Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

by Jack Weatherford

The Kereyid, and the Naiman to the west, represented not just larger political units but more developed cultures tied, ever so tentatively, into the commercial and religious networks of central Asia via their conversion to Christianity several centuries earlier

They practiced their religion in sanctuaries located in gers, and de-emphasized theology and rigidity of belief in favor of a varied reading of the Scriptures combined with general medical care. Jesus exercised a strong fascination for the nomads because he healed the sick and survived death. As the only human to triumph over death, Jesus was considered an important and powerful shaman, and the cross was sacred as the symbol of the four directions of the world.

Perhaps above all, the Christians ate meat, unlike the vegetarian Buddhists; and in contrast to the abstemious Muslims, the Christians not only enjoyed drinking alcohol, they even prescribed it as a mandatory part of their worship service.

After leaving his bride, Borte, with his mother in their ger, Temujin set out with his brother Khasar and half brother Belgutei to take the coat to the Christian Ong Khan, who eagerly

accepted the gift, thereby signifying that he acknowledged each of them...

According to the account of the Secret History, Temujin would have preferred to remain simply the ruler of this intimate clan,

An injury inflicted on any family within a tribe served as a license for retribution, and it could serve as a pretext for a raid even after many years. No matter how isolated they might attempt to be, no group such as Temujin’s could go unaccounted for, or untouched, in this world of continual turmoil.

He had to choose his own destiny. In the belief that he had just been saved by the mountain where he was hiding, he turned in prayer to the spirit of the mountain. Unlike the other steppe tribes that had embraced the scriptural and priestly traditions of Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity, the Mongols remained animists, praying to the spirits around them.

Temujin’s three days of prayer while hiding on Burkhan Khaldun marked the beginning of a long and intimate spiritual relationship he would maintain with this mountain and the special protection he believed it provided.

The third

option was to follow the Tuul River, which flowed toward the southwest, to seek the help of Ong Khan, to whom he had given the sable coat. At that time, Temujin had declined the offer to make him a subordinate leader under Ong Khan’s authority. Now, only a year later, with the life he had chosen instead shattered by the Merkid raiders, Temujin still seemed reluctant to plunge into the internecine struggle of khan against khan, but there seemed no other way to get back his bride.

If he did not want to live the life of an impoverished outcast, always at the mercy of whatever raiders chose to swoop down on his encampment, he would now have to fight for his place in the hierarchy of steppe warriors;

Temujin chose to fight. He would find his wife, or he would die trying.

Temujin had survived many difficult scrapes in his short life, without engaging in an actual raid. In this raid, he would prove himself up to the task, though the raid was really more of a rout.

After the dramatic rescue of Borte, Temujin decided to join his small camp with Jamuka’s larger group of followers.

By moving his small group away from the protection of the mountains and out onto the steppe with Jamuka, Temujin was trading the life

of a hunter for that of a herder.

Temujin was not one to accept being treated as an inferior for long, and soon enough this situation proved unacceptable to him.

fission

Splitting something into two or more parts

In that pursuit, his chief rival would be Jamuka, and their feud would gradually engulf all of the Mongols in a civil war. The two rivals spent the next quarter of a century stealing animals and women from each other, raiding and killing each other’s followers, and struggling to see which one would eventually rule all the Mongols.

Temujin’s tribe, which now consisted of his family, a loyal coterie of friends, and scattered families, was small by comparison to the other steppe tribes, and he was still a vassal

to Ong Khan.

A chief’s complex of gers that served as his tribal center or his chiefly court was called an ordu, or horde.

To prevent their regrouping against him, Jamuka then perpetrated one of the cruelest shows of revenge ever recorded on the steppe.

Reportedly, Jamuka then boiled seventy young male captives alive in cauldrons,

This display of unwarranted cruelty by Jamuka further emphasized the divisions between the old aristocratic lineages based on inherited power and the abused lower-ranking ones based on ability and personal loyalty. The episode proved a decisive turning point for Temujin, who had lost the battle but gained public support and sympathy among the Mongols,

Although traditionally the allies of the Tatars, the Jurched feared the Tatars were growing too strong, and they instigated Ong Khan to raise an army to attack them. Ong Khan again enlisted the aid of Temujin in a quickly arranged alliance with the Golden Khan of the Jurched so that they might jointly attack and plunder the much richer Tatar tribe.

their raid, carried out according to the same tactics used in typical steppe raids, but on a larger scale, brought quick and easy success. Temujin was profoundly impressed by the sumptuous booty that warfare could yield.

Even captured Tatar children wore satin clothes decorated with golden threads; in one case, a young boy wore a gold ring in his nose and one in each ear.

Today’s allies could be tomorrow’s enemies, as in the case of Jamuka, and a tribe conquered today would have to be conquered again and again in a ceaseless cycle of warfare and feuding. No victory was ever decisive, no peace permanent. This lesson would eventually have a profound effect on the new world Temujin would fashion out of this havoc,

Not only had the Jurkin failed to join Temujin’s force in the fight against the Tatars, they now took advantage of Temujin’s absence by raiding his base camp, killing ten of his followers and stripping the remainder of their clothes and other possessions. So when Temujin sought to expand his territory of rule in the wake of victory against the Tatars, the Jurkin were the first he struck out against.

He launched his campaign against them in 1197, and in a testament to his now well-honed skills as a warrior and commander, he easily

defeated...

At this point, Temujin instituted the second radical change in ruling style—the first being the appointment of loyal allies as opposed to family members to key positions in ...

In the long history of steppe warfare, a defeated tribe was looted, some members taken prisoner, and the rest left again to their own devices. Defeated groups regularly reorganized and counterattacked, or broke away and...

Temujin followed a radical new policy that revealed his ambition to fundamentally alter the cycle of attack and counterattack and of making and breaking alliances. He summoned a khuriltai of his followers to conduct a public trial of the Jurkin’s aristocratic leaders for having failed to fulfill their promise to join him in war and for having, instead, raided his camp in his a...

but also as a clear warning to the aristocrats of ...

they would no longer be entitled to spec...

Temujin took them into his tribe not as slaves but as members of the tribe in good standing.

Avarga was still close to the place of Temujin’s birth and to the sacred mountain Burkhan Khaldun, which rose about 130 miles upstream at the headwaters of the Kherlen River. Avarga offered all of this, and from 1197 to the end of his life, it served as Temujin’s operations base.

Jamuka refused to recognize his leadership, and increasingly became the rallying figure for the aristocratic clans who did not like

the changes Temujin was bringing to their traditional way of life.

In a challenge to both Temujin and Ong Khan, Jamuka summoned a khuriltai that conferred upon him the ancient and honored title of Gur-ka or Gur-khan, which meant chief of all chiefs or khan of all khans.

By choosing this title, Jamuka was publicly challenging the power of Ong Khan as well as his subordinate, Temujin.

The struggle that began to shape up between the two Mongol factions portended to be more than just a series of raids for loot and captives; it would be a death struggle between Jamuka and Temujin for leadership of all the Mongols.

The primary objective of such campaigns was never to have to actually fight a battle at all but instead to frighten the other side by overwhelming force so that they would flee.

When Jamuka pitted his army against the Kereyid, the numerical advantage clearly belonged to Ong Khan and Temujin.

Many of Jamuka’s followers

fled in fright, forcing Jamuka to retreat.

The episode of the neck wound is emblematic of the deep bonds of loyalty that Temujin seemed to have a gift of inspiring. Though the steppe tribes of his time changed sides at the least provocation and soldiers might desert their leaders, none of Temujin’s generals deserted him throughout his six decades as a warrior.