incident shows the importance the Mongols attached to satins and other luxurious fabrics. 

Meanwhile, the Eastern Capital (current day Liaoyang in Liaoning Province) had also fallen to the Mongols. No siege had been necessary. By means of various subterfuges the nomads had entered the city “without firing a single arrow.” One hundred thousand soldiers threw down their arms and surrendered and seized vast amounts of loot were seized. Thus by the summer of 1215 Chingis Khan again occupied much of North China. This time he had no intention of allowing all of his troops to return to Mongolia and handing nominal control of the conquered areas back to the Jin. He demanded that Xuanzong, still cowering in the Southern Capital, cede to him outright the lands the Mongols now occupied plus addition areas in current-day Hebei and Shandong provinces which were still claimed by the Jin. Henceforth, Xuanzong would rule over only a small rump state in the middle Yellow River Valley (modern-day Henan Province) with Kaifeng as its capital. 

The Jin would not be totally extinguished until 1234, but by the end of 1215 Chingis Khan had at least nominal control of most of Northern China and ruled as suzerain over Xi Xia to the west and Uighuria still farther west. The great trade routes which Occidental peoples would later call the Silk Road were now open from its various eastern terminuses, including the old Jin Central Capital of Zhongdu, through the Gansu Corridor to the great Oasis Cities of Uighuristan at the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains. News of these monumental events quickly spread beyond the Tian Shan and soon ambassadors of the great Islamic Empires of Central Asia were wending their way eastward to learn what they could about the great conqueror who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and now stood astride one the world’s most ancient civilizations.

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Jurchens | Jin Dynasty | Part III

The invasion began in May of 1211. This was no small move on Chingis’s part. The Jin Dynasty, despite the symptoms of dynastic decay which had been reported to Chingis by his various spies, was still one of the five or six great sedentary states of Eurasia. The Jin state had a population of perhaps 40,000,000, although only around 3,000,000 of the populace were Jurchens, descendants of the original Jurchen tribesmen from Manchuria, the rest being Han Chinese and other indigenous peoples. The Jin state could muster 150,000 or so cavalrymen, most of the Jurchens, and 300,000 to 400,000 infantrymen, most of them Chinese. The loyalty of these Chinese infantry was, of course, in question. Still, according to one modern historian, “the Jin army retained a reputation as the most powerful military state in the known world.” 

Chingis had under his overall commanded one army of perhaps 50,000 cavalry led by himself, and another army of 50,000 cavalrymen led by three of his sons. His ranks would soon be swollen with discontented tribesmen and deserters from the Jin. 

The Mongols first confronted the Onggut, a tribe of nomads which guarded the southern rim of the Mongolian Plateau on behalf of the Jin Dynasty. Their leader Alakush quickly defected to Chingis along with many of his troops, demonstrating just how tenuous a hold the Jurchens had over many of their subject peoples. Loyalists along the Onggut reacted by assassinating Alakush, but at the urging of his nephew and heir the rest of the Ongguts soon fell in line and joined the Chingis’s forces. Several towns near present day Zhangjiakhou (earlier known as Kalgan) on the very edge of the Mongolian Plateau, quickly fell to advancing nomads, and more border troops deserted. Liu Bailin, the Jin commander of the town of Weining defected, and would go on to play a leading role in the defeat the the dynasty. 

WIth the Mongols, their ranks now swelled with former Jin auxiliary troops, poised on the very edge of the great ramparts overlooking the farm lands northern China and within a couple days ride of the Central Capital of Zhongdu (Beijing), the Jurchen court panicked and put out peace feelers, apparently thinking that this was just a another Mongol raid in search of quick loot and that Chingis could be bought off with some suitable bribes. When this initial overture was rejected, an senior envoy, a Khitan man by the name of Shimo Mingan who knew the Mongolian language and had earlier met with Chingis in Mongolia, was sent north with more serious peace proposals. Shimo Mingan promptly defected to the Mongols and was made a commander of both Mongol detachments and of native Chinese troops who had now turned on the Jurchens. 

