The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire (25 page)

The other rival was still more an unproven boy than a man. He had no record of accomplishing anything, but he was almost precisely Manduhai’s age and came from a similar background to hers. He was the young boy Bayan Mongke, whom Samur Gunj had rescued from Esen’s murderous rampage.

In the years after Esen’s death, when there were long stretches without a khan, Une-Bolod served as the head of the family from the traditional homeland of Genghis Khan on the Onon River. When Samur sent the infant Bayan Mongke to safety among the Mongols, it was to Une-Bolod’s territory in eastern Mongolia that he fled. Despite Une-Bolod’s seniority by a decade or more, he recognized the infant as his “elder brother,” meaning from the lineage of the elder brother Genghis Khan, and therefore having priority in the line of succession to become Great Khan. Une-Bolod placed the infant with a herding family, possibly with the expectation that he might be lost or forgotten over time. The family lived in a remote and isolated section of the South Gobi, where a very sparse but mixed population of Mongols and former Tangut eked out a meager subsistence.

Because of the way that they grew up, Bayan Mongke and Manduhai had more in common with each other than they had with either Manduul or Une-Bolod. Although reared on opposite sides of the Gobi, both Manduhai and Bayan Mongke experienced a similar life in nomadic
gers
and subsisted from the same kind of traditional steppe herding. They resided far from the bizarre combination of stifling constriction and wanton privilege that marked court life. Although Genghis Khan had lived nearly three hundred years earlier, in many ways the childhoods of Manduhai and Bayan Mongke, possibly more than any other descendants’, resembled his. Like him, they had been raised on the margins rather in the center of the territory.

As herders, rather, they learned to wrestle animals into control, to always keep camels separated from horses because of their natural
antipathy for one another, and to recognize where the cows could graze undisturbed by goats and sheep. They learned how to disassemble the
ger
, load the entire household onto only five camels in a precisely ordered fashion, move to a new camp, and rebuild the home. They knew when to bring the animals to shelter before a storm or how to track them afterward.

A child of the steppe was trained for survival and for constantly making vital decisions. Every morning, the herder steps out of the
ger
, looks around, and chooses today’s path according to the results of last week’s rain, yesterday’s wind, today’s temperature, or where the animals need to be next week. The quest for pasture is the same each day, but the way to find it varies. If the rains do not come, the herder must find them; if the grass does not grow here, the herder must find where it does. The herder cannot remain in one place, be still, and do nothing. The herder is forced to choose a path every day, time and time again.

While the farmer follows the same path to the same fields every day, the herder looks across a landscape of perpetual possibility. No fences or walls bar the way, but neither are there roads to guide or bridges to cross. The steppe is infinite opportunity. The options depend on the ability of the person who sees them and can find how to utilize them to meet today’s needs. The mountain becomes what the herder makes of it: a barrier to the herd’s migration or a refuge from the harsh blizzards and fierce sandstorms of spring and fall. A stone can be a hammer or something to throw at a lurking wolf, or it may mark the place to make a new hearth for today’s camp.

In such a world, children such as Manduhai and Bayan Mongke had to learn to think to survive. The child should learn from the parents but always be able to act alone and not merely follow orders. Wrong choices inflict terrific pain. A movement in the wrong direction can lead the animals on a death march of slow starvation and thirst. A box canyon may serve as a protected winter camp, but if the grass is insufficient for the animals, they will weaken and the wolves will slowly pick them off one by one. The child of the steppe learns to correct these
wrong choices quickly or else die. The rigors of the nomadic life make a child into a self-reliant, hardy, and independent adult.

Both Manduhai and Bayan Mongke also knew the experience of being suddenly plucked from this pastoral life and taken to the royal court of an elderly relative. The new life not only freed them from the unending chores of daily herding life but also offered enticing opportunities for adventure.

After surviving the repeated attempts to kill him in infancy, Bayan Mongke reached sexual maturity, if not adulthood, early. At age fourteen he became a father and at fifteen became an unwilling contender for the title of Great Khan, an office that he did not yet want and was destined never to achieve.

