by Joshua Fogel
According to the pact agreed upon by the two men before the battle that had just transpired, everything belonging to peoples under Jamugha—men, women, sheep, horses, valuables, and weapons—was to be equally divided. Unlike after the destruction of the Merkids and Tatars, though, there was not much in the way of booty. The principal lineages were the Salji’ud, Ikires, Gorulas, Tayichi’ud, Oirat, Unggirad, and Naiman—small groups and settlements spread across the expansive Mongolian plateau. Dividing them up fairly was, as a practical matter, impossible.
“My son,” said To’oril Khan, “I shall give you whichever lineage you wish. You choose first.”
“But the defeat of Jamugha’s main army was Father’s accomplishment. I offer you to select first the lineage you wish,” said Temüjin, conceding the privilege to To’oril Khan.
“The Unggirads,” said To’oril Khan abruptly.
The Unggirads were the wealthiest people on the plateau. Of all the peoples, they were the one Temüjin wanted most, as his wife, Börte, was born among them, but there was nothing he could do now. Börte’s father, Dei Sechen, had already passed away.
“Tayichi’uds,” said Temüjin.
“Oirats,” replied To’oril Khan.
“Salji’uds,” continued Temüjin.
In this extremely rough method of division, the two conquerors one by one clearly took possession of the war booty spread over the plateau. In the end only the Naimans were left. The reason was that the only thing they had was their name, nothing substantive to take. They were of Turkic stock and the strangest people on the Mongolian plateau; there was no reason they should have been subordinate to Jamugha, To’oril Khan, or Temüjin in the first place. Although they lived on the same plateau, they were geographically isolated on a side facing the Altai mountain range. They were also economically self-sufficient. For some reason, then, they had responded to Jamugha’s invitation, sending one small unit of troops to aid Jamugha in battle.
“We’ll have to send a joint force of troops the long distance to the Naimans,” said To’oril Khan.
“When?” asked Temüjin.
“Within the year probably. Until then we each have much that needs to be done.”
As To’oril Khan indicated, much remained for them to attend to. It was certainly not going to be an easy matter to pacify the peoples now destined to fall under their control.
Once they had divided up the plunder, just between the two of them Temüjin and To’oril Khan exchanged toasts of congratulations on their victory. Under normal circumstances, they would have held a large banquet together with their many commanders, but they decided not to do so. The feeling in both of their minds was, for lack of a better way of putting it, that it was safer to avoid this line of action.
Temüjin understood full well that, while a joint operation with To’oril Khan against the Naimans within the year was fine, after the attack there would be a struggle between the two conquerors, whether or not they wished it. There had to be a single ruler over the Mongolian plateau. To’oril Khan and Temüjin could not rule jointly.
Promising each other that the next morning at sunrise they would return with their armies to their respective base camps, the two commanders rose from their seats. Then, just as they had arrived, they each withdrew to their bases with an ostentatious, armed military escort.
The following dawn the two military companies departed from the battlefield in opposite directions. After marching for a short while, Temüjin was suddenly overcome with a burning desire to launch a surprise attack on To’oril Khan’s forces. His thinking ran as follows: To’oril Khan’s army of 100,000 men, divided in thirds, had just then begun to move, marching like a linked chain; if he were to thrust a three-pronged attack in from the flank, bringing To’oril Khan down would not be that difficult. At the same time that Temüjin was pushing this ambitious desire aside, though, he sensed that To’oril Khan probably had the very same wish, and he issued an order to his entire army to lose no time in taking up battle formations. He wanted to be prepared on the off chance that To’oril Khan might launch an attack.
With his troops battle ready, they kept up a forced march. When they finally pitched camp, Temüjin was able to relax his vigilance.
After a march of several days, his forces returned triumphantly to base camp, but after only one night there, a unit of troops decamped again. They were taking appropriate measures toward the peoples who now came under Temüjin’s control.
