by Joshua Fogel
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 th
e 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.