Senggum

Who he is

Name

Nilqa Senggum (Ilqa Senggum)

Title

Prince of the Kereyit, the khan's heir in practice (Senggum is a Chinese-derived title, from jiangjun, 'general')

Since

Not known

Born

Not known; a grown man with a wife and children by 1199, perhaps born in the 1160s (guess)

Family

Father Toghrul. Wife not named; children, among them a son Tusaqa (named in the 1203 marriage offer). Sisters: Cha'ur Beki and others. Cousins Ibaqa Beki and Sorqaqtani Beki.

Confidence

medium

Named in the Secret History and Rashid chiefly for 1199 (family taken by the Naiman) and 1203 (the quarrel with Temujin, the wound from Jurchedei, flight, death far from the steppe).

Overlord

Toghrul, his father.

What it holds

• His own camp, tents and herds, kept near his father's ordu in the Black Forest (not pinned)
• His own following of Kereyit warriors and servants (no numbers)
• The right to speak for his father at council

How it was acquired

By birth as Toghrul's son and by his father's favour.

Allies and rivals

Rival: Temujin (the younger man who is too welcome at his father's side). Counsellors and friends: Jamuqa, and the Kereyit nobles Altun Ashuq and Qadaq (1203); the Mongol nobles Altan, Quchar and Daritai, who will leave Temujin for him (1203; not yet).

How things stand that morning

In winter quarters with or near his father; on the working reading the autumn raid cost him his household for some weeks and he has it back, and he is grateful and resentful. On the Secret History's own order that raid is a thing of 1202 and has not happened.

Wealth

His own herds and servants, his father's gifts. No figures.

Military

He leads Kereyit bands at his father's side; no numbers.

Threats

• A second Naiman raid on his camp
• His own temper and Jamuqa's flattery

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. 1203Rejects Temujin's offer of marriages between the houses, and leads the Kereyit against him at Qalaqaljid Sands (one line; after the opening date).Depends on: Jamuqa and the Mongol defectors working on him. Stopped by: Temujin's staying close to the Kereyit court.

Places of note

• Senggum's camp (near the Black Forest, not pinned): Camp near his father's; location inferred.

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment lists 'Senggum, Nilqa' as two sons; they are one man.

Evidence: Named reliably for 1199 and 1203; nothing is dated to the winter of 1199-1200.

On the map: A person with no ground of his own; drawn as a point.

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