China

by Demetrius Charles Boulger

In due order of succession the chief ship passed to Kabul Khan, who in the year 1135 began to encroach on the dominion of Hola, the Kin emperor. He seems to have been induced to commit this act of hostility by a prophecy, to the effect that his children should be emperors, and also by discourteous treatment received on the occasion of his visit to the court of Oukimai. Whatever the cause of umbrage, Kabul Khan made the Kins pay dearly for their arrogance or short-sighted policy. Hola sent an army under one of his best generals, Hushahu, to bring the Mongol chief to reason, but the inaccessibility of his home stood him in good stead. The Kin army suffered greatly in its futile attempt to cross the desert, and during its retreat it was harassed by the pursuing Mongols. When the Kin army endeavored to make a stand against its pursuers, it suffered a crushing overthrow in a battle at Hailing, and on the Kins sending a larger force against the Mongols in 1139, it had no better fortune. Kabul Khan, after this second success, caused himself to be proclaimed Great Emperor of the Mongols. His success in war, and his ambition, which rested satisfied with no secondary position, indicated the path on which the Mongols proceeded to the acquisition of supreme power and a paramount military influence whithersoever they carried their name and standards. The work begun by Kabul was well continued by his son Kutula, or Kublai. He, too, was a great warrior, whose deeds of prowess aroused as much enthusiasm among the Mongols as those of Coeur de Lion evoked in the days of the Plantagenets. The struggle with the Kins was rendered more bitter by the execution of several Mongols of importance, who happened to fall into the hands of the Kins. When Kutula died the chiefship passed to his nephew, Yissugei, who greatly extended the influence and power of his family among the tribes neighboring to the Mongol home. Many of these, and even some Chinese, joined the military organization of the dominant tribe, so that what was originally a small force of strictly limited numbers became a vast and ever-increasing confederacy of the most warlike and aggressive races of the Chinese northern frontier. Important as Yissugei's work in the development of Mongol power undoubtedly was, his chief historical interest is derived from the fact that he was the father of Genghis Khan.

There are several interesting fables in connection with the birth of Genghis, which event may be safely assigned to the year 1162. One of these reads as follows: "One day Yissugei was hunting in company with his brothers, and was following the tracks of a white hare in the snow. They struck upon the track of a wagon, and following it up came to a spot where a woman's yart was pitched. Then said Yissugei, 'This woman will bear a valiant son.' He discovered that she was the damsel Ogelen Eke (i.e., the mother of nations), and that she was the wife of Yeke Yilatu, chief of a Tartar tribe. Yissugei carried her off and made her his wife." Immediately after his overthrow of Temujin, chief of one of the principal Tartar tribes, Yissugei learned that the promised "valiant son" was about to be born, and in honor of his victory he gave him the name of Temujin, which was the proper name of the great Genghis. The village or encampment in which the future conqueror first saw the light of day still bears the old Mongol name, Dilun Boldak, on the banks of the Onon. When Yissugei died, Temujin, or Genghis, was only thirteen, and his clan of forty thousand families refused to recognize him as their leader. At a meeting of the tribe Genghis entreated them with tears in his eyes to stand by the son of their former chief, but the majority of them mocked at him, exclaiming, "The deepest wells are sometimes dry, and the hardest stone is sometimes broken, why should we cling to thee?" Genghis owed to the heroic attitude of his mother, who flung abroad the cow-tailed banner of his race, the acceptance of his authority by about half the warriors who had obeyed his father. The great advantage of this step was that it gave Genghis time to grow up to be a warrior as famous as any of his predecessors, and it certainly averted what might have easily become the irretrievable disintegration of the Mongol alliance.

The youth of Genghis was passed in one ceaseless struggle to regain the whole of his birthright. His most formidable enemy was Chamuka, chief of the Juriats, and for a long time he had all the worst of the struggle, being taken prisoner on one occasion, and undergoing the indignity of the cangue. On making his escape he rallied his remaining followers round him for a final effort, and on the advice of his mother, Ogelen Eke, who was his principal adviser and stanchest supporter, he divided his forces into thirteen regiments of one thousand men each, and confined his attention to the defense of his own territory. Chamuka, led away by what he deemed the weakness of his adversary, attacked him on the Onon with as he considered the overwhelming force of thirty thousand men; but the result dispelled his hopes of conquest, for Genghis gained a decisive victory. Then was furnished a striking instance of the truth of the saying that "nothing succeeds like success." The despised Temujin, who was thought to be unworthy of the post of ruling the Mongols, was lauded to the skies, and the tribes declared with one voice, "Temujin alone is generous and worthy of ruling a great people." At this time also he began to show the qualities of a statesman and diplomatist. He formed in 1194 a temporary alliance with the Kin emperor, Madacou, and the richness of his reward seems to have excited his cupidity, while his experience of the Kin army went to prove that they were not so formidable as had been imagined. The discomfiture of Chamuka has been referred to, but he had not abandoned the hope of success, and when he succeeded in detaching the Kerait chief, Wang Khan, from the Mongols, to whom he was bound by ties of gratitude, he fancied that he again held victory in his grasp. But the intrigue did not realize his expectations. Wang Khan deserted Genghis while engaged in a joint campaign against the Naimans, but he was the principal sufferer by his treachery, for the enemy pursued his force, and inflicted a heavy defeat upon it. In fact, he was only rescued from destruction by the timely aid of the man he had betrayed.

