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162-479: Tolui ( c.  1191 –1232) was the youngest son of Genghis Khan and Börte . A prominent general during the early Mongol conquests , Tolui was a leading candidate to succeed his father after his death in 1227 and ultimately served as regent of the Mongol Empire until the accession of his brother Ögedei two years later. Tolui's wife was Sorghaghtani Beki ; their sons included Möngke and Kublai ,

324-510: A or e ( ᠎ᠠ ‑a/‑e ) is common, and can appear at the end of a word stem , or suffix . This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and an word-internal gap in between. This gap can be transliterated with a hyphen. The presence or lack of a separated a or e can also indicate differences in meaning between different words (compare ᠬᠠᠷ᠎ᠠ qar‑a 'black' with ᠬᠠᠷᠠ qara 'to look'). It has

486-531: A decisive victory for Temüjin. Toghrul and Senggum were both forced to flee, and while the latter escaped to Tibet , Toghrul was killed by a Naiman who did not recognise him. Temüjin sealed his victory by absorbing the Kereit elite into his own tribe: he took the princess Ibaqa as a wife, and married her sister Sorghaghtani and niece Doquz to his youngest son Tolui. The ranks of the Naimans had swelled due to

648-574: A phobia of dogs , the Secret History also recounts taboo events such as his fratricide and the possibility of his son Jochi's illegitimacy. Multiple chronicles in Persian have also survived, which display a mix of positive and negative attitudes towards Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Both Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani and Ata-Malik Juvayni completed their respective histories in 1260. Juzjani

810-573: A Jin princess, and massive amounts of gold and silk, before lifting the siege and setting off homewards in May 1214. As the northern Jin lands had been ravaged by plague and war, Xuanzong moved the capital and imperial court 600 kilometres (370 mi) southwards to Kaifeng . Interpreting this as an attempt to regroup in the south and then restart the war, Genghis concluded the terms of the peace treaty had been broken. He immediately prepared to return and capture Zhongdu. According to Christopher Atwood, it

972-453: A captive named Temüchin-uge, after whom he named the newborn in celebration of his victory, while later traditions highlight the root temür (meaning 'iron') and connect to theories that "Temüjin" means 'blacksmith'. Several legends surround Temüjin's birth. The most prominent is that he was born clutching a blood clot in his hand, a motif in Asian folklore indicating the child would be

1134-575: A challenge from the shaman Kokechu, whose father Münglig had been allowed to marry Hö'elün after he defected to Temüjin. Kokechu, who had proclaimed Temüjin as Genghis Khan and taken the Tengrist title "Teb Tenggeri" ( lit. "Wholly Heavenly") on account of his sorcery, was very influential among the Mongol commoners and sought to divide the imperial family. Genghis's brother Qasar was the first of Kokechu's targets—always distrusted by his brother, Qasar

1296-521: A clear defeat. Later chroniclers including Rashid al-Din instead state that he was victorious but their accounts contradict themselves and each other. Modern historians such as Ratchnevsky and Timothy May consider it very likely that Temüjin spent a large portion of the decade following the clash at Dalan Baljut as a servant of the Jurchen Jin dynasty in North China . Zhao Hong recorded that

1458-526: A close friendship with Jamukha , another boy of aristocratic descent; the Secret History notes that they exchanged knucklebones and arrows as gifts and swore the anda pact—the traditional oath of Mongol blood brothers –at eleven. As the family lacked allies, Temüjin was taken prisoner on multiple occasions. Captured by the Tayichiuds, he escaped during a feast and hid first in the Onon and then in

1620-408: A controversial figure. He was generous and intensely loyal to his followers, but ruthless towards his enemies. He welcomed advice from diverse sources in his quest for world domination, for which he believed the shamanic supreme deity Tengri had destined him. The Mongol army under Genghis killed millions of people, yet his conquests also facilitated unprecedented commercial and cultural exchange over

1782-615: A coup in Zhongdu, killing Yongji and installing his own puppet ruler, Xuanzong . This governmental breakdown was fortunate for Genghis's forces; emboldened by their victories, they had seriously overreached and lost the initiative. Unable to do more than camp before Zhongdu's fortifications while his army suffered from an epidemic and famine—they resorted to cannibalism according to Carpini , who may have been exaggerating—Genghis opened peace negotiations despite his commanders' militance. He secured tribute, including 3,000 horses, 500 slaves,

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1944-609: A cryptic remark made by Jamukha on the subject of camping; in any case, Temüjin followed the advice of Hö'elün and Börte and began to build an independent following. The major tribal rulers remained with Jamukha, but forty-one leaders gave their support to Temüjin along with many commoners: these included Subutai and others of the Uriankhai , the Barulas , the Olkhonuds, and many more. Many were attracted by Temüjin's reputation as

2106-451: A fair and generous lord who could offer better lives, while his shamans prophesied that heaven had allocated him a great destiny. Temüjin was soon acclaimed by his close followers as khan of the Mongols. Toghrul was pleased at his vassal's elevation but Jamukha was resentful. Tensions escalated into open hostility, and in around 1187 the two leaders clashed in battle at Dalan Baljut : the two forces were evenly matched but Temüjin suffered

2268-815: A final tail as in ⟨ ᠪᠣ ⟩ bo / bu or ⟨ ᠮᠣ᠋ ⟩ mo / mu , and with a vertical tail as in ⟨ ᠪᠥ᠋ ⟩ bö / bü or ⟨ ᠮᠥ᠋ ⟩ mö / mü (as well as in transcriptions of Chinese syllables). Only in a late form can a definite order of signs be established for the alphabet, but can likely be traced back to an earlier Uyghur model. ‍ᠠ᠋ ‍ᠡ᠋ ‍ᠥ‍ ‍ᠦ‍ ‍ᠨ᠋‍ ‍ᠨ᠎ [REDACTED] [REDACTED] k [REDACTED] ‍ᠭ᠋‍ [REDACTED] ‍ᠭ᠎ [REDACTED] g ‍ᠳ᠋‍ In 1587,

2430-419: A following, as nökod such as Jelme entered into his service. Temüjin and Börte had their first child, a daughter named Qojin, around this time. Soon afterwards, seeking revenge for Yesügei's abduction of Hö'elün, around 300 Merkits raided Temüjin's camp. While Temüjin and his brothers were able to hide on Burkhan Khaldun mountain , Börte and Sochigel were abducted. In accordance with levirate law, Börte

2592-587: A large-scale raid into the neighbouring Western Xia , who agreed to Mongol terms the following year. He then launched a campaign against the Jin dynasty , which lasted for four years and ended in 1215 with the capture of the Jin capital Zhongdu . His general Jebe annexed the Central Asian state of Qara Khitai in 1218. Genghis was provoked to invade the Khwarazmian Empire the following year by

2754-487: A leading warrior. Temüjin called in every possible ally and swore a famous oath of loyalty , later known as the Baljuna Covenant , to his faithful followers, which subsequently granted them great prestige. The oath-takers of Baljuna were a very heterogeneous group—men from nine different tribes who included Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, united only by loyalty to Temüjin and to each other. This group became

2916-412: A local history from the 1400s, stated that none of the inhabitants were killed with the exception of the garrison; meanwhile, the chronicler Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani , who fought the Mongols nearby, recorded that after an eight-month siege, the city was taken and its population slaughtered. It is now known, thanks to a chronicle rediscovered in 1944, that there were two sieges of Herat. The first started with

3078-552: A man named Qorchi as governor of the subdued Hoi-yin Irgen tribes in Siberia. Appointed not for his talents but for prior services rendered, Qorchi's tendency to abduct women as concubines for his harem caused the tribes to rebel and take him prisoner in early 1216. The following year, they ambushed and killed Boroqul , one of Genghis's highest-ranking nökod . The khan was livid at the loss of his close friend and prepared to lead

