Royal kin and queens · Temujin's Mongols · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Borte and the children

Borte is Temujin's only wife attested on 1 January 1200.

Her ordo is his principal household. She was seized by the Merkit about 1180 and Jochi's paternity is whispered. Jochi (about 18) and Chagatai (about 16) are of an age to ride to war; Ogedei is 13 and Tolui about 7. Five daughters are named: Qojin Beki, the eldest, was already born by about 1180; Checheyigen, Alaqai Beki, Tumelun and Al-Altun are younger and still children, so none is yet ready to be married to an ally.

Who he is

Name
Borte Ujin
Title
Senior wife of the khan; head of the principal tent household
Since
married about 1178
Born
about 1161 (one year older than Temujin in the Secret History); about 38
Family
Daughter of Dei Sechen of the Onggirat and Chotan. Children: Qojin Beki; Jochi (about 18); Chagatai (about 16); Ogedei (13); Tolui (about 7); Checheyigen, Alaqai Beki, Tumelun, Al-Altun (order and dates not pinned).
Confidence
medium

Ages from the 1162 and Rashid count; Jochi 1177 to 1182.

Overlord

Temujin.

What it holds

  • The principal ordo
  • The sons' households (still with her)

How it was acquired

By marriage.

Allies and rivals

Her father Dei Sechen and the Onggirat; the Merkit are her old enemies.

How things stand that morning

With the camp; sons in training.

Wealth

Herds.

Threats

  • Merkit revenge

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.

In 1200

  1. 1200No record of her in 1200; she stays with the principal ordo. We know of no source naming her sons in the Tayichi'ut war (not checked); their first campaigns come later.Depends on: The camp lying away from the fighting on the Onon. Stopped by: A Merkit or Tayichi'ut raid on the camp, as in the Merkit seizure of about 1180.

Later, on the likely course

  1. 1202 to 1203 (one line)Temujin takes further wives: the Tatar sisters Yesui and Yesugen in 1202, Qulan in 1203.Depends on: The Tatar and Merkit wars going as the Secret History tells them. Stopped by: Either war failing.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Children's birth dates are reconstructions; the Secret History gives none.

On the map: No separate 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

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. Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), transl. W. M. Thackston
  3. Dei Sechen (Wikipedia)
  4. Chinggis Khan's missing ten years, 1186 to 1196 (Medievalists.net, 2022; summarises Ratchnevsky, the Servan Khaalga inscription and the Jin evidence)

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