EARLY IN THE FOURTH MONTH OF THE YEAR 1213, when the falling snow had gradually tapered off and the spring sun had begun to shine, Chinggis issued orders to his entire army to cross the Great Wall a second time and invade the state of Jin. Messengers were dispatched to the camps of the various military units, as well as to those of Muqali, Jebe, and Sübe’etei, who were not going to start operations yet.
Over the course of the following half month, Chinggis’s base camp was in a constant state of disorder as troops came together and set off on the march. Chinggis himself spent almost every day busily preparing for the central army that he and Tolui commanded to head out. One such day, he paid a call on Qulan, whom he had not visited for roughly two weeks, to see if she was engaged in preparations to take the field.
Qulan’s tent was quiet. She was alone, sitting in a chair, green jade earrings dangling from her ears.
“We take the field in three days. Are you ready to march?” he asked.
“This time,” she replied unexpectedly, “I think I’ll remain behind in my tent. Once the weather has warmed up a bit, I will gladly join the troops, but in the present weather I fear for Kölgen’s health.”
As he listened to her words, Chinggis realized that his own complexion was changing.
“Qulan, my beloved princess! Didn’t you accompany this expeditionary force because you wished always to be with me?”
Chinggis spoke in an unintentionally firm tone of voice with an irrepressible feeling. Until now, Qulan had followed the army through every battle, always placing Kölgen in the leather saddlebag of an aging, trustworthy soldier. Not once had she refused to join the march. It was as a result of her importunate request to join the campaign, while recognizing all the inherent difficulties, that she, together with Kölgen, had accompanied them. Chinggis didn’t know what to make of her present attitude. Was she overcome with fright at seeing a ferocious battle? Had she come to hold her own and Kölgen’s lives too dear?
It would be difficult to say that Jochi, Cha’adai, and Ögedei hoped to survive the coming battle. The situation was no different for their youngest brother, Tolui. Chinggis thought that Tolui, although only just twenty years of age, could be given a unit to command on the battlefield. He assigned himself to the same unit, but once they reached the front they might suffer different fates, each not knowing what might have become of the other.
Without answering Qulan, Chinggis left her tent. After returning to his own, he kept to himself for a long period of time, keeping everyone at a distance. If all four sons he had sired with Börte were to meet death on the field of battle—something entirely within the realm of the possible—then in what position would that leave Kölgen, the child born to himself and Qulan?
As a father, Chinggis of course loved his son Kölgen. This child was born when Chinggis was already older, and he was born to his beloved Qulan. Although Chinggis had not clearly expressed it, Kölgen was more precious to him than any of his other sons. The proposition that Kölgen, still a young child, might go off to the front just like his half-brothers and he alone survive was altogether different than the notion that he should not proceed to the front at all and survive in a settlement somewhere.
An image of Börte’s face floated into Chinggis’s mind. For so many years, she had shared his troubles, and now, as if she were with him, he was staring fixedly at a point in space where he saw the visage of Börte, his legal wife, whom he had left behind in her tent at Mount Burqan. Chinggis did not fear her, but he could not erase the image of her from before him.
Chinggis had once walked around inside his tent, not sleeping a wink the entire night, wondering if he should seize the shaman priest Teb Tenggeri or his own younger brother Qasar. Now, he had again shut himself up in his own tent since midday and did not leave until after it was enveloped completely in darkness. Late that night, Chinggis called to an aide and instructed him to summon Sorqan Shira, father of his two commanders, Chimbai and Chila’un. Eventually, the old man, now in his mid-seventies, brought his thin, weary body before Chinggis. Staring at Sorqan Shira’s face, Chinggis said:
“Old man. When I was a lad taken captive by the Tayichi’uds, you saved my life. Will you do something for me one more time?”
“If the great khan orders it,” he replied, “Sorqan Shira has no choice but to obey.”
When the old man had spoken, Chinggis’s own words emerged in brief phrases, the conclusion to his thinking from midday to nighttime.
“Sorqan Shira, go now directly to Qulan’s tent and take Kölgen. Give Kölgen to some anonymous member of the Mongolian people to be raised as such. Under no circumstance must you reveal that Kölgen is my child.”
Hearing these words, the color of Sorqan Shira’s face, which never revealed an ordinary emotion, changed.
“Go to the princess’s tent and seize the prince. Give the prince to a nameless member of the Mongolian people, to be raised. Do not inform anyone of the prince’s identity,” Sorqan Shira repeated in a low voice, as though rehearsing in his own words what the great khan had just said.
“And do not tell Qulan to whom you have entrusted Kölgen as parents,” added Chinggis. “Do not tell me either. This will be something that only Sorqan Shira on this earth shall know.”
Sorqan Shira again repeated his instructions, said, “Um” and groaned briefly, stumbling a bit under the weight of his assignment, and then left.
The next day Chinggis visited Qulan’s tent. When the sound of his footsteps reached the tent, he called to her:
“Qulan, you will now proceed with me to the field of battle. Upon the invasion of the state of Jin, I shall give you the honor of being the only woman to be part of the army.”
