Chingiz Khan

Summary

• A scion of a noble Khamag Mongol lineage: Bodonchar Munkhag (also ancestor of Barlas mongols) …→ Khaidu …→ Khabul Khan → …→ Yesugei Baghatur → Chingiz. Yesugei was a major chief.
• From the lowest start in an abandoned family where he hunted for survival and spent time as a captive, he rose to form timely alliances, to recover his kidnapped wife, to raid others, thence to (revolutionarily) incorporate spared conquered and lowly people into his own band iteratively, all while repeatedly escaping death in battle, betrayal and traps, constantly improving war tactics and strategy (starting from roots in just basic hunting, raiding and herding instincts).
• A shaman in his own right, he devised new laws and military organizational systems for his people; favored merit and loyalty over past lineage, made his people rise over their internecine conflicts. He inspired great loyalty. He set apart the Burkhan Khaldun mountain surroundings as a sacred and restricted area - which continues to this day. He came to be regarded as a great spirit, as an incarnation of Quormazda (~Ahura Mazda) Tengri.
• Understanding where his mongol band stood relative to the surrounding powers and where riches from the sedentary people lay, he determined to found a hun-like steppe empire, secured his northern (sibir), western, eastern frontiers before learning seige craft, incorporating new war technology and engineering, herding captured civilians as human sheilds and laborers, buring farms and villages for pasture, setting up relay communication system, learning about enemy setups and divisions.
• Then he started picking off the Tanguts and the Jurchen controlled north China. And then the Uighurs, Khwarazm Turk sultanate. Then Persia, afghanistan, and the western qAra khitai. From Korea to Eastern Europe did his mongols go. In all this, novel technology and tactics were used including leveraging mobility by attacking from multiple points (crossing a desert unexpectedly in case of the Khwarazm), doing excellent propaganda - “surrender and be treated well, or resist and be fully slaughtered”, spawning and herding refugees, killing off all the old elite.
• From his lineage sprang great conquerors and many able successors. Family tree here
• Alas, his secularism and tolerance of abrahamisms sucked out mongolness and the grace of tengri from one islamized half; while sedentary decadance did the other major part in.
• “The biggest impact that has been uncovered to date appears to be that of Chingiz Kha’Khan, the founder of the great Mongol nation, who appears to have left behind 16 million male descendents in the modern world.” MT05 “If one accounts for females the number could be as many as double that. "

Low start

• Born in a lowly and poor family of the Borjigin tribe which lived on northern forested fringes of Mongol society which survived mostly by hunting (rather than herding) along with occassional raiding.
• Even within his family, he was the son of his father’s second wife Hoelun. After his betrothal as a 8/9 year old to Beorte, his father died and he returned to see his family abandoned by the rest of the Tayichiyuds. Hoelun heroically marshalled the family and they scraped by with their hunts. His elder half-brother bullied him - and got hunted to death by himself and his brother as a result.
• For this crime, he was made captive by the Tayichiyuds, whence he escaped thanks to the beneficence of a servant family.

Securing family

• He returned and grew older, brought Boerte home. Made an alliance with his father’s anda / blood brother, the Mongol Christian Ong Khan of the Kereyid.
• Boerte was kidnapped by the Merkid to the north - with the grace of his home mount Burkhan Khaldun, he escaped. Giving thanks to the sacred mountain, with the help of Ong Khan and his vassal Jamuka (also Temujin’s adolescent blood brother/ anda) he recovered his now pregnant wife. Thence was born Jochi (guest) of uncertain parentage, whom he raised as his own.
• In time were born Chagatai, Ogodei and Tolui.

