Temuchin 23-04-2004

The text below is brutally scanned from the brilliant book "The Mongol Warlords" by David Nicolle, see sources for more info

The birth and early life of the man later to be known as Genghis Khan are shrouded in legend. He was born somewhere between 1155 and 1167 and was given the name Temuchin after a Tatar whom his father, a minor Mongol chief of the Borjigin clan, had recently slain. Temuchin, as the eldest son, took charge of the family when his father was in turn killed by the Tatars. Temuchin was, at this time, only about twelve or thirteen years old and his father's followers refused to serve a mere boy so he, his mother and brothers were forced to eke out a living as best they could.

Photo left: birthplace of Temuchin, scanned from "Chinggis Khaan" by D.Bold and N.Ayush, ADMON, ESKO trading Co.ltd.

These were hard times and the little family had to abandon the steppes in favour of the forested Kentai mountains. There they could hunt and fish and avoid their foes, who now included not only the Tatars but also rival Mongol families who had seized leadership of the Borjigin clan. Yet Temuchin already showed considerable powers ofleadership, as well as ruthlessness. Later biographers described him as tall for a Mongol, strongly built and with 'cat's eyes'. He could endure extremes of heat or cold even better than most Mongols and was apparently indifferent to wounds. Temuchin's early life made him, in fact, a man of iron. Early adventures included skirmishing with rivals or robbers, losing and then recovering eight of the nine horses that were all his family owned, being captured, escaping and finally claiming the hand of Borte, daughter of a chieftain and the girl who had been promised to Temuchin since childhood.
But that lay in the future. For the present Temuchin and his brothers simply had to survive. The grimness of their way of life is betrayed in the episode in which Temuchin and his younger brother Qasar, the finest archer in the little group, ambushed and murdered their own half-brother Bekter. This was in revenge merely for his stealing a fish and a small bird that Temuchin had trapped. Though Bekter had been the son of another wife, their mother raged at them:

Yet, she accused, the brothers could not even win back leadership of their father's own clan. Temuchin would later do much more than retrieve his father's heritage, but in the meantime he slowly gathered a small following of warriors through his skill as a raider and by his loyalty to his own men. He would, they said, take the coat off his back and give it away.

The story of Temuchin's wife Borte adds a welcome touch of romance to an otherwise savage story. The two finally succeeded in getting wed at around the same time that Temuchin allied himself with the powerful Kerait tribe. Only a short while later the little band was ambushed by a party of raiders from the Merkit tribe, Borte being captured. Temuchin escaped though the speed of his horse and because one of his mother's servants, Qu'aqchin, had heard the drumming hoofbeats of their enemy. He fled back to the Kentai mountains where, climbing the highest peak, he threw his cap upon the ground and put his belt around his neck in sign of supplication. Then he prayed to Tangri, the Eternal Blue Sky:
Thanks to the weasel's ear and fox's eye of old Qu'aqchin I have escaped with my life. I have been able to slip with my horse along the paths of deer and elk.
So saying, Temuchin bowed nine times and made an offering of fermented mare's milk. (He seems to have had a special reverence for Tangri and would pray to the Eternal Blue Sky at all crucial moments in his life.) A sudden raid on the Merkit camp soon rescued Borte and few cared openly to express doubts about the fatherhood of the son she bore nine months after her capture. Suffice to say that Jochi, though the eldest of Genghis Khan's sons, was never permitted to playa leading role in Mongol affairs.

Photo right: birthplace of Temuchin, scanned from "Chinggis Khaan" by D.Bold and N.Ayush, ADMON, ESKO trading Co.ltd.

One of Temuchin's first moves had been to take his warrior com-panions and less nobly born noker followers into an alliance with a leading anti-Tatar chieftain, Togrul Khan of the Kerait tribe. Temuchin was, of course, still a minor player in the tangled and bloody politics of Mongolia, but he soon proved his worth to the Kerait. At the same time he was careful not to alienate Togrul, despite his own rapidly increasing prestige. Instead, the young Mongol warrior concentrated on destroy-ing his family's hereditary foes, the Tatars. In this he was helped by the Chin rulers of northern China, who were growing concerned about Tatar power. In 1199, with Chin support and encouragement, the Keraits and their ally Temuchin inflicted a serious defeat on the overweening Tatars. In gratitude the Chin declared Togrul to be wang, or king, of areas north of China. It might have been around this time that Temuchin adopted the title of Genghis (more accurately Chingiz or 'Oceanic') Khan of the purely Mongol tribes.

