Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · Temujin's Mongols · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Bo'orchu

Bo'orchu is the first free man to give himself to Temujin.

When Temujin was chasing horse thieves he gave his own horse and rode beside him, and asked no reward. He is the most trusted of the companions, one of the officers named at the election, and, with Muqali, Boroqul and Chila'un, one of the 'four steeds'. His Arulat kin ride with him. English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan) has Temujin send him with the other three to rescue Toghrul's people in the Altai campaign it dates 1199.

Who he is

Name
Bo'orchu (Bogorchu)
Title
First companion (nokor) and senior officer of the household
Since
joined about 1177 or 1178, when he helped Temujin recover stolen horses
Born
about 1160 (about 39)
Family
Son of Naqu Bayan of the Arulat; his Arulat kin follow him.
Confidence
medium

Age guessed from the Secret History's story of his joining as a youth.

Overlord

Temujin.

What it holds

  • The Arulat followers who came with him
  • A senior place in Temujin's household

How it was acquired

By gift of himself.

Allies and rivals

Close to Muqali and Boroqul; trusted by Hoelun and Borte.

How things stand that morning

With Temujin.

Military

Commands a main division of the host in the field.

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.

  1. Spring 1200Rides in the Tayichi'ut campaign.Depends on: The war going ahead with Toghrul's help. Stopped by: No war, or Toghrul's help refused.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Narrative sources only.

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

1 more in the sources library for Mongolia and the Steppe.

Sources and studies

  1. The Secret History of the Mongols, transl. and commentary Igor de Rachewiltz (Brill 2004; shorter edition ed. J. C. Street, Western Washington University 2015)
  2. The Secret History of the Mongols, adapted by Paul Kahn from the Cleaves translation (names and place names of the early chapters)
  3. Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004)
  4. Rise of Genghis Khan (Wikipedia)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.