The Blue Wolf

by Joshua Fogel

  Early in the ninth month of the year, Chinggis joined forces with Jebe’s army and occupied Baideng to the east of Datong, as Mongol troops surged in to surround Datong. They pursued the escaping Jin army headed in the direction of Zhongdu and massacred the majority of it.

  About this time Chinggis received news that Muqali had captured Xuande and Jebe had occupied Fuzhou. Now the two strategic sites defending Zhongdu north of the Great Wall and Datong, the most important point in Shanxi, had been occupied by Mongol forces in but half a year from the commencement of hostilities.

  The next month Chinggis learned that two Jin battalions had begun an action aimed at recovering Datong. At the head of his armed forces, he led a raid against the vanguard Jin troops and defeated them, then launched a further attack against their base army, but the two Jin commanders rushed to beat a hasty retreat. Chinggis pursued the fleeing army to the banks of the Hui River and there delivered an annihilating attack. In this fighting the Mongol cavalry magnificently demonstrated their might and literally trampled the Jin infantry under their horses’ hoofs.

  Taking advantage of early victories, Chinggis ordered Jebe to attack the Juyong Pass, the northern defense of Zhongdu. Jebe and his troops advanced from Datong, marched the great distance to the Juyong Pass, and in no time at all captured it. Chinggis then ordered the right army under Jochi, Cha’adai, and Ögedei to seize complete control over the area north of the Great Wall in Shanxi province.

  Reports continually came to Chinggis’s base camp in Datong from his three sons, as if in some sort of competition, of the occupation or mopping up of Yunnei, Dongshengzhou, Wuzhou, Shuozhou, Fengzhou, Jingzhou, and elsewhere. Bo’orchu explained how the fighting progressed with great clarity to Chinggis, so that it was as if he had observed his three young sons in battle with his own eyes.

  The following year, 1212, Chinggis reached age fifty in Datong. At the start of the year, he learned that Muqali had captured the two cities of Changzhou and Huanzhou. Following that, one by one the fortresses north of the Great Wall fell to Muqali.

  It was at this time that Chinggis heard a report to the effect that the Jin generals He Sheli and Jiu Jian were leading an immense army toward Datong with the aim of recovering that city. At the head of an army, the great khan left Datong, confronted the Jin forces on mountainous terrain en route, defeated them, and sent the Jin reinforcements fleeing in utter defeat.

  When Chinggis learned that all the land north of the Great Wall was now completely occupied and a path opened up to invade Zhongdu, he abandoned Datong as no longer of strategic value. Moving his entire army north of the Great Wall, he decided now to set his sights solely on Zhongdu.

  In the eighth month of the year, for the first time in fourteen months since capturing the Great Wall, Chinggis crossed the Great Wall, moving this time from south to north. A ferocious wind was blowing on the wall at the time, and everywhere along the stone corridors a sandstorm blew up in the air like a whirlwind. The Mongol troops were altogether changed from those who had passed this way the previous year. They had several thousand Jin prisoners, and mountains of plunder that were being transported over the Great Wall from the south to the north. All the Jin prisoners of war were assigned to haul this booty, and it took a number of days for the groups of camels laden with cargo to traverse the wall.

  Chinggis built his base camp at the Önggüd settlement once again, and decided from there to direct his various military units spread out at numerous sites. For the first time in several months, he welcomed to his tent his eldest son, Jochi, and his general Bo’orchu. They had come to coordinate the next battle strategy.

  For having seized control over the local river valley region, Chinggis issued an edict to the effect that Bo’orchu was to be awarded high military honors. In taking control over six prefectures between the Yinshan Mountains and the Great Wall, Bo’orchu had had some help; Jochi’s strategy had paid off handsomely, and therefore Bo’orchu petitioned that Jochi also be rewarded for his courageous actions.

  Chinggis knew full well that on his first campaign Jochi had conquered a number of peoples living around Lake Baikal and had attained distinguished achievements on the battlefield. Judging from this, the recent successes, as Bo’orchu indicated, were perhaps a result of Jochi’s maneuvers. Chinggis nonetheless offered no special treatment whatsoever.

  As he looked at the dramatically more stalwart Jochi, covered in the dust of the battlefield, Chinggis felt that rewarding Jochi would gradually cause his son to lose something of his innate character. Staring at Jochi’s face with its striking resemblance to his mother, Börte, Chinggis thought the eyes were burning with defiance. He knew that when Börte spoke of Jochi, her eyes showed a fiery light not seen at any other time. Now he thought he was seeing that same light brimming before him in the eyes of his own eldest son.

  “Jochi,” said Chinggis. “What should I give you as reward for your fighting on the field of battle?”

  The young commander, just twenty-five years of age, replied:

  “Give me orders without end full of the greatest of difficulty, and I will carry them out one after the next.”