Qulan stiffened her pale features and replied in a low voice:
“I respectfully accept your command.”
After this she said nothing, but she had been stunned by the immense impact the words she had uttered the previous day had unintentionally had, and was overwhelmingly shattered in body and soul. The indolence and cowardice taking root in her beloved Kölgen, who had so quickly and without any warning captivated her, had now visited a severe fate upon her with the seizure, equally without warning, of her adored son.
“Make preparations for departure quickly,” said Chinggis.
“They are already made,” replied Qulan. “Great khan,” she added as she raised her dejected face, “you have thrown the child made by myself and the great khan into the vast sea. I may never see Kölgen again.”
Her tone was rather subdued.
“If Kölgen possesses the superior qualities of a man,” responded Chinggis, “he will surely grow up and become a Mongol wolf, surpass others, and make a name for himself—not because you have been treated as a Mongol princess or because you raised Kölgen as a Mongol prince. Qulan, you will be with me forever as my fine servant. Furthermore, we shall see to it that Kölgen will be reared on the basis of his own capacities as a son of the Mongolian masses.”
As he spoke these words, Chinggis found that he too was stricken by an inexplicable emotion that made him shudder. He now understood for the first time the import of the cruel measure he had taken on behalf of Kölgen. Although he knew that he was desperately trying to protect both Qulan whom he loved and Kölgen whom he loved, unfortunately he had been unable to put that feeling into words to Qulan. There was really nothing he could do, he reasoned, if she did not understand the arrangement he had made.
No sooner had he spoken the words than she, who was like a precious gem, disappeared without a trace. From that moment until the day the troops began to march, no one saw her. Chinggis was absorbed in military business and had no time to visit Qulan’s tent. When the troops departed from camp, Qulan was on horseback by Chinggis’s side. For three days and three nights Qulan wept nonstop until her lachrymal glands were completely dried out and not another tear could be shed. Neither Chinggis nor Qulan thenceforth so much as uttered a syllable of Kölgen’s name.
En route to the invasion of Zhongdu, the central army under Chinggis’s leadership captured a number of citadels scattered along the way. All of them had earlier been captured by Muqali, and after the Mongol forces retreated, they fell back into the hands of Jin troops. Chinggis’s forces attacked and seized Xuande and then surrounded Dexing. During the fighting, he put his son Tolui in charge of the Dexing army of occupation. Orders were strict. At the head of his army in a tough fight, Tolui and his men climbed up the city’s ramparts and staked Borjigin banners along it.
Chinggis marched his army on and attempted to take the city of Huailai. On the way he came upon a huge army of crack Jin troops under the command of Left Army Supervisor Gao Qi, and after a ferocious battle lasting three days and nights, overcame them.
Without so much as a respite, Chinggis marched his troops on and pressed close to Juyong Pass, but he learned that a large Jin force was stationed there, and fearing heavy casualties, he changed direction and crossed the Great Wall far west of the pass. They proceeded to bring down a number of fortresses and inflict defeats on the Jin army. When they emerged on the Hebei plain, they promptly occupied the two walled towns of Zhuozhou and Yizhou. Zhongdu was but a stone’s throw away. The Mongol cavalry continued its march amid gale winds and thunderclaps. Looking north, Chinggis deployed his troops for Zhongdu.
Chinggis met up at Yizhou with Jebe’s forces, who had marched all the way from Liaoyang. Less than two months had passed since he had issued the orders to Jebe in the rear to invade Jin terrain. Without resting, Jebe left Yizhou and led an attack on the Juyong Pass from within the Great Wall, and eventually his troops succeeded in capturing it. This was his second seizure of the Juyong Pass. Leaving Zhongdu alone for now, Chinggis advanced his forces to the Yellow River basin and overran the Shandong region.
During this period, the right army under the command of Jochi moved, as ordered, to fight in the mountainous area of Shanxi. They captured all of the walled towns in the province, moved on to the Hebei plain, and then appeared at will throughout Shanxi and Hebei. The cavalry unit of the left army under Qasar raced back and forth searching for the enemy on terrain west of the Liao River.
Thus, several hundred Mongol cavalry troops trampled Jin territory under their horses’ hoofs. From this year through the spring of 1214, they despoiled ninety cities and planted Borjigin banners upon the walls of every one of them.
In the fourth month of the year, Chinggis issued orders to his entire army, spread out across various sites on Jin terrain, to coalesce on the outskirts of Zhongdu. On a virtually daily basis thereafter for over a month, Mongol horsemen from both south and north of the Hebei plain, as well as from the east and west, raised a blinding sandstorm from all directions and emerged in the middle of it. The plain to the west of Zhongdu was densely covered with Mongol troops. Numbering 200,000 when they had set out from the Mongolian plateau, they had grown to more than twice that now. Half of them were surrendered Jin troops.
Chinggis and his commanders met for the first time in fifteen months in a corner of the plain overlooking the city of Zhongdu. Like a small island in the great sea, Zhongdu alone had escaped being captured and lay there before their eyes. Within this city, there was ceaseless strife, with apprehension inviting further apprehension, continual assassinations, and power holders changing one after the next.