3240-493: A model for the later empire, termed a "proto-government of a proto-nation" by historian John Man . The Baljuna Covenant was omitted from the Secret History —as the group was predominantly non-Mongol, the author presumably wished to downplay the role of other tribes. A ruse de guerre involving Qasar allowed the Mongols to ambush the Kereit at the Jej'er Heights, but though the ensuing battle still lasted three days, it ended in

3402-510: A much harsher life. Taking up a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they collected roots and nuts, hunted for small animals, and caught fish. Tensions developed as the children grew older. Both Temüjin and Behter had claims to be their father's heir: although Temüjin was the child of Yesügei's chief wife, Behter was at least two years his senior. There was even the possibility that, as permitted under levirate law, Behter could marry Hö'elün upon attaining his majority and become Temüjin's stepfather. As

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3564-468: A patron, Temüjin chose to regift the cloak to Toghrul , khan (ruler) of the Kerait tribe, who had fought alongside Yesügei and sworn the anda pact with him. Toghrul ruled a vast territory in central Mongolia but distrusted many of his followers. In need of loyal replacements, he was delighted with the valuable gift and welcomed Temüjin into his protection. The two grew close, and Temüjin began to build

3726-475: A peculiar account that has given rise to suspicions that Ögedei had Tolui murdered. Atwood has theorised that these suspicions were the intended aim of the Secret Historian , writing under the patronage of Tolui's descendants wanting to subtly discredit their Ögedeid rivals. He proposes that the prosaic explanation of a death from alcoholism, as recorded by Juvayni, was the most likely; the official line

3888-407: A precedent for what to do after a khan's death. These included the halting of all offensive military actions involving Mongol troops, the establishment of a lengthy mourning period, which the regent would oversee, and the holding of a kurultai which would nominate successors and select them. For Tolui, this presented an opportunity. He was still a viable candidate for succession and had the support of

4050-482: A puppet ruler of his lineage. Genghis's senior nökod were appointed to the highest ranks and received the greatest honours. Bo'orchu and Muqali were each given ten thousand men to lead as commanders of the right and left wings of the army respectively. The other nökod were each given commands of one of the ninety-five minkad . In a display of Genghis' meritocratic ideals, many of these men were born to low social status: Ratchnevsky cited Jelme and Subutai,

4212-549: A reader who knows the orthography. Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word: initial, medial, or final. In some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character. The rules for writing below apply specifically for the Mongolian language, unless stated otherwise. Mongolian vowel harmony separates the vowels of words into three groups – two mutually exclusive and one neutral: Any Mongolian word can contain

4374-568: A retaliatory campaign; eventually dissuaded from this course, he dispatched his eldest son Jochi and a Dörbet commander. They managed to surprise and defeat the rebels, securing control over this economically important region. Kuchlug , the Naiman prince who had been defeated in 1204, had usurped the throne of the Central Asian Qara Khitai dynasty between 1211 and 1213. He was a greedy and arbitrary ruler who probably earned

4536-471: A reverse against a Xia army. After a two-month stalemate, Genghis broke the deadlock with a feigned retreat ; the Xia forces were deceived out of their defensive positions and overpowered. Although Zhongxing was now mostly undefended, the Mongols lacked any siege equipment better than crude battering rams and were unable to progress the siege. The Xia requested aid from the Jin, but Emperor Zhangzong rejected

4698-509: A reward, the Jin awarded him the honorific cha-ut kuri , the meaning of which probably approximated "commander of hundreds" in Jurchen . At around the same time, he assisted Toghrul with reclaiming the lordship of the Kereit, which had been usurped by one of Toghrul's relatives with the support of the powerful Naiman tribe . The actions of 1196 fundamentally changed Temüjin's position in the steppe—although nominally still Toghrul's vassal, he

4860-504: A series of defections, the most prominent of which led directly to Muqali's victory at the Battle of Huan'erzhui in autumn 1211. The campaign was halted in 1212 when Genghis was wounded by an arrow during the unsuccessful siege of Xijing (modern Datong ). Following this failure, Genghis set up a corps of siege engineers , which recruited 500 Jin experts over the next two years. The defences of Juyong Pass had been strongly reinforced by

5022-628: A small force in North China and invade Khwarazmia with most of his army. Mongolian script Computer operating systems have been slow to adopt support for the Mongolian script; almost all have incomplete support or other text rendering difficulties. The Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the Old Uyghur alphabet for the Mongolian language. Tata-tonga , a 13th-century Uyghur scribe captured by Genghis Khan ,

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5184-475: A stem. Such single-letter vowel suffixes appear with the final-shaped forms of a / e , i , or u / ü , as in ᠭᠠᠵᠠᠷ ᠠ γaǰar‑a 'to the country' and ᠡᠳᠦᠷ ᠡ edür‑e 'on the day', or ᠤᠯᠤᠰ ᠢ ulus‑i 'the state' etc. Multi-letter suffixes most often start with an initial- (consonants), medial- (vowels), or variant-shaped form. Medial-shaped u in

5346-675: A vast geographical area. He is remembered as a backwards, savage tyrant in Russia and the Arab world , while recent Western scholarship has begun to reassess its previous view of him as a barbarian warlord. He was posthumously deified in Mongolia ; modern Mongolians recognise him as the founding father of their nation. There is no universal romanisation system used for Mongolian ; as a result, modern spellings of Mongolian names vary greatly and may result in considerably different pronunciations from

5508-432: A warrior. Others claimed that Hö'elün was impregnated by a ray of light which announced the child's destiny, a legend which echoed that of the mythical Borjigin ancestor Alan Gua . Yesügei and Hö'elün had three younger sons after Temüjin: Qasar , Hachiun , and Temüge , as well as one daughter, Temülün . Temüjin also had two half-brothers, Behter and Belgutei , from Yesügei's secondary wife Sochigel , whose identity

5670-927: A wide variety of names. As it was derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet , the Mongol script is known as the Uighur(-)Mongol script . From 1941 onwards, it became known as the Old Script , in contrast to the New Script , referring to Cyrillic. The Mongolian script is also known as the Hudum or 'not exact' script, in comparison with the Todo 'clear, exact' script, and also as 'vertical script'. The traditional or classical Mongolian alphabet , sometimes called Hudum 'traditional' in Oirat in contrast to

5832-455: A year and a half, during which their leaders reforged their anda pact and slept together under one blanket, according to the Secret History . The source presents this period as close friends bonding, but Ratchnevsky questioned if Temüjin actually entered into Jamukha's service in return for the assistance with the Merkits. Tensions arose and the two leaders parted, ostensibly on account of

5994-399: Is narrated in the Secret History and contrasts with Rashid al-Din's account, which protects the family's reputation by removing any hint of illegitimacy. Over the next decade and a half, Temüjin and Börte had three more sons ( Chagatai , Ögedei , and Tolui ) and four more daughters ( Checheyigen , Alaqa , Tümelün, and Al-Altan ). The followers of Temüjin and Jamukha camped together for

6156-459: Is one among Oirat Clear , Manchu , and Buryat are the only known vertical scripts written from left to right. This developed because the Uyghurs rotated their Sogdian -derived script, originally written right to left, 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate Chinese writing, but without changing the relative orientation of the letters. The reed pen was the writing instrument of choice until

6318-412: Is somewhat comparable to the situation of English , which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses the digraph th for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements of vowel harmony and syllable sequence usually indicate the correct sound. Moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for

6480-591: Is the date accepted by most historians; the historian Paul Ratchnevsky noted that Temüjin himself may not have known the truth. The location of Temüjin's birth, which the Secret History records as Delüün Boldog on the Onon River , is similarly debated: it has been placed at either Dadal in Khentii Province or in southern Agin-Buryat Okrug , Russia. Temüjin was born into the Borjigin clan of

6642-439: Is uncertain. The siblings grew up at Yesugei's main camp on the banks of the Onon, where they learned how to ride a horse and shoot a bow. When Temüjin was eight years old, his father decided to betroth him to a suitable girl. Yesügei took his heir to the pastures of Hö'elün's prestigious Onggirat tribe, which had intermarried with the Mongols on many previous occasions. There, he arranged a betrothal between Temüjin and Börte ,