Temüjin entrusted the operation to two young officers. One was Jelme’s younger brother Sübe’etei, and the other was Muqali. Both were young men who had joined Temüjin’s camp with large numbers of others after he had withdrawn from Jamugha’s camp. Sübe’etei was now twenty-eight, and Muqali was thirty-one.
These two men had fought with great distinction and on a number of occasions been the cause of victory. As a reward, Temüjin accorded them this important task, which came with a great deal of authority. After a night in camp with no time to rest, they set off with 2,000 men to occupy settlements of a number of conquered lineages.
After about two weeks’ time, a group of Tayichi’ud women and an inordinately large number of sheep and horses were transported to them. Temüjin put the women to work as servants for his own people, sent the horses to be used for fighting, and released the sheep into joint pasturage.
From other conquered peoples, only young men to be incorporated into the military were sent in. No older folks, women, flocks of sheep, or valuable items arrived. Temüjin was pleased with all the arrangements made by his two young officers. Tasks that he had in the past given to Bo’orchu and Jelme, he now gave Sübe’etei and Muqali.
And not only these two men; Temüjin appointed numerous other young men to take up a string of posts. As a result, Bo’orchu, Jelme, Qasar, and Belgütei, who held important positions in Temüjin’s camp, were able to absorb themselves in a variety of even more important and complex duties on various fronts. Temüjin and his key vassals were now extremely busy supervising the activities of nearly 200,000 people.
The following year, 1202, Temüjin turned forty. Word reached him at a new year’s banquet that remnants of the Tatars, who had earlier allegedly been annihilated, had attacked a lineage under Temüjin’s banner. He immediately brought the festivities to a close and decided to mobilize his forces for an assault on the Tatars.
Many reports claiming that the Tatars had begun maneuvering had arrived since the previous autumn, but out of regard for To’oril Khan, Temüjin hesitated to muster his army. Whenever a large army was assembled on the Mongolian plateau, it was necessary for Temüjin and To’oril Khan to have a mutual understanding. This was not because of a clearly delineated pact between them; rather, something on the order of a tacit understanding had emerged that necessitated this course of action. This was still more necessary in the case of the Tatars, over whom jurisdiction was still undecided.
In this instance, however, Temüjin developed a strategy without warning To’oril Khan. The time available to report to To’oril Khan was extremely limited, and he considered crushing the Tatars by sending troops with lightning speed. Not giving his rival time to so much as say a word, he could make the Tatar terrain his own.
Before departing for battle, Temüjin issued two orders. One prohibited all acts of looting in the occupied areas, and the other stated that, in the event of their forces being repulsed, they were to return to the initial site of attack to ambush the enemy there, and under no circumstances were they to flee of their own accord.
At the head of a force of 10,000 men, Temüjin traversed the wintry plateau. They were all cavalry, and both horses and soldiers marched through ferocious winds, making sounds like the incessant cracking of whips. Although the battle unfolded from Dalan Nemürges to the Ulqui River, it was over in only three days. Jebe performed brilliantly on the battlefield. The young man who had once broken the jawbone of Temüjin’s mount and injured a vein in Temüjin’s own neck was a stunning archer, but in hand-to
-hand fighting he was even more powerful. Controlling his horse’s torso with his legs and sitting up high on horseback, he was able to move his hands freely and manipulate his spear. In so doing, he attacked like a torrential storm, like something beyond human powers. Any opening of a line of assault was due to Jebe’s abilities. He was an invulnerable steel arrow.
All of the men among the Tatar captives were assembled in one place and put to death. Temüjin had shown not the least compassion for either the Tatars or the Tayichi’uds. His younger half-brother, Belgütei, made a small blunder at this time. He informed one of the prisoners of the council’s judgment that no men would be allowed to live. The Tatar captives thus rose in rebellion again, seized weapons, and put up a fortress. Another, smaller battle ensued in which several dozen of Temüjin’s men died. Temüjin then for the first time fiercely reprimanded his younger brother and longtime right-hand man, and thereafter Belgütei was forbidden from participating in all council deliberations.