But far from inspiring gratitude, this incident inflamed the resentment of Wang Khan, who, throwing off the cloak of simulated friendship, declared publicly that either the Kerait or the Mongol must be supreme on the great steppe, as there was not room for both. Such was the superiority in numbers of the Kerait, that in the first battle of this long and keenly- contested struggle, Wang Khan defeated Temujin near Ourga, where the mounds that cover the slain are still shown to the curious or skeptical visitor. After this serious, and in some degree unexpected reverse, the fortunes of Genghis sank to the lowest ebb. He was reduced to terrible straits, and had to move his camp rapidly from one spot to another. A small section of his followers, mindful of his past success and prowess, still clung to him, and by a sudden and daring coup he changed the whole aspect of the contest. He surprised Wang Khan in his camp at night, and overwhelmed him and his forces. Wang Khan escaped to his old foes, the Naimans, who, disregarding the laws of hospitality, put him to death. The death of Wang Khan signified nothing less than the wholesale defection of the Kerait tribe, which joined Genghis to the last man. Then Genghis turned westward to settle the question of supremacy with the Naimans, who were both hostile and defiant. The Naiman chief shared the opinion of Wang Khan, that there could not be two masters on the Tian Shan, and with that vigorous illustration which has never been wanting to these illiterate tribes, he wrote, "There cannot be two suns in the sky, two swords in one sheath, two eyes in one eyepit, or two kings in one empire." Both sides made strenuous efforts for the fray, and brought every fighting man they could into the field. The decisive battle of the war was fought in the heart of Jungaria, and the star of Genghis rose in the ascendant. The Naimans fought long and well, but they were borne down by the heavier armed Mongols, and their desperate resistance only added to their loss. Their chief died of his wounds, and the triumph of Genghis was rendered complete by the capture of his old enemy, Chamuka. As Genghis had sworn the oath of friendship with Chamuka, he would not slay him, but he handed him over to a relative, who promptly exacted the rough revenge his past hostility and treachery seemed to call for. On his way back from this campaign the Mongol chief attacked the Prince of Hia, who reigned over Kansuh and Tangut, and thus began the third war he waged for the extension of his power. Before this assumed serious proportions he summoned a Grand Council or Kuriltai, at his camp on the Onon, and then erected outside his tent the royal Mongol banner of the nine white yak-tails. It was on this occasion that Temujin took, and was proclaimed among the Mongol chiefs by, the highly exalted name of Genghis Khan, which means Very Mighty Khan. The Chinese character for the name signifies "Perfect Warrior," and the earlier European writers affirm that it is supposed to represent the sound of "the bird of heaven." At this assemblage, which was the first of a long succession of Mongol councils summoned at the same place on critical occasions, it was proposed and agreed that the war should be carried on with the richer and less warlike races of the south. Among soldiers it is necessary to preserve the spirit of pre-eminence and warlike zeal by granting rewards and decorations. Genghis realized the importance of this matter, and instituted the order of Baturu or Bahadur, meaning warrior. He also made his two leading generals Muhula and Porshu princes, one to sit on his right hand and the other on his left. He addressed them before the council in the following words: "It is to you that I owe my empire. You are and have been to me as the shafts of a carriage or the arms to a man's body." Seals of office were also granted to all the officials, so that their authority might be the more evident and the more honored.