Uniting mongols

• Thence he split from Jamuka, who was treating him inequitably; joined the Jurchen inspired Ong Khan in raiding the Tatars to the east, then fought Jamuka (who now claimed to be Gurkhan) and Tayichiyuds. In the next Tatar raid, departing from past practice - he totally destroyed them -having postponed looting till after they could destroy all combatants; then he incorporated remnants into his own band as adapted family. He divided people into squads of multiples of tens (overriding tribe loyalty).
• Ong Khan rejected the now powerful Temujin’s marriage offer, then set a trap (allied with Jamuka) by fake acceptance. Temujin and his small party of ~17 men (including 3 muslims, many christians and buddhists) fled for days in the direction of Lake Baljuna. Thence he called forth his new tribe. They routed Ong Khan’s folks (most of whom anyway defected). Then he attacked the Naiman with his unpredictable skirmishes, “moving bush” tactics, wave-like attacks before switching to chisel formation.
• Jamuka escaped, but was betrayed and executed with his betrayers.
• In next year’s kuriltai, he named his people “yeke mongol ulus” and became chingiz (wolf-like firm) khan. The shamans and his people said “huree huree” (~hurray).

Laws and ritual

• Thence he gave his people the great law - the Ikh Yasag (the Great Yasa). He abolished previously common practices of intra-mongol slavery, bride kidnapping, bride selling, cross-family adultry, animal rustling - thereby increasing harmony. Further he restricted hunting to winter, instituted tolerance for all religions, election of the next khan by a family kuriltai, recognized group guilt.
• “Chingiz is also said to have formalized other rituals such as those of marriage. Walther Heissig noted that in eastern Mongolia they still recite this history during the pre-marriage ritual: “The fortunate Chingiz Kha’Khan, the incarnation of Qormusta Tengri, at the time when he took to wife Boerte [Footnote 3], the daughter of the Bayan of the Khunggirad tribe, the subject of Ughichud, sent his wise officials, led by the ministers Boghorju and Muqali [Footnote 4] and following the custom of the old, the custom was fulfilled to ask after the name and the year of birth of the bride. He is said to have introduced the ritual of anointing the yurt followed by the worship of the deities of the sun and moon and making offerings to the yurt hearth fire.” The last can be compared to the ritual offering to the gArhapatya fire in the Hindu tradition.”
• “It is notable that the yasag had an aspect paralleled the dharma of the Hindus and maat of the Egyptians. Just as dharma has the divine dimension of the laws laid down by the great gods Mitra and Varuṇa (captured in the śruti) at the base of the yasag was the old “divine law” of the Turks and Mongols known as the törü which is said to have been promulgated by the god Köke Möngke Tengri. On this rested the yasag of the great Khan which was like the smṛti brought to humans by Yama and our law-giver father Manu.”

Later influence

The below heavily copies [MT].

• Major parts of these laws were abandoned, while others were continued after his death.
• “Among the Mongols it seems to have inspired later reforms of law like the “Code of Altan Khan” promulgated by Altan Khan in the 1500s. The yasag’s influence was so powerful that even after the conversion of the western Mongols to Mohammedanism it exerted its influence against the sharia. "
• The yasag’s influence was so powerful that even after the conversion of the western Mongols to Mohammedanism it exerted its influence against the sharia.
  • For example, Muhammad Shaybani Khan in the 1500s overturned a decision of his Qāzi-s by stating that the correct decision would follow the yasag of Chingiz Khan.
  • Similarly, after the execution of a brāhmaṇa (who had told the marūnmatta-s that their founder was an unmatta) by a shaikh against the Mogol tyrant Akbar’s wishes we see him increasingly remodeling his law as per the yasag of Chingiz Khan and moving away from the sharia. This culminated in Akbar commissioning the production of the illustrated work, the Chingiz Khan Nāmā, in 1596 CE. Not surprisingly we see the Mohammedan Badā’ūnī pour his scorn on the yasag.
• “Finally, we may also mention in passing that it included dimensions, like the tamgha system, which played a key role in driving the economy of the unified “world system” of the Mongols.”

Organization

He continued his army organization, started a mail system with fast riders and outposts.

