Mongolian Clans Affiliations of the Late 15th Century – Part II

Yesterday, I shared some of my frustration with you regarding the organization of the Mongolian clans. I even shared a failed experiment.

But today I have good news.

I did it. Or at least, I feel like I did.

Initial Experiment.

For those of you who missed it, the initial experiment was a pinboard. I attempted to connect the clans and find the most common larger clans in the process. It turned into a pretty big mess.

You can read all about my strategy and see pictures of the failure in my previous article: Mongolian Clan Affiliations of the Late 15th Century.

Hierarchy Charts

It was time for take three. My third attempt to make sense out of the tangled madness. This time, I had the list from my first failed experiment to help me get started.

Stage 1:

Before I even started the chart, I decided to identify the 6 tumen of the empire after my series concludes. This gave me a base of the larger clans to work with. You can find the image that identifies them here. I used it as a base to start organizing all the other clans.

Stage 2:

Once I had the 6 tumen and the Oirat identified, I started moving down the list of clans I made in my first failed attempt. I looked up each and every one of them, digging for details from various sources to find out which of those 6 tumen or Oirat they were clearly identified with. It proved tricky in a lot of cases, and this is partly because of prolific assimilation and movement of the Mongol people at the time.

If I found a clear answer, I added their name to a piece of paper for that tumen. If I didn’t find a clear answer, I went to the text to find out who was mentioned and what they did. Then I used that to help me put them into one of the 6 tumen. Only a couple of outliers remained.

This took a long time. Finding information about most of these clans is difficult. Mongols at the time didn’t keep good records, so most of the resources are either from other nations such as China or Arabia. In these few cases, I have decided to just cut anyone not important from my series. Those who are important will be assimilated into a different clan based on their actions — i.e., who they fought for or against.

Stage 3:

Before making final decisions about which clans fell into which tumen, I then made a Powerpoint for each and every one of the people mentioned in the histories I had to work with. Each slide contained 4 characteristics:

Original Clan Name. This is based on the texts I have had to work from.
Character Name: These names are crazy, and some of them may need to be simplified when I write the books, but the names listed on these slides are their full names.
Parentage/Family: Knowing who is related to whom is an important factor in determining who the actual major players will be in the series. It will help with motivations and importance.
Notes: This characteristic includes notes on who they married, when they died, who they served, or any additional potential plot points.

I won’t spoil anything, but if you want to download it and have a look, you can do so here. Just be warned, there will be spoilers in the notes.

Stage 4:

Now, with a complete cast of characters and a better understanding of some of the clans and the roles they played during this period, I set to work creating a hierarchy chart. As I made decisions I used the information I gathered from my books and research, as well as Stages 1-3 of this process to find the best or most likely place for each of the clans to belong.

Right Wing
Right Wing of the Khalkha Dynasty

The first chart is the Right Wing of the empire, established in the early 16th century right around the time my series concludes. Again, this chart is in no way 100% accurate. It is the best representation I could create based on the information I have been able to gather.

The Right Wing clans are probably the most tumultuous of them all. Their loyalties could swing with the breeze, so many of these will shift from one group to another.

Most of the clans listed within the Yungsiyebu were conquered by Bigirsen in the mid-15th century. His original clan is identified as Uyghur, which is also identified as Oirat. You can see where some of my confusion stemmed. However, it’s important to note that by the time of Manduul Khan, the Uyghur were strong in power and supported Manduul as khan, creating a tenuous peace with the Oirat that doesn’t last long.

The Jalair, within the Yungsiyebu clan, were quickly conquered and brought into loyalty with the Borjigin — another clan that switches sides.

The important thing to understand from this is that, though a clan is listed in one place, loyalties shift and some of them changed sides once — if not more than once — to whichever side was their best chance.

Left Wing
Left Wing of the Khalkha Dynasty

The Left Wing was the other half of the Khalkha Dynasty that came to power in the early 16th century. The Khalkha took over as the primary dynastic ruler with the Great Khan and his heirs coming from this line and the line of Genghis Khan. Again, loyalties shifted. You will see Jalair in both the Khalkha group and the Yungsiyebu.

Likewise, the Chakhar had several subclans, but I could find no evidence of exactly which ones they ruled over.

Four Oirat
The Four Oirats — Western Mongols

This group was a bit more tricky. Records of exactly which of the major clans made up the Oirat are unclear, often identifying only two or three of them. I made the most educated decisions I could based on the information I had.

The Yungsiyebu were originally part of the Oirat until Bigirsen conquered many of the southern clans and brought them under the purview of the Great Khan.

For centuries, since possibly the time of Kublai Khan, the Oirats have been at war with the Eastern Mongol clans. Many of them contested Kublai’s right to be Great Khan. Since then, they believed their heirs were the rightful heirs to the title, despite opposition from all of the Eastern clans. It wasn’t until the late 15th century that they began to lose power and some fell under the control of the Khalkha Dynasty for at least another hundred years.

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In a lot of cases, the characters I outline in my slides will not even have a part in the book, and the subclans will not even have mention but will be assimilated into one of the three groups outlined above for simplicity.

But if none of the subclans will be mentioned in the Fractured Empire series, why did I bother identifying them and going to such trouble in the first place? 

A good question. The primary reason is simple — I need to know which characters from my research belonged to which of the larger groups so I can portray them as accurately as possible. A lot of those characters I may not use by name in the books, but their actions will still be present, which means I have to know where their loyalties lie.

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