Ili River

The Life And Death Of Möngke Khan

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• published: 10 May 2015
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Möngke Khan (Mongolian: ᠮᠥᠩᠬᠡ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ / Möngke qaγan /Мөнх хаан), born Möngke (ᠮᠥᠩᠬᠡ / Мөнх) (January 10, 1209 – August 11, 1259 ), was the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, ruling from July 1, 1251, to August 11, 1259. He was the first Great Khan from the Toluid line and made significant reforms to improve the administration of the Empire during his reign. Under Möngke, the Mongols conquered Iraq and Syria as well as the kingdom of Nanzhao Möngke was born on January 10, 1209, as the eldest son of Genghis Khan's teen-aged son Tolui and Sorghaghtani. Teb Tengri Khokhcuu, the powerful shaman, saw in the stars a great future for the child and bestowed on him the name Möngke, "eternal" in the Mongolian language. His uncle Ögedei's childless queen Angqui raised him at her ordo (nomadic palace). Ögedei instructed Persian scholar Idi-dan Muhammed to teach writing to Möngke. On his way back home after the conquest of the Khwarizmian Empire, Genghis Khan performed a ceremony on his grandsons Möngke and Kublai after their first hunting in 1224 near the Ili River. Möngke was eleven years old, and with his brother, Kublai, killed a rabbit and an antelope. Their grandfather smeared fat from the killed animals onto their middle fingers following the Mongol tradition. In 1230, Möngke went to war for the first time, following Ögedei Khan and his father Tolui into battle against the Jurchen Jin Dynasty. Tolui died in 1232, and Ögedei appointed Sorghaghtani head of the Toluid appanage. Following the Mongol custom, Möngke inherited at least one of his father's wives, Oghul-Khoimish of the Oirat clan. Möngke deeply loved her and gave special favor to her elder daughter, Shirin. Battle of Mohi (on April 11, 1241), in which Möngke might have participated. Ögedei dispatched him along with his relatives to attack the Kipchaks, Russians, and Bulgars in the west in 1235. When the most formidable Kipchak chief, Bachman, fled to an island in the Volga delta. Möngke crossed the river and captured him. When he ordered Bachman to bend down on his knees, Bachman refused and was executed by Möngke's brother Bujek. Möngke also engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the sieges of Russian cities. While his cousins, Shiban and Büri, went to Crimea, Möngke and Kadan, a son of Ögedei, were ordered to reduce the tribes in the Caucasus. The Mongols captured the Alani capital Maghas and massacred its inhabitants. Many chiefs of the Alans and Circassians surrendered to Möngke. After the conquest of Europe, Möngke would bring them back to Mongolia. He also participated in the conquest of Kiev in 1240. Möngke was apparently taken by the splendor of Kiev and offered the city surrender, but his envoys were killed. After Batu's army joined Möngke's soldiers, they sacked the city. He also fought alongside Batu at the Battle of Mohi. In the summer of 1241, before the premature end of the campaign, Möngke returned home after his uncle Ögedei recalled him in the winter of 1240–41. However, Ögedei died. In 1246, Temüge Odchigen, Genghis Khan's sole remaining brother, unsuccessfully tried to seize the throne without confirmation by a kurultai. The new Khagan Güyük entrusted the delicate task of trying Odchigin to Möngke and Orda Khan, the eldest brother of Batu. Güyük eventually died en route to the west in 1248 and Batu and Möngke emerged as main contenders The Toluid revolution Following his mother Sorghaghtani's advice, Möngke went to the Golden Horde to meet Batu, who was afflicted with gout. Batu decided to support his election and called a kurultai at Ala Qamaq. The leader of the families of Genghis Khan's brothers, and several important generals, came to the kurultai. Güyük's sons Naqu and Khoja attended briefly but then left. Despite vehement objections from Bala, Oghul Qaimish's scribe, the kurultai approved Möngke. Given its limited attendance and location, this kurultai was of questionable validity. Batu sent Möngke under the protection of his brothers, Berke and Tuqa-temur, and his son Sartaq to assemble a formal kurultai at Kodoe Aral in Mongolia. When Sorghaghtani and Berke organized a second kurultai on July 1, 1251, the assembled throng proclaimed Möngke the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, and a few of the Ögedeid and Chagatayid princes, such as his cousin Kadan and the deposed khan Qara Hülëgü, acknowledged the decision.