THE YEAR WAS 1162. A baby boy was born in the chieftain’s yurt in a settlement of the nomadic Mongols who lived in the grassy plains and forests by the Amur River, which, along its upper reaches, splits into the two tributaries of the Onon and Kherlen rivers. The mother was a beautiful young woman still several years shy of twenty by the name of Ö’elün. As was often the case, at this very time the men of the settlement had all left to launch an attack against the Tatars of a neighboring area, a tribe with whom they had long been fighting. Thus, the only people then residing in the several hundred Mongol yurts were old people and children.
Ö’elün dispatched an old servant to report the birth of her son to the camp of Yisügei, her husband, who was several miles away from the lineage at the time. After the messenger had departed, Ö’elün put her ear to the face of her newborn. The infant had rolled over in his raggedy swaddling. The fingers of his left hand were wrapped around hers so tightly that the women who had just delivered him could not unpeel them. With the instinctive tenacity of a mother attempting to ascertain for herself that the four limbs of the child to whom she has just given birth were all in good working order, Ö’elün tried her best to remove his left hand clasping her tightly. This required considerable attention, without the least violence. When she managed to separate her hand from the child’s, Ö’elün heard the roaring wind rush by above the yurt. Like a solid object but with the volume of a rushing, mighty river, the wind was blowing east to west, and it seemed to shake the earth’s very axis. When it ceased blowing, Ö’elün remembered the height of the pitch-black night sky above the yurt in which she was lying on her back. Countless stars studded the sky, each glistening before her eyes with its own icy light. When the next wind swept over her, though, it was like a black cloth embroidered with the stars came howling, and the stars scattered in all directions, ultimately leaving only the roar of the wind enveloping heaven and earth. While the wind was blowing or the starry sky hung over the roof, Ö’elün invariably was taken with the feeling of her own utter insignificance, lying there alone in her humble yurt.
This very sense of insignificance and powerlessness amid the vastness of nature was surely to be found somewhere in the heart of each of these nomads who, possessing neither fixed houses nor designated plots of land, moved in search of grasslands and owned no soil on which to live sedentary lives. Wherever they went and whatever else they might have been thinking about, in the end this inevitable feeling was like a spell cast over them. For Ö’elün that evening, there was still another, even stronger reason for her feeling of forlorn loneliness. Ö’elün could see an even higher sky through the roof of the yurt that night, and the force of the night wind causing the yurt to sway felt that much wilder.
Having just become a mother, Ö’elün was now troubled by two things. First, would the baby to whom she had just given birth possess the full physique sufficient to satisfy her husband? Second, would the infant have as acute powers of sight and smell as his father to fully satisfy Yisügei?
Ö’elün was able to rid her mind of one of these two concerns. The baby, apparently of his own volition, opened the little fingers of his hand that he had until then entrusted to her palm. He firmly grasped a blood clot the shape of a deer’s anklebone, as if he were holding some sort of military decoration.
Beyond this, Ö’elün had no other worries. From the features of her newborn, one could derive no proof or confirmation that he was the son of Yisügei. In some ways he resembled Yisügei, and in others he did not. By the same token, he certainly did not look like another man, which would have been cause for Yisügei’s distress. In a word, the boy looked like no one at all in particular. That is, except for one person—he did resemble the mother from whose womb he had just emerged.
Ö’elün had no idea whatsoever what Yisügei’s feelings would be when he learned of the birth. Throughout his wife’s pregnancy, Yisügei had remained taciturn and expressionless, as brave men of his lineage always were. Joyous or angry, he would not allow his inner feelings to be visible to anyone other than himself. Ö’elün would be able to learn her husband’s first words when news of the birth reached him. It would not have been altogether out of the ordinary were he to utter, “Kill him!”
The old servant dispatched to Yisügei’s camp returned to Ö’elün’s yurt the next evening. He reported to the young mother that Yisügei had selected the name Temüjin for the boy. When she heard this, for the first time since she had given birth, Ö’elün looked relieved, for at least she now knew that her husband did not bear anger such that he might wish to curse the newborn child. Aside from this, however, everything remained unclear, for according to the old servant the meaning of the name Temüjin could be construed by Ö’elün in any way she wished.
“When I reached Master Yisügei’s camp, he was in the midst of enjoying a victory celebration after merciless fighting with the Tatars. To the side of the campfire were two enemy leaders who had been taken prisoner and were tied up. It seemed to be the middle of a drinking bout, and one of the prisoners was dragged out and beheaded on the spot. As if to commemorate this triumphal celebration, it was the wish of Master Yisügei to give the newborn child the name of this Tatar chief.”
Thus spoke the elderly servant. To be sure, a name taken simply to commemorate a military victory posed no problems, but when she tried to come to terms with the fact that it was the name of an enemy chief who had been decapitated, Ö’elün could not repress a certain disquiet. And she remained confused as to whether Yisügei was happy or enraged at the birth of his son. In any event, this infant boy who as yet had no clear sense of who his mother and father were was given the name Temüjin and thus was fated to be reared as the eldest son of a leader of a Mongol lineage.
For the next few days, Ö’elün suffered with a high fever due to postpartum illness, vacillating between life and death. When the fever subsided and it eventually became clear that she would live, the first thing her frail eyes caught sight of was her husband, Yisügei, taking their baby son, Temüjin, up in his arms.
Ö’elün had become Yisügei’s wife about ten months earlier. Born into the Olqunu’ud lineage, she had been taken captive by a young man of the Merkid lineage and carried off to a Merkid settlement. En route she was again taken, this time by Yisügei, by the banks of the Onon River and hence became his wife. She had been raped over a dozen times by the young men of the Merkids, and although she gave birth only after becoming Yisügei’s wife, there was no way of determining for sure that the boy was his biological son.
Ö’elün continued looking at the profile of her husband holding Temüjin. Commonly called Warrior Yisügei, he was feared by other tribes for his famed courage and valor. From the intrepid look on his face, she could not detect so much as a fragment of his inner thoughts, but the fact that he was embracing Temüjin in his large arms gave Ö’elün cause for relief. And this sense of relief gradually changed into a powerful emotion she herself could not even explain clearly, as tears bathed her cheeks.
A number of nomadic peoples were encamped at various sites on the terrain north of the Great Wall of China where the Mongols lived at this time. The land was obstructed on the east by the Great Xing’an Mountains and on the west by the Sayan, Altai, Tannu-Ola, and Tianshan ranges; to the south it bordered China at the Great Wall and the Western Marshes across the immense wasteland of the Gobi Desert. And the north, bounded by the region around Lake Baikal, was engulfed in the endless no-man’s land of Siberia. Six rivers streamed through this immense plain surrounded by great mountain ranges, deserts, and uninhabited wilderness. The Onon, Ingoda, and Kherlen flowed together, formed the Amur River, and poured out into the Sea of Okhotsk. The Tula, Orkhon, and Selengge rivers all flowed into Lake Baikal. These two water systems both began in the central portion of the high plains, and their basins formed the grasslands and forest regions. From time immemorial nomadic peoples had risen and fallen here. With this area as a base of operations, the Xiongnu, Rouran, Orkhon Turks (Tujue), and Uyghurs had all attempted to extend their influence southward, the only way out. Thus, Chinese statesmen over the centuries had no choice but to construct the Great Wall and prepare for invasions from these nomads to their north.
It was unclear just when the Mongols had moved into this region, but in roughly the eighth century they, together with other settlements, fell under the domination of the Turks, and in the middle of the eighth century they became subject to the Uyghurs who replaced the Turks. From the ninth century, they were under the control of the Tatars who supplanted the Uyghurs. After the collapse of the Tatars, though, a number of unrelated peoples who differed in hairstyles, skin color, and customs formed their own villages and spread out here and there around the vast grasslands. Through the years, they lived fighting constantly over domesticated animals, women, and grasses.
