The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq

Who rules

Name

Tai Buqa (called Tayang Khan) and Buyiruq

Title

Two khans of one house: Tayang Khan for the steppe Naiman, Buyiruq Khan for the mountain Naiman

Since

The house divided after the death of Inanch Bilge Khan (1198 on one reading of the sources, not pinned)

Born

not known

Family

Guchugud (Güchügüd) branch of the Naiman; brothers, sons of Inanch Bilge Khan

Confidence

medium for the two khans and their house, low for where each sits in winter

Secret History sections 141-144, 158-163, 177, 187-198 (translation with dating footnotes read online); Wikipedia on Inanch Bilge, Buyruq, Tayang's son Kuchlug, Toghrul and the Naimans (citing Biran, Rashid, Togan, Gumilev, Ratchnevsky, the Cambridge History of China). Rashid al-Din, Juvaini and the Yuanshi were not opened.

Overlord

None shown for 1200. Biran (as cited by Wikipedia) has the Naiman subject to the Qara Khitai until about 1175; no tribute or garrison is dated to the 1190s.

What the realm holds

• Peoples: the Naiman clans of the steppe under Tayang and of the mountains under Buyiruq, herders of horses, sheep, cattle and camels (no count is known)
• Pastures: the Black Irtysh and Lake Zaysan basin and the Bukhtarma and Kurchum valleys (west); the Altai front and the Ulungur and Lake Kishil-bash country south of the Altai (south); the Khovd, Dzavkhan and Tes steppe and the lakes of the Great Lakes depression (east and north) up to the Khangai and the Tamir (a reconstruction)
• The khans' camps (ordu): no fixed court; Tayang's household includes the lady Gurbesu, his son Kuchlug, an Uyghur chancery; Buyiruq's includes the captain Kokse Sabraq
• Frontier watchers (sübechi) on the Khangai and Tamir edge facing the Kereyit, one of whom, Qori Subechi, is attested in 1203
• Trade: the road from the Altai to Beshbaliq and the Uyghur oases, and the Uyghur and Muslim merchants who use it (thin)
• No tribute from the Kyrgyz, the Oirat or the forest peoples is shown for 1200

How it was acquired

Independence from the Khitan is dated by Wikipedia to Inanch Bilge's rise after Yelu Dashi's death in 1143; the division between Tayang and Buyiruq follows Inanch Bilge's death (1198, or 1202 on one reading, which cannot be right if Buyiruq already acts alone in 1201).

Allies and rivals

Enemies: Toghrul and the Kereyit (old), and in time Temujin. Friends: Erke Qara, Toghrul's exiled brother, who fled to Buyiruq about 1198 (Wikipedia, after Rashid). In 1201 Buyiruq swears to Jamuqa with the Merkit, Oirat, Tatars, Onggirat and others; Tayang is absent. In 1204 Tayang, Jamuqa, the Merkit of Toqto'a, the Oirat of Qutuqa and others stand against Temujin. Neighbours: the Oirat and Kyrgyz to the north, the Merkit and Kereyit to the east, the Uyghurs of Qocho and the Qara Khitai at Emil to the south and south-west.

The realm that morning

The house is divided but not at war with itself. Tayang is taken to winter on the Black Irtysh and the Zaysan basin, Buyiruq on the Ulungur and Lake Kishil-bash south of the Altai; both are guesses built on Wikipedia's summaries. On the working reading (Rashid, the Chinese annals, the regional brief's '1199?') Buyiruq was beaten at Kishil-bash by Temujin and Toghrul in the autumn of 1199 and his captain Kokse Sabraq turned on Toghrul's son Senggum on the way back, so the Naiman and the Kereyit stand at open enmity this winter, though no fighting is recorded in it and Tayang's lands were not touched.

On the Secret History's order of events no Naiman army has yet met the Kereyit and the Mongols and none takes the field. Jamuqa is not with the Naiman (he is with Toghrul in 1202-03 and elected at the Argun in 1201); he comes to Tayang only in 1204. Across the borders: south of 46.3 N the Dzungarian plain and Beshbaliq belong to the Uyghur kingdom of Qocho (the Tarim sheet); the Emil valley and the Tarbagatay to the south-west lean to the Qara Khitai; the Irtysh steppe west of 82 E is outside this sheet.