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6804-450: The keshig nevertheless received special privileges and direct access to the khan, whom they served and who in return evaluated their capabilities and their potential to govern or command. Commanders such as Subutai, Chormaqan , and Baiju all started out in the keshig , before being given command of their own force. From 1204 to 1209, Genghis Khan was predominantly focused on consolidating and maintaining his new nation. He faced

6966-574: The Georgian Chronicles , and works by European travellers such as Carpini and Marco Polo . The year of Temüjin's birth is disputed, as historians favour different dates: 1155, 1162 or 1167. Some traditions place his birth in the Year of the Pig , which was either 1155 or 1167. While a dating to 1155 is supported by the writings of both Zhao Hong and Rashid al-Din, other major sources such as

7128-560: The Shengwu qinzheng lu ( Campaigns of Genghis Khan ). The History of Yuan , while poorly edited, provides a large amount of detail on individual campaigns and people; the Shengwu is more disciplined in its chronology, but does not criticise Genghis and occasionally contains errors. The Secret History survived through being transliterated into Chinese characters during the 14th and 15th centuries. Its historicity has been disputed:

7290-489: The Clear script ( Todo 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write the Mongolian language . It does not distinguish several vowels ( o / u , ö / ü , final a / e ) and consonants (syllable-initial t / d and k / g , sometimes ǰ / y ) that were not required for Uyghur , which was the source of the Mongol (or Uyghur-Mongol) script. The result

7452-525: The History of Yuan and the Shengwu favour the year 1162. The 1167 dating, favoured by the sinologist Paul Pelliot , is derived from a minor source—a text of the Yuan artist Yang Weizhen —but is more compatible with the events of Genghis Khan's life than a 1155 placement, which implies that he did not have children until after the age of thirty and continued actively campaigning into his seventh decade. 1162

7614-463: The Manchu hooked yodh was adopted for initial [ j ] . Zain was dropped as it was redundant for [ s ] . Various schools of orthography, some using diacritics , were developed to avoid ambiguity. Traditional Mongolian words are written vertically from top to bottom, flowing in lines from left to right. The Old Uyghur script and its descendants, of which traditional Mongolian

7776-591: The Mongol appanage system , Genghis allocated lands and populations as property to each member of his close family. His brothers Qasar , Hachiun , Temüge , and Belgutei were given lands along the Greater Khingan mountains in the east, and the lands of his three elder sons were located in the west: for Jochi, along the Irtysh river , extending into Siberia and the territory of the Kipchaks ; for Chagatai,

7938-555: The Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire secured his reputation. After the fall of the cities of Transoxiana in 1220, Genghis dispatched Tolui early the following year to subjugate the region of Khorasan , which had begun to cause trouble for the Mongol armies. Tolui executed his orders with ruthless efficiency, assaulting the major cities of Merv , Nishapur , and Herat , and subjugating numerous others. Medieval chroniclers attributed more than three million deaths to

8100-513: The Mongol tribe to Yesügei , a chieftain who claimed descent from the legendary warlord Bodonchar Munkhag , and his principal wife Hö'elün , originally of the Olkhonud clan, whom Yesügei had abducted from her Merkit bridegroom Chiledu. The origin of his birth name is contested: the earliest traditions hold that his father had just returned from a successful campaign against the Tatars with

8262-617: The Pamir Mountains , but was captured by local hunters. Jebe had him beheaded and paraded his corpse through Qara Khitai, proclaiming the end of religious persecution in the region. Genghis had now attained complete control of the eastern portion of the Silk Road , and his territory bordered that of the Khwarazmian Empire , which ruled over much of Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan . Merchants from both sides were eager to restart trading, which had halted during Kuchlug's rule;

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8424-415: The Secret History , are indicative of the emphasis its author put on Genghis' personal charisma. Temüjin returned to Dei Sechen to marry Börte when he reached the age of majority at fifteen. Delighted to see the son-in-law he feared had died, Dei Sechen consented to the marriage and accompanied the newlyweds back to Temüjin's camp; his wife Čotan presented Hö'elün with an expensive sable cloak. Seeking

8586-399: The Shengwu however imply that Yesügei's brothers stood by the widow. It is possible that Hö'elün may have refused to join in levirate marriage with one, resulting in later tensions, or that the author of the Secret History dramatised the situation. All the sources agree that most of Yesügei's people renounced his family in favour of the Tayichiuds and that Hö'elün's family were reduced to

8748-635: The Toluid Revolution of 1252, the accession of her eldest son Möngke, and a near-total purge of the Ögedeid and Chagataid branches of the imperial family; The Toluids would remain the holders of the imperial title as it evolved into the Yuan dynasty under the second son Kublai and eventually fell, while their third son Hulagu became the founder of the Ilkhanate in Persia. Tolui was later elevated to

8910-568: The Yuan dynasty in 1271, he bestowed the temple name Taizu ( 太祖 , meaning 'Supreme Progenitor') and the posthumous name Shengwu Huangdi ( 聖 武 皇帝 , meaning 'Holy-Martial Emperor') upon his grandfather. Kublai's great-grandson Külüg Khan later expanded this title into Fatian Qiyun Shengwu Huangdi ( 法 天 啟 運 聖 武 皇帝 , meaning 'Interpreter of the Heavenly Law, Initiator of the Good Fortune, Holy-Martial Emperor'). As

9072-587: The i phoneme (in the Chakhar dialect , the Standard Mongolian in Inner Mongolia , these vowels are still distinct); inter-vocal consonants γ / g , b / w had disappeared and the preliminary process of the formation of Mongolian long vowels had begun; the initial h was preserved in many words; grammatical categories were partially absent, etc. The development over this period explains why

9234-587: The upper Vakhsh river in modern-day Tajikistan . By this point, Jebe and Subutai had moved into western Iran , and the cities which had earlier submitted to them in the Khorasan region had become bolder; Genghis Khan's son-in law Toquchar was killed by a nascent rebellion at Nishapur in November 1220. After capturing Balkh in early 1221 and while continuing to besiege Taliqan , Genghis dispatched Tolui to Khorasan to make sure that no opposition remained in

9396-532: The "Great Mongol State", and to commanders who had gained their rank through merit and loyalty to the khan. This particular reform proved extremely effective—even after the division of the Mongol Empire , fragmentation never happened along tribal lines. Instead, the descendants of Genghis continued to reign unchallenged, in some cases until as late as the 1700s, and even powerful non-imperial dynasts such as Timur and Edigu were compelled to rule from behind

9558-465: The 14th-century Persian historian Rashid al-Din . According to the Secret History , the five year-old Tolui was saved by Altani, the wife of the general Boroqul , who held onto the Tatar kidnapper until two other Mongols killed him; Rashid al-Din on the other hand recounts that Tolui was saved by his adopted brother Shigi Qutuqu , then a young adolescent, with the help of a nearby Mongol sheepdog . After

9720-410: The 18th century, when the brush took its place under Chinese influence. Pens were also historically made of wood, bamboo , bone, bronze , or iron. Ink used was black or cinnabar red, and written with on birch bark , paper, cloths made of silk or cotton, and wooden or silver plates. Mongols learned their script as a syllabary , dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on

9882-462: The 20th-century sinologist Arthur Waley considered it a literary work with no historiographical value, but more recent historians have given the work much more credence. Although it is clear that the work's chronology is suspect and that some passages were removed or modified for better narration, the Secret History is valued highly because the anonymous author is often critical of Genghis Khan: in addition to presenting him as indecisive and as having

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10044-595: The Jin province of Henan , and engage the enemy at Mount Sangfeng on 9 February 1232. Outnumbering Tolui's army by a large margin, the Jin threatened to rape all the Mongol women in the army; after Tolui's forces emerged victorious, they retaliated with the sodomization of the entire Jin force. Tolui's success strengthened his position in the Mongol court, while Ogedei's mediocre military performance weakened his own. Tolui died later that year in mysterious circumstances near Beijing ; he had travelled northwards with his brother while Subutai besieged Kaifeng . According to

