The Jurkin were the senior Qiyat house, the descendants of Qabul Khan's eldest son.
The Secret History (Kahn/Cleaves, p. 47) says that Sacha Beki and Taichu, 'the eldest descendants of Khabul Khan', left Jamuqa and brought the Jurkin to Temujin at the parting, and they were among the three Qiyat lords (with Altan and Khuchar) who raised him khan. At a feast on the Onon the Jurkin wrestler Buri Boke wounded Belgutei, the quarrel became a fight, and Temujin attacked and destroyed the Jurkin: in 1196 on English Wikipedia's dating (Rise of Genghis Khan), when he subdued most of them, and again in the winter of 1197 to 1198, when he 'eliminated the remaining Jurkins and executed their leaders' (about 1197 in other accounts): Sacha Beki and Taichu were killed, Buri Boke was thrown by Belgutei and his back broken, and the families were taken into Temujin's following.
A few escaped. Their pastures on the upper Onon are held by Temujin's people; Hoelun's foster-son Boroqul was of this clan. The Jurkin no longer have a lord or a camp of their own, so this record marks ground and a memory, not a power.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known (Sacha Beki and Taichu and the wrestler Buri Boke killed in the war of 1196 to 1198)
- Title
- No holder; the clan's lords are dead
- Confidence
- medium
What it holds
- Former Jurkin pastures on the upper Onon, now used by Temujin's camps
Allies and rivals
Allies of Temujin from the parting until the Onon feast; enemies from then until they were crushed. A grudge among the surviving families is likely and not recorded.
How things stand that morning
Broken. The survivors are in Temujin's following or scattered; no Jurkin chief exists.
Wealth
Pastures taken; herds shared out as spoil.
Threats
- Resentful survivors
- A flight to Jamuqa or the Tayichi'ut
Places of note
- Pastures (guess): Upper Onon, near the Khorkhonag valley where the Mongols held their assemblies and where Temujin and Jamuqa camped together; the site is not pinned.
Where the sources disagree
- The year of the Jurkin's fall is not settled: about 1197 on the Wikipedia Timeline; 1196 for the main defeat and the winter of 1197 to 1198 for the end on the Wikipedia page Rise of Genghis Khan (which also lists Muqali among the Jurkin subdued in 1196, though the Secret History makes him a Jalair); a year or two either way in other reconstructions. The Secret History places the quarrel at the Onon feast before the Tatar war in its own order, while the Jin evidence puts the Tatar war in 1196; the order is therefore uncertain.
Evidence: The Jurkin's joining is in the Kahn/Cleaves excerpt; their destruction is thick in the Secret History and Rashid, which we could not reopen; the date and the exact pastures are inferred.
On the map: A guess at the ground.
Primary sources for Temujin's Mongols
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
- The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
- Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
- History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
- History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
- Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online
Sources and studies
- The Secret History of the Mongols, adapted by Paul Kahn from the Cleaves translation (names and place names of the early chapters)
- The Secret History of the Mongols, transl. and commentary Igor de Rachewiltz (Brill 2004; shorter edition ed. J. C. Street, Western Washington University 2015)
- Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004)
- Timeline of the Mongol Empire (Wikipedia)
- Jurkin (Wikipedia)
- Rise of Genghis Khan (Wikipedia)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.