In the middle of the twelfth century, when Temüjin was born, besides the Mongol people there were the Kirghiz, Oirat, Merkid, Tatar, Kereyid, Naiman, and Önggüd ethnicities living on this Mongolian plain. The Mongols and Tatars were trying to gain supremacy over all the settlements, and that meant incessant small-scale fighting. Temüjin was born in the midst of the battles between these two peoples.
In addition to fighting between different ethnic groups, there was repeated and often fierce fighting within the same group over collected booty. The Mongols were divided into a number of lineages, each with its own independent settlement, which were prone to vie with one another. The Borjigin lineage to which Yisügei belonged had long effectively functioned as the main family line of the Mongolian people, and from it someone had eventually emerged as the khan or ruler who controlled all the Mongol groupings. The first khan was Temüjin’s great-grandfather, Qabul Khan, who brought a certain unity, albeit imperfect, to the Mongol settlements, which had been in a state of chaotic disorder, and he put in place a system for other settlements that proved to be of benefit to all. Although the second khan was Hambaghai of the Tayichi’uds, in the following generation leadership returned to the Borjigin lineage with Qutula, Yisügei’s uncle, as khan. At present, Yisügei was the fourth khan.
Temüjin was therefore raised in the tent of the chief of the Mongolian people on the great Mongolian plateau. Two years after giving birth to him, Ö’elün bore Qasar, and two years after that Qachi’un, both boys. Thus, at age four Temüjin had two younger brothers. His father also sired by another woman a boy one year his junior by the name of Begter and another boy two years Begter’s junior by the name of Belgütei, thus giving Temüjin two more younger brothers. Temüjin was reared together with all of his younger male siblings, as Yisügei treated his five sons equally, not doting on or showing particular favoritism to any one of them. The same was true of Ö’elün. She never distinguished between the three sons she had borne in her womb and the two children born to another woman. And just as her husband showed no favoritism toward Temüjin, Ö’elün too showed none toward any of the children she and her husband had produced. This was particularly perspicacious on her part.
When Temüjin was six years old, Ö’elün gave birth to another male child who was given the name Temüge. The six-year-old Temüjin was considerably bigger physically than other boys his age and considerably stronger, but he was a quiet child who rarely spoke. Although he quarreled with others very infrequently, when he did so it was with great resolution. He would always listen silently with his eyes glaring whenever someone would speak to him abusively, and when he saw that that person had nothing further to say, he would suddenly, without so much as a single word, attack him. He might throw the person to the ground and from horseback pelt him with stones, or he might ram the person’s head into the sand and trample him underfoot—his methods were decidedly violent. There was something brutal in the manner of his assault, as Temüjin possessed, in the eyes of the adults who came to stop him, a bizarre disposition lacking many of the charms associated with childhood. On such occasions, the adults were under the illusion that Temüjin was the same age as they, and they would always reprove him as one castigates an adult.
These instances aside, though, Temüjin was just a quiet, unobtrusive lad. Being the eldest child, he had to allow his mother to look after his younger brothers. He thus had little opportunity to rest at Ö’elün’s knee or wrapped in her arms. Yet he was no different from other children in his desire to spend time close to his mother.
The first time Temüjin heard stories of ancestors in his lineage and the traditions about them, he was seven years of age. He had a distant relative, an elderly man by the name of Bültechü Ba’atur. The term ba’atur was an appellation meaning “brave,” indicating that in his youth this man had undoubtedly been a valiant warrior. Now, however, he was a gentle old man, fond of children, who had grown a white beard over his cheeks and chin. He retained a stunning memory, and when on occasion relatives gathered in Yisügei’s yurt, he regaled them with tales of their ancestors through the ages. As if he had known all of these men from the past personally, he described in intimate detail their facial appearances and even their dispositions. No one listening ever lost interest.
Whenever a group of men gathered around, Bültechü Ba’atur always faithfully drew out—as if he were tracing it with string—what he had crammed inside his head. While a portion of what he recounted was remembered by the majority of those assembled, no one else could tell a story like Bültechü, and it was hard to imagine that anyone else could keep such extraordinarily long stories stored inside his mind as he could.
When Bültechü was about to launch into one of his tales, people would often try to be the first to jump in from memory.
—There was Batachiqan and his son was Tamacha, and Tamacha’s son was Qorichar Mergen, and Qorichar Mergen’s son was A’ujam Boroghul, and A’ujam Boroghul’s son was Sali Qacha’u, and Sali Qacha’u’s son was Yeke Nidün, and Yeke Nidün’s son was Sem Söchi.
In this way one might enunciate the names of one’s ancestors who had been the heads of the family. If one became confused, another might pick up the lead and continue the genealogy.
—Sem Söchi’s son was Qarchu, and Qarchu’s son was Borjigidai Mergen; and Borjigidai Mergen had a beautiful wife by the name of Mongoljin Gho’a, and they had a son by the name of Toroqoljin Bayan; and Toroqoljin Bayan had a beautiful wife by the name of Boroqchin Gho’a, as well as a young servant named Boroldai Suyalbi and two fine steeds named Dayir and Boro.
Even one with the best of memories would usually find himself stymied at this point in the tale. Thereafter—that is, from Toroqoljin Bayan (meaning Toroqoljin “the rich”), the tenth-generation head of the family with his wife and two horses and young servant—the number of offspring proliferated, and all of a sudden the names of the people that one had to commit to memory expanded like the branches and limbs of a overgrown tree, necessitating that one wait for the likes of Bültechü with his astonishing memory. When others couldn’t recall anything more, he would smile in apparent satisfaction, his face wrinkled by age, and slowly begin to speak. And of course, what Bültechü actually had to say was more than just a simple list of the names of the heads of the Mongol families through the ages. His tone often went as follows:
“Toroqoljin Bayan and his wife Boroqchin Gho’a were a very happy couple. Because they were so very amicable, they produced a son with a single eye. Thus, they gave him the name Du’a Soqor or ‘one-eyed’ Du’a. This eye was placed right in the middle of his forehead, but it was an extremely efficacious eyeball, for he was said to be able to see—although it surely sounds like a falsehood—to a distance three days’ journey away, perhaps as far as 250 miles. After Du’a Soqor, Dobun Mergen (Dobun ‘the sharpshooter’) was born, and both developed into high-spirited youngsters. On one occasion the brothers went out hunting. Du’a Soqor surveyed the plain and saw in the distance a fine young woman. She seemed as though she might be married. He said: ‘Since she should be passing this way tomorrow or the next day, let’s snatch her up when she arrives and she’ll make a fine wife for you, Dobun Mergen.’ Although Dobun Mergen did not, in fact, do this, the following day when she arrived at that place, she turned out to be a young bride amid a small group of people. The young men drew their bows and brandished their spears, preparing to attack them. Such were the circumstances by which Alan Gho’a (meaning the ‘fair’ Alan) became the bride of Dobun Mergen. The two soon produced two sons, Bügünütei and Belgünütei, who were to become, respectively, the ancestors of the Bügünüd and Belgünüd lineages. Well, then, Dobun Mergen now had Alan Gho’a as his wife, but regrettably he died, leaving behind his young wife and two young sons. Alan Gho’a continued to raise the boys, and in succession produced three more sons. Although she had no husband, she gave birth to several children. That said, Alan Gho’a was a chaste woman, and never had she committed a sin. How then were the births of these children to be explained? Just before she became pregnant each time, light from a corner of heaven shone down, entered a hole in the roof of her yurt, and touched the white skin of her body. Thence were born Bügü Qatagi, Bughatu Salji, and Bodonchar Mungqaq (Bodonchar ‘the fool’), and they were the progenitors, respectively, of the Qatagin, Salji’ud, and Borjigin lineages. Thus, the blood of the beautiful Alan is mixed with the light of heaven in the bodies of those of us Borjigins who come together and form the line descending from Bodonchar Mungqaq.”
