Lord of Almaliq

Who he is

Name

not known for 1 January 1200. Ozar (Buzar) is lord of Almaliq in 1211; his son Siknak Tegin succeeds him.

Title

Qarluq lord (malik) of Almaliq

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

The family of Ozar, a Qarluq whom the campaign board and our recollection of Juvaini make an outlaw chief who rose to lord of Almaliq; his son Siknak Tegin marries a daughter of Jochi, Chinggis's granddaughter

Confidence

low

Wikipedia (Almaliq) names Prince Ozar of Almaliq, who acknowledges Chinggis in 1211, says he was later killed by the Gurkhan of the Qara Khitai (Kuchlug), and says Chinggis then made his son Siknak Tekin king of Almaliq and gave him the only daughter of Jochi; the Mongol-conquest page calls Ozar himself the grandson-in-law of Chinggis, which we take to be the son's marriage. The campaign board and our own recollection of Juvaini and Barthold give Ozar a start as the chief of a robber band, which would put his rise after 1200; the date is not given in anything we could open. Whether Ozar, his father or another man held Almaliq on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Overlord

The Gurkhan of the Qara Khitai, as tributary; Arslan Khan of Qayaliq is the senior Qarluq neighbour

What it holds

• The town and its orchards and fields
• The Ili's north-bank pastures between Qapqal and Zharkent
• The road tolls where the Beshbaliq road meets the Ili

How it was acquired

Not known. If Ozar is the founder of the lordship, by raiding and force in the 1200s (inferred).

Allies and rivals

Arslan Khan of Qayaliq; the Qara Khitai; Uyghur traders from Beshbaliq.

How things stand that morning

A Qarluq market town and its pastures, a tributary of the Gurkhan. Not a city. Who rules it is not pinned.

Wealth

Apples and orchard fruit, grain, horse trade, caravan tolls.

Military

Qarluq horsemen; no numbers.

Threats

• Qara Khitai demands
• Rivalry with Qayaliq
• Naiman war-bands later

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. 1211Ozar (Buzar) of Almaliq acknowledges the supremacy of Chinggis (a Persian historian, via English Wikipedia).Depends on: Ozar holding Almaliq by then Stopped by: Qara Khitai reprisals
2. between 1211 and 1218 (not dated closely)Kuchlug, now Gurkhan, kills Ozar; the town appeals to Chinggis and Jebe relieves it in 1218. Chinggis then makes Ozar's son Siknak Tegin lord of Almaliq and gives him the only daughter of Jochi; Siknak follows Chinggis to Persia in 1219.Depends on: Kuchlug holding the Gurkhan's throne after 1211 Stopped by: Mongol help

Places of note

• Almaliq: Market town in the apple country
• Zharkent: Modern town on the Ili's north bank, west of Almaliq

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry almaliq: 'In 1200 it is not yet a city ... begins as a horse thief.' The horse-thief/robber-chief story is recalled from Juvaini and Barthold and is undated; do not read it as a date for 1200.

Evidence: Wikipedia pages on Almaliq and the Mongol conquest of the Qara Khitai (Ozar named, 1211). No excavation of the 12th-century town found.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A district sketched round the Almaliq site; the real extent is not known.

Primary sources for Qarluq

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.

• 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
• History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30. 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
• 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
• The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. 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