Chinggis dispatched two emissaries to this last Jin city whose life was hanging by a thread. A signed letter to the Jin emperor was entrusted to them:
—All of your territory north of the Yellow River has now fallen into our hands, and all that remains is Zhongdu alone. It is heaven that has caused you to be reduced to such weakness. Should I press closer to you? I fear that I would incur heaven’s anger. I am about to pull my troops back. You should provide my troops with comfort and thanks, which will calm the hostility of my commanders.
Although the tone was intended not to injure the honor of the Jin emperor, the letter was nonetheless plainly advice to surrender. When Chinggis selected the messenger to carry the letter, he much regretted that Boroghul, the foundling his mother Ö’elün had raised, was no longer alive. Chinggis felt again the long-dormant sorrow of Boroghul’s loss when he was sent to rescue Qorchi.
In reply, the Jin emperor conveyed his acceptance of Chinggis’s offer and the will to conclude a peace. Commander Muqali and Chinggis’s eldest son, Jochi, proceeded to Zhongdu as representatives of the great khan and discussed peace. It was called “peace,” but it was in substance surrender by the Jin.
Chinggis demanded a royal princess but nothing else. There was no need. With the 200,000 Jin troops incorporated into his army came enormous quantities of items collected in the 90 cities aside from Zhongdu—weapons, agricultural implements, horse gear, and clothing and related ornaments. Had something been sought in Zhongdu just before the fall of the city, it would have been a princess. In place of carpets and bedding, Chinggis had to spread over his bed a woman of the imperial house of the great Jin state. Revenge for the gruesome manner in which Hambaghai Khan had been murdered would be borne by a single young daughter of the Jin emperor.
Several days after the peace discussions came to an end, Hatun, a daughter of the former Jin emperor Wanyan Shengguo [Taizong, d. 1135] was sent to Chinggis’s camp together with an immense quantity of gold, numerous valuables, 500 boys and 500 girls, and 3,000 horses.
Gathering up this extraordinary booty, Chinggis ordered his entire army to withdraw from the Jin. At the head of his troops, Chinggis started from Juyong Pass to the vast north. On this day the wind was blowing fiercely at the Great Wall, and the trees along the corridors of the wall were rustling and shaking, being torn to pieces. When he brought his horse to a halt at the corridor, Chinggis observed his long line of troops, who never knew how long they would march, and said to Jebe, who was serving at his side:
“We’ll be able to cross more comfortably at Juyong Pass, because of you.” The commander who had attacked and taken Juyong Pass twice, once from the north and once from the south, made a watchful eye and said, laughing:
“I wonder how many more times Jebe will have to capture the Juyong Pass?”
Chinggis laughed as well. Their laughter immediately vanished, usurped by the wind, and neither’s voice reached the other’s ears. As Jebe had said, Chinggis did not believe that he had brought the immense apparition known as the state of Jin under his personal control for all time. Chinggis himself could not say if he would be able completely to conquer the Jin.
Grand Councilor Wanyan Fuxing of the Jin came to escort the invaders as far as north of the Juyong Pass.
After three full years, the Mongol officers and troops were now able to return to the Mongolian plateau in triumph. When he arrived at his tent on Mount Burqan, Chinggis remained a short while and then moved his base camp to Lake Yur of the Tatars. It was still necessary to keep a watch on the movements of the Jin, and he felt that it would be wise, before anything untoward transpired, to defend against any friction between Börte and Qulan.
In addition to Qulan, Chinggis brought Princess Hatun from the state of Jin into the former Tatar base area. Although the number of stunningly beautiful women Chinggis had acquired at various sites on Chinese terrain had become considerable, he had them all work in service to Qulan and Hatun. Hatun was taciturn, quite unattractive, and short. Although he considered her a princess, Chinggis soon stopped summoning her to his own tent. He did, however, continue to treat her as befit royalty.
Shortly after the victorious return of the Mongol armies to the Mongolian plateau, Sorqan Shira, the oldest member of their armed forces, died. Twice during his own lifetime, Chinggis had been in life-threatening danger, and on both occasions this old man had saved him. He now rewarded Sorqan Shira with the rites of a state funeral. On the day of the ceremony, Chinggis and Qulan went to the gravesite and dropped a few clods of earth onto the coffin. Both Chinggis and Qulan grieved that, with the death of Sorqan Shira, the only man who knew where Kölgen was living was now gone. Chinggis, though, said nothing about Kölgen, and Qulan never so much as mentioned his name. Sorqan Shira’s coffin was lowered well into the earth before their eyes, and they would never see him again.
As Jebe had anticipated at the Juyong Pass, the day the Mongol armies would have to cross the Great Wall again arrived earlier than expected. A report was delivered to Chinggis’s base camp to the effect that the Jin emperor had moved capitals from Zhongdu to Bianjing (modern-day Kaifeng) at the end of the sixth month, shortly after the Mongol armies returned home.