Bültechü went on to recount in detail and with vibrancy the generations of brave warriors and military prowess that followed Bodonchar. There were ten generations from Bodonchar to the present head of the lineage, Yisügei, and many things had to be described, but it would be impossible to relate the entire story in a single evening.
The only story that left an impression on the seven-year-old Temüjin was that of Du’a Soqor. If the other parts of the tale did not elicit much interest, it was probably because he did not fully understand them. Temüjin was even more fascinated when, at some great meeting of all the Mongol families, a number of elders responded in chorus, as if in prayer, to Bültechü’s oral transmission, in the open space before their yurts, of the origins of the Mongols. In particular, it was the content of the phrases of their prayer that intrigued Temüjin:
—There was a blue wolf born with a destiny set by heaven. There was a pale doe who was his mate. She came across a wide lake. They set up camp at Mount Burqan at the source of the Onon River, and there was born Batachiqan.
These were the short phrases that were begun by the chorus, and soon thereafter they were absorbed into intricate ceremonies. The oral tradition had it that through the mating of the wolf and doe the initial ancestor Batachiqan was born, and whenever this tale was recounted, it evoked extraordinary emotions in the hearts of all Mongols, whether they were of the Borjigin or the Tayichi’ud lineage. Everyone believed the story. It told of a great lake far to the west and a rampaging wolf that crossed it at the orders of his deity and took the graceful, beautiful doe as his mate. Mount Burqan was a peak everyone knew well. Wherever they moved their yurts, Mongols were raised nearly every day from birth with an adoration for Mount Burqan.
Temüjin was profoundly moved by the story of the blue wolf. Satisfied that he was himself a descendant of the wolf and doe, he firmly believed that the tale did not refer to another lineage, and as a result those of the other lineages had declined to a debased state. In short, Temüjin felt great pride that the blood of the wolf and doe coursed through his veins.
Hearing this strange chorus of elders, including Bültechü, singing was the most important event of Temüjin’s youth. The meaning of the words they sang, of course, was difficult for the seven-year-old to comprehend and was explained to him by his mother, Ö’elün. While the elders were intoning these words, though, Temüjin was visualizing an immense, ferocious wolf and an elegant, lovely doe. The wolf had an acute eye, one that could see even farther and more accurately than Du’a Soqor, an eye that grasped everything within its purview and would not let go, and that feared absolutely nothing. The cold light in his eye held both the spirit of attack ready to confront anything and the powerful will to make anything he desired his own. His physique was made entirely for attack. His sharp ears could pick up sounds hundreds of miles away; all of the flesh and bones of his body were solely dedicated to the objective of slaughtering the enemy. When necessary, his tenacious limbs could dash through snowy wastelands, race through strong winds, climb over peaks, and leap through the air.
Attending this wolf was a doe of slender build covered in magnificent fur. Her chestnut coat was dotted with white specks, her mouth covered with white fur. Unlike the wolf, she possessed delicate eyes, but she moved them incessantly, giving her whole body a nervous edge, as she tried to protect the mate she loved from his enemies. The doe served the wolf with her great beauty, and served him as well by never relinquishing her vigilance for so much as an instant. To the least stirring of the leaves of a tree in the wind, she inclined her long face alertly. While she lacked virtually anything of an aggressive nature, her defensive posture was unsurpassed.
These two entirely different living things both provided enough beauty to enchant the young Temüjin’s mind. And from these two marvelous creatures was born the first human ancestor: Batachiqan. Over the course of many years, the blood of the wolf and the doe had continued to flow in the bodies of many of his ancestors, and now it flowed in his own.
After he learned this story, no matter what tale Bültechü recounted—and Temüjin came to know them all himself—none captured his mind as fully as this one. Although he would hear Bültechü numerous times retell the story of the blood of the beautiful Alan Gho’a mixing with the light from heaven into the body of the Borjigin lineage, compared to the tale of the wolf and the doe that he had relayed with such pride, it struck Temüjin as dull and without any charm whatsoever. The fact that members of the Borjigin lineage were superior to other Mongol families by virtue of this heavenly light was, of course, not something that saddened Temüjin, but the tale of the blood of the wolf and doe, which was distributed equally among the entire Mongol population, was on a far grander scale in his mind. Supporting it was a stage with the far greater breadth of all Mongols upon it.
In the spring of the year that Temüjin turned eight, Ö’elün gave birth to one more child, this time a girl, who was given the name Temülün. At the time of her birth, Temüjin was overcome with a deep emotion that included troubling doubts unlike anything he had experienced before about the blood of the wolf and doe flowing in Temülün’s veins. Certainly that blood flowed in the bodies of his younger brothers, Qasar, Qachi’un, and Temüge—and, for that matter, in his half-brothers, Begter and Belgütei. He had not the least doubt that their veins carried it, but in the case of his younger sister Temülün he harbored a sensation he couldn’t quite comprehend.
The bewilderment that had stricken him unexpectedly when she was born was the result of a different eye applied by the eight-year-old Temüjin to seeing a female, something common among most adults and children. A female probably bore the blood of the doe within her, but it was inconceivable to him that she also had the blood of the wolf. At one point, Temüjin questioned his mother, Ö’elün, about this, and she replied:
“What difference is there between males and females? All Mongols, be they men or women, carry on the blood of all their ancestors.”
As far as Temüjin was concerned, his mother’s answer was altogether insufficient. He found it impossible to think of females in the same way that he did males—if they were knocked down, they would immediately stagger and fall; if beaten, they would immediately collapse into tears. He found the idea of being together with them odious. Was it possible that the weak who did not go into battle inherited the blood of the wolf that had crossed the lake to the west at heaven’s command?
Temüjin never played with girls, and with the exception of truly important matters never listened to them. This was less a belittling of the weak than it was antipathy or indignation taking root in his eight-year-old mind at the notion that the frail shared the same blood of the Mongol people.
From this time on Temüjin began to adopt a policy of always checking his surroundings with his own eyes. Although he was growing more rapidly than other youngsters, this taciturn, wild lad was maturing spiritually no less than they.
Temüjin tried to learn many things and in fact did learn a great deal. While there was no reason to expect any changes in the conversations between his father, Yisügei, and his mother, Ö’elün, as far as Temüjin was concerned, things were completely different. From their conversations, Temüjin acquired knowledge of the family line and history of their Borjigin lineage, the position occupied by the Borjigin line within the Mongol people as a whole, and—more widely still—what place the Mongols held among all the residents of the Mongolian plateau. From the conversations of men and women in the settlement and from the words and deeds of villagers at small meetings of the settlement and at larger meetings of the entire people, the youngster absorbed these many pieces of information as a sponge soaks up water. Temüjin’s mind and body were always on the move from his youth through adulthood.
First of all, Temüjin knew that within the larger Mongolian group the Borjigin lineage to which he belonged was not likely to advance smoothly with the Tayichi’ud lineage from his father’s generation forward, and that this was causing friction on many fronts. Originally, the Tayichi’uds belonged to the Borjigins, but they had become independent when Hambaghai became the second khan, established their own settlements, and took the ethnonym Tayichi’ud. Between the two, one might say, there was a main family–branch family relationship.
From the time that Yisügei became khan, though, the children of Hambaghai had gradually extended the influence of the Tayichi’uds and were gathering under their own umbrella many other Mongol lineages. At present, a good number of them would probably not follow orders issued by Yisügei. All of the internal Mongolian troubles were rooted in this.
