by Joshua Fogel
In 1217 Muqali made his way to Chinggis’s camp to report on the culmination of major battles in Liaoxi and Liaodong. He had been gone since setting out from the encampment at Lake Yur in 1214. Aside from a brief three-month period at the Lake Yur camp, ever since Muqali began fighting against the Jin in 1211, he had spent day and night in fierce battles, and now at long last he had brought the expansive terrain of Liaoxi and Liaodong under his control. Muqali was a man of preeminent qualities both as a warrior and as a statesman.
Chinggis had all of his high officials in attendance as he offered Muqali the highest honors. He rewarded him for his extraordinary achievements, gave him the title of prince of the state, and accorded him all authority as director of the armed forces in China. The long and bitter fighting on foreign soil had caused the young commander to age any number of years, his expressionless face remaining unmoved. In addition, the dust in the air made his complexion so ruddy that he did not look like someone born on the grasslands.
Less than 10 days later, Muqali headed once again to his post. Under his command were 23,000 troops organized into Mongol, Khitan, and Jurchen units. Muqali’s posting now was the state of Jin, in which the royal Jin house teetered on the edge of extinction, and his jurisdiction as the new prince of the state was immense.
Having defeated his old enemies and gathered the great majority of their terrain under his control, Chinggis spent the period from 1217 through the spring of 1218 at his camp by Mount Burqan. The lives of the Mongol people had completely changed. With agricultural tools introduced from the Jin, the grasslands were gradually opened to cultivation, and in the southeastern sector people adopted a semiagricultural lifestyle. With the technology acquired from the Jin, wells were dug everywhere, and large amounts of pastureland were improved for farming.
On almost a daily basis, innumerable caravans from east and west now assembled at Chinggis’s camp. Chinggis liked being able to see men of every race, with different skin colors and eye colors, coming together and spreading out with camels and horses laden with merchandise.
On Chinggis’s orders, it was standard practice for caravans that had made their way from the distant west to present themselves at the great khan’s tent soon after unpacking their wares in the market. Chinggis treated them with cordiality and never took their merchandise without compensating them.
Among such caravans, those that most impressed the great khan were from the Muslim state of Khorazm. They brought beautiful utensils and handicrafts that Mongol expeditionary troops had never seen before, even on Jin terrain. That included glass items and all manner of precious stones, as well as personal ornaments of exquisite craftsmanship. They also had rugs so magnificent that one could scarcely imagine how they were made. For these stunning items, the Mongols exchanged goods obtained from the Jin: silk, cotton cloth, writing brushes, paper, ink, inkstones, paintings, and antiques.
Chinggis put in special orders with the caravans from Khorazm for weaponry and for paraphernalia related to religious rituals. He sought such items from an unknown state at the suggestion of Yelü Chucai, whose education, knowledge, and character Chinggis so admired. This large man with the long beard had won the great khan’s affection and offered his own distinctive views on all matters of policy.
Chinggis expressed a surprisingly strong desire that Yelü Chucai learn about these unknown things, and thus all caravans had to answer the latter’s questions, often for a considerable period of time, at the tent of the great khan.
When Chinggis queried Yelü Chucai closely for his opinion, it was always centered on what the Mongols should do to become stronger. Yelü Chucai’s response was always the same. They had to continue to preserve an abiding interest in a high level of culture, with a burning ferocity like that of red-hot steel. There was always the opposition between honoring culture and honoring military might.
“Although the Jin state was destroyed by the great khan’s military strength, it still had a far higher level of culture,” said Yelü Chucai. “The great khan must now study many of the artifacts from the Jin. You should govern the people of Jin wisely and act in a manner that encourages them to contribute all that they possess.”
“Although it attained a high level of culture,” replied Chinggis, “the Jin state fell under our rule, did it not, because it had inferior military capacity?”