When Chinggis learned that the Jin had no peaceful intentions, his indignation at this frightful betrayal burned like a raging fire. Chinggis immediately issued marching orders against the Jin to the cavalry units of the Salji’uds, who had fought so outstandingly in the early battles with the Jin, and to the Jurchen cavalry units, who had massacred the enemy so brutally and tenaciously. Sammuqa would command the former and Mingghan the latter. His orders on this occasion were merciless to the extreme: take the city of Zhongdu and destroy everything in it completely.
At the same time, Chinggis ordered Commander Muqali to proceed to Liaodong. He had heard from the Khitan Prince Yelü Liuge that Jin troops were about to try to retake the region, and he wanted to put a stop to it. When he set out, Chinggis instructed Muqali, this man of incomparable achievements as fighter and statesman:
—I entrust to you governance of the land to the north of the Daxing Mountains. Conquest of the land to the south of these mountains is the responsibility of the army.
Chinggis had thought to have Muqali pacify the Jin and take over governance of the great Southern Song dynasty beyond it. In his estimation, Muqali was up to the job, but the latter was something that Chinggis felt he had to do himself. An attraction was beginning to surface in Chinggis’s mind at this time, more than toward China: toward the unknown lands farther west where people had different skin and eye colors.
He saw off the two expeditionary forces—Muqali’s army set to conquer the Jin and those of Sammuqa and Mingghan—from his base near Lake Yur. It was the seventh month of 1214; the peace with Jin had collapsed after only three months.
From the end of this year through the spring of the next, Chinggis interviewed the messengers who came almost every day to his tent with reports on the movements of the expeditionary forces. He thus had a thoroughly clear understanding of the operations of these two armies in China. The actual fighting led by Sammuqa, Mingghan, and others aimed at capturing Zhongdu began early in 1215. The expeditionary army enveloped Zhongdu, cut off the city’s contact with the outside world, and gradually defeated the Jin military moving north by destroying them one by one. It seemed to Chinggis, waiting impatiently, to take an excruciatingly long period of time until news of the fall of Zhongdu arrived. Why, he wondered, were they taking so long? To both lose no time in receiving news of a victory and avoid the heat of summer, he moved his base camp to Huanzhou. The long-awaited seizure of Zhongdu transpired in the sixth month of the year, and word of it reached his tent in Huanzhou about ten days later. The camp was all astir with this news, and for three days and nights a grand and completely unceremonious banquet ensued among all the officers and soldiers. Reports of further victories from the front continued to reach the banqueters.
—Zhongdu is now being burned to the ground.
The messenger’s statements were always the same. Almost every day for over a month, Chinggis listened to the message that Zhongdu was being consumed by flames. Other than the fact that Zhongdu was continuing to burn, he learned that the enemy’s Grand Councilor Wanyan Fuxing had died after taking poison on the day the city had fallen.
Chinggis had known the Jin commander Fuxing. They had met on the battlefield any number of times, and when they negotiated a peace settlement they had again met when he came as a Jin emissary. He was an extraordinary commander of exemplary personal character. Although Chinggis knew that the great city of Zhongdu was burning down and that countless precious items trapped within it were being reduced to ashes, only the loss of Commander Fuxing struck him as regrettable. Had he surrendered, Chinggis had thought of making him a subordinate and sending him to protect the city of Zhongdu.
Fuxing’s act of suicide was incomprehensible to Chinggis. It was common knowledge from ancient times among nomadic peoples that when a commander’s sword was broken or arrows expended and his forces lost in battle, there was absolutely no stigma attached to surrendering to the enemy. Upon surrendering, one would be either forgiven or put to death, a verdict in the hands of the former adversary. Although he had now captured innumerable cities, every one of the commanding officers had ultimately surrendered at the bitter end. Chinggis had accepted their surrender and either forgiven or executed them. Fuxing’s case, though, was altogether different. With the city burning, unwilling to surrender, he had taken his own life.
The more he thought about Wanyan Fuxing, the less strange the fact that the city of Zhongdu would continue burning for over a month seemed to Chinggis. He thought he could see the color of the flames burning Zhongdu to the ground in his mind’s eye. It was different from any color he had hitherto seen in burning cities.
Summoning men of the Jin and the Song dynastic states, Chinggis asked if the histories of their countries had any cases of commanders who had committed suicide besides Fuxing. Both the Jin and the Song men answered in the same manner:
“Many famous commanders whose names have come down to us in history did precisely the same thing when their cities fell.”
Among the many things that he acquired in the capture of the Jin, perhaps most important was the knowledge of how their military men behaved under such circumstances. This was something alien to the Mongolian people’s tradition and absent from their present practice. No matter what their training or expertise on the battlefield, suicide was unacceptable.
Chinggis had ordered his army attacking Zhongdu that all those in the city without distinction who survived the fighting—whether soldiers or members of the general population—were to be assembled in a corner outside the city walls. In this instance, Chinggis adopted a somewhat different method for dealing with the captives. In every case to date, he would select women when a city fell and have them tied up and escorted to his base camp. This time, he postponed dealing with the women, and ordered first a selection of men who had particular skills or who had received some education. He paid strict attention so that in dealing with such men there would be no judgments made on the basis of personal feelings. No matter how hostile their sentiments toward the Mongols, those with special training or education were to be brought to his camp.