In addition to the Tayichi’uds, there were any number of other lineages within the larger Mongolian grouping. Whether they were subservient to the Borjigins or to the Tayichi’uds, on the surface the entire Mongolian people were united with Yisügei as their khan. But in fact, they were divided into two camps.
Besides this internal situation, there were also incessant small disputes with other peoples that kept Yisügei busy on a daily basis. The most powerful among these other groups were the Tatars, a people with whom the Mongols had long been on bad terms. From ancient times, the biggest issue on the Mongolian plateau had been structuring a unified confederated body of peoples. For the nomadic groups living on the same Mongolian plateau, such a confederation was absolutely essential not only for living together in peace but also for dealing with the neighboring states of the Jin dynasty, the Xixia, and the Uyghurs. The Jin bordering them on the plateau across the Great Wall was most desirous that such a confederation not be created. Should the numerically small groups scattered across the plain come together to form one great force, this would be a wholly unwelcome event. Whenever it witnessed the circumstances necessary for the formation of a confederation on the plateau, the Jin state intrigued to nip it in the bid, causing rifts and rivalries among the various ethnic groups on the plain.
The first four khans of the Mongol people—Qabul, Hambaghai, Qutula, and now Yisügei—were all thoroughly determined to create such a confederation, but were always obstructed by the Tatars, who joined in with the plotting of the Jin. Qabul had been nearly poisoned to death by a Jin emissary; Hambaghai was taken by a Tatar escort to the Jin and there executed; and Qutula and most of his six brothers had lost their lives fighting against the Tatars. In other words, Temüjin’s great-grandfather and his grandfather and great uncles had all been killed in combat against the Tatars.
In the warfare at the time of Temüjin’s birth, Yisügei had been able to launch a major assault against the Tatars for the first time, and a state of relative tranquility had been preserved thereafter between the two peoples. The dispute between them, however, was certain to flare up again sometime as long as the Jin was working behind the scenes.
The young Temüjin knew that both the Tatars and the Jin state were enemies of the Mongol people. The name Tatar and the name of the great state of Jin on the far side of the Great Wall were both etched in his mind as ghastly, diabolical appellations.
On one occasion, while drinking wine in his yurt, Yisügei blurted out:
“I won’t die, so help me, until we attack the Tayichi’uds and the Tatars.”
At the time, Temüjin thought it suspicious that his father had not mentioned the third name of the Jin. When he said as much, Yisügei said, laughing:
“Launching an attack on the Jin is an enormous undertaking. Even if we were able to rally all the peoples living on the Mongolian plain right now, our numbers would not reach 200,000 troops. By contrast, the Jin has an army dozens of times as large, every soldier with a weapon so fine you can scarcely imagine it.”
He then went on to discuss how, after concluding the fighting with their enemies, they would face the Jin on the southern side of the Great Wall and the Song state beyond the Jin, farther south. Their people formed cities on sites surrounded by immense walls. They constructed houses out of earth and wood from which they never moved. Each person had a specialized job: merchants built shops and sold their wares; farmers plowed the earth and produced agricultural crops; bureaucrats traveled between offices and handled all manner of affairs; soldiers spent their time training for battle with weaponry. Within these city walls were large temples and government offices built of stone and rising into the sky.
Temüjin wondered if such lands, which were like figments of his imagination, really existed. He wanted to know more and more, and he asked his father all sorts of specific questions, but Yisügei had not seen any of this with his own eyes and was thus unable to speak in any more detail about it.
At some point later, Temüjin asked Bültechü about the states of Jin and Song. He assumed that Bültechü, who knew everything, would be able to fill him in. The old man with the fine memory prefaced his response with:
“They’re despicable places!”
Then, not touching on what Temüjin really wished to know, he told the lad as proof of the Jin’s foulness the story of Hambaghai Khan, who had been put to death by its men.
“Hambaghai Khan was taken captive by the Tatars and escorted to the king of the Jin state. There he was somehow nailed to a wooden donkey and then, while still alive, had his skin peeled off and his body chopped up into small pieces. Hambaghai Khan was a stouthearted man, and at the time of his death the servant who had accompanied him was sent home to report on what had transpired: ‘You must take revenge for me on this enemy, even if you wear down all ten of your fingernails and then lose all ten fingers.’ The servant ran off, returned home, and conveyed everything. Everyone cried. Your father cried. I cried.”
This servant had by now passed away, but a few years earlier, while in his mother’s lap, Temüjin had seen the diminutive elderly man. To the extent that he was somewhat familiar with this man, the tragedy of Hambaghai Khan now struck the young boy with its verisimilitude and profound, unalleviated gloom. That his father, Yisügei, had given up seeking revenge upon the Jin state, a great land beyond his reach, was vexing to Temüjin. For him, this Jin state was at once an immense, unknown place about which he often dreamed and that he wanted to see just once and an implacable enemy that had earlier murdered their khan. It was a state that, even were he to lose ten fingers and ten fingernails, had to be fought by way of retaliation.
In the summer of the year Temüjin turned nine, his father, Yisügei, took him on a trip, at the request of his wife Ö’elün, to her own hometown, an Olqunu’ud settlement, to find the girl who would be Temüjin’s future bride. This was Temüjin’s first journey into scenery altogether different from what he had experienced in his first nine years. To be sure, the Mongols moved their dwellings to various sites with the seasons, but they were always in the foothills of Mount Burqan along the shores of the Onon and Kherlen rivers, within a limited radius determined by natural conditions. All that Temüjin knew until then were the dense forests comprised of the same kind of trees and grasslands all the same color. On this trip, however, there unfolded before his eyes thoroughly dissimilar topography and surroundings. A row of a dozen or more men mounted their horses, and they led as many camels laden with food supplies. The row of men followed the Kherlen downstream into a valley luxuriantly overgrown with trees, midway through left the river and crossed the grasslands, climbed up hills with numerous rocky crags, and advanced through gravel and desert sands. Lakes were scattered here and there, and Temüjin found every day’s itinerary pleasing. Because it wasn’t a rushed trip, the men fished and hunted birds and rabbits en route.
Before they reached the village from which Ö’elün had come, an unexpected incident disrupted their journey. While they were passing between the two mountains of Chiqurqu and Chegcher, they met a group traveling with Dei Sechen, leader of the Unggirad lineage. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the leaders of these two families, but they were immediately able to speak frankly with each other. When Dei Sechen learned of the goal of Yisügei’s group, he encouraged them to change their plan of travel to the Olqunu’ud village and instead come to a settlement of his own Unggirad lineage.
“I have taken a liking to your son Temüjin,” said Dei Sechen quietly as he bent his solid torso back a bit. “Happily there is a girl named Börte, and they will surely be a well-matched couple in future.” Yisügei was favorably impressed by this easygoing leader of another family, and he had oftentimes heard that the Unggirads were quite wealthy. He quickly accepted the invitation. It was never a losing transaction for the Mongols to establish a marriage relationship with the Unggirads.
When their conversation came to an end, the two groups joined together and, changing direction slightly, headed toward the grasslands in the southern foothills of the Xing’an range. Among the various peoples on the Mongolian plateau, the Unggirads held terrain closest to the Great Wall, which put them closest to Jin culture just on the other side, so they enjoyed the highest cultural life of the residents of the plateau.
The Unggirad pastureland was far better than that of the Mongols. The gently sloping grasslands continued as far as the eye could see, and a large number of sheep and horses had been put to pasture there. Dei Sechen’s yurt was incomparably larger and more lavish than Yisügei’s. All of his personal effects too were polished and fine looking. His storehouse was full of animal hides and varieties of pelts. As for items he had acquired, it seemed, in exchange for these hides and pelts, both Temüjin and his father were overwhelmed. He had lacquered furniture, finely crafted weapons and armor, and magnificent ornaments—also ivory and jade. Temüjin was forced to confront the fact that, by comparison, their own Mongol yurts were humble and shabby.
