The idiqut

Who he is

Name

not known for 1 January 1200

Title

Idiqut (iduq qut, 'holy fortune' or 'lord of happiness'), king of the Uyghurs of Qocho

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

The old Uyghur royal house. Later (1235) the throne passes from Barchuq Art Tegin to his son Kesmez (Kishmain) according to the Wikipedia succession box; nothing is known of his wives or children in 1200.

Confidence

low

Dated names on either side: Bilge (late 1120s or early 1130s, when the Uyghurs accept Yelu Dashi) and Barchuq Art Tegin (idiqut in the year jisi, 1209, when he kills the Qara Khitai supervisors, Yuan shi 122). The man on the throne on 1 January 1200 is not named in any source we could open. English Wikipedia's list has one undated name, Isen Tomur, between Bilge Tegin (1126) and Baurchuq (1208 or 1229), which makes him a candidate and no more.

Barchuq could be the man himself, or his heir, or a later successor; his name carries the rank tegin, which suggests a prince before he was king.

Overlord

The Gurkhan of the Qara Khitai (Yelu Zhilugu), through the commissioner at the Uyghur court

What it holds

• Qocho (Gaochang) with its three enclosures and the palace citadel on the north side
• Yarkhoto (Jiaohe) on its river island and the oasis fields round both cities
• The monasteries' patronage: Bezeklik, Sengim, Toyuq and the temples of Qocho
• A share of the tolls on the northern road between Hami and the Karashahr line
• The right to grant land, exemptions and office within the kingdom

How it was acquired

By inheritance within the Uyghur royal house, which has ruled Qocho and Beshbaliq since the 860s. The Qara Khitai confirm vassal rulers and send them seals (Wikipedia, Qara Khitai); whether a seal came to the idiqut of 1200 is not recorded.

Allies and rivals

He answers to the Qara Khitai commissioner and through him to the Gurkhan. He trades with Xia and China and shares a Buddhist world with them (monks and books pass both ways; general knowledge, no source for 1200), and his scribes serve the Naiman and other steppe courts. The tegins (princes) and begs (lords) of the kingdom are both his officers and his possible rivals.

How things stand that morning

The court is at Qocho for the winter. He holds his throne at the Gurkhan's pleasure and pays for the privilege; there is no war and no revolt recorded. Barchuq Art Tegin, the idiqut of 1209, may be he, his brother, his heir or a later king: not pinned.

Wealth

Estate revenue and the dues of a trading kingdom: grapes, cotton, grain, the northern-road tolls, lodging and credit for caravans, gifts to the temples that flow back as patronage. No figures are known.

Military

A household guard and the levies of the tegins and begs. The kingdom has walled towns but the Qara Khitai keep no garrison in them; the commissioner can call troops from the Gurkhan. No numbers are known.

Threats

• The commissioner's demands and a possible hostage or levy for the Gurkhan
• A war-band of Naiman or Merkit crossing Dzungaria
• A succession quarrel among the tegins

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. 1209 (year jisi)The idiqut of that year, named Barchuq Art Tegin, kills the Qara Khitai supervisors and sends to Chinggis for protection; he is received as a fifth son in 1211.Depends on: Mongol strength after the defeat of the Naiman (1204) and a revolt in the Uyghur court against the commissioner Stopped by: A Qara Khitai or Naiman strike at Qocho, or the death of the idiqut

Places of note

• Qocho palace citadel: Winter court
• Beshbaliq (Beiting): Summer court

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry kara-khoja-qocho: 'the seat of the Idiqut Barchuq Art Tegin' in 1200. Not pinned; see holder.

Evidence: Fetched: Yuan shi 122 (names Barchuq and the year jisi), Wikipedia's Qocho and Barchuq pages, zh.wikipedia on Gaochang Huigu. The identity of the idiqut of 1200 and every detail of his household are not in them.

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

On the map: The drawing follows the oasis geography; the exact extent of the royal demesne against the lands of the tegins is not known.

Primary sources for Qocho

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 Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. 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

3 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.