He picked Shigi Qutuqu, the Tatar foundling to whom Chinggis had given highest responsibility for juridical affairs, to handle them. Having never lost his icelike frigidity in every situation he faced, Shigi Qutuqu twisted his expressionless, pale face and left the very day he received Chinggis’s orders for Zhongdu. About one month later, Chinggis learned that Shigi Qutuqu had successfully completed his task in full. Almost every day, together with precious objects, Jin men of various and sundry appearance were escorted out of Zhongdu. Some were farmers, some blacksmiths, some astrologers, some officials, some scholars, some military commanders, and some ordinary foot soldiers. All manner of professions were contained among them.
At his base camp, Chinggis had another investigation made of their special talents and a report brought to him. Scarcely any women were brought out of the city. Those few were astrologers or shamans with haunting eyes in a pallid and bloodless face.
“Won’t there by any more women coming out?” asked Chinggis of the man in charge.
“None will be,” replied the clerk, and Chinggis imagined the bitter smile on the face of Shigi Qutuqu.
One day, Chinggis received a report that among the captives brought out of the city was a Khitan man by the name of Yelü Chucai (1190–1244), who had served in a number of high-level positions for the Jin imperial court in Zhongdu. Chinggis quickly ordered that this man be brought before him. When he arrived, he appeared to be unusually young, with a long beard and an extremely broad frame.
In his mind Chinggis lined up the members of his entourage next to this man, but they only reached his shoulders. This uncommonly large fellow had a fine set of black whiskers from his cheeks to his jaw and a calm disposition without so much as an iota of nervousness.
“Tell me your age,” said Chinggis.
“I am twenty-six,” he replied. His low voice conveyed a sense of considerable importance easily detected.
“You are Khitan?”
“Most certainly.”
“Your homeland, the Khitan kingdom, was destroyed by the Jin, and you were pressed into a position with this present small state. I have now conquered the Jin and taken revenge against the enemy on behalf of your homeland. You should thank me as great khan of the Mongols.”
“My family,” he replied to Chinggis in a dignified manner and without the least trace of hesitation, “has served the state of Jin for generations and received a stipend accordingly. I am a vassal of the state of Jin. Why should I be happy at its misfortunes?” Even after he finished speaking, Yelü Chucai’s lustrous voice reverberated pleasantly, penetrating deeply into Chinggis’s mind.
“In what areas of learning are you accomplished?”
“Astronomy, geography, history, strategy, medicine, and augury.”
“Are you really learned in the ways of augury?”
“That is my most accomplished field.”
“So, divine my future. What fate awaits the Mongol blue wolves?”
“Divining the future of the Mongol people should be done with methods used by the Mongolian people. Give me a ram’s scapula.”
In response to his request, Chinggis had a ram’s scapula brought to Yelü Chucai, who then exited the great khan’s tent, built an earthen oven, burned the bone there, and investigated the cracks in it. He announced to the great khan:
“New war drums can be heard beating to the west. The time is approaching for the great khan’s armies to again cross the Altai Mountains and invade the state of Kara Khitai. Such a time will surely come within three years.”
“And what shall I do,” replied Chinggis to this audacious prognosticator, “if your predictions prove inaccurate?”
Yelü Chucai looked directly into Chinggis’s eyes and said:
“Do what the great khan wishes. If the great khan so wishes it, death.”
Everything Yelü Chucai had said found an agreeable response in Chinggis’s mind. It seemed to him that he had never before met such an extraordinary man. Chinggis decided to have him serve him at his side from that day forward.
Although a number of important officials expressed opposition to employing Yelü Chucai in this way, Chinggis ignored them. Their reasons were that they could not understand what he was thinking and found him suspicious of nature.
“I once selected Jebe from among the captives, and he had injured both me and my horse. Should I now have the least hesitation about placing at my side this civil official of the Jin who has never inflicted any harm upon me? I gave that young prisoner the name Jebe (arrow). Perhaps I shall give Yelü Chucai the name Utu-Saqal (long beard).”
Soon thereafter, the large diviner with the full, lengthy beard began to serve at Chinggis’s side.
When they brought down the city of Zhongdu, as a second step in the process, Chinggis made Sammuqa commander of an army of 10,000 and sent him to attack and capture the new Jin capital. Chinggis had Sammuqa traverse Xixia territory, heading toward Henan province in China. In the eleventh month of the year, Sammuqa’s forces marched on the Jin for the third time, crossed Xixia terrain, and entered the Chongshan mountain range. Hindered by rugged topography, they suffered through numerous hardships before reaching Henan and attacking the new capital at Bianjing. Not wishing to overexert his entire army, Sammuqa was forced to withdraw in defeat in the decisive battle with the Jin army.