He fathered a baby boy with Siker, the daughter of the Uriyanghai commoner family with whom he found refuge near the modern border of Mongolia and China. Her father seemed anxious to raise the family status by acquiring a Borijin son-in-law and grandchild, and rather than adopting Bayan Mongke as a son, he treated him as resident son-in-law performing bride service. Siker was probably a few years older than he, since girls of that era normally did not become reproductive before age sixteen and were rarely allowed to marry before that age. The chronicles describe their relationship as a marriage, but the evidence suggests that neither Siker nor Bayan Mongke developed a liking for the other, nor for the baby they shared.

Bayan Mongke was the grandson of Esen on his mother’s side and of Manduul Khan’s elder half brother on his father’s side. In addition to this bone bond, both the elder and the younger man had Oirat mothers. Manduul saw in the young boy a much less threatening heir than the warrior Une-Bolod. As a rival to Une-Bolod’s hope to become khan, Bayan Mongke helped to insulate the old khan from possible assassination or overthrow.

About the same time that Manduhai came to live as the wife of Manduul Khan, the old khan brought Bayan Mongke to court.
Manduul apparently saw in Bayan Mongke the son he never had, plus the prospect of revitalizing the long-moribund court life. Whether for political or emotional reasons, the old uncle and his young nephew formed an unusual partnership. Each seemed to energize the other, and both perceived a benefit from the novel union.

At the court, Bayan Mongke made a dashing appearance, which he knew how to use to his advantage. He was young and handsome, with a flair of his own. He wore a brocade
deel
embroidered with gold and lined with squirrel fur, and he had a strong preference for riding chestnut horses. As a sign of his rank, he wore a golden belt, an object of majestic symbolism to the Mongols of that era. The Idiqut of the Uighurs had referred to the golden belt when he said to Genghis Khan: “If I receive but a ring from your golden belt, I will become your fifth son and will serve you.”

Manduul Khan bestowed on Bayan Mongke the title of
jinong
, meaning “Golden Prince” but signifying that he was now the heir and therefore the crown prince of the Mongols. After
khan
, the title of
jinong
had the highest prestige in the country. The importance of the office was evident in a Mongol saying: “In the blue sky above, there are the sun and the moon. And on the earth below, there are the Khan and the Jinong.”

Bayan Mongke’s promotion also meant a demotion for Une-Bolod to the third most important member of the clan. As the new
jinong
, Bayan Mongke assumed formal responsibility for the
ger
shrine to Genghis Khan, and he acquired possession of the black
sulde
from General Une-Bolod, who had been in control of the land and shrines, and who had been, at least unofficially, the presumed heir to the throne.

Despite all the attached ritual duties and ceremonial authority, the office of
jinong
lacked genuine authority over anything. Neither khan nor
jinong
exercised the real power since it was in the hands of foreign warlords; Beg-Arslan held the lower-ranking title of
taishi
, but actually exercised control of the comings and goings of people and goods in and out of Mongolian territory.

Sometime between 1463 and 1465, Manduul also changed Bayan Mongke’s name to Bolkhu, meaning “Rising Up” or “Coming Up,” which carried similar connotations to his own and to Manduhai’s “Rising.” The chronicles make it appear that Manduul installed his nephew not merely as his heir, but as a complete co-ruler. The uncle and nephew lived together “in peace and harmony,” and together they “brought the nation under control with strength and power.” The language used reflected the same organizational techniques used by Genghis Khan in his metaphor of the two shafts on the cart of state.

The chronicles do not describe the ceremony of installation for the Golden Prince, but based upon the golden belt, horse, and
deel
that he received, the ceremony seemed similar to the one during which Genghis Khan and his childhood friend and eventual ally Jamuka exchanged vows of brotherhood before a “leafy tree” in the Khork-honag Valley, agreeing to become two shafts of one cart. In that ceremony, each of the men put a golden belt around the waist of the other, and they exchanged horses. “They declared themselves sworn friends and loved each other,” according to the
Secret History
. Afterward, “they enjoyed themselves reveling and feasting, and at night they slept together, the two of them alone under their blanket.”