Börte was ten years old, a year older than Temüjin. Yisügei liked her the moment he set eyes on her, and Temüjin found her lovely, a girl with a large build who had grown up quickly. There was a luster to her white skin and light brown hair. Ever since he was a little boy, Temüjin had heard of the people known as “white Tatars,” as opposed to the “black Tatars,” but not until this trip to the Unggirads did he discover it was not simply a rumor.
After entertaining Yisügei’s party for three days, Dei Sechen hoped that Temüjin alone would remain behind for a time so that he might become closer to the Unggirad people. In this instance as well, Yisügei readily consented to Dei Sechen’s proposal. Although Temüjin was heavyhearted about living with an alien group of people, when he realized how much knowledge he could acquire by doing so, he obediently followed his father’s wishes and remained in Dei Sechen’s yurt. Eventually Yisügei’s group headed back toward the foothills of Mount Burqan, while Temüjin from that day began an entirely new life with a new language and new customs.
From the autumn of his ninth year until the spring of his thirteenth, Temüjin lived under Dei Sechen’s roof. He showed no interest at all in Börte, the young girl destined to be his future wife, but he did demonstrate an extraordinary interest, for one so young, in everything to do with quotidian Unggirad life. The Unggirads had a small number of young men specially trained to defend against raids by other peoples. They could manage a horse and manipulate a bow with extraordinary dexterity. Almost every day they trained at deployment over the grasslands and practiced drawing their small bows while on horseback so as to protect their flocks of domesticated animals from marauders. At Dei Sechen’s request, Temüjin joined one of these armed bands.
The most important thing Temüjin acquired during this period of time spent with the Unggirads was knowledge of the great state of Jin. At times, merchants from Jin who had crossed the Great Wall came by camel to their settlement. He learned all manner of things about Jin that he never could have attained had he remained along the upper reaches of the Onon River. What struck Temüjin as most awe-inspiring was that the Jin state and the Song state beyond it were each unified under a single ruler whose soldiers moved in concert with his orders.
In the spring of Temüjin’s thirteenth year, a young man some thirty years of age by the name of Münglig, a blood relative of Yisügei’s from their Borjigin settlement, came as the latter’s express messenger to meet Temüjin at the Unggirad village. It was not clear what Münglig actually said, but he noted that Yisügei had not seen Temüjin for quite some time. Although Dei Sechen wasn’t entirely satisfied with such an abrupt suggestion that Temüjin depart, he permitted the boy to return home on the condition that he would soon retrace his steps back to the Unggirad village.
Temüjin and Münglig rode their horses across the plain day and night. En route he learned from Münglig of the death of his father, Yisügei. As was the custom of a traveler on the road, Yisügei had attended a banquet of one Tatar lineage and fallen victim to a plot: his cup was filled with poison. He rode his horse for three days in great pain, making his way back to his own yurt, but at last did not survive. Yisügei had spent his entire life fighting his archenemies, the Tatars, and had launched a massive assault on them from which his people had gained twelve or thirteen years of peace, but his ultimate fate was to fall prey to their revenge.
When Temüjin learned of this from Münglig, he felt less a sadness at the death of his father than a flaming indignation. When Yisügei had fought against the Tatars thirteen years earlier and won a great victory, he ought not to have let them remain as they were. He should have rooted out what would become the fundamental cause of this latest incident. Every male should have been put to death, and every female child should have been assimilated into his father’s settlements as lowly servants. As a result of his failure to take these measures, naturally enough, his father had learned a divine lesson.
The thirteen-year-old Temüjin returned to the Borjigin base, a settlement that compared far less favorably with that of the Unggirads and that appeared to be sunk into even deeper wretchedness because of mourning for Yisügei. Temüjin and Münglig walked their horses slowly among several hundred yurts. It was still, with no sign of life in any of them. The lad finally dismounted in front of his own dwelling and entered. Suddenly, close to the entrance, he saw his two younger half-brothers, Belgütei and Begter, grown so big he would not have recognized them, standing before him. How was it possible for not a single shaft of light to enter through a hole in the roof and for the interior to be floating in such a dark, melancholy atmosphere? Temüjin stood by the entrance momentarily until his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. Gradually the image of his mother, Ö’elün, seated before him and surrounded by his four siblings, came more clearly into view.
“Your father, Yisügei, has died. From now on, you will have to stay here as the family pillar.” Temüjin heard these first words from Ö’elün and remained silent. Then, as if just becoming aware of something, she added:
“Call Münglig in.” Ö’elün seemed to be planning to thank Münglig for his trouble, but Belgütei, standing at the entrance, said:
“Münglig’s already mounted his horse and left.”
These words appeared to surprise Ö’elün for a moment, but checking to see if Belgütei’s words were accurate, she stood up and walked out of the yurt. Eventually she returned, gathered her seven children together, and said to them:
“From this day forward, only those living here are our allies. We must go on living by putting our efforts together.”
It had been several days since Yisügei’s funeral ceremony, and Ö’elün had yet to shed a single tear. According to Temüjin’s eleven-year-old brother, Qasar, the source of their mother’s tears had already withered away.
In a short period of time, Temüjin learned much startling information from his mother and brothers. First, as expected, with Yisügei’s death, effective power moved into the hands of the Tayichi’uds, which caused rumblings among the Borjigins and provided the opportunity for almost everyone to move over to the Tayichi’ud side. Second, accordingly, Yisügei’s successor as khan was clearly to be selected from the Tayichi’uds. Third, out of their pent-up jealousy, Yisügei’s various concubines had ostracized his primary wife Ö’elün and unilaterally carried out the ceremonies honoring the spirit of Yisügei, an action tantamount to societal expulsion. Fourth, even those close to the Borjigin lineage were avoiding Ö’elün more with each passing day, and in the past two or three days they had disappeared altogether. Finally, although the people of the settlement had been accustomed to convening almost daily meetings, all of a sudden no one called on the now powerless Ö’elün or her family to participate.
Temüjin listened to all of this in silence. He now understood why, when he had entered the village a while earlier, it was so quiet that it seemed as if no one was there. It was the time when they were meeting and handling various matters. Temüjin now realized why his family was in such a situation.
There was no one among the Borjigins with the influence or clout to lead the entire lineage after Yisügei’s death. That such a person did not exist was due to Yisügei’s not having prepared such a man for the position. This practice was not limited to the Borjigins; it held in the Tayichi’ud and other lineages as well. The people of a settlement came together around a single powerful person and were thus unified, but when the man died, they had to seek out another powerful man to rally around so as to protect all of their interests. This pattern had repeated itself numerous times in the history of the Mongol people. It was the very nature of a group that lacked organization.
Furthermore, the fact that the heirs of such a power holder should fall into miserable circumstances after his passing was simply the nature of things. Resentment of pressures brought to bear by such a powerful person necessitated the venting of heretofore smothered indignation against his heirs. “Do not suck out only the sweet juice”—this was an expression frequently used among the Mongolian peoples in many different circumstances, which may be understood as perfectly natural. To their way of thinking, it was the will of heaven that forced all men to be treated equally.
Temüjin reflected on the situation of Dei Sechen of the Unggirad people, with whom he had spent three and a half years. Although they too lacked organization as a group, accession to the position of leader was restricted to people in the family of Dei Sechen, which retained its effective power in the form of wealth. Dei Sechen had become wealthy from his various relatives, and he had not wished to separate from his future son-in-law Temüjin because he had no male heir.
Temüjin glanced around the inside of the yurt in which his father had so long lived as chief of the Borjigins. It was somewhat wider and taller than those of other settlements, but it differed in no significant way in its interior cramped feeling. Even if particularly expensive items were all crammed together, it didn’t mean that they were plentiful. Objects plundered from other peoples were quickly distributed equally, and the chief received no special portion. In short, they had no classes, and thus they had no particularly wealthy or impoverished among them—everyone was equally poor.