10206-427: The Jin throne in 1209. He had previously served on the steppe frontier and Genghis greatly disliked him. When asked to submit and pay the annual tribute to Yongji in 1210, Genghis instead mocked the emperor, spat, and rode away from the Jin envoy—a challenge that meant war. Despite the possibility of being outnumbered eight-to-one by 600,000 Jin soldiers, Genghis had prepared to invade the Jin since learning in 1206 that

10368-484: The Khwarazmian border town of Otrar , decided to massacre the merchants on grounds of espionage and seize the goods; Muhammad had grown suspicious of Genghis's intentions and either supported Inalchuq or turned a blind eye. A Mongol ambassador was sent with two companions to avert war, but Muhammad killed him and humiliated his companions. The killing of an envoy infuriated Genghis, who resolved to leave Muqali with

10530-401: The Khwarazmian ruler Muhammad II dispatched an envoy shortly after the Mongol capture of Zhongdu, while Genghis instructed his merchants to obtain the high-quality textiles and steel of Central and Western Asia. Many members of the altan uruq invested in one particular caravan of 450 merchants which set off to Khwarazmia in 1218 with a large quantity of wares. Inalchuq , the governor of

10692-766: The Mandarin retroflex consonants . These letters remain in use in Inner Mongolia for the purpose of transcribing Chinese. ཛ When written between words, punctuation marks use space on both sides of them. They can also appear at the very end of a line, regardless of where the preceding word ends. Red (cinnabar) ink is used in many manuscripts, to either symbolize emphasis or respect. Modern punctuation incorporates Western marks: parentheses; quotation, question, and exclamation marks; including precomposed ⁈ and ⁉ . Mongolian numerals are either written from left to right, or from top to bottom. For typographical reasons, they are rotated 90° in modern books to fit on

10854-469: The Mongol social hierarchy in his favour. The highest tier was occupied solely by his and his brothers' families, who became known as the altan uruq ( lit. 'Golden Family') or chaghan yasun ( lit. 'white bone'); underneath them came the qara yasun ( lit. 'black bone'; sometimes qarachu ), composed of the surviving pre-empire aristocracy and the most important of the new families. To break any concept of tribal loyalty, Mongol society

11016-453: The Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script (in particular the presence of the dot system). Eventually, minor concessions were made to the differences between the Uyghur and Mongol languages: In the 17th and 18th centuries, smoother and more angular versions of the letter tsadi became associated with [ dʒ ] and [ tʃ ] respectively, and in the 19th century,

11178-740: The Mongols , monuments in the Square script , materials of the Chinese–Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century and materials of the Mongolian language of the middle period in Chinese transcription, etc.; in the western dialect, materials of the Arab–Mongolian and Persian–Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. The main features of the period are that the vowels ï and i had lost their phonemic significance, creating

11340-581: The Mongols withdrew. With his brother-in-law Chigu, he assaulted the walls of Dexing in autumn 1213 during preparations for the assault on the Juyong Pass . During the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire , which began in 1219, Tolui initially accompanied his father's army. They bypassed the ongoing siege at Otrar to attack the major centres of Transoxiana —the Khwarazmshah 's capital Samarkand and its neighbour Bukhara —in early 1220. The latter

11502-466: The Mongols, although their neutrality and reliability are often suspect. Additional Chinese sources include the chronicles of the dynasties conquered by the Mongols, and the Song diplomat Zhao Hong , who visited the Mongols in 1221. Arabic sources include a contemporary biography of the Khwarazmian prince Jalal al-Din by his companion al-Nasawi . There are also several later Christian chronicles, including

11664-487: The Mongols. The Mongols had started raiding the border settlements of the Tangut -led Western Xia kingdom in 1205, ostensibly in retaliation for allowing Senggum, Toghrul's son, refuge. More prosaic explanations include rejuvenating the depleted Mongol economy with an influx of fresh goods and livestock , or simply subjugating a semi-hostile state to protect the nascent Mongol nation. Most Xia troops were stationed along

11826-491: The Naimans at Chakirmaut, was betrayed to Temüjin by companions who were executed for their lack of loyalty. According to the Secret History , Jamukha convinced his childhood anda to execute him honourably; other accounts state that he was killed by dismemberment . Now sole ruler of the steppe, Temüjin held a large assembly called a kurultai at the source of the Onon River in 1206. Here, he formally adopted

11988-518: The Tatars left three military powers in the steppe: the Naimans in the west, the Mongols in the east, and the Kereit in between. Seeking to cement his position, Temüjin proposed that his son Jochi marry one of Toghrul's daughters. Led by Toghrul's son Senggum, the Kereit elite believed the proposal to be an attempt to gain control over their tribe, while the doubts over Jochi's parentage would have offended them further. In addition, Jamukha drew attention to

12150-566: The arrival of Jamukha and others defeated by the Mongols, and they prepared for war. Temüjin was informed of these events by Alaqush , the sympathetic ruler of the Ongud tribe. In May 1204, at the Battle of Chakirmaut in the Altai Mountains , the Naimans were decisively defeated: their leader Tayang Khan was killed, and his son Kuchlug was forced to flee west. The Merkits were decimated later that year, while Jamukha, who had abandoned

12312-451: The assault had begun before the end of the day, with the walls being breached on 9 April and the city captured the next day. According to Juvayni, the city was razed in revenge; Toquchar's widow supervised the massacre of the entire population of the city, with the exception of 400 craftsmen. Unlike in Merv, all children were killed, and the corpses of the alleged 1,747,000 victims, including all

12474-405: The cats and dogs in the city, were piled in great heaps. The ground was subsequently ploughed over. While marching through the region, Tolui was also sending detachments against surrounding towns such as Abiward , Nasa , Tus , and Jajarm . There has been some confusion about the fate of Herat , the last of the great cities of Khorasan. The early 20th-century historian Vasily Bartold , citing

12636-714: The city of Hohhot ; as opposed to other compound words). This also allows components of different harmonic classes to be joined together, and vowels of an added suffix will harmonize with those of the latter part of the compound. Orthographic peculiarities are most often retained, as with the short and long teeth of an initial-shaped ⟨ ᠥ‍ → ᠊ᠥ᠌‍ ⟩ ö in ᠮᠤᠤ‍ ‍ᠥ᠌‍ ‍ᠬᠢᠨ Muu' ö kin 'Bad Girl' ( protective name ). Medial t and d , in contrast, are not affected in this way. Isolate citation forms for syllables containing o , u , ö , and ü may in dictionaries appear without

12798-466: The daughter of Kuchlug , prince of the Naiman tribe , and had a son named Qutuqtu with her. Tolui was considered the best warrior of the sons of Temüjin, who entitled himself Genghis Khan at a kurultai in 1206. He commanded armies during the invasion of Jin China ; when Genghis was wounded by an arrow during the siege of Xijing (modern Datong ), Tolui was appointed to command the besieging army until

12960-420: The daughter of an Onggirat chieftain named Dei Sechen . As the betrothal meant Yesügei would gain a powerful ally and as Börte commanded a high bride price , Dei Sechen held the stronger negotiating position, and demanded that Temüjin remain in his household to work off his future debt. Accepting this condition, Yesügei requested a meal from a band of Tatars he encountered while riding homewards alone, relying on

13122-480: The dead and arrived at a figure of 1,300,000. Tolui had meanwhile marched on south-westerly towards Nishapur, which had already seen a number of events during the war. Muhammad II , the ruler of the Khwarazmian Empire , had arrived nearly a year earlier on 18 April 1220, fleeing the Mongol advance in Transoxiana. He departed in mid-May that year, just in time to escape the armies of Jebe and Subutai, who arrived

