Naiman clans of the east

Who holds it

Name

Clan heads under Tayang and Buyiruq; none named

Title

Elders and clan heads; no chief named

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

See the evidence note.

Overlord

None shown.

What it holds

• Herds of horses, sheep, cattle and camels on the lake basins and valley pastures
• Winter shelter in the valleys of the Khovd, Tes and Dzavkhan and on the lake shores
• Summer pasture on the Altai and the Khangai's western slope
• The way east to the Khangai and the Tamir where the Naiman meet the Kereyit

How it was acquired

Inherited ranges.

Allies and rivals

See the summary.

How things stand that morning

At peace with each other. The clans obey the khan under whom they happen to graze. No raid is recorded on this ground in the winter of 1199-1200 (on the working reading the Kereyit-Mongol army crossed the Altai in the autumn of 1199).

Wealth

Herds, hunting and furs.

Military

Hunters and herders; no castles.

Threats

• Dzud (winter of ice), a hard year for the herds

Places of note

• Winter stands on the Khovd river (guess): The Khovd valley below the Altai, a sheltered winter stand for herds. No camp is named in any source.
• Winter stands on the Khyargas and Uvs shores (guess): The lake shores of the Great Lakes depression, where reed and low ground shelter the herds. No camp is named.
• Winter stands in the Dzavkhan valley (guess): The upper Dzavkhan towards the Khangai's foot. No camp is named.

Where the sources disagree

• Dating of the war on Buyiruq at Lake Kishil-bash and of Kokse Sabraq's seizure of Senggum's household. Rashid al-Din's order of events, the Chinese annals and the older English histories (Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, pp. 338-339, via Wikipedia's article 'Naimans') put a first campaign by Temujin and Toghrul against Buyiruq in 1199, before the Tayichi'ut war of 1200. The regional brief marks it '1199?', and the central-steppe records (Kereyit and the Khangai belt) treat it as done, so this record uses it as the working reading: by 1 January 1200 the Kereyit and Mongols have beaten Buyiruq at Kishil-bash and his captain Kokse Sabraq has struck back at Senggum on the way home (autumn 1199). The Secret History, in the translation read for this record, tells the same two episodes after the oath at the Argun (Year of the Cock, 1201) and Koyiten, in the Year of the Dog, which its footnotes give as 1202; on that order nothing has been fought between the Naiman and the Kereyit-Mongol allies on 1 January 1200 and both episodes lie in the future. The two cannot be reconciled with certainty and each record carries both. We could not open the Yuanshi or the Shengwu qinzheng lu (ctext and zh.wikisource were unreachable), so the Chinese side rests on secondary citations.

Evidence: Wikipedia's Naimans article (Aristov, History of Mongolia vol. 2) for the Tamir limit; the Secret History for Soqoq-usun and Mount Khangai; no clan names or camps are known.

On the map: The boundary with the Kereyit near 98 to 99 E is a march and is drawn thin; the Naiman reach to the Tamir is Aristov's view.

Primary sources for The Naiman

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
• 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 World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
• Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online