The Uyghur court

Who he is

Name

not known: no officer of 1 January 1200 is named in any source we could open

Title

Princes (tegin), governors (tutuq), lords (beg) and scribes of the idiqut's court

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

The royal house and the leading landed and monastic families of Turfan

Confidence

low

The brief names the tutuq and the tegins. The titles are well attested in the Old Uyghur documents of Turfan: tegin (a prince of the royal house), beg (a lord), tutuq (a governor or deputy, borrowed from Chinese) and the scribes (bitigchi) who drew the sale, loan and grant deeds. The documents that name their holders are mostly of the 13th and 14th centuries; none we could check names a court officer for 1200. We describe the offices and leave the holders blank.

Overlord

The idiqut

What it holds

• Offices and districts in the idiqut's gift
• The chancery: deeds, grants, tribute lists, letters to the Qara Khitai, Xia and the steppe
• Estates of the great families, which are often also donors of cave temples

How it was acquired

By appointment and by birth.

Allies and rivals

Rivalry between the idiqut's heir and his brothers is a standing risk in any royal house. The commissioner is a watcher and a source of demands.

How things stand that morning

Names unknown. The court is at Qocho for the winter.

Wealth

Salaries in land and revenue, gifts at festivals, the fees of the chancery.

Military

Tegins and begs bring their retainers; no numbers.

Threats

• A quarrel over the succession
• The commissioner turning a faction against the idiqut

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. 1209A group at the Uyghur court, with or under the idiqut, turns on the commissioner and sends to Chinggis.Depends on: Mongol strength Stopped by: Court division over the break with the Qara Khitai

Places of note

• Qocho citadel: Where the court winters

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Offices from Turfan documents (recalled, not opened this session); the Tata-tonga detail from the Yuan shi (recalled). No holder named.

On the map: A court has no ground of its own on the map; the household lands are in the idiqut's record.

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.