13284-856: The death of Ögedei's son Güyük . The year of Tolui's birth is disputed; while the historian Christopher Atwood believes he was born in 1191 or 1192, the sinologists Frederick W. Mote and Paul Ratchnevsky placed the date in the late 1180s. He was the fourth son of Temüjin , the future Genghis Khan, and Börte , Temüjin's first wife; his elder brothers were Jochi ( b.   c.  1184 ), Chagatai ( b.   c.  1185 ), and Ögedei ( b.   c.  1186 ). He also had five full sisters—in order of birth, these were Qojin, Chechiyegen, Alaqa , Tumelun, and Altun. The name "Tolui" ( Mongolian script : ᠲᠤᠯᠤᠢ , Mongolian : Толуй , meaning 'mirror') has also been transliterated to English as Toli and Tuluy , among other spellings. The historian Isenbike Togan has speculated that "Tolui"

13446-463: The defeat and death of the Kereit khan Toghrul in 1203, Tolui received Toghrul's niece Sorghaghtani Beki and granddaughter Doquz Khatun , both Nestorian Christians , as wives. Tolui and Sorghaghtani had their first son, Möngke , in 1209; Kublai and Hulagu followed in 1215 and 1217 respectively, while their final son Ariq Böke was born more than a decade afterwards. Tolui also married Lingqun,

13608-637: The depleted Shaanxi province, the brothers withdrew to Inner Mongolia to plan. They decided to adopt one of their father's ideas: in a massive pincer movement , Tolui, accompanied by Subutai and Shigi Qutuqu, would bypass Tongguan by traversing Song territory to the south of Shaanxi, while Ogedei marched towards the Jin capital Kaifeng along the Yellow River . This risky strategy paid off—although Tolui's men allegedly suffered such deprivations they resorted to cannibalism —he successfully managed to gather provisions from untouched Song lands, cross back into

13770-446: The disobedient Jurkin tribe that had previously offended him at a feast and refused to participate in the Tatar campaign. After executing their leaders, he had Belgutei symbolically break a leading Jurkin's back in a staged wrestling match in retribution. This latter incident, which contravened Mongol customs of justice, was only noted by the author of the Secret History , who openly disapproved. These events occurred c. 1197. During

13932-409: The enmity of the native Islamic populace whom he attempted to forcibly convert to Buddhism . Genghis reckoned that Kuchlug could be a threat to his empire, and Jebe was sent with an army of 20,000 cavalry to the city of Kashgar ; he undermined Kuchlug's rule by emphasising the Mongol policies of religious tolerance and gained the loyalty of the local elite. Kuchlug was forced to flee southwards to

14094-433: The entire population be driven out on the plain and put to the sword, excluding a small number of artisans and children. It was reported that each Mongol soldier was allotted between three and four hundred people to kill; the contemporary chronicler Ibn al-Athir estimated the number of deaths at 700,000, while the chronicler Ata-Malik Juvayni , writing a few decades later, recorded that a cleric spent thirteen days counting

14256-416: The execution of a Mongol diplomat in the town; an incensed Tolui launched an eight-day assault, which culminated in the death of the town's malik (governor). From the edge of the city moat, Tolui proclaimed that the inhabitants would be spared if they surrendered. Unlike at Merv, the Mongols honoured their word, only killing the 12,000 men in the city garrison. Having appointed a Mongol overseer to govern

14418-419: The execution of his envoys; the campaign toppled the Khwarazmian state and devastated the regions of Transoxiana and Khorasan , while Jebe and his colleague Subutai led an expedition that reached Georgia and Kievan Rus' . In 1227, Genghis died while subduing the rebellious Western Xia; following a two-year interregnum , his third son and heir Ögedei acceded to the throne in 1229. Genghis Khan remains

14580-482: The extensive and wealthy region. His task was to pacify and subjugate the region and its cities by any means possible, and he carried out the task "with a thoroughness from which that region has never recovered", in the words of the historian J.A. Boyle . Tolui's army was composed of a tenth of the Mongol invasion force augmented by Khwarazmian conscripts ; the historian Carl Sverdrup estimates its size at around 7,000 men. He marched westwards from Balkh to Murichaq , on

14742-415: The family of Jochi. Any general kurultai, attended by the commanders Genghis had promoted and honoured, would however observe their former ruler's desires without question and appoint Ögedei as ruler. It has been suggested that Tolui's reluctance to hold the kurultai was driven by the knowledge of the threat it posed to his ambitions. In the end, Tolui had to be convinced by the bureaucrat Yelu Chucai to hold

14904-534: The field himself in autumn, accompanied by Tolui and the latter's son Möngke, who had been raised by Ögedei's childless third wife Angqui. Much of the events of this campaign are confused in the sources due to chronological difficulties and later suppressions of taboo information: the following is a rough outline by the historian Christopher Atwood. The defeat at the Tongguan Pass was likely followed by two more, including one over Subutai; these reverses threatened

15066-594: The final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The script remained in continuous use by Mongolian speakers in Inner Mongolia in the People's Republic of China . In the Mongolian People's Republic , it was largely replaced by the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet , although the vertical script remained in limited use. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to increase

15228-424: The following day. After assessing the city for six days, Tolui came to the conclusion that the city fortifications would withstand a lengthy siege. Having been subjected to a general assault on the seventh day, the townspeople, who twice attempted a sortie to no effect, lost the will to resist and surrendered to the Mongols, who promised to treat them fairly. Tolui, however, reneged on this guarantee, and ordered that

15390-421: The following day. The city submitted to the generals, who requested them to reduce their walls and aid any Mongols who passed by. However, the city did not heed these instructions and instead began causing trouble for the Mongols, killing Toquchar when he attempted to enforce control. Jalal al-Din , the eldest son and heir of the now-deceased Muhammad II, arrived at the city on 10 February 1221, attempting to escape

15552-481: The following month. These border fortifications were guarded by Alaqush's Ongud, who allowed the Mongols to pass without difficulty. The three-pronged chevauchée aimed both to plunder and burn a vast area of Jin territory to deprive them of supplies and popular legitimacy, and to secure the mountain passes which allowed access to the North China Plain . The Jin lost numerous towns and were hindered by

15714-700: The following years, Temüjin and Toghrul campaigned against the Merkits, the Naimans, and the Tatars; sometimes separately and sometimes together. In around 1201, a collection of dissatisfied tribes including the Onggirat, the Tayichiud, and the Tatars swore to break the domination of the Borjigin-Kereit alliance, electing Jamukha as their leader and gurkhan ( lit.   ' "khan of the tribes" ' ). After some initial successes, Temüjin and Toghrul routed this loose confederation at Yedi Qunan , and Jamukha

15876-524: The former Qara Khitai territories surrounding Almaligh in Turkestan ; for Ögedei, lands in Dzungaria ; and for Tolui the Mongolian fatherland near the Altai Mountains . The Secret History of the Mongols records that he chose his successor at the behest of his wife Yisui while preparing for the Khwarazmian campaigns in 1219. Rashid al-Din, on the other hand, states that the decision came before

16038-401: The foundations for larger states and had been the downfall of previous steppe confederations. Genghis thus began a series of administrative reforms designed to suppress the power of tribal affiliations and to replace them with unconditional loyalty to the khan and the ruling family. As most of the traditional tribal leaders had been killed during his rise to power, Genghis was able to reconstruct

16200-416: The fourth and fifth khans of the empire, and Hulagu , the founder of the Ilkhanate . Tolui was less active than his elder brothers Jochi , Chagatai , and Ögedei during their father's rise to power , but once he reached adulthood he was considered the finest warrior of the four. He commanded armies under his father during the first invasion of Jin China (1211–1215), and his distinguished service during

16362-482: The friction, exacerbated by frequent disputes over the division of hunting spoils, intensified, Temüjin and his younger brother Qasar ambushed and killed Behter. This taboo act was omitted from the official chronicles but not from the Secret History , which recounts that Hö'elün angrily reprimanded her sons. Behter's younger full-brother Belgutei did not seek vengeance, and became one of Temüjin's highest-ranking followers alongside Qasar. Around this time, Temüjin developed