  Jochi’s eyes were fixed unmoving on those of his father. These were audacious words, to say the least. One might even understand them as a declaration of insubordination. This eldest son of his, Chinggis thought, whose blood he was not sure was his own, was effectively informing him that he was now a fully grown man with an individual personality. Staring right back into Jochi’s gaze, Chinggis called out:

  “Son of Börte, who has been raised splendidly and bravely, I shall not forget these words of yours today. Henceforth, you shall be obliged on my orders to stand up against every single difficult situation as it arises.”

  Chinggis then had arrangements made for food and drink and a short banquet held in honor of his son and his two honored friends who had come from afar. Jochi and Bo’orchu returned to the site where their troops were camped.

  After Jochi departed, Chinggis recognized that his own agitation was rising with each passing day. He couldn’t get a sense of the precise character of his feelings toward Jochi. There was both love and hatred there. Based on time and circumstance, these emotions formed a complex mixture in which one of the two would on occasion surface above the other.

  When Jochi had earlier pacified the peoples living north of Lake Baikal, Chinggis had issued an edict of congratulations and rejoiced in Jochi’s hard-fought victories as if they were his own, but for some reason, in the present circumstance he could not find such a straightforward emotion in his heart. For deep down, he could not deny his two other sons Cha’adai and Ögedei. Chinggis apparently wanted to avoid recognizing meritorious service on the battlefield for Jochi alone. Although a bit younger than Jochi, they had both participated in the fighting as army commanders, and Chinggis wanted to recognize their merit on the field as well.

  For a number of days after meeting face to face with Jochi, Chinggis sensed from that encounter that Jochi had been instilled with a ferocious spirit. Just as Jochi had requested that Chinggis order him to face all the most difficult of circumstances on the field of battle, Chinggis would be making similar demands of himself. As Jochi was on the verge of becoming a Mongol wolf, so too Chinggis himself had to become a Mongol wolf. Having crossed the Great Wall once and defeated the Jin army, Chinggis could no longer just imitate the image of the blue wolf that he had continued to hold within himself since his own youth. He had to become that wolf.

  That year, though, Chinggis did not move his troops. He placed all of the units under his command close together north of the Great Wall and bided his time, preparing to surge en masse onto Jin terrain at any moment. In the latter half of the year, he enjoyed a harvest so rich even he could not have foreseen it. Yelü Liuge, a descendant of the royal Liao house of the Khitan people, which had been destroyed by the Jin, led his Khitan kinsmen in opposition to the Jin dynasty in the northeastern sector of the Jin state. When he heard this news, Chin
ggis immediately sent his commander Alchi as an emissary to forge an alliance with Liuge. For his part, Liuge swore an oath of fealty to Chinggis, and Chinggis promised to protect the Khitan nobility.

  The Jin then sent a punitive force against Liuge. The expeditionary force was under the command of Wanyan Heshuo. Chinggis sent 3,000 support troops to aid Liuge, and at the same time he ordered Jebe to launch an attack on the strategic northeastern site of Liaoyang, one of the former capitals of the Liao dynasty. Jebe rapidly brought the city down, and with the approval of Chinggis, Liuge took the position of Liao king. During the fighting, not only the area north of the Great Wall but also the massive territory beyond the Yinshan and Xing’an mountain ranges—an area roughly corresponding to the entire Mongolian plateau—was now added to the Mongol sphere of influence.

  When he completed the expedition to Liaoyang, Jebe left his troops there and alone returned to Chinggis’s base camp. Chinggis greeted him with great warmth. Of all the Mongol commanders, Jebe made his name resound most loudly in the state of Jin. His capacity to deploy troops, using his men with great dexterity and never losing on the field of battle, was feared by all Jin commanders as virtually superhuman.

  From beyond the Xing’an Mountains, Jebe pulled along several thousand fine horses and brought them into Chinggis’s camp. Thus, the periphery of the Önggüd settlement was teeming with tall horses whose lustrous skin was of a blackish-brown hue. At his audience with Chinggis, Jebe said:

  “I once fought as a soldier of the Tayichi’uds against the great khan and injured the great khan’s horse. For some time, I have been thinking of presenting the great khan with a horse by way of recompense, but only now am I able to see that wish to fruition.”

  “What you injured that day,” replied Chinggis in good humor, “was not just my horse. Your arrows felled the horse and struck and wounded me in the neck.”

  “To compensate for injury done to the great khan’s body,” said Jebe, “I must offer my life. Please send not only your son Jochi but me as well into difficult battles when the occasion arises.”

  Only at this moment did Chinggis realize that Jebe had seen through the subtle relationship he shared with Jochi and was delicately admonishing him for it. And not only Jebe, for it seemed certain that Jelme and Bo’orchu also understood; this had become something of a lamentable issue among those who had offered meritorious service in the inception of the Mongol state. At this point in time, Chinggis said nothing about this to Jebe. Chinggis was unable to properly explain his love-hate feelings for Jochi to this fierce and obstinate commander with a pointed skull like an arrowhead, nor did he feel so inclined.