“When the great khan says ‘rule,’ what do you mean? If one morning General Muqali withdraws from Jin, what sort of ‘rule’ will remain? Military force can only hold down an opponent. It cannot rule him. To the extent that they do not yet have a high level of culture in their own land, Mongol officers and men cannot fully rule the state of Jin. At some time, they will, to the contrary, be absorbed into the Jin and ultimately be ruled by the Jin, as it were.”
Yelü Chucai always made Chinggis fall silent. The Mongol khan enjoyed being persuaded by his young advisor and retreating into silence. Whenever he felt compelled to say nothing further, Chinggis incorporated into policy in one form or another the views of his interlocutor.
Chinggis learned from Yelü Chucai that the greatest force for concentrating the people’s minds as one was love of their own ethnicity and religious belief, not fidelity to the powerful. Thus, Chinggis prohibited any alien people’s beliefs from entering his settlement freely and causing harm. For his own Mongolian people, he encouraged belief in heaven, as Mongols had held from time immemorial, as evidence for their distinctive qualities. He did not, however, enforce this belief on lineages other than the Borjigin.
Chinggis never relaxed the ironclad regulations even a little bit, and at the same time he accepted Yelü Chucai’s idea and instituted moral education—such as rejecting theft and murder—for his nomadic people. For the Mongols, the theft of sheep meant death, but now he was gradually planting among them an altogether new concept that one had to avoid theft because it brought unhappiness both to oneself and to others.
One thing Chinggis completed ignored was that the young man possessed Khitan blood. This first cropped up early in 1218, when Chinggis suddenly ordered troops under his command to invade the Xixia. Although he subjugated the Xixia, he also felt the need to encamp Mongol troops on their terrain. The fighting arose all of a sudden, without provocation. A Mongol cavalry unit enveloped in clouds of dust attacked the Xixia capital and forced the king to flee for Xiliang in the west. Chinggis thus effected an occupation of Xixia by a powerful Mongol battalion.
For a number of days before and after this battle, Chinggis would not face Yelü Chucai. At such times, however, the latter never reproached Chinggis. Indeed, he never so much as mentioned the topic.
Chinggis’s real objective in marching against the Xixia was not to cause, through a Mongol occupation of the area, the least unsettledness in the neighboring Uyghur state. The Naiman King Küchülüg, once an enemy who had managed to escape in the fighting, had now, with his own state destroyed, usurped the throne of the Kara Khitai (Western Liao) king and held it for six years. It was thus a foregone conclusion for Chinggis that before long he would have to attack. When they were ready to move against the Kara Khitai, given its geographic proximity, he would have to march through the neighboring state of the Uyghurs, which would then fall under Mongol control.
7
The Destruction of Khorazm
IN THE SUMMER OF 1218, Chinggis placed Jebe in command of an army of 20,000 men and had him march on the kingdom of Kara Khitai. The divination performed by Yelü Chucai with a ram’s scapula at the time of his first audience with Chinggis, indicating that there would be war drums in the southwest, was now becoming reality. The objective of invading Kara Khitai was to bring down the Naiman King Küchülüg, and by taking over his territory, establish a border with the state of Khorazm, with its highly esteemed culture. Chinggis maintained friendly relations and a high volume of trade with Khorazm, and in so doing he sought to acquire many things theretofore unknown to him.
When Jebe invaded Kara Khitai, he immediately announce
d that there would be freedom of religion and freed the adherents of Islam who had suffered under Küchülüg. Muslims rose in rebellion at numerous sites and saw Jebe as their ally. Jebe defeated the forces of Küchülüg at many places and captured the walled cities of Hami, Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan. He pursued Küchülüg himself, who fled as far as the Pamir plateau, where he was attacked by local people and killed. Jebe sent his head back to the great khan along with 1,000 horses raised by the people of the region.
The pacification of Kara Khitai was accomplished at great speed; in the space of roughly three months, Jebe had brought under Mongol rule an immense state that spread north and south across Tianshan. In the fighting, the Mongols formed two huge wings to the left and right of the army’s main body. Led by Muqali and Jebe, a thorough mopping up was under way.