Bayan Mongke was close in age to Manduhai, and their youthful presence brought a renewed vigor to the staid Mongol court. However, they seemed more rivals than potential partners. He was admired and became the center of court attention, while she seemed ignored by her husband and everyone else, except for General Une-Bolod.

Compared with her aging husband, Une-Bolod was a vigorous man. Compared with the inexperienced crown prince, he was a mature man. While her husband had led an undistinguished life on the margins and the crown prince was much too young to have any accomplishments, Une-Bolod was a traditional Mongol man, a proven warrior. From the start, he seemed aware of Manduhai’s future importance, knowing that the man who had her favor after her husband’s death would become the new khan.

The young crown prince had none of this sophistication. He had
won the total support of his uncle, and now his interest was not so much in wooing the attention of a future queen as in striking out for new adventures. He was ready to raid, take to the battlefield, and make his mark in the world.

Without any major accomplishments of his own, Manduul Khan seemed eager to support Bayan Mongke’s aspiration. Manduul’s first effort was to gain control of the local area. The khan and the prince set out to impose their authority on the tribes in central Mongolia. They used the excuse of avenging the murder of Manduul’s predecessor, the boy Molon Khan, but through a series of campaigns they seemed to be establishing control over their base in order to mount a challenge to Beg-Arslan, or whoever came to power in the south. Mounted on his pale chestnut horse, Bayan Mongke led the army and brought the surrounding tribes back into submission under Manduul, who accompanied his heir but did not participate in the fighting.

Conquering other Mongols and raiding small camps may have been gratifying to a young man on his first escapade and to an old man whose life had lacked adventure, but it produced little material or political result. One tribe was about as poor as the next. For real raiding and plunder, they had to look south of the Gobi to the Silk Route or to the Chinese cities. Just at this fortuitous moment, a message arrived informing the Mongol court that the Ming emperor had died in Beijing some months earlier in 1464.

Bayan Mongke had not only a claim on China by virtue of his descent from his ancestors Genghis and Khubilai Khan, who had conquered the country, he had an even more immediate connection to the dead emperor. This was the same emperor whom Bayan Mongke’s grandfather Esen had once captured and held prisoner in 1449.

The crown prince longed for action, and he wanted to break away from the tranquil isolation of the Mongol royal family. He did not seem sure of what he specifically sought to achieve, but he wanted something spectacular. It would not suffice to conquer
neighboring clans and fight the endless Mongol feuds. He aspired to follow the heroic tradition of his ancestor Genghis Khan, to conquer whole kingdoms and assemble an empire. The route to fame and glory ran to the south, across the Gobi to the oases of the Silk Route or the cities of China, and now with the death of the old Ming emperor, fate seemed to have opened an opportunity for him in China.

The preoccupation of the Ming court with the rituals and the internecine struggles accompanying the death of the old emperor and the transition to a new emperor provided young Bayan Mongke his opportunity to strike out toward the south and prove himself as a would-be conqueror and future khan of the Mongols. Even if he could not persuade his aged great-uncle to make the journey, he could do it himself. Manduul allowed his nephew to go accompanied by Une-Bolod, the Mongol’s most experienced military leader.

To reach China from the Mongol court, Bayan Mongke and his small party of soldiers had to travel six to eight weeks from the Old Orkhon down the Ongi River, which they followed south into the Gobi until the river dried out in the desert. Moving across routes leading from one spring to another, the army would need to cross the desert, interspersed with several small clumps of mountains, and then finally descend from the Mongolian Plateau into Inner Mongolia.

The small Mongol force lacked the ability to conquer even a single Chinese city, but the Mongols devised a strategy of following the example of Genghis Khan, who acquired a beachhead south of the Gobi by making an alliance with the Onggud prior to his invasion of China. Now these same lands were occupied by Mongols allied to the Ming but performing the same old Onggud function of guarding China from assault by the tribes of the north. Bayan Mongke and Manduul sought to use their ethnic ties and shared heritage to reunite the Mongols north of the Gobi with the ones living under Chinese control. Many more Mongols lived in China under Ming rule than in Mongolia, and perhaps if unity could be reasserted between the two
groups, they might be able to overcome the Chinese once again and restore the empire.