The Naiman (Nestorian Christian and shamanist Mongol- or Turkic-speaking people of the Altai and Irtysh) are divided.
Their old khan Inanch Bilge is dead (Wikipedia gives 1198 or 1202; since the Secret History has Buyruq already acting alone against Temujin and Toghrul in 1199, we take him as dead by 1 January 1200), and his sons have split the people: Tayang (Tai Buqa) near Lake Zaysan and the Irtysh, and his brother Buyruq in the Altai near the head of the Ulungur river. Both lie north of 46.3 N, on the Mongolia sheet. The Naiman were Qara Khitai tributaries until 1175 (Wikipedia).
We draw a faint 'claimed' range on the north rim of the Dzungarian basin on the assumption that Buyruq's herds winter in the sands south of the Altai; no source puts a Naiman chief south of 46.3 N. In 1199 Temujin and Toghrul attack Buyruq. Yearly range: Summer in the Altai foothills to the north (Mongolia sheet). Winter camp: The north edge of the Gurbantunggut sands, assumed.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known: clan elders and chiefs, no single chief named in any source
- Title
- Buyruq Khan's and Tayang Khan's herdsmen (Naiman realm: Mongolia sheet)
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
The nomad peoples of the sheet are known by name from the Qara Khitai, Mongol and Persian chroniclers and from the later pastoral calendar of the same ground; no source we could open names a chief of this people for 1 January 1200.
Overlord
Tayang Khan and Buyruq Khan (Mongolia sheet)
What it holds
- Summer in the Altai foothills to the north (Mongolia sheet).
Allies and rivals
Divided: Buyruq against Tayang, with Temujin and Toghrul striking at Buyruq in 1199.
How things stand that morning
In winter camp. No raid or war recorded.
Wealth
Horses, sheep, cattle and felt; the pasture itself.
Military
Mounted archers under tribe and clan chiefs. No numbers are known.
Threats
- A hard winter or cattle plague
- Raids from neighbouring herders
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.
- 1199 to 1200Temujin and Toghrul campaign against Buyruq Khan on the south Altai side; the Naiman general Kokse Sabraq pursues them afterwards (Secret History, recalled). Most of this is north of 46.3 N.Depends on: The Mongol-Kereyit alliance holding Stopped by: A Naiman reconciliation
Where the sources disagree
- The brief asks for a Naiman marcher on our ground 'if the sources put one there'. They do not; this is a thin claimed range.
Evidence: The Naiman are placed from Wikipedia on Buyruq Khan and the Naimans and Fuhai County; no source puts them south of 46.3 N.
On the map: The outline is a sketch of the seasonal range; nomad ground has no line.
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
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.