16524-513: The future Genghis Khan spent several years as a slave of the Jin. Formerly seen as an expression of nationalistic arrogance, the statement is now thought to be based in fact, especially as no other source convincingly explains Temüjin's activities between Dalan Baljut and c.  1195 . Taking refuge across the border was a common practice both for disaffected steppe leaders and disgraced Chinese officials. Temüjin's reemergence having retained significant power indicates that he probably profited in

16686-496: The khan's final campaign against the Xia dynasty . Regardless of the date, there were five possible candidates: Genghis Khan's four sons and his youngest brother Temüge, who had the weakest claim and who was never seriously considered. Even though there was a strong possibility Jochi, born after Börte had been kidnapped and raped by Merkit tribesmen, was illegitimate , Genghis was not particularly concerned by this; nevertheless, he and Jochi became increasingly estranged over time. This

16848-575: The kurultai; in 1229, it crowned Ögedei as khan, with Tolui recorded as the first to acclaim the new ruler; the Secret History , written by Toluid-favouring chroniclers, possibly exaggerates his role. The remnants of the Jin dynasty in Shaanxi were proving difficult to handle at the start of Ögedei's reign: their leading general defeated a Mongol general in 1230 at the Tongguan Pass . Ögedei took to

17010-537: The line. Listed in the table below are letter components ( graphemes ) commonly used across the script. Some of these are used with several letters, and others to contrast between them. As their forms and usage may differ between writing styles , however, examples of these can be found under this section below. As exemplified in this section, the shapes of glyphs may vary widely between different styles of writing and choice of medium with which to produce them. The development of written Mongolian can be divided into

17172-533: The massacres he ordered at Nishapur and Merv; while these figures are considered exaggerated by modern historians, they are evidence of the abnormal brutality of Tolui's campaign. As the Mongols' traditional inheritance system was a form of ultimogeniture , Tolui was always a leading candidate to succeed his father. His position was strengthened by the elimination of Jochi and Chagatai, on account of possible illegitimacy and excessive arrogance respectively. Genghis eventually passed Tolui over in favour of Ögedei, who

17334-488: The name as J̌ingiz , while Syriac authors used Šīngīz . In addition to "Genghis", introduced into English during the 18th century based on a misreading of Persian sources, modern English spellings include "Chinggis", "Chingis", "Jinghis", and "Jengiz". His birth name "Temüjin" ( ᠲᠡᠮᠦᠵᠢᠨ ; 鐵木真 Tiěmùzhēn ) is sometimes also spelled "Temuchin" in English. When Genghis's grandson Kublai Khan established

17496-427: The neutral vowel i , but only vowels from either of the other two groups. The vowel qualities of visually separated vowels and suffixes must likewise harmonize with those of the preceding word stem. Such suffixes are written with front or neutral vowels when preceded by a word stem containing only neutral vowels. Any of these rules might not apply for foreign words however. A separated final form of vowels

17658-455: The official records in the Secret History , he sacrificed his life in a shamanic ritual to spare Ögedei, who had been cursed by the maleficent spirits of Jin China; although the shamans sought to bribe the spirits with gifts of booty, livestock, or commoners, they were only willing to accept a member of the imperial family. It is recorded that Tolui volunteered for this fate, following a prophecy he had allegedly made during his father's lifetime,

17820-412: The ongoing Mongol siege at Gurganj , the capital of the empire; he remained at the city for only a couple of days before departing in the direction of Zozan . Tolui arrived at the city on 7 April and the inhabitants, awed by the size of his force, immediately sought to agree surrender terms. Because the killing of the khan's son-in-law had been a grave insult to the Mongols, all proposals were rejected;

17982-523: The order of Genghis's descendant Ghazan in the early 14th century. Ghazan allowed Rashid privileged access to both confidential Mongol sources such as the Altan Debter and to experts on the Mongol oral tradition, including Kublai Khan's ambassador Bolad Chingsang . As he was writing an official chronicle, Rashid censored inconvenient or taboo details. There are many other contemporary histories which include additional information on Genghis Khan and

18144-410: The original. The honorific most commonly rendered as "Genghis" ultimately derives from the Mongolian ᠴᠢᠩᠭᠢᠰ , which may be romanised as Činggis . This was adapted into Chinese as 成吉思 Chéngjísī , and into Persian as چنگیز Čəngīz . As Arabic lacks a sound similar to [ tʃ ] , represented in the Mongolian and Persian romanisations by ⟨ č ⟩, writers transcribed

18306-502: The plea. Genghis's attempt to redirect the Yellow River into the city with a dam initially worked, but the poorly-constructed earthworks broke—possibly breached by the Xia—in January 1210 and the Mongol camp was flooded, forcing them to retreat. A peace treaty was soon formalised: the Xia emperor Xiangzong submitted and handed over tribute, including his daughter Chaka, in exchange for the Mongol withdrawal. Wanyan Yongji usurped

18468-524: The politician and linguist Bayantömöriin Khaisan published the rime dictionary Mongolian-Han Bilingual Original Sounds of the Five Regions , a bilingual edition of the earlier Original Sounds of the Five Regions , to aid Mongolian speakers in learning Mandarin Chinese. To that end, he included transliterations of Mandarin using the Mongolian script, and repurposed three Galik letters to represent

18630-512: The present-day Afghanistan–Turkmenistan border , and then crossed the Marghab river and its tributary the Kushk to approach the city of Merv from the south. He ambushed a force of Turkmen raiders during the night of 24 February; the surprise attack caught the raiders off guard, and those who were not killed by the Mongols or did not drown in the river were scattered. The Mongols arrived at Merv

18792-650: The region's trade in grain and furs, as well as its gold mines . Mongol armies also rode westwards, defeating the Naiman-Merkit alliance on the River Irtysh in late 1208. Their khan was killed and Kuchlug fled into Central Asia . Led by Barchuk , the Uyghurs freed themselves from the suzerainty of the Qara Khitai and pledged themselves to Genghis in 1211 as the first sedentary society to submit to

18954-546: The resumption of warfare against the Jin dynasty in 1230. The campaign was successful and they returned home to Mongolia two years later. Tolui died in unclear circumstances in late 1232. The official record was that he died during a shamanic ritual while saving Ögedei from a curse; alternative theories suggest that he died from alcoholism or that Ögedei had him poisoned. Having taken over Tolui's lands and estates after his death, Sorghaghtani amassed enough wealth and supporters to ensure that her son Möngke took power in 1251, after

19116-452: The same shape as the traditional dative-locative suffix ‑a/‑e exemplified in the next section. This form of the suffix is, however, more commonly found in older texts, and is restricted in its Post- Classical use. All case suffixes , as well as any plural suffixes consisting of one or two syllables, are likewise separated by a preceding and hyphen-transliterated gap. A maximum of two case suffixes can be added to

19278-400: The service of the Jin. As he later overthrew that state, such an episode, detrimental to Mongol prestige, was omitted from all their sources. Zhao Hong was bound by no such taboos. The sources do not agree on the events of Temüjin's return to the steppe. In early summer 1196, he participated in a joint campaign with the Jin against the Tatars, who had begun to act contrary to Jin interests. As

19440-644: The shaman's position as the Mongols' highest spiritual authority. During these years, the Mongols imposed their control on surrounding areas. Genghis dispatched Jochi northwards in 1207 to subjugate the Hoi-yin Irgen  [ ja ] , a collection of tribes on the edge of the Siberian taiga . Having secured a marriage alliance with the Oirats and defeated the Yenisei Kyrgyz , he took control of

19602-452: The sole ruler on the Mongolian steppe. Temüjin formally adopted the title "Genghis Khan", the meaning of which is uncertain, at an assembly in 1206. Carrying out reforms designed to ensure long-term stability, he transformed the Mongols' tribal structure into an integrated meritocracy dedicated to the service of the ruling family. After thwarting a coup attempt from a powerful shaman , Genghis began to consolidate his power. In 1209, he led