Mongol World wars

Building on prior steppe powers

• Chingiz Khan exploited the knowledge and techniques of prior steppe powers- especially the Khitai and Uyghur. " Chingiz Khan clearly voiced his cause for hostilities against the Jurchen, the Chinese and the Naiman as arising from their dispossessing the old Mongol empire of the Khitan. He offered the Khitan elite special ranks in his administration as he saw them as coethnics. "
• “This was accompanied by the recognition of the region around the Ötükän mountains near the Orkhon river in Central Mongolia as a holy territory of the Khans. … Thus, the foundational Hun empire defined the religious geography of the later Mongolic homeland.” [MT].
• “The population of Mongolia at the time of the great Khan is estimated to have been around 700,000 people, who were divided and lost in conflict. … Despite all this background the best of the earlier Uighur Kha’khans and Khitan Khans were not Chingiz Khan. Thus, the backdrop of the buildup of innovations among the Altaic people, rather than contradicting, actually shows that Chingiz Khan stood apart from the best the steppe had produced. There are two sides to this, military and administrative. “[MT].

Securing the base

The below heavily copies [MT].

The big enemies to the south, the Jin and the Tangut were objects in need of serious action as settled people but like the Khitans before him once engaged in combating settled people he could have lost the base in Mongolia to others who had the advantage like him, namely powerful mounted cavalry enemies like the Turkic groups to the west and Islamized Turks even further west. So he proceed systematically by :

• (i) defeating and absorbing the Turkic groups to the immediate west;
• (ii) clearing the eastern flank completely by conquering the Koreans and eastern Khitan holdouts. Similarly, the northern flank was cleared by defeating all tribal groups to the north;
• (iii) then inflicting a serious blow on the Jin but not engaging them in their own turf in an involved campaign of taking major fortified centers;
• (iv) Conducting the great outflanking operation to the west by clearing the forces of the Ghāzis and the Rus to a great distance. By this configuration he ensured that he stabilized a well-defined home-base for the Mongols.
• Then he stung the Jin strongly enough to ensure that they would find it hard to threaten Mongolia while he dealt with the west but did not engage them in depth right then.
• Then he proceeded west to neutralize the serious threat from all other cavalry powers which could fight by similar means as him.

Tackling the Tangut and jin

By this he created strategic depth and a cast a pincer-grip on the Tangut to destroy them in his final campaign. Through this period he kept the Jin on low burn after the initial hammering he gave them. Thus he left for his successors the stranglehold on them which they quickly tightened to put an end to the mighty Jin.

Tech innovations

“Second, while there are many examples of tactical brilliance through all his campaigns, one notable point is his innovative development of military technology like firepower and siege-craft to take fortified centers of settled zones. This was one deficiency which Altaic steppe powers routinely had – the inability to take fortified power-centers settled zones effectively. After Chingiz we even see a relapse to this state among successor states like those of the Oirats.

However, his development of innovative siege-craft, firepower, “biological warfare” and hydraulic works to divert rivers in flooding cities allowed them smash these strongholds like no one before them. Other innovations included the use of military booms (chains) on rivers to block naval operations of enemies, like in the campaign to bring down the Mohammedan Turk Temür Maliq.” [MT]

“In this the Chingiz Khan set a precedence which allowed his people to clearly exceed the previous steppe powers including the Uighurs who in a sense where their first teachers. Importantly, in the domain of practical knowledge they were good at picking out things which were critical and useful with great avidity – medicine and weaponry are two cases – we see this starting with the great Khan himself taking a great interest in assembling the best of the knowledge of the world at that point. The quick adoption of printing and standardizing of text production went on to allow extensive documentation of the newly acquired knowledge.”

“This trend continued among the successors of the Chingiz Khan with Hülegü having Nasser ad-din al Tusi take the books that mattered most, like those on astronomy and medicine, from the Hāśīśin library upon the sack of their citadel. He also recognized the value of a individual like Nasser for his knowledge while demolishing the rest of the Mohammedan edifice. His brother Qublai Khan’s astronomical observatory employing astronomers across the empire was another example of the interest in knowledge in a more general sense. Finally, Qublai’s chartering of several thousands of schools throughout his realm allowed this knowledge to plowed back into the population.”