The now-augmented Mongolian forces swept down on the North China plain and by the autumn of 2011 they had invested the Jin Western Capital (modern-day Datong, in Shanxi Province). The Jin commander of the Western Capital, a man named Hushahu, who one modern historian describes as an “irascible ruffian,” abandoned his post, allowing the Mongols to take over the city (there were rumors the Mongols had bribed him), and another Jin general, the overall commander of Jin armies in the west, also turned and fled with most of his troops to the Central Capital, even though they far-outnumbered their Mongol opponents. The official history of the Jin Dynasty would later declare that the desertion of their posts by these two commanders was an forboding sign: “The spirit of resolution was lost and could not be regained. The collapse of the Jin was foretold by this event.” 

WIth the approaches to the city unguarded, and Mongol armies quickly moved eastward and by the end of the year had invested the main capital of Zhongdu, where the Jin court was headquartered. In early 1212, after laying siege to Zongdu for a month but failing to take the well-fortified city, the Mongols decided to return back to the Mongolian Plateau. Chingis himself had been wounded by an arrow in the battle for the Western Capital and his injury may have contributed to his decision to withdraw. Chingis had by no means been defeated. On their way home the Mongols even detoured eastward to loot the Jin Eastern Capital (current day Liaoyang in Liaoning Province). The Mongols were simply retiring to the fastnesses of the Mongolian Plateau to enjoy their loot, let their horses fatten on the steppe over the summer, and regroup for their next assault. The weaknesses of the Jin Dynasty had been exposed, and Chingis intended to exploit them. 

In early 1213 the Mongols again descended onto the plains on North China. The Western Capital was quickly retaken and the main capital of Zhongdu again besieged. While many Jin troops were tied down in the capital, Mongol troops spent the summer and fall rampaging across the North China plain, looting and plundering much of current-day Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong provinces. By early 1214 the armies had converged on the Central Capital and 1214 Chingis himself was bivouacked in the northern suburbs. The noose again the city was tightened, and his sons, and generals urged him to attack the city and put an end to the Jin Dynasty once and for all. 

Inside the city walls the Jin Court was in shambles. Hushahu, the same man who had abandoned the Western Capital in 1211, had made his way to the Central Capital where he made a bid to seize control of the Jin Dynasty himself. First he killed the governor of the city and then seized the sitting Jin Emperor, the hapless Wanyan Yunji, who Chingis had earlier dismissed as an “imbecile.” After ordering court eunuchs to kill Wanyan Yunji he connived to put the aging Wanyan Hun, the older brother of Emperor Zhangzong, who had died back in 1208, on the throne as the new Jin emperor. Hushahu himself hoped to rule as the power behind the throne. But the backstabbing was not over. Shuhu Gaoji, a Jin general who harbored his own ambitions, seized Hushahu and had him executed. Now Wanyan Xun, who Hushahu had intended only as a figurehead, was ruling as Jin emperor. Whether he would be able to right the tottering Jin State and defend it against the Mongols camped outside the walls of his capital was open to question. 

Chingis, with his well-developed spy network, must have been well aware of the turmoils in the inner circles of the Jin. Yet when pressed to force the walls of the Central Capital and overthrow the dynasty he hesitated. Plundering the countryside was one thing; actually overthrowing a dynasty and assuming the responsibility for governing its subjects was quite another matter. He had seized control of the Xi Xia Empire to the west while leaving the Tanguts to govern under his suzerainty and perhaps he envisioned the same relationship with the Jin. And there were very immediate, practical considerations to take into account. The siege had already dragged on for months and more months might be required to finally take Zhongdu. The Mongol forces drawn up around the capital were desperately short of food. The Christian missionary Carpini who would later visit the Mongol court claimed that the Mongols outside Zhongdu were so starved that they resorted to cannibalism and had to kill their own comrades for food. One out of every ten died to provide sustenance for the others, he claimed. This may have been a slanderous exaggeration, but numerous other sources attest to the dire straits of the Mongol troops. Rashid al-Din reported that “things were so bad they ate the corpses of their dead companions and of fallen horses; they even ate hay.” 

