The Blue Wolf

by Joshua Fogel

  All these furnishings and conveniences were not mere ornamentation—the continual coming and going of guests had made them almost necessities. The officers were paying frequent calls on one another and often received wealthy guests from other ethnic groups. This trend was not only apparent among his top commanders; even the clothing and possessions of ordinary soldiers had changed. It had become all the rage among the troops to play strange songs on bizarre instruments.

  Chinggis, though, said nothing faultfinding about any of this. He had instructed himself to remain silent on this score. It seemed to him a dream come true that he had given to all Mongol men and women such a life for their relatives. Chinggis recalled that when he had assumed the position of great khan and the ceremony of several days’ duration was carried out, he felt deep emotion watching in front of his own tent a group of filthily attired old women dancing to a simple step and repeating the same tune over and over. At that time, he vowed to relieve the Mongol people of such sadness and poverty so they might contemplate enriching their lives. Was this, in fact, what he was now witnessing? This transformation had affected the conquering officers and troops and was undoubtedly happening in the tents by Mount Burqan as well. The lives of the women and old folks who had been left behind had undoubtedly changed to an unrecognizable degree. Wasn’t this, after all, what he had been seeking all along?

  The evening he walked around to the camps of his kinsmen, Chinggis recalled that he had chosen to live in the dark Mongol-style camp as of old because he so liked it. But he couldn’t force anyone else to do so. Nor could he blame the others who did not share his views or his desired lifestyle. Chinggis sternly instructed himself to this effect, but even as he thought about it, he could not in his heart of hearts acquiesce in this incomprehensible behavior. That night he did not return to his sleeping quarters until late and thought about his beloved Qulan. For the first time since her death, he was overcome with a profound sadness that she was no longer alive, a sadness that tore into his heart. Qulan who had sought to share all of his hardships with him, Qulan who had so admirably been able to bear his having relinquished their son, Kölgen, to the nameless masses, this Qulan had been extremely rare and precious to Chinggis.

  On another occasion, Chinggis made an inspection of the city of Samarkand. The Mongol soldiers he saw there did not understand what it meant to be a Mongol, insofar as they made no attempt to be attentive to it. Some wore Persian garb, while others decorated their bodies with Turkish objects.

  That day Chinggis went to inspect a shop making military clothing and weaponry that had been set up in a corner of the city, but at the shoemaker’s shop there he found the long shoes worn by Turks. The young officer serving as Chinggis’s guide explained proudly that these were both beautiful to the eye and comfortable to wear on the march—and they were durable. Chinggis merely nodded and listened that day, but in his heart he wondered if anyone wearing such shoes was really a Mongol soldier. Was it conceivable that a wolf of the Borjigin lineage would ever don such footwear? Could they even fit on the paws of the wolf packs as they ran over snowy plains, crossed mountains, and raced across ravines? Although he wanted to say all this, he persevered quietly.

  When he returned to his tent that day, Chinggis again thought about Qulan. It was strange that he should have remembered her under these circumstances.

  Since stationing troops at Samarkand, Chinggis had sent messengers any number of times to the quarters of his commanders Jebe and Sübe’etei and to his eldest son, Jochi, to convey orders for them to return immediately to Samarkand. Whether the dispatched messengers had reached their objectives or not, not one of them had returned. Every time the messagers would set off and then all news of them vanished.

  Late in the year, after nearly a year’s passage of time, a messenger returned from Jebe and Sübe’etei. On this occasion, it was not just a messenger but a unit comprised of 100 Mongol soldiers and 500 non-Mongols bearing large quantities of booty to be delivered to Chinggis’s camp. There was a mountain of valuable items: weapons, furnishings, art objects, and religious sculptures. Several hundred camels came laden to great heights with all this plunder. After affording them two days to recuperate, Chinggis had a group of the soldiers return to their bases to inform Jebe and Sübe’etei, their commanders, of the orders to congregate at Samarkand. Chinggis also saw to it that all the presents from Jebe and Sübe’etei were soon transported to the camp in the foothills of Mount Burqan.

