A walled town of the Khitan (Liao) frontier dated to 1004 by Yamaguchi and his colleagues, in Bulgan aimag, with three companion Khitan fortresses (Ullan Kherem, Khar Bukh and Khermen Denzh, which they call Helmendenji, the westernmost).
The Liao fell to the Jin in 1125 and its steppe commands were given up; by 1200 the walls are a ruin in Kereyit pasture. A Khitan remnant in the Jin and Qara Khitai services is known, but nothing is known of this place after 1125.
Who holds it
- Title
- No one holds the ruin
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
Kereyit range.
How things stand that morning
Ruin.
Council
none; no town
Walls and castle
Earthen town walls, ruined; the chain of four Khitan fortresses is a line of ruins.
Places of note
- Ullan Kherem (Khitan fortress; coordinates garbled in the paper, read as 47 55 49 N, 104 32 28 E): Companion Khitan fortress about 20 km from Chin Tolgoi.
Where the sources disagree
- The assignment queries 'Baikal's Khitan fortress Khermen Denzh'. It is not on Baikal: Yamaguchi et al. list it as the westernmost of four Khitan walled sites of central Mongolia (Chin Tolgoi, Ullan Kherem, Khar Bukh, Khermen Denzh/Helmendenji). Its coordinates were not available; Chin Tolgoi is 47 52 30.7 N, 104 14 47.2 E in the paper.
Evidence: Archaeology (Yamaguchi et al.); the 1200 condition is inferred.
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
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.