The Ongud, wardens of the Jin march

Who rules

Name

Alaqush Digit Quri (Alaqush Tegin Quri)

Title

Lord of the Ongud, hereditary warden of the marches

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Family

Son Buyan Shiban (Boyaohe); nephew Shigu; later descendants include George (Körgis).

Confidence

medium

Wikipedia's Alaqush page; the Yuanshi biography; the dates of 1205 and 1207 are later than 1200.

Overlord

The Jin court, whose frontier they guard.

What the realm holds

• The pastures north of the Yin Shan
• A frontier passage in the Jin works
• Olon Sume, a walled seat with churches
• Caravan trade between the Jin and the steppe

How it was acquired

Hereditary wardens under the Jin.

Allies and rivals

Allied to the Jin. Neighbours: the Tatars and Mongol clans to the north-east, the Naiman to the north-west.

The realm that morning

Jin warden and client. Allegiance to the Jin; the tie to Temujin is later.

Military

Frontier horse archers kept by the Jin's command; no numbers.

Threats

• Steppe raiders
• Jin demands

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. 1204 to 1205 (one line)Alaqush refuses Tayang Khan and warns Temujin, then allies with him.Depends on: Tayang's embassy and defeat. Stopped by: A Jin intervention.

Where the sources disagree

• Wikipedia's Ongud page gives no Jin office for Alaqush; we do not give one.
• Medievalists.net speculates that Temujin may have waited at the Ongud court during the missing years 1186 to 1196, which would explain the Ongud's later readiness to side with him; no source attests it and we treat the Ongud tie as later.
• The campaign board entry onggud-march (40.8 N, 111.7 E): that point lies south of the Jin trench near Hohhot, on North China ground (nch). The Ongud's northern seat, Olon Sume, is at 41.8 N, 110.7 E, which we use; the southern seat (Dongsheng, Koshang) is nch's.

Evidence: The Yuanshi, Wikipedia and the archaeology of Olon Sume agree on the tribe; 1200 positions are inferred.

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

On the map: The pastures extend into the Jin zone south of the trench line, which belongs to the North China sheet.

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 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
• Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online
• Full Record of the Mongol Tatars, Zhao Gong (趙珙), formerly attributed to Meng Gong (孟珙) (1221). The earliest outside description of the Mongols, by a Song envoy sent to the Mongol commander Muqali at Yanjing (Beijing) in 1221. 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