Genghis's next few campaigns were theoretically fought on behalf of the Kerait. The Naiman were defeated and Togrul became the most powerful ruler in Mongolia. His realm was, in fact, to be the foundation upon which Genghis Khan built his own empire. But there was still much hard fighting. Genghis was himself once struck in the neck by an arrow that cut an artery, whereupon Jelme, one of his earliest com-panions, took him from the battlefield and sucked the clotted blood until the wound closed. Did Jelme know the damage that a blood clot could cause to his leader's unconscious brain, or was this another example of traditional medicine saving a life without anyone quite knowing how the treatment worked? Jelme's own story is an interesting one. He would later become a leading Mongol general, but his father had been a humble smith who arrived in Temuchin's camp 'with his bellows on his shoulders'. This man came from an area that had, for centuries, been famous for its sword-makers and his role may hint at the vital part the armourers of the mountains played in Genghis Khan's rise to power.

Genghis won another loyal follower at around this time when, after defeating a rival tribe and having massacred a suitable percentage of its captive warriors, the Mongol leader came across a young bowman who had once brought down the Khan's own horse. When the young warrior proudly admitted this fact, Genghis pardoned him, renamed him Jebe, 'the arrow', and thus earned the unswerving loyalty of a man who would eventually become the most illustrious of Mongol military com-manders. When the Tatars were finally overthrown, their fate was less generous. The entire people was virtually wiped out, with only a few survivors being gradually absorbed by the Mongol tribes. It is, there-fore, ironic that the Tatar name lived on, to be given by many of the Mongols' foes to the Mongols themselves. In Europe the name was corrupted to Tartar, perhaps implying that these savage and unknown eastern conquerors had sprung from Tartarus, an ancient name for Hell.

The almost inevitable break with the Keraits came in 1203. It was a decisive moment in Genghis Khan's career. A Kerait ambush was betrayed and a furious battle was subsequently fought near the head-waters of the Khalka river. Genghis Khan's outnumbered army got the worst of this fight and he had to retreat north, towards Siberia and into the inhospitable wastes of northern Manchuria. Only a few followers now remained with him, but their loyalty was eventually to be repaid a hundred-fold. For the present they simply had to survive until the Kerait coalition of allied tribes quarrelled and fell apart. As soon as this happened, Genghis returned to the offensive and crushed the Kerait. Their leader, Togrul, fled to Naiman territory, where he was accident-ally killed by a man who failed to recognize him. Perhaps seeing in this the hand of Providence, the Kerait people accepted the fact of Genghis Khan's leadership and thereafter served him loyally. The Khan himself was not quite so confident and had the Kerait clans distributed among the Mongol tribes, but at least there was no massacre.

Genghis Khan's next move was to attack the Naiman, the only people now in a position to challenge his domination of Mongolia. This he did before they could act as a focus for the many scattered remnants of peoples whom the Mongols had already destroyed. The defeat of the Naiman had all the elements of a heroic tragedy. Overwhelmed in a furious battle, the mortally wounded Naiman chieftain retreated to a hill, where he asked his companions who were the four warriors who now pursued him like wolves. A one-time comrade of Genghis Khan who now fought for the Naiman replied that they were the four hunting dogs of Temuchin: fed on human flesh and leashed with iron chains; their skulls arc of brass, their teeth hewn from rock, their tongues like swords.

Asking the identity of the man who followed them, the Naiman chief was told, 'that is my blood-brother Temiichin, wearing a coat of iron'. As the Naiman lay dying, the last of his followers charged down the hill upon the victorious Mongols. Genghis, admiring their courage and loyalty, wanted to spare them, but they spurned his offer and fought till all were slain.