Successive reports of the defeat arrived from Sammuqa, and a messenger from the Jin emperor, as if chasing after him, soon arrived at Chinggis’s camp, suing for peace. Chinggis consulted with Bo’orchu, Jelme, and other senior members of his staff and offered the extremely severe conditions that all Jin territory north of the Yellow River be relinquished to the Mongols and that the Jin emperor abandon that title, to be replaced with “King of Henan.”
The Jin emissary departed, and a response to these demands was never forthcoming. Inasmuch as he had thought that the Jin might not accept the conditions, Chinggis had no emotional reaction at all to their silence.
In the spring of 1216, Sammuqa led his defeated and wounded troops back to Chinggis’s camp. Chinggis called Sammuqa in for a meeting to explain the reasons for his loss on the battlefield. When Sammuqa finished his report to the great khan, Chinggis said:
“Sammuqa, I shall give you one chance to vindicate your honor from this defeat. As before you shall lead an army of 10,000, and in the midst of frigid winter weather, you shall march off to invade and capture Henan once again. Once again, you shall go through Xixia terrain, climb over the deep snows and steep precipices of the Songshan Mountains, enter Henan, and seize the capital of Bianjing.”
Sammuqa’s face changed complexions. Even with twice as many troops as he had earlier, given the great difficulty of marching through the mountain passes, he did not believe that he could capture Bianjing. He had no choice, however, but to accept his orders.
Chinggis observed thereafter the ferocious battlefield and marching drills that Sammuqa imposed on his men, twice the training of others. Chinggis truly loved this young commander whom he had himself selected. As Bo’orchu, Jelme, and Qasar were aging, Chinggis was trying to train a second stratum of military leaders in their twenties to continue the work of the first stratum of Muqali, Jebe, and Sübe’etei. Sammuqa was one of this second group.
In this same year, Chinggis evacuated his Huanzhou base camp and returned his army to the Borjigin camp, where his mother’s grave was located in the foothills of Mount Burqan and over which his wife, Börte, had been keeping watch. The great majority of officers and soldiers had not set foot here for five years since their departure in the third month of 1211.
After the peace talks with the Jin were completed in 1214, Chinggis and a group of his men had set foot on their native soil briefly and then quickly repaired to the Lake Yur area, but on this occasion they were returning in triumph and en masse.
Not joining the return were Muqali and the men under his command, who were moving the front to Liaodong and Liaoxi, as well as a small number of troops stationed in the Zhongdu area after the seizure of that city. Although Chinggis had not taken the new Jin capital at Bianjing, the majority of the territory north of the Yellow River now fell under his dominion, and using a relatively small number of Mongol officers and men, he gained overall control of the organized military units, including those of the Jin, in these areas.
The Mongol military groupings were not altogether different from what they had been at the time of the 1211 expedition. Among the various units were those formed by Jin soldiers, Khitan soldiers, and Chinese of the Song dynasty. There were also groups without weapons. At times, such alien units alone continued for several dozen miles. There were vehicular units stacked high with treasures, and camels and horses laden with weaponry and agricultural implements. Numerous women and children from the state of Jin who were being used as servants and laborers also formed long lines.
Thus, the Mongol forces comprising all sorts of different elements set out from Huanzhou, crossed the desert, came to the bank of the Kherlen River, and from there marched farther and farther upriver. They were welcomed at every settlement along the way. Almost every day, the army units passed among happily excited peoples.
The region at the foothills of Mount Burqan was thrown into an unprecedented confusion. By the Tula River bed and on the banks of the Kherlen River, hundreds of new settlements had come into existence, and several new cities seemed to have suddenly taken shape on the grasslands.
Celebrations of the military triumphs were carried out across the entire Mongolian plateau on a grand scale. Unlike when Chinggis was installed as great khan, Mongolia was now a large state with a control structure and had demolished the Jin dynasty; its once nomadic people were now the citizens of the Mongolian state, differentiated by classes. There were numerous shops lined up at the camp by Mount Burqan in which all manner of items were sold or exchanged. Among them were wine shops and food stores. Different restaurants featuring Chinese, Jurchen, Khitan, and Xixia food were there, and even horses, lambs, and camels were for sale. There were as well both the heads of settlements made up of servants from the Jin and women costumed in the Jin style.
Chinggis walked among the markets on the grasslands. Although he made his way with only a few attendants, there was no insecurity in the least. During the long war with the Jin, there had not been any disorder on the grasslands run almost entirely by women who remained behind, and there had been no hostility or bickering among divergent groups. The bustling villages remained as before, but now the festivities that allowed for limitless eating and drinking and for dressing up and sauntering around without having to attend to work were coming to an end after ten days.
In order that his officers and men not be too relaxed from their state of alert, Chinggis set out on a small expedition and battle. Remnants of the Merkids who had been chased from their settlement had quietly built another settlement in the Altai Mountains. They retained their antipathy for Chinggis, and they were slowly becoming a force once again.