To make matters worse, an epidemic of some unspecified disease soon raged among the Mongol troops, and with the onset of Spring the legendary heat of the north China plain would debilitating to both the nomads used to their cool highlands on the Mongolian Plateau and to their horses. It was not clear how much longer the Mongols could hold out. 

Chingis decided to make peace overtures. The Muslim merchant Jafar, a long time camp follower of Chingis who years earlier served as his envoy to the Jin and whose knowledge of the geography of the north China plain had proved invaluable during the invasion, was chosen to negotiate with the Jurchen court. The embattled Jurchens quickly came to terms, offering huge material inducements to persuade Chingis and his men to return to Mongolia. As part of the settlement, according to one source, Chingis received a Jin princess as a wife, 500 boy and girl slaves, 3000 horses, and quantities of gold and expensive fabrics. 

The Secret History maintains that Chingis himself got only a princess named Qiguo but that his soldiers received vast qualities of gold, silver, satin, silk, and other expensive goods: “Our soldiers loaded as much of the satin and other goods as they could carry, tied the loads with silk, and left.” 

Thus Chingis and his troops returned to the cool steppes of Mongolia returned laden with booty, and there was no doubt great rejoicing among the Mongolian women when they saw the luxurious silks, satins, and brocades their men had brought home for them. 

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Jurchens | Jin Dynasty | Part II

During Chingis Khan’s rise to power he had sought of patronage of Tooril, the powerful ruler of the Kerait Tribe who was headquartered in the valley of the Tuul River not far from current-day Ulaanbaatar. Tooril had recognized the nominal suzerainty of the Jin and apparently paid tribute to to them. In return he was awarded the title of Wang (or Ong) Khan. As one of Tooril’s vassals Temûchin also received a minor title from Jin Dynasty and may have also paid tribute. There are also hints that Temüchin sought refuge among the Jurchen during the low points in his early career when he was being hounded by more powerful Mongol tribes. 

Chingis Khan and the Wang Khan would later fall out and the Keraits would be defeated, calling into question the Jin title Temüchin had received as one of the Kerait ruler’s vassals. The Jin, for their part, still believed that Chingis Khan owed loyalty and tribute to them, even after he had been confirmed as leader of all the Mongols at the 1206 convocation on the Onon River. The Jurchens were no doubt aware that having became the most powerful ruler on the Mongolian Plateau Chingis now posed a direct threat to themselves, but at the time they were embroiled in war with the Song Dynasty in the south of China and could not confront Chingis directly. 

In 1208 the Jin Dynasty finally sought to clarify their relationship with Chingis Khan. The Jin emperor Zhangzong sent his uncle Wanyan Yunji, the Prince of Wei, north to reaffirm their suzerainty and receive tribute from Chingis. 

The Mongol Khan met with the prince but refused to make the proper signs of obeisance. It soon became clear the Chingis no longer recognized the Jin as his overlords. No mention was made of tribute. The infuriated Prince returned to China and began mobilizing troops to attack the Mongols. In late 1208 Emperor Zhangzong died and Wanyan Yunji became the new ruler of the Jin Dynasty. The attack was postponed, and instead Wanyan Yunji sent ambassador to Chingis with the news that he was now the Altan Khan (Golden Khan), as the the Mongols called the Jin Emperor, and that Chingis should declare his loyalty to him. Chingis, however, apparently had not been to impressed by Wanyan Yunji at their previous meeting. According to one account, when Chingis was asked by the ambassador to make obeisance to the new emperor he “flew into a rage” and stormed: “‘Is am imbecile like [Wanyan Yunjii] worthy of the throne and am I to humble myself before him?‘” He answered his own question by turning to the south and spitting in the direction of China. The ambassador was dismissed and Chingis rode away to the north. The import of these actions was clear to the Jin Emperor; Chingis Khan was declaring war on the Jin Dynasty. 