Wealth

Herds above all; the trade between the Uyghur oases and the Mongolian steppe (cloth, silk, grain, tea and metal for horses, hides and furs); the pastures of the Altai front. Iron and gold of the Altai are not documented for the Naiman in 1200.

Military

Mounted archers of the Naiman clans under their khans; no castles, no standing garrisons; frontier watchers. The Secret History shows Kokse Sabraq drawing up Naiman troops at the Bayidaraq confluence (Year of the Dog) and, in 1204, Tayang planning to draw the Mongols west to the Altai to tire their horses while his son Kuchlug urges a charge. No numbers are given.

Threats

• Toghrul's Kereyit, with or without Temujin
• A winter disaster (dzud) on the Altai pastures
• Rivalry between the two brothers if Gurbesu's marriage or the succession is contested
• Qara Khitai claims to the south-west

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.

In 1200

1. 1200 (nothing dated)No Naiman act is dated to 1200 in the sources read. The year's recorded fighting is Temujin's war on the Tayichi'ut. A Naiman answer for Kishil-bash, or pressure on the Khangai march, is possible and unrecorded.Depends on: Whether the Kishil-bash campaign was fought in 1199; the two brothers acting together. Stopped by: A hard winter or spring on the Altai pastures; a quarrel between the brothers.
2. 1202, only if the Secret History's order is right (the autumn of 1199 and already past on the working reading)Toghrul and Temujin chase Buyiruq over the Altai to Lake Kishil-bash; Kokse Sabraq takes Senggum's household and is beaten by Temujin's four captains.Depends on: Toghrul's wish to punish Buyiruq and recover Erke Qara; the Secret History's later dating. Stopped by: A Kereyit-Naiman truce, or the campaign having been fought already in 1199.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201Buyiruq swears to Jamuqa at the Argun and tries a rain-stone spell against Temujin with Qutuqa at Koyiten; it fails and he withdraws south of the Altai (Secret History 141-144).Depends on: Jamuqa's election as gurkhan. Stopped by: Jamuqa failing to win the Mongol clans over.
2. Spring 1204Tayang marches east to the Khangai and is beaten at Chakir-ma'ut below Naqu-kun; he dies of his wounds, Kuchlug flees, Tata-tonga is taken, and Buyiruq alone is left until he is killed hunting in 1206.Depends on: Tayang's decision to attack Temujin. Stopped by: Peace with Temujin.

Places of note

• Lake Zaysan basin (Tayang's winter ground, guess): The low basin where the Black Irtysh enters Lake Zaysan, a classic winter ground; Wikipedia's article on Inanch Bilge puts Taibuqa near the lake.
• Ulungur and Lake Kishil-bash (Buyiruq's winter ground): The Ulungur river and lake south of the Altai, where the Secret History drives Buyiruq in its Year of the Dog.

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 entry naiman-orda puts the Naiman at 47.5 N 90.5 E (the Altai front above Khovd) as 'contested': this agrees that the house is split with Buyruq in the south, but the Naiman have no fixed court and the dot is only a centre of their range.
• The assignment lists Sa'ari-ke'er among Naiman winter camps. In the Secret History (sections 161, 193) Chinggis camps on the Sa'ari Steppe as his own ground and the Naiman scouts only see his fires from Mount Qangqarqan; it is Mongol ground east of the sheet line (mne's area), not Naiman.
• Wikipedia's article on Inanch Bilge puts Tayang near Lake Zaysan and Buyiruq in the Altai; its article on Buyruq puts Buyiruq south of the Altai near the source of the Ulungur and Tayang between the Black Irtysh and the Bukhtarma; the Secret History shows Tayang on the Khangai in 1204. Where each khan winters is not pinned.
• The Persia map's Qara Khitai record says the Naiman were 'split after the death of Inanch Bilge between his sons Tayang and Buyruq': agreed.

Evidence: The Naiman are known mostly through Mongol and Persian accounts of their fall in 1204 and a few Chinese and Persian notices; the date of the division, the camps and the khans' ages are not given, and the geography rests on summaries of Gumilev, Aristov and Togan seen through Wikipedia.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The outline is a reconstruction from scattered notices; the real borders were the reach of herds and the rivalry with the Kereyit, not lines. The line near 98 to 99 E is the Naiman-Kereyit march and is drawn thin.

Primary sources for this realm

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