Chinggis had come to his present position of predominance by pacifying all of the peoples on the grasslands, but the treatment meted out to the Merkids, unlike instances involving other peoples, had been extremely severe, aimed at thoroughly liquidating them. Given this attitude on his part, it made perfect sense that Merkid resistance was itself ferociously pertinacious. Like weeds they survived, and like weeds they grew unchecked wherever Chinggis’s line of vision did not extend, all the time keeping an eye out for an opportunity to exact revenge.
Soon after the festivities ended, Chinggis issued orders to his eldest son to subjugate the Merkids. He summoned Jochi and said to him:
“Destroy all of the Merkid remnants.”
“Understood,” Jochi replied in somewhat formulaic language. “I shall move in accordance with the great khan’s orders.”
Whenever he set out to suppress the Merkids, Chinggis gave the task to Jochi, but there was something in this a bit unsatisfying both to Chinggis himself, who had issued the order, and to Jochi, who accepted it.
When it came to the Merkids, Chinggis found it difficult to fathom his own emotional twists and turns. He could not allow them to exist, because they might be kinsmen with the same blood as his own. Their very existence might negate the fact that he was a Mongolian blue wolf. The crime committed by this race in abducting and raping his mother Ö’elün could not be permitted to go on forever, in the name of the Mongolian blue wolf.
This was not only true for himself; Jochi shared a similar fate. He very much wanted to say: “Jochi, if you are indeed a blue wolf, you must destroy by your own hand that which threatens the legitimacy of your blood! Your mother, Börte, was hauled away and violated by them—you must not allow this crime to go unpunished!”
Of course, Chinggis never explained his thinking to Jochi. Jochi did not know how to assess Chinggis’s attitude on this matter, but words could not pass between them in this instance of the father-son bond. As had been the case earlier as well, Chinggis saw a cold flash in Jochi’s eyes, full of something like resistance.
Chinggis decided to assigned the young commander Sübe’etei to Jochi and to have them meet the enemy jointly. Jochi and Sübe’etei immediately took charge of their forces and made their way deep into the Altai Mountains. This war of subjugation ended in early autumn. Having slaughtered the younger brother of the Merkid leader defeated earlier and the brother’s two older sons, Jochi returned with the third son, Qodu Khan, as prisoner.
Jochi begged for clemency in this case, stating that the young man, the sole survivor of the Merkid people, was a famed bowman, and in fact his first arrow would hit the target and his second would pierce the first arrow’s shaft—a technique rarely seen.
“Not only is Qodu Khan a fine warrior, but he is also a man of genuine sincerity. If the great khan spares his life, he will surely serve you.”
“His life can’t be spared. Execute him immediately,” ordered Chinggis simply.
Jochi seemed to say something, but no words came from his mouth. And with his own hands he put Qodu Khan, the young Merkid commander, to death.
Early in the eleventh month of the year, Sammuqa set out from the camp at Mount Burqan, as he had been ordered, at the head of an army of 10,000 men. After about two months’ time, Chinggis received his first messenger from Sammuqa, and from that point on the messengers arrived at ten-day intervals. Although he was able to gain only a fragmented sense of the movements of Sammuqa’s forces, by stitching the pieces together he was able to follow Sammuqa’s troops.
—The troops have cut across Xixia terrain.
—The troops have captured Tongguan, the fortified city on the southern shore of the Yellow River.
—The troops have seized five cities, including Ruzhou.
—The troops are closing in on the western environs of Bianjing.
After this last one, messages from Sammuqa ceased. Owing to insufficient troop strength, he had been unable to surround Bianjing and was again unable to take the capital of the Jin, perched on the edge of utter collapse. Sammuqa camped at a site not far from Bianjing and did not move. Chinggis sent a messenger, praising his hard work and his decision not to recklessly attempt a siege of Bianjing. Sammuqa remained encamped where he was.
In 1217 Muqali made his way to Chinggis’s camp to report on the culmination of major battles in Liaoxi and Liaodong. He had been gone since setting out from the encampment at Lake Yur in 1214. Aside from a brief three-month period at the Lake Yur camp, ever since Muqali began fighting against the Jin in 1211, he had spent day and night in fierce battles, and now at long last he had brought the expansive terrain of Liaoxi and Liaodong under his control. Muqali was a man of preeminent qualities both as a warrior and as a statesman.
Chinggis had all of his high officials in attendance as he offered Muqali the highest honors. He rewarded him for his extraordinary achievements, gave him the title of prince of the state, and accorded him all authority as director of the armed forces in China. The long and bitter fighting on foreign soil had caused the young commander to age any number of years, his expressionless face remaining unmoved. In addition, the dust in the air made his complexion so ruddy that he did not look like someone born on the grasslands.
Less than 10 days later, Muqali headed once again to his post. Under his command were 23,000 troops organized into Mongol, Khitan, and Jurchen units. Muqali’s posting now was the state of Jin, in which the royal Jin house teetered on the edge of extinction, and his jurisdiction as the new prince of the state was immense.
Having defeated his old enemies and gathered the great majority of their terrain under his control, Chinggis spent the period from 1217 through the spring of 1218 at his camp by Mount Burqan. The lives of the Mongol people had completely changed. With agricultural tools introduced from the Jin, the grasslands were gradually opened to cultivation, and in the southeastern sector people adopted a semiagricultural lifestyle. With the technology acquired from the Jin, wells were dug everywhere, and large amounts of pastureland were improved for farming.
