Other lordship · The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Gurbesu Khatun

Gurbesu is the one Naiman woman who is named.

The Secret History calls her Tayang's mother and shows her, in 1203, receiving the head of Toghrul that the Naiman watchman Qori Subechi has sent and having it honoured with ritual; when it 'smiles' Tayang tramples it. After the fall of the Naiman, Chinggis has her brought to him and takes her as a wife (section 196). Rashid, as summarised in Wikipedia, makes her Inanch Bilge's widow whom Tayang married by the levirate.

A khatun of this standing keeps her own ordu, herds and servants, and has a voice in the council; the Secret History sets Tayang's remark that there cannot be two khans on earth in the same scene. Nothing is known of her faith or her birth.

Who he is

Name
Gurbesu (Gürbesü, Chinese Gu'erbiesu)
Title
Khatun (queen) of the old khan's household, living with Tayang
Since
Wife of Inanch Bilge Khan; after his death married by Tayang, who is her stepson on Wikipedia's reading (levirate), her son in the Secret History
Born
not known (young enough to be married to the old khan, and to be married by Chinggis in 1204)
Family
Widow of Inanch Bilge Khan; mother or stepmother and wife of Tayang; Kuchlug may be her son or her stepson's son (not pinned)
Confidence
low

Secret History sections 189 and 196; Wikipedia's article on Inanch Bilge (citing Broadbridge 2018, p. 90); not opened: Rashid.

Overlord

Tayang Khan.

What it holds

  • Her own ordu (tents, herds, servants) inside Tayang's camp (not documented, normal for a khatun)
  • A voice in the khan's council (thin)

How it was acquired

Marriage to Inanch Bilge Khan; passed to Tayang on his death by levirate (Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Tayang is her son or stepson and husband; Buyiruq's feelings about the marriage are unknown. After 1204 she passes to Chinggis.

How things stand that morning

In Tayang's household, presumably in the same winter camp as the khan. No act is recorded for her before 1203.

Wealth

Her own herds and household; not known.

Threats

  • Disputed succession between the brothers

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. 1203 and 1204She honours Toghrul's head and urges the khan's pride; in 1204 she is taken by Chinggis.Depends on: The Naiman defeat. Stopped by: Peace between Tayang and Temujin.

Where the sources disagree

  • Mother in the Secret History, father's widow in Rashid; see Tayang's record. The brief says 'mother or stepmother': both are carried.

Evidence: Two sections of the Secret History and one line in Wikipedia's summary of Rashid.

On the map: No map part.

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

  1. Wikipedia, 'Inanch Bilge khan'
  2. The Secret History of the Mongols, the same translation (sections 177-202), read at anyflip
  3. Wikipedia, 'Naimans'
  4. Li Tang, 'Medieval sources on the Naiman Christians and on their prince Kuchlug Khan' (2009), on academia.edu

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