Toghrul (Ong Khan)

Who he is

Name

Toghrul (To'oril, Toghril)

Title

Khan (qan) of the Kereyit; wang (Ong Khan) by Jin grant of 1196

Since

Khan since the 1160s or 1170s (not pinned); restored for the second time in 1197 or 1198 with Temujin's help

Born

About 1130 (English Wikipedia: aged 72 or 73 at his death in 1203) or about 1140 (Russian Wikipedia); an age-mate of Yesugei. So between sixty and seventy on 1 January 1200 (guess)

Family

Father Qurjaqus Buyiruq Khan; grandfather Marghuz Buyiruq Khan; sons Senggum and Yeku (Uyku; the English Wikipedia names both); a wife who was a Khitan woman on the English Wikipedia (not named, and no other wife is named in what could be read); brothers Erke Qara, Jakha Gambu, Ilqa Selenge; killed brothers Tai Temur Taishi and Buqa Temur; daughter Cha'ur Beki (and, on the English Wikipedia, other unnamed daughters); nieces Ibaqa Beki and Sorqaqtani Beki. Marriages of the daughters in 1200 are not known.

Confidence

high for identity, title and tie to Temujin; medium for the years

Pelliot gives 1196 for the wang title (Rashid has a tiger year, 1194). The sequence expulsion by Erke Qara, flight to the Qara Khitai, return in 1197 with Temujin is that of the Wikipedia 'Rise of Genghis Khan' chronology; the older accounts differ.

Overlord

None. Jin rank of wang; no Jin or Qara Khitai suzerainty exercised over him that is attested.

What it holds

• The ordu (khan's camp and household) in the Black Forest of the Tula: tents, very likely a tent church (inferred), the khan's guard and servants, the golden tent for audiences (as the Secret History shows it in 1203)
• His own herds and the herdsmen who tend them (the herdsmen Badai and Kishliq of the Secret History's 1203 narrative are his)
• The loyalty, in name, of the Kereyit clans (Jirqin, Tonqayit, Sakayit, Tumaut, Albat on Rashid's list) and their nobles
• The sworn tie to Temujin and the right to call on the Mongol companions in war
• The Jin rank of wang and the gifts that go with it
• His patronage of the Church of the East community of the Kereyit and its priests (his own faith is presumed)

How it was acquired

Succeeded his father Qurjaqus Buyiruq Khan, killed two brothers, was driven out by his uncle Gur Khan and put back by Yesugei; driven out a second time by Erke Qara with the Naiman and put back by Temujin (1197 or 1198); made wang by the Jin in 1196 for his part in the campaign against the Tatar chief Megujin Se'ultu.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Temujin (sworn son); the Jin (rank, shared campaign); Jamuqa (in the 1199 campaign on one reconstruction). Rivals and enemies: Erke Qara (brother, in exile), the Naiman, the Merkit, the Tatars (broken). Neutral or distant: the Qara Khitai gurkhan (refuge in exile), the Tanguts (Jakha Gambu's refuge), the Ongud (wardens of the Jin march, kin in faith).

How things stand that morning

Winter quarters in the Black Forest, probably with his household, Senggum's camp and the nobles round him. (The Secret History's own order puts the Naiman campaign and the seizure of Senggum's family in 1202, not 1199; the working reading is kept here.) The autumn 1199 campaign against Buyiruq's Naiman ended badly for him: the Naiman raiders under Kokse Sabraq (Tayang's man in one chronology, Buyiruq's general in another) took Senggum's wife and son (the Wikipedia article on Toghrul) and herds, and Temujin's companions won them back. Toghrul is at war with the Naiman, on good terms with Temujin, hostile to the Merkit and carrying the debt of the 1199 rescue.

Through the father and son bond the Mongols share in the Jin favour that came to him with the wang rank. His brother Jakha Gambu is not pinned and Erke Qara is outside the Kereyit. The Secret History's Jamuqa is in his circle in 1199 and 1203; where he sits in the winter is for the east researcher.

Wealth

Herds, furs, Jin gifts with the wang rank, booty from the Tatar and Merkit raids, the trade of the Gobi roads; a golden tent (Secret History, 1203). No figures.

Military

The Kereyit host in clan bands round his household guard; no numbers. He fights beside Temujin's Mongols (Tatars 1196; Merkit 1198 and 1199; Naiman 1199) and is slower to move than they are. There is no fort; the Black Forest is the refuge.

Threats

• Naiman revenge and Erke Qara's claim
• Nobles and kin who would again put another man in his place
• A dzud
• Jamuqa's whispers and Senggum's jealousy of Temujin

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 or summer 1200 (month not pinned)Rides with Temujin against the Tayichi'ut on the Onon and shares the victory.Depends on: No Naiman strike on the Tula camps; the tie to Temujin holding. Stopped by: Senggum and the nobles refusing; a Naiman or Merkit raid.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1203After the break with Temujin he is beaten at the Jeje'er heights and killed by a Naiman patrol under Qori Subechi (one line; after the opening date).Depends on: Senggum's quarrel with Temujin. Stopped by: A marriage settlement between the two houses.

Places of note

• Toghrul's winter ordu, Black Forest of the Tula: Winter camp; exact valley not pinned.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry kereit-orda: 'the strongest steppe ruler'. See the realm record: first in rank, not secure in power.
• The assignment lists Quri Subechi among his officers. Qori Subechi was Naiman.
• The assignment lists 'Nilqa' as a separate son. It is Senggum's own name.
• The title wang is dated 1196 here (Pelliot, and the Jin-side inscription at Servan Khaalga of 1196 cited on the mne record, not opened here); Rashid's tiger year is 1194, which the English Wikipedia article follows.
• The campaign board entry kereit-orda: 'Nestorian Christian'. His own faith is presumed: the English Wikipedia article says there is no credible proof that he was Christian himself. The Kereyit people took the Church of the East by tradition about 1009 (see Church of the East (Kereyit)).
• Age: about 1130 on the English Wikipedia (72 or 73 at his death), about 1140 on the Russian; so between sixty and seventy on 1 January 1200.
• Exile and return: the English Wikipedia article has the Keraites back with him around 1198 after he spent about a year with the Qara Khitai and about two years as Temujin's guest; the Wikipedia chronology of Temujin's rise has the return in 1197. This record says 1197 or 1198.
• The English Wikipedia article has the Merkit under Toqto'a beside the Tayichi'ut against Toghrul and Temujin on the Onon in 1200; the Secret History and the other chronologies bring the Merkit in only in 1201.

Evidence: The man and his ties are thick in the Secret History, Rashid and the Chinese annals; the dates of the 1190s are thin and disagree. The text of the Secret History could not be reached this session; what it says is from memory.

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

On the map: A court in motion: the dot is the winter place in the Black Forest, the polygon is the Tula valley between the Tuul bend near Ulaanbaatar and the lower Tuul.

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