Merit and elite

• Chingiz killed quickly off old elite after their defeat (as he had done since early raids on Tatars barring exceptions he later regretted and fixed). “Likewise, he showed no mercy for any level of the Jurchen or Tangut and their sinitic or sinicized power-holders. These he simply destroyed and replaced with his talent. This was followed by his successors with the southern Han power centers. This was very different in form and action from previous client-patron relationship that both steppe-land and sedentary powers tried to establish.” [MT]
• “A key aspect of the plan was the kind of accommodation he showed for different preexisting power structures: He was rather clear about meritocracy and was willing to take in various Uighur, other Turkic, Khitan, and Aran/Alan talent for his cause. For instance he appointed the Khitans Yelü Ahai and Yelü Tuhua to rule over the lands he took from the Mohammedans in Khwarizm. " [MT]

Succession

• “Thus, key aspects of the success of the Mongol Empire were Chingiz Khan’s clear succession plans, their orderly and quick enactment, and finally the successor Ögödei’s effective administrative action. He first settled and firmed up fiscal and organizational issues of the empire in great detail before launching the next major phase of distant military activity. As this was under way he commissioned the campaigns under Chormagun Noyan to create the strategic base for big distant ones which were to follow. Only thereafter the great invasion of the lands of the White Christians in Europe and the mopping up of the Jin empire in China were launched. " (MT)

Comparison with maraTha-s

“It is in comparison to this that the Maraṭhā succession was rather poorly executed. Though Śambhu took power rather quickly, it came at the cost of the brutal execution of senior ministers like Annājī Datto. He also was hardly effective in terms attending to fiscal, administrative and strategic issues. While his early campaigns were well-executed, they were not followed up with the vigor and swiftness his father showed. When Ögödei was facing doubts in how the Chinese campaign should proceed his senior strategist Sübe’edei showed the way forward and led them to spectacular victories. Śambhu however showed little interest in supporting his astute military adviser Hambirrāv Mohite‘s plans at a critical juncture. These considerably strained the Maraṭhā-s and they eventually survived only due to Śivajī’s farsighted plans and ministers like Rāmacandra amātya.” (MT)

Chingiz’s instructions

• “Chingiz Khan in a council of senior Mongol commanders and officials declared that Ögödei would succeed him as the great Khan. .. At the same time, the other sons were to get their own ulus-es. … Keeping with the old tradition of ultimogeniture the Khan’s youngest son Tolui was awarded the biggest share in the Khan’s personal inheritance. This also included the largest share of the military which eventually allowed the ascendancy of his lineage.”
  • Jochi was ruled out: “This was followed by his conflict with Chagadai during which his legitimacy as the son of the Khan was doubted. He restored his military credentials by aiding Sübe’edei after the death of Jebe. However, after this, he disobeyed his father and retired to his ulus and never met him again. Thus, he was ruled out.”
  • “Chagadai, the next son, was also a competent warrior; however, his quarrels with Jochi, his temper, and recklessness in the quriltai-s did not please the Khan. Hence, he too was passed over for being the great Khan.”
  • “The next son Ögödei was seen as a man of balanced temper but at the same time a fierce warrior who proved himself in the thick of battle.”
• “They were to hold a quriltai to confirm if Ögödei was competent and if members from each of the lines elected him then he could ascend as the great Khan, with all of them pledging their solidarity to him. In the interim, the default state of Altaic ultimogeniture was to come into play with Chingiz’s last son Tolui serving as acting Khan until the quriltai could be called. This tradition of ultimogeniture appears to have been adopted by the Altaic peoples from the steppe Iranians who were the lords of the land before them. "
• Jochi’s avoided punishment - “While his father declared him to be a legitimate son to the rest of his sons, the tensions persisted and towards the end of his life he remained away in own ulus disobeying his father’s orders when called to meet him. It appears that the great Khan might have sent his sons Chagadai and Ögödei to bring Jochi to him to be disciplined. … Second, Jochi died shortly before Chagadai and Ögödei set out to bring him to the Khan, thus taking him out of the contention for succession.” (MT)
• “Others believe that he might have contracted some infection independently of a fall. He was taken in a closed bullock cart to a secret hideout the Mongols set up in the forests of the Liupan mountains. He realized he was on his deathbed and called his clansmen and generals around him. Then he died aged something between 65 to 70 on either on 18th or 25th August 1227 CE as per different reckonings.” (MT)
• “He gave them a final lecture in which he laid out the lines of action to expand the Mongol empire he had founded both to the east and west. He then stressed the issue of unity between the different lines of his clansmen with the famous example of the single arrow and bundle of arrows.”
• “Before dying he also seems to have made his long-term succession plans clear. The status of the great Khan was not to remain with the house of Ögödei forever. He said that his grandson through Tolui, the wise Qubilai, would someday adorn his throne.” (MT)