There was one further important incident that took place during this fighting. Temüjin’s close kinsmen and military officers Altan, Quchar, and Daritai had violated military discipline and plundered precious goods for themselves. When he learned of this, Temüjin immediately sent Jebe and Qubilai Noyan [a “commander” not to be confused with the famous Mongol khan several generations later] and had them confiscate everything plundered—horses and valuables—from the three men.
While he was in the now emptied Tatar village, Temüjin divided up all the spoils among his entire armed forces, and he had his soldiers freely take one woman each. Temüjin selected for his own share two daughters of the Tatar chief: Yisügen and Yisüi. Temüjin’s idea was that he would have every single Tatar woman, enemies of his ancestors for generations, give birth to illegitimate Mongol children. Temüjin himself pondered having his two new women from the purest of Tatar stock bear children who shared his own blood. In his field bed one night, he violated the two young sisters. This was the first time that Temüjin had personally made the women of a conquered people his own. He was fascinated by them—so that we can’t say this was merely an act of revenge—for the bodies of these nubile young women of this alien people were so different from that of his wife, Börte.
Eventually Temüjin set out on the return trip. Groups of women, sheep, and horses were placed at the tail end of the long procession. This time the troops were not making fierce sounds in the wind, as when they set off for the front. Though there was no howling in the wind, the continuous wailing of the women at the end of the procession could be heard day and night. They were unwilling to be resigned to the sad fortunes visited upon them.
Shortly after Temüjin’s celebratory return home, he learned that, just as he had attacked the Tatars and completely pacified them, so too had To’oril Khan dispatched troops to a Merkid area where their remnant elements were slowly becoming active and crushed them. Temüjin surmised that To’oril Khan’s actions were a direct response to Temüjin’s own—if Temüjin can do this, then I can as well!
The two men took no offense at each other’s actions. When the light of spring began to shine, the Mongolian plateau once again returned to its early state of quiet. To’oril Khan and Temüjin were both busy building up their forces for the day, which everyone knew was coming, when they would be fighting each other.
Temüjin remained vigilant about training all of his men as soldiers. All of the lineages and peoples now under Mongol control worked in the pasturelands by turns, and when they were not with the flocks they received intense battlefield instruction. Maneuvers were consumed with group cavalry training. From high-ranking leaders Qasar, Belgütei, Bo’orchu, and Jelme to such first-rate fighters as Qachi’un, Temüge, Sübe’etei, Muqali, Qubilai Noyan, and Jebe all the way to Temüjin’s son Jochi, they all dashed about the grasslands, bathed in dust and perspiration. They were all wolves now espying the mighty enemy To’oril Khan. At one point, Qasar addressed the assembled troops as their commander:
“March and spread out like the plains themselves. Take up your positions flowing out like the sea. And fight like chisels thrust into the enemy!”
Mongol soldiers were trained in the manner indicated by Qasar’s words.
That fall Temüjin received a completely unexpected piece of news, that Jamugha had affixed himself to To’oril Khan’s camp. After his defeat by the joint armies of To’oril Khan and Temüjin, Jamugha had escape far to the north, but he had now reappeared with a sizable body of men in To’oril Khan’s camp. Instead of executing him on the spot, To’oril Khan welcomed Jamugha and his followers as a fighting force under his wing.
Soon after hearing this report about Jamugha, Altan and Quchar conspired to leave the Mongol encampment with the men under them and take refuge with To’oril Khan. They were still angry at the severe reprimand Temüjin had delivered for their violation of military discipline. The defections of Altan and Quchar, though, were not a matter of great importance for Temüjin now. Even had they not rebelled, they were the germ of a disease that eventually would have to have been extirpated. And thus, Temüjin sensed that his conflict with To’oril Khan was slowly but surely emerging to the surface.
In the spring of the following year, 1203, a messenger from To’oril Khan’s base arrived.
“My anda, my beloved son,” he reported in To’oril Khan’s name. “The time has come to send an army against the Naimans. At present, my army is making all preparations to cross the Altai Mountains.”