In a cold tone of voice containing a measure of anger, Temüjin said to Ö’elün:
“Everything as expected, following the normal path.” These were not the words of a youngster. It was the voice of a young man bearing the responsibility of a family head after the death of his father. Temüjin continued:
“The Tayichi’ud gang is probably not going to leave us alone. Like water finding its own level, our family’s misery will probably only become more wretched before it is resolved.”
When his mother heard Temüjin’s words, her tears began to gush forth once again from the source Qasar had just said had already dried up, and she continued sobbing until finally her wellspring had truly run dry. After she had been crying a long time, Begter and Belgütei took their bows and went out to hunt, Qachi’un and Temüge went off to play, and at some point five-year-old Temülün fell asleep.
Temüjin saw to his side only his brother Qasar standing and, like him, quietly gazing at their mother. Then, as if issuing a manifesto, he said to Qasar:
“From this day forward, you’re going to be my trusted retainer. Never violate any order I give you! In return, I will recognize that within this family you are second only to me in power and authority. If we quarrel with Begter and Belgütei, we need to cooperate to oppose them. And if I fall, you shall take over leadership of this family in my stead.”
When she heard Temüjin, Ö’elün stopped weeping and raised her head slightly, but then soon reverted to her earlier posture. Temüjin sought a definitive response from Qasar. His normally composed face dizzier with agitation than that of his more mild-mannered brother, Qasar replied:
“So be it! I shall comply with your decision.”
Temüjin also felt stirred up. For him this vow was extremely solemn, exceeding in its gravity any moment since his birth. To help his weak mother and support the family, Temüjin established an order in his isolated and unaided family, laid out a system, and established strata. His determination was rooted in his sense of responsibility that he had to continue supporting them, but one thing further was his new vigilance toward his two half-brothers, Begter and Belgütei, who over the three and a half years of his absence had grown big and strong, as if to defy him. When he entered the yurt after this period of absence, Temüjin had seen his two younger brothers face to face, but the impression he had received was certainly not of loving blood relatives. He sensed in them less brethren than enemies.
As Temüjin predicted, yet worse circumstances soon struck them. One morning about two months later, there was some sort of uproar outside the door to his yurt, and Temüjin was aroused from sleep to step outside. In the dim light of early dawn, he saw several hundred men and women hard at work folding up their yurts and packing away their household effects on horses and camels. The whole settlement was on the verge of moving. At some point Temüjin realized that Ö’elün was standing at his side. She was dumbstruck, incapable of speech.
Temüjin left his mother, walked over to the neighboring yurt, and asked where they were heading. The man he addressed replied:
“We’re moving to new pastureland on orders from the Tayichi’ud chief.”
Although there was nothing the least bit odd about the settlement moving, as summer was drawing near, that they were following orders from the Tayichi’ud chief and that this information had not been conveyed to Temüjin’s yurt were serious issues. Temüjin soon realized that he and his family were being ostracized and abandoned. With no khan yet selected, it would have been normal to consult Temüjin, as Yisügei’s eldest son, on all matters concerning the movement of the settlement. Not only was there no word of parting communicated, but his family was on the verge of being deserted here and now.
Although Temüjin virulently attacked this behavior verbally, everyone held him in disdain and ignored what he had to say. When he began to walk back in the direction of his own yurt, his body trembling in anger, he saw the figure of his mother, Ö’elün, sitting astride a white horse, holding a banner adorned with the hair from the tail of a white horse. She was raising a distinctive banner, symbol of the khan’s power, and attempting to prevent the villagers from unilaterally moving to new pastureland. Temüjin knew full well that his mother’s action would have no effect. He neither backed her up nor moved to stop her.
When he returned to his yurt, he stood in front of it for some time, observing the confusion of activity among the villagers. His mother stopped her horse at the southwestern corner of the settlement’s center. From time to time, the horsehairs on the banner she was holding aloft fluttered in the high breeze as if they had been tossed up into the air. At a distance the banner appeared small.
Eventually small groups of camels and horses placed here and there in the center of the settlement all began moving without control. There was one group comprised of the occupants of two or three yurts. They had abandoned the land they had become familiar with over the past half year and disappeared beyond an incline sloping abruptly from where Ö’elün was holding her banner. The banner in her hands was effectively marking the exit for groups setting out from the center of the settlement. The people and animals that had filled this area gradually decreased in number until all that remained was the yurt of Ö’elün and her children.
When the last of the groups vanished beyond the slope in the land, Temüjin saw Ö’elün approaching from the center that had suddenly been completely emptied. Still holding the banner aloft and riding her horse, Ö’elün looked ashen. From such extreme tension, she had a fervent expression on her face, such a look of courage and beauty as he had never before seen in her.
“Münglig has gone too, as have Jamugha and Sorqan Shira,” she said as she dismounted, enumerating one by one each of the men who had been on intimate terms with Yisügei. Among the names was that of Bültechü Ba’atur, the elderly man with the great memory.
That evening the oldest member of the Borjigin lineage, Charaqa (father of Münglig), rode over to them on horseback. He was injured, tumbled from his horse, and immediately fell unconscious. His wound was severe, a spear having been thrust into his back. Although the circumstances were unknown, Ö’elün and her children pulled Charaqa into their tent and looked after him.
After two or three days, Charaqa with great difficulty was finally able to say something. He described how he alone had to the bitter end raised objections to the abandonment of Ö’elün and her children; even after the villagers had begun departing, he had gone around trying to persuade prominent figures among the Tayichi’uds not to do this. At that time, one of the Tayichi’ud leaders, by the name of Tödö’en Girte, said:
“The deep water has run dry. The bright stone has crumbled. Yisügei is dead. How dare you chatter like this!?” No sooner had he spoken than he plunged the spear in his hand into Charaqa’s back.
Old Man Charaqa lived for three more days, drank only water, then died. The tears he had been unable to shed at the time of his father’s death, Temüjin now cried upon the death of this lone brave man among the Borjigins. Ö’elün worried while Temüjin wailed. He deeply regretted the fact that he had no means of repaying the fidelity that Charaqa had shown his family whose fortunes were now in such decline.
Thereafter, life for Ö’elün and her children deteriorated to an appalling state. She and her seven children, with Temüjin the leader, had but one tent and a small number of sheep and horses. Also, because the tent stood by itself all alone, they had no one to trade with for food and clothing.
Having abandoned her and her family, the Borjigins had united with the Tayichi’ud lineage and built a new settlement on the grassy plain along the lower reaches of the Onon River, a few days’ journey away. The ruler of the Tayichi’uds, Targhutai, had also acceded to the position of khan of the Mongolian people, but nothing of this had reached Ö’elün or her children.
To stave off starvation, Temüjin did not allow anyone to play. Almost every day, Ö’elün took baby Temülün with her farther and farther up the Onon River to pick wild herbs and pushed deep into the mountains to gather wild pears. In the small field in front of their tent, she grew leeks and shallots. Each day the six sons divided up the work and went out into the pastures to drive the sheep. If they had a moment’s break, they would fish or hunt.
During this period, Temüjin worried most about the fact that his half-brothers, Belgütei and Begter, were always going off together and disobeying his orders. They resembled each other like two peas in a pod, with robust builds, fierce strength, and coarse temperaments.
In the spring more than a year after Yisügei’s death, Temüjin repeatedly clashed with his two younger brothers. His full brother Qasar had sworn an oath of allegiance with him and remained obedient, but he lacked power and was meek in temperament. Thus, when it came to confronting his two half-brothers, Temüjin really had no subordinates he could rely on. His other two brothers, Qachi’un and Temüge, were only ten and eight years of age, respectively, not yet old enough to be depended upon as allies. Temüjin had been deprived of much booty by his two younger half-brothers. When they came and confronted him directly with demands that he knew were unjustified, he had no choice but to acquiesce.
