Barkol is a high basin with a salt lake (the Han and Tang Pulei lake, recalled), long winters and good winter and summer grass on the north side of the Karlik Tag, on the road from Beshbaliq to Hami.
No town is recorded there in 1200. It is the pastoral half of the Hami road-lordship and the door by which a northern war-band could reach Hami from the Gobi-Altai side. The pass north from Barkol leads to the Mongolian side, which belongs to sheet mon.
Who holds it
- Title
- Probably under the lord of Hami; herders of the steppe owe him tolls or pasture dues.
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names a holder for 1 January 1200.
Lord in 1200
Probably under the lord of Hami; herders of the steppe owe him tolls or pasture dues.
Overlord
Probably under the lord of Hami; herders of the steppe owe him tolls or pasture dues.
How things stand that morning
Quiet; no raid or war recorded.
Wealth
Horses, sheep, felt.
Communities
Uyghur and steppe herders; no town.
Trade and crafts
Horses, sheep, felt.
Places of note
- Barkol: Lake and steppe
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Geography and road only; the campaign board has no Barkol entry.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A point only.
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.
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia: Hami
- Wikipedia: Qocho (list of idiquts drawn from Turghun Almas, flagged by the page itself as full of gaps)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.