Chinggis issued a proclamation for his distinguished commander Jebe that both recognized his stunning accomplishment and warned him against being overly boastful about it.
Although the invasion and capture of Kara Khitai were effected to promote trade with the great unknown kingdom of Khorazm, Chinggis acquired something else of enormous importance. Altogether new agricultural and industrial technologies, which even the state of Jin had lacked, now streamed onto the Mongolian plateau, like water running to lower ground. Fruits, carpets, wines, and numerous handicraft products, the likes of which the Mongols had never seen before, crossed the wastelands and the Gobi Desert, arriving daily on the plateau.
Chinggis Khan was now autocrat over an immense stretch of territory. He resolved to send his first caravan to Khorazm and to enlist caravan members from among his relatives. In short order one or two candidates from his own family and from among his commanders stepped forward, and a company of 450 men was organized. There was some concern that every member of the company should be a Muslim.
The caravan set out from Chinggis’s camp, and when it reached Otrar on the banks of the Syr Darya, they were arrested by Ghayir Khan, the officer left in charge of the region, and all the merchandise they had brought along was plundered. Ghayir Khan then reported to Muhammad, shah of Khorazm, that the caravan was all Mongol spies and that he had executed all 450 of them.
Chinggis was completely unprepared when he learned this news, and it gave rise to a fierce antipathy in him for this large, unknown land. The goodwill he had shown toward Khorazm was now completely turned to enmity.
The land of Khorazm was entirely unfamiliar to Chinggis, to Yelü Chucai, and to many of his staff members in terms of both the conditions prevailing there and the sensibilities of the people. With the small amount of information gleaned from caravans, they knew that it was a large Muslim state with phenomenal wealth. What sort of state organization and what level of armed forces it possessed were unknown. Chinggis consulted Yelü Chucai about sending troops against Khorazm in retaliation.
“What we know about Khorazm,” said Yelü Chucai, “is that it is unified by the Muslim faith and that large groups of Muslims make up the state. Religion is the steel that binds them together, but the Mongols have nothing comparable to this. Judging by the goods that the caravans have brought, their cultural level is unfathomably high. Might it make more sense to postpone the dispatching of troops?”
Chinggis also consulted with the older leaders, Qasar and Jelme, but neither agreed with the idea of sending troops.
“All we know about Khorazm,” said Qasar, “is that their soldiers wear steel armor. Compared to our leather armor, it’s difficult to immediately say which is better or worse, but clearly our weapons cannot penetrate their armor. One thing’s for sure: fighting with them will take on an altogether new form, unknown to us so far.”
“It seems to me that Khorazm is like the great sea,” continued Jelme. “For caravans from Khorazm come speaking all manner of languages and practicing all sorts of customs. The only thing they share is the Islamic faith. It strikes me that the great khan ought not toss crack Mongol troops into a bottomless ocean.”
Chinggis went on to consult with many of his other commanders, but in everyone’s estimation Khorazm seemed to be an eerie religious state whose actual form remained largely unclear. No one thought it a good idea to act aggressively and send troops.
Finally, Chinggis summoned Jochi to his tent. When he appeared before Chinggis, Jochi immediately said:
“Why should I fear an attack on Khorazm?”
Chinggis had not decided on that course of action, and when he proceeded to consult with Jochi, the latter replied:
“Because a peak is high, can Mongol wolves not dash over it? Because a valley is deep, can we not make our way through it? Great khan, make me and tens of thousands of troops under my command dash over that peak and cut through that valley.”
Looking into Jochi’s eyes, Chinggis did not feel that he was for certain a Mongol blue wolf.
“They say that Khorazm is like a great sea,” said Chinggis. “If you destroy one state, another will appear. Although I am prepared to lose Jochi and those under your command, I am concerned that I would have to throw all of Mongolia into the great sea.”