19764-525: The sons of blacksmiths, in addition to a carpenter, a shepherd, and even the two herdsmen who had warned Temüjin of Toghrul's plans in 1203. As a special privilege, Genghis allowed certain loyal commanders to retain the tribal identities of their units. Alaqush of the Ongud was allowed to retain five thousand warriors of his tribe because his son had entered into an alliance pact with Genghis, marrying his daughter Alaqa. A key tool which underpinned these reforms

19926-579: The sources are written in more than a dozen languages from across Eurasia, modern historians have found it difficult to compile information on the life of Genghis Khan. All accounts of his adolescence and rise to power derive from two Mongolian-language sources—the Secret History of the Mongols , and the Altan Debter ( Golden Book ). The latter, now lost, served as inspiration for two Chinese chronicles—the 14th-century History of Yuan and

20088-549: The southern and eastern borders of the kingdom to guard against attacks from the Song and Jin dynasties respectively, while its northern border relied only on the Gobi desert for protection. After a raid in 1207 sacked the Xia fortress of Wulahai , Genghis decided to personally lead a full-scale invasion in 1209. Wulahai was captured again in May and the Mongols advanced on the capital Zhongxing (modern-day Yinchuan ) but suffered

20250-431: The stability of Ögedei's reign and so he set out personally, accompanied by his close family. A number of sources written during the reign of Tolui's son Kublai attribute the defeats to Ögedei's poor generalship and credit Tolui both for the subsequent victories and for rebuking his brother's petulant complaints with words of wisdom. With the Tongguan Pass securely held by the Jin and the Mongol army suffering from famine in

20412-476: The state was wracked by internal instabilities. Genghis had two aims: to take vengeance for past wrongs committed by the Jin, foremost among which was the death of Ambaghai Khan in the mid-12th century, and to win the vast amounts of plunder his troops and vassals expected. After calling for a kurultai in March 1211, Genghis launched his invasion of Jin China in May, reaching the outer ring of Jin defences

20574-832: The status of khan by Kublai, after he established the Yuan dynasty in the late 13th-century, while he and Sorghaghtani also became major figures of the Eight White Yurts cult in Mongolia, today headquartered at the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan . Khans or regents of the Mongol Empire are in bold . Source: Following Kublai's enthronement as Khagan - Emperor in 1260, proclamation of the dynastic name "Great Yuan" in 1271, and conquest of Southern Song in 1279, Yuan ruled all of China. Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin ; c.  1162  – August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan ,

20736-498: The steppe tradition of hospitality to strangers. However, the Tatars recognised their old enemy and slipped poison into his food. Yesügei gradually sickened but managed to return home; close to death, he requested a trusted retainer called Münglig to retrieve Temüjin from the Onggirat. He died soon after. Yesügei's death shattered the unity of his people, which included members of the Borjigin, Tayichiud , and other clans. As Temüjin

20898-545: The sweet and the bitter. If I break this word, may I be like the water of the River, drunk up by others." Among officers and men there was none who was not moved to tears. The History of Yuan , vol 120 (1370) Retreating southeast to Baljuna, an unidentified lake or river, Temüjin waited for his scattered forces to regroup: Bo'orchu had lost his horse and was forced to flee on foot, while Temüjin's badly wounded son Ögedei had been transported and tended to by Borokhula ,

21060-451: The tent of Sorkan-Shira , a man who had seen him in the river and not raised the alarm. Sorkan-Shira sheltered Temüjin for three days at great personal risk before helping him to escape. Temüjin was assisted on another occasion by Bo'orchu , an adolescent who aided him in retrieving stolen horses. Soon afterwards, Bo'orchu joined Temüjin's camp as his first nökor ('personal companion'; pl. nökod ). These incidents, related by

21222-543: The threat Temüjin posed to the traditional steppe aristocracy by his habit of promoting commoners to high positions, which subverted social norms. Yielding eventually to these demands, Toghrul attempted to lure his vassal into an ambush, but his plans were overheard by two herdsmen. Temüjin was able to gather some of his forces, but was soundly defeated at the Battle of Qalaqaljid Sands . "[Temüjin] raised his hands and looking up at Heaven swore, saying "If I am able to achieve my 'Great Work', I shall [always] share with you men

21384-465: The time the conflict resumed in 1213, but a Mongol detachment led by Jebe managed to infiltrate the pass and surprise the elite Jin defenders, opening the road to the Jin capital Zhongdu (modern-day Beijing ). The Jin administration began to disintegrate: after the Khitans , a tribe subject to the Jin, entered open rebellion, Hushahu, the commander of the forces at Xijing, abandoned his post and staged

21546-434: The title "Genghis Khan", the etymology and meaning of which have been much debated. Some commentators hold that the title had no meaning, simply representing Temüjin's eschewal of the traditional gurkhan title, which had been accorded to Jamukha and was thus of lesser worth. Another theory suggests that the word "Genghis" bears connotations of strength, firmness, hardness, or righteousness. A third hypothesis proposes that

21708-501: The title is related to the Turkic tängiz ('ocean'), the title "Genghis Khan" would mean "master of the ocean", and as the ocean was believed to surround the earth, the title thus ultimately implied "Universal Ruler". Having attained control over one million people, Genghis Khan began a "social revolution", in May's words. As traditional tribal systems had primarily evolved to benefit small clans and families, they were unsuitable as

21870-722: The town, Tolui left the region to rejoin his father at Taliqan in mid-1221. The population subsequently rebelled and were besieged for months by the Mongol general Eljigidei, who was said to have killed between 1,600,000 and 2,400,000 people during his sack of the town, in a massacre lasting seven days in June 1222. The death tolls traditionally attributed to Tolui's campaign in Khorasan are considered exaggerated by modern historians. The cities of Merv, Nishapur, and Herat could have only supported fractions of their reported populations, and populations were reported to return almost miraculously to destroyed cities—Genghis Khan's adopted son Shigi Qutuqu

22032-455: The translator and scholar Ayuush Güüsh created the Galik alphabet ( Али-гали Ali-gali ), inspired by the third Dalai Lama , Sonam Gyatso . It primarily added extra characters for transcribing Tibetan and Sanskrit terms when translating religious texts, and later also from Chinese . Some of those characters are still in use today for writing foreign names (as listed below). In 1917,

22194-474: The two primary candidates. Tolui was unquestionably superior in military terms. His campaign in Khorasan had broken the Khwarazmian Empire, while Ögedei was far less able as a commander and was known to drink excessively even by Mongol standards. He was however well-liked by all in the nation and was known for his generosity, courtesy, and willingness to mediate and compromise. Aware of his own lack of military skill, he placed his trust in his capable subordinates. He

22356-481: The two-letter suffix  ᠤᠨ ‑un / ‑ün is exemplified in the adjacent newspaper logo. Two medial consonants are the most that can come together in original Mongolian words. There are however, a few loanwords that can begin or end with two or more. In the modern language, proper names can usually join two words into graphic compounds (such as those of ᠬᠠᠰᠡᠷᠳᠡᠨᠢ Qas'erdeni 'Jasper-jewel' or ᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ Kökeqota –

22518-469: The use of the traditional Mongolian script and to use both Cyrillic and Mongolian script in official documents by 2025. However, due to the particularity of the traditional Mongolian script, a large part (40% ) of the Sinicized Mongols in China are unable to read or write this script, and in many cases the script is only used symbolically on plaques in many cities. The script is known by

22680-399: Was badly defeated in c.  1187 , and may have spent the following years as a subject of the Jin dynasty ; upon reemerging in 1196, he swiftly began gaining power. Toghrul came to view Temüjin as a threat and launched a surprise attack on him in 1203. Temüjin retreated, then regrouped and overpowered Toghrul; after defeating the Naiman tribe and executing Jamukha, he was left as

22842-400: Was de facto an equal ally. Jamukha behaved cruelly following his victory at Dalan Baljut—he allegedly boiled seventy prisoners alive and humiliated the corpses of leaders who had opposed him. A number of disaffected followers, including Yesügei's follower Münglig and his sons, defected to Temüjin as a consequence; they were also probably attracted by his newfound wealth. Temüjin subdued

