Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Qori Subechi

Qori Subechi is the Naiman who, in 1203, meets a fugitive on the frontier at the Nekun Water in Didik-saqal, does not believe him when he says 'we are the Ong Khan', kills him, and sends the head to Tayang's court, where Gurbesu has it brought (Secret History 187-189).

The Secret History calls him a watchman of the Naimans; in 1204 he stands among Tayang's great chiefs. A sübechi is a man who keeps a pass, a watch or a frontier post, so the Naiman evidently kept watchers on their border with the Kereyit; where this post was in 1200, and whether Qori held it, is not known.

Who he is

Name
Qori Subechi (Qori-sübechi)
Title
Watchman (sübechi) of the Naimans, later 'a great chief under Tayang Khan' (Secret History 194)
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
Naiman; not known
Confidence
medium for 1203, nothing for 1200

Secret History 187-189, 194 (the footnote suggests the name may mean he guarded some pass).

Overlord

Tayang Khan.

What it holds

  • A frontier watch on the Naiman-Kereyit march (place not known)

Allies and rivals

Serves Tayang; the killer of Toghrul.

How things stand that morning

Not pinned; presumably at his post on the frontier (the map point on the Khangai's west flank is a guess).

Military

A small frontier guard; not a field commander before 1204.

Threats

  • Raids by Kereyit across the Khangai

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. 1203Kills Toghrul at the Nekun Water.Depends on: The Kereyit collapse after Khalakhaljid and Jeje'er. Stopped by: Toghrul's survival.

Places of note

  • Frontier watch (guess): A guess at the Naiman watch on the Khangai's west flank; no source places Qori's post.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: One episode of 1203 and one mention of 1204.

On the map: No map part; the Naiman-Kereyit march is drawn by the central-steppe sheet's belt Khangai march, and the point here is a guess.

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. The Secret History of the Mongols, the same translation (sections 177-202), read at anyflip
  2. Wikipedia, 'Toghrul'

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