Jakha Gambu

Who he is

Name

Jakha Gambu (Jaqa Gambu, Zhaagangbo; also called Kereyidei)

Title

Prince of the Kereyit, brother of the khan (the name carries Gambu, a title of Tangut or Tibetan origin that the scholars discuss)

Since

Not known

Born

Not known; a man of middle age or older (his daughters are children or young women in 1200)

Family

Brother of Toghrul. Daughters Ibaqa Beki and Sorqaqtani Beki (Sorqaqtani is usually given as born in the 1190s; both pass to the Mongol house in 1203).

Confidence

low

He appears in the Merkit campaign of about 1190-91 beside Toghrul and Jamuqa (the 'Rise of Genghis Khan' chronology), in the sources as a refugee with the Tanguts, and, on the English Wikipedia article on Tayang Khan, as a refugee helped by Tayang in 1200. The English Wikipedia article on Toghrul adds that he became Temujin's blood brother (anda) in 1199 and marched with Toghrul and Temujin into the Kherlen valley in 1201; the article's figure for the men is not evidence and is not used. The place of the brother on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Overlord

Toghrul, his brother, when present.

What it holds

• Nothing attested for 1 January 1200: no camp, herds or district
• A claim to the Kereyit throne through the house of Qurjaqus, held by him as one of Toghrul's brothers

How it was acquired

By birth.

Allies and rivals

Brother of Toghrul (a rival on some accounts); Temujin's sworn brother since 1199 (English Wikipedia, Toghrul); helped by Tayang in 1200 (English Wikipedia, Tayang Khan); a refuge among the Tanguts is the older tradition; his daughters are the Kereyit women who will marry into the house of Temujin.

How things stand that morning

Not pinned. Temujin's sworn brother since 1199 on one account, so possibly near the Kereyit and Mongol camps; helped by Tayang in 1200 on another, so possibly at the Naiman court; the Tanguts on the older tradition. No source places him in the Black Forest that winter.

Wealth

None attested.

Military

None attested.

Threats

• Toghrul's anger
• The Naiman using him as a pretender

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. 1200Tayang gives Jakha Gambu help (English Wikipedia, article on Tayang Khan).Depends on: Jakha Gambu having fled to the Naiman. Stopped by: His being elsewhere, with the Tanguts.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1203After the fall of the Kereyit his daughters Ibaqa and Sorqaqtani pass to Temujin's family: Ibaqa to Temujin (then to Jurchedei), Sorqaqtani to his youngest son Tolui (one line; after the opening date).Depends on: The Kereyit defeat. Stopped by: A different end to the 1203 war.

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment asks where he is and what he holds. No source answers either for 1 January 1200; this record says so rather than guessing.

Evidence: Four sightings in three Wikipedia articles and the older tradition (about 1190, 1199, 1200, 1201); none dated to the winter of 1199-1200 and they do not agree.

On the map: No ground; not drawn.

Primary sources for Kereyit

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 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
• 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