Khar Balgas

Who holds it

Title

No one holds the ruin; the Kereyit graze round it

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

Overlord

Kereyit range (the Naiman march is to the west).

How things stand that morning

Ruin in Kereyit pastures; no inhabitants beyond passing herdsmen.

Council

none; no town

Communities

None; the old Buddhist and Manichaean remains are dead (see Uyghur remains (Orkhon)).

Walls and castle

Mounded earthen city walls and a fortress tower still standing as ruins.

Places of note

• Khoshoo Tsaidam steles (Kul Tigin, Bilge Qaghan), approximate: Turkic khaganate inscriptions of 732 and 735, standing in the grass.

Where the sources disagree

• Karakorum is not here yet: Kharkhorin (47.19N 102.81E, 30 km to the south) has no town until about 1220. The coordinates of Khar Balgas are those commonly given (about 47.42N 102.75E); not checked against the archaeological report.

Evidence: Well known archaeologically; the 1200 condition (ruin, no occupation) is inferred from the absence of any later mention of a living town.

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