  When the end of 1224 drew close, the messenger Chinggis had earlier dispatched returned with a single soldier from Jochi’s camp on the Kipchak plain. The latter offered the following message from Jochi: “For the past three years Jochi has been ill and unable to take part in long marches. He cannot return home with Chinggis; however, he shall return to the land of the Mongolian plateau at the first possible opportunity—please accept this explanation.”

  Chinggis felt violent anger at hearing this. He had sent out countless messengers, but no news whatsoever had been forthcoming until eventually this answer arrived—he was behaving as if he’d severed all ties to the Mongolian people. When an expeditionary army was to withdraw together, what did it mean for a single person to remain behind? That very day Chinggis sent a messenger out from Samarkand with orders to Jochi:

  —No matter what, the entire army must assemble immediately in Samarkand.

  The year 1225 began, and Chinggis planned new year’s festivities with his commanders and decided that they would set out from Samarkand late in the fourth month to return home. He also decided to keep it a secret from the officers and men until the first week of that month.

  Early the previous month, Chinggis had unexpectedly received news that Jebe and Sübe’etei’s units were on their way to Samarkand. After the first messenger arrived, messengers began coming on a daily basis with information on these units’ movements. These reports seemed to indicate that, since the time when these two units set out from the city to track down Muhammad, they had multiplied their strength several times. Two units comprised of Bulgarians and Russians had been completely integrated into the Mongol fighting brigades.

  The day that Jebe and Sübe’etei returned to Samarkand after cutting off their four-year campaign, Chinggis had his entire army arrayed before the city gate to greet them. The advance forces of the returning army had followed the course of the Sughd River flowing to the north of the city and appeared first. They approached the city in a long procession and situated themselves in a corner of the prearranged open area. By the time all the troops had taken up positions in this area, a considerable amount of time had elapsed.

  Although Bo’orchu and two or three other commanders first approached the returning army, eventually a band of a dozen or more men from that army headed in Chinggis’s direction. Chinggis was overjoyed to greet his two commanders whom he had not seen for so long and strode over to them himself. When he met the band of returnees coming toward him, he stopped, as did they. One commander from this group approached him with a calm gait. It was Sübe’etei.

  Sübe’etei appeared to Chinggis as if he had grown much larger. He was just over fifty years of age but showed no weariness from the campaign at all, if anything seeming younger and more fearless than before. Sübe’etei briefly reported their return. The names of a number of lands and a number of mountain ranges, as well as rivers and lakes, all passed his lips, but the great majority of these were new to Chinggis.

  Chinggis was satisfied. He was waiting for the appearance of one other, Jebe. But for some reason, no matter how long they waited, Jebe did not appear. He was not among the group standing a short way away.

  Chinggis was about to ask about Jebe, but he oddly felt himself extremely ill at ease. Still standing right before him, Sübe’etei remained silent. What had happened to Jebe? Why is this commander with the head like the tip of an arrow not appearing before me? Staring hard at Sübe’etei with a stern face, Chinggis suddenly moved away from where they had been standing. I’ll go fin
d him myself, he thought.

  Chinggis walked by himself among the countless troops packed together. When he strode before them, the soldiers tightened up their formations at the orders of their leaders. Chinggis walked among the narrow defiles between the units. What had happened to Jebe? That youngster, Jebe, many years ago with a single arrow broke the jawbone of my yellow war horse and injured me in the neck.

  Chinggis marched on. His piercing eyes wide open, he headed toward more troops. If Jebe was there, he had to show himself. The arrow, the arrowhead. But Jebe did not appear. Chinggis now took in what he had never seen before, units of non-Mongol soldiers, one after the next. There was one unit with shockingly white faces and another with black. Different orders rang out, all manner of military formations, and Chinggis for the first time saw it all with his own eyes.

  Having given up on finding Jebe himself, Chinggis returned to his earlier position, where Sübe’etei was still standing like a post, and stopping right in front of Sübe’etei, he said:

  “Did Jebe die of illness or on the field of battle?” His voice bore a snapping, fierce tone.

