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). For 1196 to 1203 it gives the campaigns that the Secret History leaves undated: the Tatar war of 1196 fought alongside the Jin, Toghrul's restoration as Ong Khan, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the fight with the Tayichi'ut at Sa'ari Ke'er around 1200, Jamuqa's election as Gur Khan in 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. It omits the Secret History's less flattering episodes and is dry, but it is the backbone for dating the steppe in 1200.
About this source
- Title
- Shengwu qinzheng lu (聖武親征錄), also Huangyuan Shengwu qinzheng lu (皇元聖武親征錄)
- Author
- Anonymous
- Author's dates
- unknown; a Yuan court compilation
- Written
- presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369
- Language
- Chinese (translated from a Mongolian original)
- Covers
- Temujin's birth to the death of Ogodei in 1241
- Kind
- Chronicle
No full English translation is freely online; Pelliot and Hambis translated the first part into French (Histoire des campagnes de Gengis Khan, 1951, not free). Wang Guowei's 1926 annotated edition is the one scholars cite. The text is corrupt in places and its dates occasionally disagree with Rashid al-Din by a year.
Where to read it
Editions
- Wang Guowei (ed.), Shengwu qinzheng lu jiaozhu (聖武親征錄校注, 1926), the standard annotated edition (not freely online)
Read it online
About the source
Realms this source covers in 1200
- Temujin's Mongols
- The Kereyit of Toghrul, Ong Khan
- The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq
- The Merkit of Toqto'a Beki
- The Tayichi'ut of Tarqutai
- Jamuqa's following
- The other Mongol clans
- The Tatars
- The Onggirat
- The Ongud, wardens of the Jin march
- The Oirat of Qutuqa Beki
- The Jin empire of Zhangzong
- Great Xia, the Tangut empire