23004-415: Was a factor in this cultural shock. The tribes of the Mongol steppe had no fixed succession system, but often defaulted to some form of ultimogeniture —succession of the youngest son—on the grounds that unlike his older brothers, the youngest son would not have had time to gain a following for himself and needed the help of his father's inheritance ; but this applied only to property, not to titles. Through

23166-461: Was a title which Genghis intended to replace the pre-imperial epithet otchigin , traditionally given to the youngest son. Shortly after Temüjin's campaign against the Tatars c.  1196 , Tolui, then a young child, was the subject of a kidnapping attempt recounted in two sources: the 13th-century Mongolian poem The Secret History of the Mongols and the Jami' al-tawarikh history by

23328-475: Was abandoned by its tribe. Reduced to near-poverty, Temüjin killed his older half-brother to secure his familial position. His charismatic personality helped to attract his first followers and to form alliances with two prominent steppe leaders named Jamukha and Toghrul ; they worked together to retrieve Temüjin's newlywed wife Börte , who had been kidnapped by raiders. As his reputation grew, his relationship with Jamukha deteriorated into open warfare. Temüjin

23490-406: Was also more likely to preserve Mongol traditions than Tolui, whose wife Sorghaghtani, herself a Nestorian Christian , was a patron of many other religions. Tolui was accompanying his father Genghis Khan when the latter died in 1227 during the campaign against the Xia. As the youngest son, Tolui served as regent and administered the empire; possibly drawing upon previous traditions, he established

23652-531: Was an eyewitness to the brutality of the Mongol conquests, and the hostility of his chronicle reflects his experiences. His contemporary Juvayni, who had travelled twice to Mongolia and attained a high position in the administration of a Mongol successor state , was more sympathetic; his account is the most reliable for Genghis Khan's western campaigns. The most important Persian source is the Jami' al-tawarikh ( Compendium of Chronicles ) compiled by Rashid al-Din on

23814-477: Was busy hunting, and was considering sending Ögedei and Chagatai to bring him back to heel when news came that Jochi had died from a serious illness. Chagatai's attitude towards Jochi's possible succession—he had termed his elder brother "a Merkit bastard" and had brawled with him in front of their father—led Genghis to view him as uncompromising, arrogant, and narrow-minded, despite his great knowledge of Mongol legal customs . His elimination left Ögedei and Tolui as

23976-485: Was captured in February after a swift siege , while Samarkand fell a couple of months later . Genghis moved southwards into the Turkestan mountain range , where he rested his army for the summer while his generals Jebe and Subutai moved westwards and his sons conducted various operations; he emerged in the autumn to assault and capture Termez . Tolui and his father spent the winter of 1220–1221 dealing with rebels on

24138-453: Was due to Jochi's preference for remaining in and growing his own appanage—his actions during the Siege of Gurganj , where his reluctance to destroy a wealthy city that would become part of his territory eventually led to his failure to give Genghis the khan 's share of the booty, exacerbated the tensions. Genghis was angered by Jochi's refusal to attend a kurultai in 1223, allegedly because he

24300-496: Was forced to beg for Toghrul's clemency. Desiring complete supremacy in eastern Mongolia, Temüjin defeated first the Tayichiud and then, in 1202, the Tatars; after both campaigns, he executed the clan leaders and took the remaining warriors into his service. These included Sorkan-Shira, who had come to his aid previously, and a young warrior named Jebe , who, by killing Temüjin's horse and refusing to hide that fact, had displayed martial ability and personal courage. The absorption of

24462-577: Was given in marriage to the younger brother of the now-deceased Chiledu. Temüjin appealed for aid from Toghrul and his childhood anda Jamukha, who had risen to become chief of the Jadaran tribe. Both chiefs were willing to field armies of 20,000 warriors, and with Jamukha in command, the campaign was soon won. A now-pregnant Börte was recovered successfully and soon gave birth to a son, Jochi ; although Temüjin raised him as his own, questions over his true paternity followed Jochi throughout his life. This

24624-497: Was humiliated and almost imprisoned on false charges before Hö'elün intervened by publicly reprimanding Genghis. Nevertheless, Kokechu's power steadily increased, and he publicly shamed Temüge, Genghis's youngest brother, when he attempted to intervene. Börte saw that Kokechu was a threat to Genghis's power and warned her husband, who still superstitiously revered the shaman but now recognised the political threat he posed. Genghis allowed Temüge to arrange Kokechu's death, and then usurped

24786-436: Was known for his generosity. Tolui was on his father's last campaign when the latter died in mid-1227; as the youngest son, he became regent, in charge of his father's burial and the administration of the nation. It is possible that the two-year interregnum was lengthened by Tolui's desire to become khan himself; he nevertheless eventually swore allegiance to Ögedei, who was crowned in 1229. Tolui accompanied Ögedei after

24948-493: Was nevertheless propagated by Sorghaghtani to cement her family's position at the top of the Mongol court. Sorghaghtani inherited Tolui's property after his death on Ögedei's command; with the backing of his vast estates in Mongolia, she became one of the most respected and powerful figures in the empire. She played a major role in cultivating an alliance with the descendants of Jochi in the Golden Horde , which culminated in

25110-411: Was not yet ten and Behter around two years older, neither was considered experienced enough to rule. The Tayichiud faction excluded Hö'elün from the ancestor worship ceremonies which followed a ruler's death and soon abandoned her camp. The Secret History relates that the entire Borjigin clan followed, despite Hö'elün's attempts to shame them into staying by appealing to their honour. Rashid al-Din and

25272-523: Was only at this juncture that Genghis decided to fully conquer northern China. Muqali captured numerous towns in Liaodong during winter 1214–15, and although the inhabitants of Zhongdu surrendered to Genghis on 31 May 1215, the city was sacked. When Genghis returned to Mongolia in early 1216, Muqali was left in command in China. He waged a brutal but effective campaign against the unstable Jin regime until his death in 1223. In 1207, Genghis had appointed

25434-404: Was reorganised into a military decimal system. Every man between the age of fifteen and seventy was conscripted into a minqan ( pl. minkad ), a unit of a thousand soldiers, which was further subdivided into units of hundreds ( jaghun , pl. jaghat ) and tens ( arban , pl. arbat ). The units also encompassed each man's household, meaning that each military minqan

25596-612: Was responsible for bringing the Old Uyghur alphabet to the Mongolian Plateau and adapting it to the form of the Mongolian script. From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Mongolian language separated into southern, eastern and western dialects. The principal documents from the period of the Middle Mongol language are: in the eastern dialect, the famous text The Secret History of

25758-429: Was said to have ordered the deaths of a further 100,000 at Merv in November 1221, after yet another rebellion. The figures do however clearly represent a demographic catastrophe so extreme the native populations found it difficult to quantify the destruction. The historian Michal Biran has suggested that the speed with which the Mongols brought the pragmatically brutal warfare of East Asia into the less ruthless Muslim world

25920-403: Was supported by a minqan of households in what May has termed "a military–industrial complex ". Each minqan operated as both a political and social unit, while the warriors of defeated tribes were dispersed to different minqad to make it difficult for them to rebel as a single body. This was intended to ensure the disappearance of old tribal identities, replacing them with loyalty to

26082-517: Was the expansion of the keshig ('bodyguard'). After Temüjin defeated Toghrul in 1203, he had appropriated this Kereit institution in a minor form, but at the 1206 kurultai its numbers were greatly expanded, from 1,150 to 10,000 men. The keshig was not only the khan's bodyguard, but his household staff, a military academy, and the centre of governmental administration. All the warriors in this elite corps were brothers or sons of military commanders and were essentially hostages. The members of

26244-436: Was the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire . After spending most of his life uniting the Mongol tribes , he launched a series of military campaigns , conquering large parts of China and Central Asia . Born between 1155 and 1167 and given the name Temüjin, he was the eldest child of Yesugei , a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan , and his wife Hö'elün . When Temüjin was eight, his father died and his family

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