“Is this not what all Mongol soldiers were born fated to do?” answered Jochi. “The great khan did not wish that, as a result of the conquest of Kara Khitai, we would have an enemy, but we Borjigins have always had enemies, from the time our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were born until we die. Having enemies is what makes us Borjigins. Blue wolves must have enemies. A wolf with no enemies is not a true wolf. Because of frauds like Yelü Chucai, the great khan is on the verge of implanting us with the spirit of the Khitans. Now is the time to get rid of Yelü Chucai and take your revenge instead. Fill the lives of the Mongol people with battle, as our ancestors did.”
“Young Mongol wolf.” Chinggis opened his mouth quietly to speak, having listened silently to Jochi’s words. “Are you suggesting that I have ceased to be a wolf? When we come up with a plan for dealing with Khorazm, I shall give you the glory of leading the attack, and the main body of my troops will step over your corpse and march on.”
After he dismissed Jochi, Chinggis’s attitude began to improve greatly. Although he had no desire to accept his eldest son’s proposal as offered, for the first time in a while he was inspired by the spirit of invasion and attack his son elicited.
Chinggis once again solicited the opinion of his wife, Börte, in her tent. A year his senior, she now had white hair and a portly torso, and was a venerable woman covered with precious stones. Her movements had slowed with age, and the glitter in her eye had dimmed with each passing year.
Börte had only rarely spoken over the previous four or five years, but when asked by Chinggis about the advisability of invading Khorazm, she said with a light smile:
“Send the army, if the great khan so wishes. Don’t move the army, if the great khan does not so wish it. The great khan has managed affairs these few years without consulting my views.”
“It may transpire that every Mongol soldier will be wounded,” replied Chinggis. “Is that acceptable?”
“Great khan,” said Börte with a smile, “when have you ever been so covetous? Other than your now aging wife, what sort of subordinates have you had?”
Listening to his wife speak, Chinggis realized that this was precisely the issue: she was not terribly satisfied with their present circumstances, in which they wanted for nothing. For Chinggis this was bizarre, beyond the bounds of ordinary understanding. As he was steadily rising to be ruler of a great state, Börte was gradually being buried in a deep snow of dissatisfaction with her surroundings. The reason was not clearly identifiable, and Chinggis left Börte with a feeling of profound frustration.
For the last opinion, Chinggis visited Qulan’s tent. Unlike Börte, Qulan was a woman still in her prime. Her face still shone with limitless radiance, and she carried herself with the dignity of the most beloved consort of the ruler.
“The great khan,” said Qulan, a charming smile lighting up her face, “has the love and affec
tion of 3,000 widows focused on himself, and that is still not enough. Will you now mount the princesses of Khorazm on elephants and bring them to your tent?”
Whenever he came before Qulan, Chinggis felt as if enveloped in a sweet luxuriousness, and in the reflection of her radiance, he felt himself exposed to stunning ideas. This, however, by no means meant that Chinggis trusted the beauty and lustrousness that Qulan possessed.
Although they had not spoken of it since he had entrusted their beloved son Kölgen to Sorqan Shira, she had, it would seem, not forgotten this incident. Qulan often softly criticized the fact that Chinggis had numerous concubines, but it never harmed her pride in the least, because she believed in her heart of hearts that the leader of the Mongolian people loved her more than all the others. When Chinggis asked her in all seriousness for her views on attacking Khorazm, Qulan advised him with an enthusiasm greater than that of anyone he had thus far consulted to send an armed expedition.
“The great khan must attack Khorazm,” she said, “for Khorazm is far wealthier than Mongolia and far more advanced. The fruits of such a battle will be immense, and the fighting will be equally intense. Cast all of the Mongolian people into the crucible of war. I for one would like to live with the great khan on the field of battle in that foreign land.
“Take away everything I have. Precious stones, beautiful clothing, all my extravagant personal effects—take it all away from me. Then see to it that I am always in the midst of war cries. Amid the sharp reverberations of arrows, I shall make sure of only one thing with the great khan and wish to speak of only one topic.