  The start of 1213 was the second new year on which Chinggis found himself in a foreign land. To a new year’s banquet, he invited from their various war fronts Muqali, Bo’orchu, Jebe, Qasar, and his three sons Jochi, Cha’adai, and Ögedei.

  When they all met, he consulted with them about the sweeping assault on the state of Jin. Less a consultation, it was more an opportunity to unilaterally issue orders. He announced that the three commanders Muqali, Jebe, and Sübe’etei would strengthen the rear, while everyone else in the other three armies would be committed to Jin terrain. He was referring, in other words, to the three forces of Qasar’s left army, Jochi’s and his brothers’ right army, and Chinggis and Tolui’s central army. He decided as well to reassign Bo’orchu, heretofore guardian with the right army, to his own central army as its highest officer. Accordingly, leadership of the right army was entrusted completely to his three sons.

  “The three of you must deal with things as a single unity,” said Chinggis to Jochi, Cha’adai, and Ögedei. “Jochi shall have highest leadership authority. Cha’adai and Ögedei, help your elder brother. These are your orders: Enter the low ground of Hebei from Shanxi and then gallop across all of Jin territory. Seize every settled area that you pass by. When you attack, you must precede your troops in scaling the walls.”

  “We shall obey your order, great khan, our father,” responded Jochi, representing his brothers, “and carry to fruition everything as you have ordered it.”

  Jochi’s face had turned a pale green. Whatever they might all have thought, these were orders nearly impossible to execute. A hushed silence fell over the entire group. Bo’orchu, Jelme, and Muqali kept quiet, uttering not a word. With the order given and Jochi having accepted it, there was nothing further to say.

  Chinggis next issued orders to his brother Qasar:

  “Attack the area west of the Liao River, north of the Great Wall until you reach the sea. When winter comes to that region, everything is frozen solid, and neither humans nor horses can move. Complete the fighting by winter, for you are not to lose troops or horses due to the cold.”

  “Understood!” replied Qasar in a slightly wild tone of voice. Qasar seemed a bit displeased at not being able to attack the heartland of the Jin state.

  Finally, Chinggis issued the orders for his own units:

  “Tolui and I will bypass Zhongdu, move into Hebei, cross the Yellow River, and attack Shandong. Bo’orchu, you will always be with me.”

  The mission for his three units was not particularly difficult, in his estimation. In the fighting over the previous two years, he had come to know the Jin troops’ capacity on the battlefield and to see that not a single Jin statesman was present there. The defenses around Zhongdu were weak, morale low, and the possibility of civil strife erupting at any time high. The Mongol cavalry could become a sharp awl and break through any time.

  Chinggis had not considered, though, whether all of those assembled there that day would be able to meet face to face without incident after the conquest of the Jin. In particular, he hadn’t taken into account whether everything among his three young sons would run smoothly.

  It had been Jochi’s wish for Chinggis to give him the mission fraught with the gravest difficulties, and this was Chinggis’s wish as well. “Jochi, you are to become a wolf!” Because he had assigned such a task to Jochi, Chinggis was sacrificing the children with whom he was sure he shared blood—namely, Cha’adai and Ögedei—and placing their fate together with his. Chinggis made appropriate arrangements so that he would not show any special feeling toward Jochi and so that he would understand what his commanders were feeling. In addition, he knew that this was necessary for himself. On behalf of his wife, Börte, whom he had left back in the camp at Mount Burqan and had not seen for nearly two years now, he had to treat the children she had borne him all fairly.

  The new year’s banquet with Chinggis at its center was a grand affair of unprecedented proportions. Women escorted from Datong and many other places came and went amid the drinking. Outside the tents, snow came fluttering to the ground, but inside the broad tents were outfitted with floor heaters, making it nice and warm.

  The drinking lasted from morning till night. In the evening, Chinggis stood at the entrance to his tent and looked at the outdoors painted completely in white. In the distance he saw a group of soldiers moving toward a hillside far to the east. He called his guard and asked whose troops they were and what they were about to do. The young guard immediately conveyed the name of the unit and that they were marching out in the snow. Chinggis never tired of gazing at the narrow defiles of troops here and there. The name of their leader was new to Chinggis. They were a beautiful sight. To Chinggis they appeared like a pack of young wolves.

  Chinggis then shifted his line of vision to the young soldier standing at attention before him. Falling snow was mounting on their caps and shoulders. He too was without a doubt a Mongol wolf.

  Although he returned to the festivities, Chinggis sensed that Bo’orchu, Jelme, and Qasar all seemed to have aged. At some point in time, he and many of his meritorious followers had grown older, and half of their hair had turn to white. Only the middle-aged Muqali, Jebe, and Sübe’etei still seemed young. Chinggis was coming to realize that the era of Muqali and Jebe—and then the era of a group of young leaders as yet unknown to him—was about t
o dawn.

  6

  Fall of the Jin Dynasty

  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?