On one occasion, Temüjin had gone fishing with Qasar, and Qasar caught a fish called a soghosun or dace, which had a strange, shiny light on its body. Upon seeing it, Belgütei and Begter quickly contrived to seize it from Qasar. A ferocious struggle broke out between Qasar, who did not want to relinquish the fish, with Temüjin supporting him, and the two half-brothers. In the end, the shiny dace fell into the hands of Belgütei and Begter.
Temüjin complained of this incident to his mother. Ö’elün grimaced sadly and said:
“Why are you behaving like this? You’re fighting with your brothers. Why aren’t you seeking revenge against the Tayichi’uds? We have no friends other than our shadows now and no whip other than a horse’s tail.”
Their mother’s words pierced Temüjin to the heart, but they also revived his antipathy toward the Tayichi’uds and strengthened his resolve never to leave Begter and Belgütei to their own devices, as he had until that point.
The following morning, Temüjin called to Begter outside his tent and rebuked him for his recent actions, bidding him to reform his ways. Before he knew what had happened, though, an argument broke out between them.
“You are not the son of Mother Ö’elün,” said Temüjin. “What gives you the right to make the gentle Ö’elün even sadder?”
“It’s you who aren’t the son of Father Yisügei,” replied Begter. “Belgütei, Qasar, Qachi’un, Temüge, Temülün, and I are all his children, but only you are different. I know it! Everyone in the settlement knew it. You’re the only one who doesn’t. Merkid blood flows in your veins. You just used Ö’elün’s body to be born into this family—that’s all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You may think it’s a rumor and no more, but go ask Mother. Your mother, the woman who gave birth to you, she knows all this better than anyone. If you can’t stomach asking her yourself, then ask yourself the question. Father Yisügei didn’t love you at all. Did it ever occur to you to wonder why?”
Temüjin understood Begter’s words the moment he heard them, for he had held so very much pent up inside him for a long time. It was like a mighty rainstorm pounding around his ears.
“Why are you speaking such nonsense?” said Temüjin, rejecting Begter’s every word. His voice had lost its resounding echo necessary to coerce an interlocutor. He didn’t believe Begter’s words, but he was indeed sharply hurt by them. They were the final blow to Temüjin.
“From this day forward, I obey nothing you may command me to do. I do not recognize you as my elder brother. I bear the blood of Yisügei and shall be giving the orders in this tent.”
He spit out the words, turned away from Temüjin, and walked off. For a short while, Temüjin watched Begter’s back after his grand declaration of resistance and his departure. All of a sudden, the feeling exploded in Temüjin’s mind that he could not let his younger half-brother go on living. One who would disturb the peace under their roof and defy him personally had to be eliminated, no matter who he was.
Temüjin called on Qasar and ordered him to check where Begter had gone and inform him. When Qasar returned shortly thereafter, he reported that Begter was guarding nine dappled-gray horses on a mountain not far away.
Seizing his bow, Temüjin ordered Qasar to do the same, and the two of them left the tent together. When they reached the foothill of the mountain, Temüjin confided in Qasar his determination to slay Begter. Qasar’s countenance momentarily changed color, his eyes opening wide in astonishment, but when he learned that this was to be Temüjin’s command, he swore to cooperate.
Attacking Begter from two sides, the brothers climbed opposite slopes of the mountain. They simultaneously fixed arrows in their bows and aimed at Begter, who was then standing on the peak. When Begter noticed them and figured out what they were trying to do, he dropped to the ground abruptly and declared in desperation:
“So, you intend to kill me. Then shoot away, as I have no recourse! Qasar, you shoot your arrow first. I’ll probably die. I don’t want to die from the arrow of a Merkid.”
Begter may have finished speaking or he may not have, as both Temüjin and Qasar let arrows fly. Hit in the chest and in the back, Begter staggered weakly and stopped. One after the next, they shot arrows at him. All of Qasar’s hit his abdomen in front; all of Temüjin’s struck him in the rear. Looking like a hedgehog, Begter dropped dead.
When they arrived back at their yurt, Ö’elün immediately asked them in a stern tone of voice unlike any she ordinarily used:
“What have you just come from doing? What’s that look on your faces?”
Temüjin said that Begter was on the small mountain, but was not likely to be coming back. Ö’elün’s face was transformed in the twinkling of an eye; she let out a groan and scowled at Temüjin.
“You’ve killed one of a small number of your allies—like a dog chewing its afterbirth, or a panther rushing into a cliff, or a lion unable to stifle its rage, or a serpent swallowing animals alive, or a large falcon dashing at its own shadow, or a churaqa fish swallowing silently, or a camel biting at the heel of its colt.”
At the point, Ö’elün ceased speaking, or, to be more precise, her agitation took the words away from her. Eventually, though, she continued in an even more impassioned tone:
“You have killed. You have killed an irreplaceable ally—like a wolf injuring its head and mouth, or a mandarin duck eating its young because it cannot keep up with them, or a jackal attacking if one moves his sleeping spot, or a tiger not hesitating to capture its quarry, or a wolverine rushing off recklessly.”
Ö’elün ceased speaking at this point and collapsed onto the ground. Temüjin did not know that a person could become so profoundly incensed. Given the virulence of her manner of speech, she clearly had collapsed in anger, like a rainstorm raging so fiercely one does not even realize when it has stopped.
Until that moment, Temüjin was not the least inclined to allow Begter’s accomplice, Belgütei, to go on living, but his mother’s anger made him reverse his murderous designs. He whispered to Qasar:
“We’re going to let Belgütei live.”
Having now lost his partner, Belgütei was someone who might, as their mother had said, be an important ally. Qasar was dumbfounded at their mother’s expression of fury, but when he caught on to Temüjin’s words, this loyal family supporter offered:
“Belgütei does have some good attributes. When he takes a vow, he never breaks it.”
At their mother’s demand, Temüjin and Qasar buried Begter’s corpse on the small mountainside.
Ö’elün visited the site almost every day for some three months. For his part, Temüjin did not believe he had erred in his actions. Since Begter’s disappearance from the scene, life in their yurt had become immeasurably more peaceful. Not a single verbal argument had broken out among the brothers. In his accomplice’s absence, Belgütei had become a changed, mild-mannered young man. As Qasar said, once he made a promise, no matter what transpired, he would always abide by it.
After Begter’s death, Temüjin remembered the final words out of his mouth even with the passage of time. They seemed to follow him everywhere, as if replicating the tenacity of Begter’s rancor itself: “Qasar, you shoot your arrow first. … I don’t want to die from the arrow of a Merkid.”
Countless times these words came back into Temüjin’s mind. In the final moment when Begter realized that he could not escape, he thought to say something spiteful, but it was nonetheless a feeling that had gotten under Begter’s skin.
In addition, Temüjin always remembered the words that Begter had used to assail him that same morning. Was he was not the son of Yisügei but of a Merkid man? What would it mean if his mother was Ö’elün, but his father was not actually Yisügei? And what did Begter mean by saying that Yisügei never loved him?
Amid the many words that Begter had hurled at him, those that left the deepest scars in Temüjin’s mind were his final words, that Yisügei did not love him.
From time to time, when he wasn’t entirely sure, Temüjin would find himself recalling in precise detail every single word and deed that his late father had said or done to him. Even in Yisügei’s few words and trivial actions—such as how he moved his eyes—Temüjin tried to detect some kind of meaning. This sort of work inspired spiritual isolation and intense physical fatigue. An exhausted Temüjin thought that possibly there had been something different in the way Yisügei behaved toward him as opposed to his other children. Once he began thinking along these lines, Yisügei seemed altogether a different man from the one Temüjin had known when he was alive, and cast an immense eerie shadow.
