The strip of country between Toghrul's winter ground on the Tula and the Merkit pastures of the lower Orkhon and the Selenga, from the meeting of the Tula and the Orkhon down to the Orkhon's mouth.
The Merkit took Temujin's wife Borte in the 1180s and were beaten for it by Toghrul, Jamuqa and Temujin. Toghrul and Temujin raided them again between 1198 and 1199, which the Wikipedia chronology of Temujin's rise says drove the Merkit further north; the English article on Toghrul calls the raid after 1198 Toghrul's third plunder of the Merkit, with two of Toqto'a's sons taken and another killed. No source shows a raid in the winter itself.
The belt is the ground of two recent campaigns, held by neither side: a camp set here is open to a dawn raid from the other, and the herds of both sides winter behind it. The next trouble comes with the spring thaw.
How things stand that morning
A belt of the recent past rather than a live front: no raid is recorded for the winter. The Merkit chiefs are shaken, may have drawn north and east, and have not yet found a protector. Neither side's herds are meant to winter on the strip.
Threats
- A Merkit counter-raid on Kereyit herds after the thaw
- A further Kereyit and Mongol strike on the Merkit camps
- Dzud on the Tula and the Orkhon
Who raids here
Toghrul's Kereyit with Temujin's Mongols against the Merkit herds and camps in 1198 and 1199 (dated by year only; the Wikipedia chronology says 'between 1198 and 1199', the English article on Toghrul counts the last raid as the third). The Merkit are the old raiders (the seizure of Borte); this session found no dated Merkit raid on the Kereyit in the 1190s.
Anchors on each side
Kereyit side: Toghrul's orda in the Black Forest of the Tula (board kereit-orda, 47.9N 106.9E) and the camps of Senggum; no fort. Merkit side: Toqto'a's Uduyit on the Buura steppe of the lower Orkhon (board merkit-orda, 50.3N 106.2E, is the same neighbourhood), Dayir Usun's Uwas on the Tar steppe and Qa'atai-darmala's Qa'at on the Qaraji steppe; no fort. Behind them lies the Merkit refuge in the Barguzin forest (Bargujin-Tokum).
Last campaign
The Kereyit and Mongol raid or raids of 1198 to 1199 (by year only). The next dated campaign is the fight on the Onon in 1200, where one account (English Wikipedia, Toghrul) has the Merkit beside the Tayichi'ut and the other chronologies do not.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- Spring and summer 1200 (inference)With the Kereyit and Mongols turned east against the Tayichi'ut, the Merkit are free to move back down to the lower Orkhon and Selenga pastures, and the belt shifts north or shrinks.Depends on: Toghrul riding east in 1200; no new Kereyit raid after the thaw. Stopped by: A third strike by Toghrul and Temujin on the Merkit camps; a Merkit raid that draws Senggum out.
Where the sources disagree
- The belt lies between the campaign board's two orda points (kereit-orda 47.9N 106.9E and merkit-orda 50.3N 106.2E); the campaign board does not mark any raiding ground.
- The Wikipedia chronology gives the raids as 1198 and 1199; the English article on Toghrul counts the raid after 1198 as the third plunder of the Merkit and does not name the first two. The Secret History's order and years were not re-read this session.
- No source names a place for the raids, so the polygon is the ground between the two sides' camps, not a mapped field.
Evidence: Two dated campaigns in two Wikipedia articles; no place named for either; nothing for the winter itself. Included because the assignment asks for the Kereyit and Merkit frontier on the Selenga and the campaigns are recent.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A rough band between the camps; the sources give no front line and the real limit was wherever the herds stood that winter.
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia article on the rise of Genghis Khan, as mirrored at AloneReaders (year-by-year chronology 1177-1204)
- Wikipedia, Toghrul (read late in the work through a redirect; the Keraites article and the Secret History text could not be reached)
- Wikipedia, Merkit
- V. V. Ushnitsky, The Riddle of the Merkit Tribe, Vestnik of Tomsk State University, History 2013, no. 1 (21)
- Igor de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols (Brill 2004; abridged ed. ANU/CEDAR 2015). Section numbers quoted from memory of the text; not re-read this session
- Rashid al-Din, Jami al-tawarikh (Thackston translation, 1998-99), Keraites and Merkits chapters. Quoted from memory; not re-read this session
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.