On almost a daily basis, innumerable caravans from east and west now assembled at Chinggis’s camp. Chinggis liked being able to see men of every race, with different skin colors and eye colors, coming together and spreading out with camels and horses laden with merchandise.
On Chinggis’s orders, it was standard practice for caravans that had made their way from the distant west to present themselves at the great khan’s tent soon after unpacking their wares in the market. Chinggis treated them with cordiality and never took their merchandise without compensating them.
Among such caravans, those that most impressed the great khan were from the Muslim state of Khorazm. They brought beautiful utensils and handicrafts that Mongol expeditionary troops had never seen before, even on Jin terrain. That included glass items and all manner of precious stones, as well as personal ornaments of exquisite craftsmanship. They also had rugs so magnificent that one could scarcely imagine how they were made. For these stunning items, the Mongols exchanged goods obtained from the Jin: silk, cotton cloth, writing brushes, paper, ink, inkstones, paintings, and antiques.
Chinggis put in special orders with the caravans from Khorazm for weaponry and for paraphernalia related to religious rituals. He sought such items from an unknown state at the suggestion of Yelü Chucai, whose education, knowledge, and character Chinggis so admired. This large man with the long beard had won the great khan’s affection and offered his own distinctive views on all matters of policy.
Chinggis expressed a surprisingly strong desire that Yelü Chucai learn about these unknown things, and thus all caravans had to answer the latter’s questions, often for a considerable period of time, at the tent of the great khan.
When Chinggis queried Yelü Chucai closely for his opinion, it was always centered on what the Mongols should do to become stronger. Yelü Chucai’s response was always the same. They had to continue to preserve an abiding interest in a high level of culture, with a burning ferocity like that of red-hot steel. There was always the opposition between honoring culture and honoring military might.
“Although the Jin state was destroyed by the great khan’s military strength, it still had a far higher level of culture,” said Yelü Chucai. “The great khan must now study many of the artifacts from the Jin. You should govern the people of Jin wisely and act in a manner that encourages them to contribute all that they possess.”
“Although it attained a high level of culture,” replied Chinggis, “the Jin state fell under our rule, did it not, because it had inferior military capacity?”
“When the great khan says ‘rule,’ what do you mean? If one morning General Muqali withdraws from Jin, what sort of ‘rule’ will remain? Military force can only hold down an opponent. It cannot rule him. To the extent that they do not yet have a high level of culture in their own land, Mongol officers and men cannot fully rule the state of Jin. At some time, they will, to the contrary, be absorbed into the Jin and ultimately be ruled by the Jin, as it were.”
Yelü Chucai always made Chinggis fall silent. The Mongol khan enjoyed being persuaded by his young advisor and retreating into silence. Whenever he felt compelled to say nothing further, Chinggis incorporated into policy in one form or another the views of his interlocutor.
Chinggis learned from Yelü Chucai that the greatest force for concentrating the people’s minds as one was love of their own ethnicity and religious belief, not fidelity to the powerful. Thus, Chinggis prohibited any alien people’s beliefs from entering his settlement freely and causing harm. For his own Mongolian people, he encouraged belief in heaven, as Mongols had held from time immemorial, as evidence for their distinctive qualities. He did not, however, enforce this belief on lineages other than the Borjigin.
Chinggis never relaxed the ironclad regulations even a little bit, and at the same time he accepted Yelü Chucai’s idea and instituted moral education—such as rejecting theft and murder—for his nomadic people. For the Mongols, the theft of sheep meant death, but now he was gradually planting among them an altogether new concept that one had to avoid theft because it brought unhappiness both to oneself and to others.
One thing Chinggis completed ignored was that the young man possessed Khitan blood. This first cropped up early in 1218, when Chinggis suddenly ordered troops under his command to invade the Xixia. Although he subjugated the Xixia, he also felt the need to encamp Mongol troops on their terrain. The fighting arose all of a sudden, without provocation. A Mongol cavalry unit enveloped in clouds of dust attacked the Xixia capital and forced the king to flee for Xiliang in the west. Chinggis thus effected an occupation of Xixia by a powerful Mongol battalion.
For a number of days before and after this battle, Chinggis would not face Yelü Chucai. At such times, however, the latter never reproached Chinggis. Indeed, he never so much as mentioned the topic.
Chinggis’s real objective in marching against the Xixia was not to cause, through a Mongol occupation of the area, the least unsettledness in the neighboring Uyghur state. The Naiman King Küchülüg, once an enemy who had managed to escape in the fighting, had now, with his own state destroyed, usurped the throne of the Kara Khitai (Western Liao) king and held it for six years. It was thus a foregone conclusion for Chinggis that before long he would have to attack. When they were ready to move against the Kara Khitai, given its geographic proximity, he would have to march through the neighboring state of the Uyghurs, which would then fall under Mongol control.