Succession of Ogodei

• “The Mongols kept the news secret and his youngest son Tolui became the acting Khan to allow the campaign (against Tanguts) to proceed. … Over the year 1228 CE, Tolui assembled members of all the branches of the house of Chingiz for a quriltai. The quriltai met at Köde’e Island on the Kerülen River in Mongolia. There the majority of the lines voted in favor of Ögödei becoming the next great Khan and his brother Tolui dutifully handed over the throne to him. Jochi’s most prominent son Batu also pledged complete solidarity to his uncle. … Tolui was given the title Yeke-noyan (some say the yeke was added after his death) meaning the great lord and advised the great Khan on all matters. … Beyond that, he also was proactive in his diplomacy to get the houses of all his brothers to stand firmly with him and cooperate as part of the unified Mongol empire for future campaigns.” (MT)

Post-mortem Administration

• “Ögödei immediately commissioned what become the core of the Secret History based on the records kept by Shigi-qutuqu, the adopted son of Chingiz Khan… Shigi-qutuqu was appointed to handle the implementation of the yasa of Chingiz Khan and set up the administrative structure for the whole empire.” (MT)

Revenue and religion

• “The gigantic Khitan scholar Yelü Chucai had been brought out from his early retirement as a Zen bauddha monk by Chingiz Khan and appointed to his advisory council, especially for his meteorological knowledge. .. This gave him a great aura of respectability and he was called by the great Khan to help him with the administration in the last year of his life.”
• “Tolui while the acting Khan asked Yelü Chucai settle the major religious conflicts which were taking place between bauddha-s and Taoists in Mongol China. He also actively participated in getting everyone to agree on electing Ögödei and was accordingly rewarded by Ögödei with an appointment as the supreme official of the revenue department of the Mongol empire.”
• “An important point that is often not stated is the role of Ögödei in stabilizing the Mongol empire. At Chingiz Khan’s death the treasury was in precarious condition. The Khan had put everything into the Xixia campaign. Temporarily the situation was stable from the enormous booty obtained with the destruction of Xixia empire and the raids on the Jin. .. Hence, he constituted a senior council drawn from the keshikten (the Khan’s inner guard) along with Yelü Chucai to develop a comprehensive taxation system across all conquered territories with revenues assessed as per the nature of productivity of each territory. A whole series of Mongol and local officials were raised and the system put in place throughout the vast empire within a matter of four to five years. This went hand-in-hand with a courier system to allow communications throughout the empire.”

Post-mortem campaigns

• “As per the wishes of his brother Tolui he (Ögödei) appointed Sübe’edei Baghatur as the supreme military adviser of the Mongol empire. This brilliant general had campaigned across the whole of Eurasia and was beyond doubt one of the greatest military leaders of all times. … Chormagun noyan was appointed to lead a Mongol army to finish off immediate unsettled issues in the west like the destruction of Jalal-al din and conquering Armenia, Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan.”
• “It was then that Yelü Chucai obtained an Indian rhinoceros and showed it to the Mongols. The Mongols declared that the animal was a sign of the great god Möngke Tengri and that India should not be invaded as it was the holy land graced by this divine animal.”