Temüjin soon sent his own messenger in response to To’oril Khan’s:
“My anda, my father. Mongol troops are prepared for an assault on the Naimans and are standing by. We await father anda’s order. Anda, roar like a great tiger enraged! Cross the Altai Mountains!”
Temüjin knew that the attack on the Naimans would move to a battle between the Kereyids and Mongols that would decide overlordship on the plateau. From the moment that the Naimans were defeated, Kereyids and Mongols would see one another as the enemy. Not only Temüjin foresaw this; To’oril Khan was at least as aware of it as he. In this sense the declaration of attack on the Naiman people that To’oril Khan and Temüjin exchanged was itself a declaration of war against each other.
Less than one month later, the two armies acting in concert moved soldiers to the base area of this Turkic people holding sway over the western section of the plateau. Temüjin selected 30,000 crack troops and marched off himself at their head.
Temüjin had thought that To’oril Khan’s troops would not be able to cross the Altai Mountains easily because of the deep, lingering snow there. And for his part, To’oril Khan had not thought that either his own or Temüjin’s troops would be able to cross them. Nonetheless, both armies crossed the Altai chain at about the same time and surged into the camp of the Küchü’üds, who were the strongest soldiers among the Naimans. Wholesale carnage and plunder ensued.
Once they had attacked the Küchü’üd people, neither army remained long, but at about the same time regrouped. Although it was not apparent on the surface, both sides used the attack on the Naimans as a pretext to observe if the time was right to attack the other.
Soon after returning from the assault on the Naimans, Temüjin learned that the Naimans had retreated into the Black Forest by the Tula River and that To’oril Khan’s forces had accordingly fought hard against them. Not one to miss an opportunity, Qasar argued that they should attack To’oril Khan now. Jelme and Bo’orchu both agreed, but Temüjin was hesitant. While this was clearly a prime opportunity to defeat To’oril Khan, such a victory seemed as though it would leave a very unpleasant aftertaste.
“Sixteen years ago,” said Temüjin, “when we were extremely weak and about to engage in a battle without chance of success to retrieve Börte from the Merkids, didn’t To’oril Khan come to our aid? We are what we have become today because of him. We shall save To’oril Khan one time and then have repaid the debt incurred. If we should save him right now, then I would surely have no regrets later. In the
present battle against the Naimans, I sensed nothing in particular to fear from To’oril Khan’s troops.”
This was indeed an accurate reflection of what Temüjin was thinking. While he never would have said that To’oril Khan’s troops were inferior to the Mongols in their fighting capacity, there was nothing extraordinary about them either. Their commanders were skilled on the battlefield and they always attained victory with minimal sacrifice, but in hand-to-hand combat in which a single soldier felled another, they seemed to reveal an unexpected weakness. By comparison, no matter how small the scale of combat, Mongol soldiers won by defeating their counterparts on an individual level. The Kereyid troops struck Temüjin as simply courageous soldiers, but the Mongol troops were wolves on the prowl for blood, with their long tongues hanging out, drooling saliva, panting.
When he had prevailed upon his commanders, Temüjin hurried to Baidaraq (Baidrag) River to assist To’oril Khan. There they came to the aid of To’oril Khan’s son, Senggüm, who was in the midst of a difficult fight, and extricated his wife and sons who had been taken captive.
Soon after Temüjin returned to camp, To’oril Khan arrived there with a small detail of troops. It was an extremely bold move on his part. He had come to thank Temüjin for his assistance and to seek the establishment of a mutual pact. While the two men until this point in time had always spoken to each other as “my anda, father” and “my anda, son,” they had not formally sworn an oath.
Despite this, the level of drive on To’oril Khan’s part to seek such a pact was unfathomable to Temüjin. There was nothing that seemed meaningless or comical about the vow of friendship between the two men now. Temüjin responded to To’oril Khan’s offer. He set up seats in the area before his tent, assembled several thousand of his followers there, and carried out the ceremony of exchanging vows of friendship with To’oril Khan.