  “Jebe died neither on the battlefield nor of illness,” replied Sübe’etei, also with a fierce tone. “He died after using up the years allotted to him. He breathed his last in a village to the southwest of the Sea of Aral. He now rests on the back of a hillside by that village.”

  After he had replied, perspiration began pouring off Sübe’etei’s head. One sharp arrow had spent its allotted years and broken in two. Chinggis nodded and forced himself not to grieve for Jebe. If he could bear the passing of Qulan, then he had to endure the passing of Jebe as well.

  At the end of the fourth month, the entire army set out from Samarkand. Chinggis waited until the very day of departure for Jochi’s return, but his forces never arrived. Having dispatched any number of messengers to the Kipchak plain, he once again did so, with orders this time to meet up with the main army in the coming year at Buqa-Sökekü on Naiman terrain.

  On the day before leaving Samarkand, Chinggis had the empress dowager of Muhammad, once ruler of this land, and her ladies-in-waiting, as captured hostages, line up on the city ramparts and bid the state of Khorazm farewell. Carrying them off with him to the Mongolian plain, he had no desire ever to return to this place again.

  From spring to summer and on to autumn, the immense Mongol army big enough to cover the surface of the earth slowly moved back toward its homeland. They passed numerous towns and cities where they had once shed much blood with their own hands. They would camp at certain sites for a few days and pass through others without stopping. They crossed the Syr Darya and many of its tributaries. They skillfully built bridges with techniques unknown to them four years earlier, and over countless bridges their long ranks marched for days with no end in sight. Troops from every ethnic group had been assimilated into their military files.

  At the beginning of autumn, Mongol forces reached the Chui River, where the units camped for a short while before continuing on. The Chui River was different in color from the Syr Darya or the Amu Darya they had crossed so many times. Those rivers flowed west into the Sea of Aral. The Chui River flowed far to the north, no one knew whence. By mid-autumn, the armies crossed the Altai Mountains.

  When the Mongol forces arrived at the Emil River, the old frontier between the Naiman and Uyghur peoples, Chinggis met a unit of 1,000 men who had come from the camp to greet him. Among the welcoming party were his son Tolui and the young faces of Chinggis’s grandsons, eleven-year-old Qubilai and nine-year-old Hülegü. Chinggis planned a hunt for these imperial grandchildren. It was their first hunt, and Chinggis himself thus carried out for them the inauguration ceremony for their participation. In a custom aimed at bringing them good fortune, his old, large hands grasped meat and fat, and he rubbed the tender, sproutlike middle fingers of the two boys.

  Looking at the faces of Khubilai and Hülegü with throngs of men and women waiting on them, Chinggis could not but think of Kölgen, who was being raised as the son of some unknown Mongol family. Kölgen, who was abandoned without a trace by the late Sorqan Shira at the time of the second Mongol invasion of the state of Jin in 1213, would now be seventeen years old, if he was still living. And a fine soldier he would have been.

  Chinggis, though, never regretted giving Kölgen over to a cruel fate. Kölgen, I shall never rub your middle finger with meat and fat. You can do it yourself. No one did it to me. If you have the strength, you must live by your own might—just as I have done.

  When Chinggis looked at Qubilai and Hülegü, his face with its large ears, penetrating eyes, tight lips, and white beard filled with tranquility and calm. When he thought about Kölgen, the expression on his face ran to extremes of severity. In the same manner, his heart now was filled with love, but the expression on his face was altogether different.

  On the Buqa-Sökekü plain, about two days’ journey from the banks of the Emil River, Chinggis held a banquet of thanks for his entire army for all the hard work over many years on foreign terrain. They were now standing on a section of the Mongolian plateau. The banquet lasted for several days on a grand scale. Virtually every day, his three sons Cha’adai, Ögedei, and Tolui, his three younger brothers Qasar, Belgütei, and Qachi’un, and his commanders Bo’orchu, Jelme, Sübe’etei, Qubilai Noyan, Chimbai, and Chila’un all gathered at Chinggis’s tent and drank wine together while inhaling the aroma of their native soil. Absent were commanders Muqali and Jebe and his son Jochi.

