Temujin

Who he is

Name

Temujin (Temuchin), not yet Chinggis Khan

Title

Khan (qan) of the Qiyat-Borjigin Mongols; Jin frontier rank ja'ut quri

Since

khan from about 1189 (1186 to 1190); ja'ut quri from summer 1196

Born

1162 on the usual count, so about 37 on 1 January 1200 (1155 Rashid al-Din; 1167 Pelliot and Ratchnevsky)

Family

Qiyat-Borjigin; father Yesugei Ba'atur (d. about 1170); mother Hoelun; wife Borte; sons Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedei, Tolui.

Confidence

high for the man, medium for ages

We use 1162 because the Yuanshi, Rachewiltz and Atwood do. If the 1167 count is right he is 32 and Jochi's age must be pulled down with him.

Overlord

Toghrul, whom he calls father; and the Jin, to whom Chinese sources (Li Xinchuan and Zhao Hong, as summarised by Medievalists.net) say he paid tribute every year until the Mongols invaded the Jin. The rank ja'ut quri is the Jin's recognition of that tie.

What it holds

• His own ordo and herds
• Winter camps in the upper Onon and Kherlen valleys; Burkhan Khaldun as refuge
• The loyalty of the companions (nokod) and the clans sworn to him
• Plunder of the Tatars (1196)
• Jin rank ja'ut quri

How it was acquired

Election by Altan, Khuchar and Sacha Beki about 1189; Jin rank 1196; companions by gift and by defection.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Toghrul (father; strained by the Merkit booty he kept in 1198 to 1199), the Jin (patron), Dei Sechen and the Onggirat (in-laws, though the Onggirat are at odds with the Jin). Enemies: Tayichi'ut, Merkit, Tatars, Jamuqa (though Wikipedia has Jamuqa riding with him in 1199). Wary kin: Altan, Khuchar, Daritai.

How things stand that morning

See the realm record: winter camp, not pinned (board dot at the Onon headwaters); the Tayichi'ut war has not begun; Jamuqa has not moved; Toghrul is friendly.

Wealth

Herds, hunting, plunder; Muslim and Uyghur merchants; no revenue.

Military

Companions and clan levies; no numbers. He has recent combat experience from Ulja (1196), the Jurkin war and the Merkit raids, and on Wikipedia's dating the Altai campaign of 1199.

Threats

• Tayichi'ut
• Jamuqa
• Merkit
• Toghrul's family
• Disloyal kin
• Dzud

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. Spring and summer 1200War on the Tayichi'ut with Toghrul's help.Depends on: Toghrul's aid; Tayichi'ut stand. Stopped by: Toghrul refuses; dzud; flight.
2. During the 1200 fight (or at 1201 Koyiten in some accounts)Arrow in the neck vein from Jirqo'adai; Jelme tends it (English Wikipedia puts the wound at a river crossing in the Tayichi'ut fight of 1200).Depends on: He is in the front line. Stopped by: He stays back.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201 (one line)Jamuqa's coalition and the fight at Koyiten.Depends on: The Tayichi'ut remnant and the eastern clans join Jamuqa. Stopped by: Their prior defeat.

Places of note

• Burkhan Khaldun (refuge): The mountain where he hid from the Merkit and again after Dalan Balzhut; modern Khan Khentii (identification traditional).
• Blue Lake in the Gurelgu hills (election site): Where he was raised khan about 1189; the site is not pinned and the marker is a convenience.
• Khodo'a Aral on the Kherlen: A camp on the upper Kherlen from the Secret History; not pinned.

Where the sources disagree

• Medievalists.net (2022) argues that Temujin spent much of 1186 to 1196 in Jin lands, as a vassal or captive, perhaps waiting at the court of the Ongud (Rubruck and Zhao Hong are cited for years as a Jin slave). English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan) says that modern historians such as Ratchnevsky and Timothy May consider this very likely, quotes Zhao Hong that he spent several years as a slave of the Jin, and says his return with power intact suggests he profited in Jin service. The Secret History is silent. We keep him on the Onon and Kherlen in those years on the map, but the thesis would make him closer to the Jin and the Ongud than the standard account allows. On every reading the episode is over by his return in 1196, so it does not touch the winter of 1199 to 1200.
• Family details below are reconstructions: sons' birth years (Jochi 1177 to 1182, Chagatai about 1183, Ogedei 1186, Tolui about 1190 to 1193) are those of Rashid al-Din and the Yuanshi; only Ogedei's has a medieval date (Medievalists.net).
• English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan) dates the split from Jamukha, and with it his election, '1187 or 1193'; we keep about 1189. It says Toghrul and Temujin were given Jin titles in 1196 without naming them; the Servan Khaalga inscription, as Medievalists.net summarises it, has ja'ut quri and wang.
• Kokochu (Teb Tenggeri): the Secret History's account of his prophecies and power belongs to 1206 to 1207; in 1200 he is one of the sons of Mönglik, a household friend. The title of 'Chinggis Khan' given by him in 1206 is the later tradition of Rashid and Juvaini.

Evidence: See the realm record.

On the map: Holdings are people and camps; the circles are loose.

Primary sources for Temujin's Mongols

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
• Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. 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
• Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online

1 more in the sources library for Mongolia and the Steppe.