A text in Jurchen with a Chinese translation, cut into a granite hillside at Bayankhutag in Khentii aimag, glorifies a successful Jin campaign of May or June 1196 under the general Wanyan Xiang against the Tatars of eastern Mongolia (the Zubu of the Jin texts).
Medievalists.net calls it the earliest record of an event in the life of the man who becomes Chinggis Khan, though the text does not name him: Temujin and Toghrul came to meet Wanyan Xiang and fought beside him, and the Jin gave Temujin the rank ja'ut quri and Toghrul the title wang. Wanyan Xiang went back to the Jin capital Zhongdu by the autumn of 1196. English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan) adds that Wanyan Xiang sent a vanguard under Wanyan Anguo toward the Kherlen River, where it held off the Tatars for three days until the main army arrived.
The inscription is the best physical proof on this sheet of how far Jin arms reached into the steppe: several hundred kilometres north of the boundary trench.
Who holds it
- Name
- the Jin general Wanyan Xiang (who ordered it)
- Title
- Monument; no holder
- Confidence
- medium
Lord in 1200
no one (a Jin monument on unaligned steppe)
How things stand that morning
A monument three and a half years old on empty steppe; no Jin garrison or post is known here.
Walls and castle
none (camp, mountain or open site)
Where the sources disagree
- The Wikipedia article on Toghrul puts the Jin-Tatar campaign about 1194 and the Timeline of the Jurchens gives 1196; the inscription fixes 1196.
Evidence: The inscription and its date are firm in the Jin evidence as summarised by Medievalists.net; the position on the map is only 'Bayankhutag soum, Khentii': we could not find the soum or the hillside in the gazetteer.
On the map: The point is a guess to within about 60 km inside Bayankhutag soum; it is a reader's marker, not a boundary.
Primary sources for Unaligned Mongol clans
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
- Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
- Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. 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
Sources and studies
- Chinggis Khan's missing ten years, 1186 to 1196 (Medievalists.net, 2022; summarises Ratchnevsky, the Servan Khaalga inscription and the Jin evidence)
- Timeline of the Jurchens (Wikipedia)
- Rise of Genghis Khan (Wikipedia)
- Jin dynasty, 1115 to 1234 (Wikipedia)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.