  When he left Samarkand, Chinggis had dispatched a messenger to Jochi with orders to meet at the site of their present festivities, but as before, he had no response. Aside from this one incident, Chinggis had been completely satisfied with Jochi. The banquet was now reaching boisterous proportions. It was intended to be a party after which they would not bring back to their home tents the bloody stench of the battlefield. All violent and bloodthirsty behavior was to be dispensed with here.

  Troops of many different ethnicities from across the wide expanse of Central Asia were getting drunk, yelling, singing, and dancing. And the revelry continued day and night. Children of mixed blood formed groups, several dozen each, and put on entertainment with women, their mothers, who had attached themselves to certain lineages. One Kankali woman with mixed blood from an altogether different ethnicity was dancing by herself. Her dance under the moonlight struck everyone as mysterious and beautiful, as her stout body, unlike that of any Mongol woman, swayed and trembled.

  “I alone,” said Chinggis, joking, “have the characteristics necessary to be greeted by women on the Mongolian plateau.”

  He alone was wearing Mongolian clothing and shoes, and he alone knew what it meant to live according to Mongolian custom. Even old-timers Bo’orchu and Jelme had discarded their military garb and were attired in clothing from Khorazm sewn with gold and silver thread.

  When the great banquet came to a close, the Mongol military units moved gradually from the northern foothills of the Altai Mountains toward the heart of the Mongolian plateau. The scenery of their home terrain, which they had not seen for some time, suffused the hearts of the Mongol officers and troops.

  Chinggis did not have his eye set on the camp at the foot of Mount Burqan. In every settlement en route, they were given a grand welcome, and Chinggis would stop at each for several or more days. He rewarded the troops native to each settlement by demobilizing them and allowing them to remain there with their families.

  In early winter the Mongol military units reached the camp at the Tula River next to the camp by Mount Burqan, which was now the effective political and economic center of the Mongolian state. Once a Kereyid settlement, this place was unforgettable for Chinggis, despite his best efforts—the site of the Black Forest where To’oril Khan had once held authority. After a fierce battle lasting three days and three nights, they had defeated To’oril Khan here, and he remembered that battle as if it had been fought the day before. When he thought about it, he realized that over twenty years
had since passed.

  Chinggis set up camp here and demobilized on a huge scale all units except for his personal guard, enabling them all to return to their respective settlements. Chinggis remained for the next three weeks, walking around the Black Forest redolent with memories for him and carrying on hunts by the Tula River. Knowing that a grave had never been established for To’oril Khan, his onetime friend and later enemy, Chinggis had a stone monument placed at the site where he had lost his life, north of the Black Forest. The inscription read in Uyghur script: LORD OF THE BLACK FOREST, HERE RESTS THE INDOMITABLE SOUL OF TO’ORIL KHAN.

  Once the stele for To’oril Khan had been erected, Chinggis held a grand memorial service for him. To’oril Khan had been his benefactor, and in the extremely difficult days of Chinggis’s youth, he had been able to escape persecution by the Tayichi’uds and somehow carry on protecting the Borjigin banner primarily because of To’oril Khan’s assistance. It was he who had forged the alliance with Jamugha and he who later worked with Chinggis to bring Jamugha down.

  In the end, Chinggis met To’oril Khan in mortal combat and defeated him, but Chinggis felt no pain about this whatsoever. Fate had made it inevitable that he and To’oril Khan would meet in battle, and it was a principle of nature that one of them would have to win. If the dead are mindful, then To’oril Khan would have understood all this well, and he, more than anyone else, would undoubtedly have been happy at the triumphal return of Chinggis and his men from foreign terrain.

  Although Chinggis never developed a liking for Jamugha, he admired the skinny old man’s intrepid spirit. But at no time in his battles against Khorazm did Chinggis ever feel confronted by an opponent as strong as To’oril Khan.