The more he brooded over this, the more his having been entrusted from age nine to the Unggirads took on a completely different meaning. Perhaps it had been his father’s intention to get rid of him to this alien lineage settlement. He had returned home only because of his father’s death, but had his father been alive, would he have had to remain abandoned forever in that village near the Xing’an Mountains?
From around the time he turned fifteen, Temüjin became not only reticent but also more sullenly taciturn, rarely speaking to anyone. He and his younger brothers fortified their solid physiques tirelessly cultivating the leeks and shallots their mother planted, but the young leader always seemed to find himself alone, sitting inside their tent.
Unfortunately, Temüjin was not near anyone who could have alleviated his doubts. Were he to ask his mother, the whole problem might have been cleared up immediately, but he was not willing to ask Ö’elün about the secret of his birth. He thought he might again touch the frenzied rage that she had shown when they had killed Begter. It appeared as though the words he had uttered to her contained something that goaded her heart and might again put her in that maddened state.
As far as Temüjin was concerned, there was nothing particularly cruel in the hypothesis that Merkid, not Mongol, blood was coursing through his body. He simply had to be Yisügei’s son. If he were not, then he would have no connection with Grandfather Bartan Ba’atur or Great-grandfather Qabul, or earlier with Tumbinai Sechen (Tumbinai “the wise”), or with Bai Shingqor Doqshin before him, or much earlier with the brave Qabichi, or with Bodonchar Mungqaq (son of the fair Alan and light from a corner of heaven), or further back still to Du’a Soqor (the man with one eye) or Toroqoljin Bayan, or back many generations to Yeke Nidün, Sali Qacha’u, or all the way to the first Mongol Batachiqan—and, pursuing this chain all the way back, to the latter’s father, the blue wolf that crossed the large lake to the west, and his mother, the pale doe. No trace of such a doubt could remain.
When Temüjin contemplated the possibility that he bore no relationship to the wolf or doe of highest antiquity, he was overcome by a feeling of utter hopelessness, as if all had turned black before his eyes. Ever since he could remember from his earliest youth, he had lived within the transmission of the Mongol origins. Having his body now deprived of Mongol blood meant denying this entire past as well as any future. Temüjin now no longer knew what he had been living for, nor for that matter what he would live for in the future. Was there neither a drop of the wolf’s nor a drop of the doe’s blood in his own? Was he, then, unrelated to those two beautiful creatures that had spawned so many brave men, capable archers, and sagely figures? Qasar, Qachi’un, Temüge, and the weak female Temülün, as well as his half-brother, Belgütei, all carried Mongol blood—did he alone not share in this heritage? At his wits’ end, worried sick day in and day out, Temüjin would always forcibly thrust aside his suspicions as empty speculation unworthy of consideration. For, right or wrong, he had to be a member of the Mongolian people.
In the summer of his fifteenth year, Temüjin had an unusual experience. At this time, his yurt was set up on grassland on the right shore (as one went downriver) along the middle reaches of the Onon River. One day he was returning home from the pastureland when he caught sight of a destitute man walking at the far end of the plateau. Since he had been separated from his own settlement, Temüjin would see another person at most two or three times a year. Moved by an urge for companionship, Temüjin cautiously rode his horse over in the man’s direction. Unexpectedly, the man was a Borjigin known to Temüjin. In his youth, Temüjin remembered, he had played with the man’s children in their yurt.
“Hey, you’re Yisügei’s son,” he said with emphasis. “Absolutely, you’re Temüjin.” In a short period of time, fifteen-year-old Temüjin had grown into a fine young man. As far as he was concerned, this man was one of the lineage who in anger had abandoned his mother and siblings, but Temüjin also felt in this shabbily dressed, haggard little man looking up at him a yearning to meet up with members of his lineage, and thus he bore him no ill will.
“How are you supporting yourselves?” asked the man. Not only was it incomprehensible that they could survive alone in their yurt, completely isolated from the settlement, but also it was beyond his comprehension that Temüjin could grow into such a stalwart youth. Temüjin learned from this fellow that the members of the Borjigin lineage who remained under Targhutai Khan of the Tayichi’uds had not fared well at all.
When the man finished speaking and was about to depart, Temüjin, from an emotion even he could not suppress, called out to him unthinking:
“Wait!” Temüjin thought that perhaps the man could help unravel the secret of his own roots by which he had long been haunted.
“I am Yisügei’s son? Go on, say it,” called Temüjin to the man, who was looking back over his shoulder. For a moment the man was confused by this extraordinary question, but after a while he answered nebulously:
“Well, certainly.”
There was a stern look on Temüjin’s face when he finally spoke once more:
“Not everyone knows this. Only Mother Ö’elün does. But what can I do? My mother was abducted twice by a Tatar. My younger brothers are Yisügei’s sons, but I don’t know whose son I am, because Borjigin and Tayichi’ud women were all taken by force once or twice.” Temüjin was speaking in utmost seriousness.
“Uhuh, I see. Well, your mother did come to us when Yisügei snatched her from a Merkid, so if your father’s not Yisügei, you’d be a Merkid, right? So, be the person you want to be. Anyway, you’ve got to wait until you’re fifty to know for sure. Truth be told, everyone learns who their parents are when they turn fifty. Merkid people age fast and they’re all thieves. Kereyids have receding hairlines and are all miserly.”
“Are they Mongols?” said the youngster with an expression of incomprehension.
“Mongols become wolves,” said the old man.
Temüjin didn’t know precisely what it meant to become a wolf, but didn’t question him further. Becoming a wolf—as opposed to ageing fast and stealing or have a receding hairline and being stingy—struck him as something qualitatively different. There was in the expression “to become a wolf” something that registered with Temüjin—vague, to be sure, but nonetheless something that had been with him from early on—and it was connected, it seemed, with the secret of Mongolian blood. In this sense, the answers offered up by this ragged old Borjigin man seemed accurate. Any other way of putting it could certainly not explain the issue of blood.
Although Temüjin had been unable to unearth any of the essential details of his birth, he was resigned to it and let the man go. Now all that he could think about was becoming a wolf at age fifty.
As he reflected on it, he thought that it was better to have met this Borjigin man than not. On his way home after leaving the man, Temüjin vowed that he would never ask his mother about the identity of his father. To shoot the arrow of such a question at Ö’elün would not only embarrass her but also sadden her—it offered not a single positive result. If his mother were to tell him that his father was a Merkid, what could that possibly mean for him? Everything that now supported him would be completely rent asunder. By contrast, if he were to learn that his blood was indeed that of a Mongol, it would be merely a consolation. Ö’elün surely knew what was proper to say and what was not. Most important, as the shabby old man had said, was that he, Temüjin, believed that Yisügei was his father and that accordingly he had inherited Mongolian blood.
When Temüjin reached home late that night, he reported having met an old man of their lineage that day. He told his mother and siblings that the Borjigin people were not, in this man’s assessment, doing at all well.
“Just a little more patience,” said Ö’elün. “When you all become full-fledged adults, the Borjigins will come scrambling to our side.”
Although he said nothing, Temüjin had no interest whatsoever in waiting until he reached his majority to launch an attack on their enemies, the Tayichi’uds, and regain the Borjigin settlement and bring it back together as before. His was not an easygoing manner. Temüjin could afford to lose no time in becoming a wolf—not only for the Borjigin lineage and for Ö’elün and his siblings, but also for himself. No becoming a thief or a miser! No hair turning light brown or going bald! He could never resemble another line’s appearance in any way. And Temüjin had to become a wolf. That would definitively prove that he was the son of Yisügei and that Mongolian blood coursed through his veins.