Lake Kishil-bash

Who holds it

Name

Buyiruq Khan of the Naiman

Title

Lord of the camp (the lake is common water)

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

not applicable

Confidence

low

Wikipedia 'Buyruq Khan'; Secret History 144 and 158 as read online.

Lord in 1200

Buyiruq Khan of the Naiman

Overlord

None shown.

What the town holds

• The khan's tents, carts and herds on the lakeshore in winter
• The pastures between the lake and the Altai foot
• The river road up the Urunggu to the Altai crossing

How it was acquired

Not applicable.

Allies and rivals

The camp of a khan at enmity with Toghrul; Erke Qara, Toghrul's exiled brother, is said to be a guest at Buyiruq's court (Rashid via Wikipedia).

How things stand that morning

Winter camp of Buyiruq's household and herds, a guess built on Wikipedia's summaries. On the working reading the lake saw his defeat in the autumn of 1199 and the camp is a beaten but unbroken one, with Kokse Sabraq's men fresh from the raid on Senggum; on the Secret History's order the lake is quiet and the fight is still to come.

Wealth

Reed and lake-shore winter pasture for the herds (an inference from the country); the road south to Beshbaliq and the Uyghur oases.

Military

Naiman horsemen of Buyiruq's branch under Kokse Sabraq; no walls, no garrison.

Threats

• Toghrul's Kereyit and Temujin, who know the road over the Altai
• A hard winter (dzud) on the lakeshore

Charter

None known; not a town.

Council

The khan's household and the heads of the clans that winter on the lake; his captain Kokse Sabraq.

Communities

Naiman clansmen; no Christian or Buddhist house is named here.

Militia

The clan horsemen who follow Buyiruq; no count.

Walls and castle

None. Tents and carts.

Trade and crafts

Herding; the caravan road to Beshbaliq lies to the south (inference).

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. 1202, only if the Secret History's order is right (the autumn of 1199 and already past on the working reading)The Kereyit-Mongol army comes down the Urunggu and destroys Buyiruq's force at the lake.Depends on: Toghrul's pursuit of Buyiruq and of Erke Qara. Stopped by: A truce, or the campaign having been fought already in 1199.

Where the sources disagree

• Dating of the war on Buyiruq at Lake Kishil-bash and of Kokse Sabraq's seizure of Senggum's household. Rashid al-Din's order of events, the Chinese annals and the older English histories (Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, pp. 338-339, via Wikipedia's article 'Naimans') put a first campaign by Temujin and Toghrul against Buyiruq in 1199, before the Tayichi'ut war of 1200. The regional brief marks it '1199?', and the central-steppe records (Kereyit and the Khangai belt) treat it as done, so this record uses it as the working reading: by 1 January 1200 the Kereyit and Mongols have beaten Buyiruq at Kishil-bash and his captain Kokse Sabraq has struck back at Senggum on the way home (autumn 1199). The Secret History, in the translation read for this record, tells the same two episodes after the oath at the Argun (Year of the Cock, 1201) and Koyiten, in the Year of the Dog, which its footnotes give as 1202; on that order nothing has been fought between the Naiman and the Kereyit-Mongol allies on 1 January 1200 and both episodes lie in the future. The two cannot be reconciled with certainty and each record carries both. We could not open the Yuanshi or the Shengwu qinzheng lu (ctext and zh.wikisource were unreachable), so the Chinese side rests on secondary citations.
• The campaign board puts the Naiman orda at 47.5 N 90.5 E (board id naiman-orda), the Qinghe and Fuyun country between the lakes and the Altai crest. That is a day or two from this lake and fits a khan of the mountain Naiman; the campaign board dot is a lead, not a source.

Evidence: Wikipedia's article on Buyruq Khan for the winter ground; the Secret History as read online for the name Kishil-bashi and the river Urunggu; the identification with the Ulungur is a commentator's, not the source's. Nothing describes a camp.

"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; the lake is drawn at its modern place and the camp is not located more closely than the lakeshore.

Primary sources for The Naiman

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 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
• 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