Chingis Khan’s distain for the power of the Jin Dynasty was not based on mere bravado. He had been receiving intelligence about the weakness of the Jin even before his affirmation as Khan of the Mongols in 1206. Muslim merchants who traded in both northern China and Mongolia had kept him apprized of the various internal disputes in the Jin court and of the grumblings of discontented peasants. One Muslim merchant, a man named Jafar, was an early adherent of the Mongol Khan, and Chingis eventually sent him to the Jin court fishing for information. Jin officials quickly surmised that he was a spy and dismissed him, but during his travels in northern China he gathered much information which would later be useful to the Mongols. Then in late 1206 and again in 1208 dissidents and defectors from the Jin brought Chingis brought more news of political upheavals and social disturbances in northern China, but still he was not ready to be drawn into a conflict with his powerful neighbors to the south. 

His confrontation with the Jin ambassador seems to have marked a turning point in Chingis’s altitude toward the Jin. In early 1211 Chingis summoned his followers to a Khuraltai on the Kherlen River where subject of an attack on the Jin Dynasty was broached. Also, the Uighur Idikut Barluk appeared in person as he had earlier promised and cemented his allegiance to the Mongols. With the Tanguts of Xi Xia already neutralized and the Uighurs firmly in his corner Chingis now controlled the western approaches to the territory of Chin. The pieces were falling into place for an invasion. 

But before riding south Chingis climbed to the top of a high mountain—local people to this day claim it was 7,749-foot Khentii Khaan Uul, also known as the Burkhan Khaldun of the Khamag Mongols, in current-day Khentii Aimag (the president of Mongolia is still required to go to a pilgrimage to the summit of this mountain at least once every four years)—and sought the guidance of Ikh Tenger, the Great God of the Eternal Blue Sky. According to the Persian historian Rashid al-Din Chingis proclaimed: 

O Eternal Heaven! You know and accept that the Altan Khan [Jin Emperor] is the wind which fanned the tumult, that it is he who began this quarrel. He it was who, without cause, executed Ökin Barkhakh and Ambakhai Khan, captured and delivered over to him by the Tatars. These were the elder relatives of my father and grandfather and I seek to avenge their blood. 

The Persian historian Juzjani relates much the same episode, adding that Chingis spent three days praying in a tent on the top the mountain. On the fourth day he emerged from the tent and proclaimed, “Heaven has promised me victory. Now we must prepare ourselves to take vengeance on the Altan Khan.” 

Burkhan Khaldun

Approaching the summit of Burkhan Khaldun

The summit of Burkhan Khaldun

As is clear from these accounts Chingis attempted to justify his attack on the Jin Dynasty as revenge for the deaths of his relatives. There were of course other considerations. In his struggle to attain supremacy on the Mongolian Plateau Chingis had mobilized large armies and these men were traditionally paid in plunder. With their enemies on the Mongolian Plateau already defeated there was little left to loot. Once again the nomads of the steppe turned their attention south to rich and fattened cities of China glittering on the far horizon.

Mongolia | Chingis Rides West | Jurchens | Jin Dynasty | Part I

Having written about the Uighurs and the Xi Xia,  I must finally turn my attention to the Jin Dynasty, also known as the Jurchen Dynasty (1115–1234).

The people known as Jurchens who went on to found the Jurchen, or Jin Dynasty, originated around the timbered basins of the Amur, Ussuri, and Sungari rivers in Manchuria, in what is now northeast China. Their language was Tungusic, an eastern extension of the Altaic language family and closely related to Manchu, the language of the people what would later create the Qing Dynasty. 

Almost nothing is known of their history prior to the tenth century a.d. Apparently they began to use iron only in the early eleventh century. One tribe of the Jurchen, the Wanyan, began making farming tools and weapons from iron and on the basis of this new technology soon dominated their neighbors. Under the leadership of a chieftain known as Wugunai (1021–1074) the Wanyan soon assumed leadership of a loose confederation of the various Jurchen tribes. Wugunai, according to contemporary histories, “was addicted to wine and women and could outdrink anyone,” but he was also a warrior of legendary statue . . . Continued. . .