In 1207 Genghis began his war with the state of Hia, which he had determined to crush as the preliminary to an invasion of China. In that year he contented himself with the capture of Wuhlahai, one of the border fortresses of that principality, and in the following year he established his control over the tribes of the desert more fully, thus gaining many Kirghiz and Naiman auxiliaries. In 1209 he resumed the war with Hia in a determined spirit, and placed himself in person at the head of all his forces. Although the Hia ruler prepared as well as he could for the struggle, he was really unnerved by the magnitude of the danger he had to face. His army was overthrown, his best generals were taken prisoners, and he himself had no resource left but to throw himself on the consideration of Genghis. For good reasons the Mongol conqueror was lenient. He married one of the daughters of the king, and he took him into subsidiary alliance with himself. Thus did Genghis absorb the Hia power, which was very considerable, and prepared to enroll it with all his own resources against the Kin empire. If the causes of Mongol success on this occasion and afterward are inquired for, I cannot do better than repeat what I previously wrote on this subject: "The Mongols owed their military success to their admirable discipline and to their close study of the art of war. Their military supremacy arose from their superiority in all essentials as a fighting power to their neighbors. Much of their knowledge was borrowed from China, where the art of disciplining a large army and maneuvering it in the field had been brought to a high state of perfection many centuries before the time of Genghis. But the Mongols carried the teaching of the past to a further point than any of the former or contemporary Chinese commanders, indeed, than any in the whole world, had done; and the revolution which they effected in tactics was not less remarkable in itself, and did not leave a smaller impression upon the age, than the improvements made in military science by Frederick the Great and Napoleon in their day. The Mongol played in a large way in Asia the part which the Normans on a smaller scale played in Europe. Although the landmarks of their triumph have now almost wholly vanished, they were for two centuries the dominant caste in most of the states of Asia."

Having thus prepared the way for the larger enterprise, it only remained to find a plausible pretext for attacking the Kins. With or without a pretext Genghis would no doubt have made war, but even the ruthless Mongol sometimes showed a regard for appearances. Many years before the Kins had sent as envoy to the Mongul encampment Chonghei, a member of their ruling house, and his mission had been not only unsuccessful, but had led to a personal antipathy between the two men. In the course of time Chonghei succeeded Madacou as emperor of the Kins, and when a Kin messenger brought intelligence of this event to Genghis, the Mongol ruler turned toward the south, spat upon the ground, and said, "I thought that your sovereigns were of the race of the gods, but do you suppose that I am going to do homage to such an imbecile as that?" The affront rankled in the mind of Chonghei, and while Genghis was engaged with Hia, he sent troops to attack the Mongol outposts. Chonghei thus placed himself in the wrong, and gave Genghis justification for declaring that the Kins and not he began the war. The reputation of the Golden dynasty, although not as great as it once was, still stood sufficiently high to make the most adventurous of desert chiefs wary in attacking it. Genghis had already secured the co- operation of the ruler of Hia in his enterprise, and he next concluded an alliance with Yeliu Liuko, chief of the Khitans, who were again manifesting discontent with the Kins. Genghis finally circulated a proclamation among all the desert tribes, calling upon them to join him in his attack on the common enemy. This appeal was heartily and generally responded to, and it was at the head of an enormous force that Genghis set out in March, 1211, to effect the conquest of China. The Mongol army was led by Genghis in person, and under him his four sons and his most famous general, Chepe Noyan, held commands.

The plan of campaign of the Mongol ruler was as simple as it was bold. From his camp at Karakoram, on the Kerulon, he marched in a straight line through Kuku Khoten and the Ongut country to Taitong, securing an unopposed passage through the Great Wall by the defection of the Ongut tribe. The Kins were unprepared for this sudden and vigorous assault directed on their weakest spot, and successfully executed before their army could reach the scene. During the two years that the forces of Genghis kept the field on this occasion, they devastated the greater portion of the three northern provinces of Shensi, Shansi, and Pechihli. But the border fortress of Taitong and the Kin capital, Tungking, successfully resisted all the assaults of the Mongols, and when Genghis received a serious wound at the former place, he reluctantly ordered the retreat of his army, laden with an immense quantity of spoil, but still little advanced in its main task of conquering China. The success of the Khitan Yeliu Liuko had not been less considerable, and he was proclaimed King of Leaou as a vassal of the Mongols. The planting of this ally on the very threshold of Chinese power facilitated the subsequent enterprises of the Mongols against the Kins, and represented the most important result of this war.

In 1213 Genghis again invaded the Kin dominions, but his success was not very striking, and in several engagements of no very great importance the Kin arms met with some success. The most important events of the year were, however, the deposition and murder of Chonghei, the murder of a Kin general, Hushahu, who had won a battle against the Mongols, and the proclamation of Utubu as emperor. The change of sovereign brought no change of fortune to the unlucky Kins. Utubu was only able to find safety behind the walls of his capital, and he was delighted when Genghis wrote him the following letter: "Seeing your wretched condition and my exalted fortune, what may your opinion be now of the will of heaven with regard to myself? At this moment I am desirous to return to Tartary, but could you allow my soldiers to take their departure without appeasing their anger with presents?" In reply Utubu sent Genghis a princess of his family as a wife, and also "five hundred youths, the same number of girls, three thousand horses, and a vast quantity of precious articles." Then Genghis retired once more to Karakoram, but on his march he stained his reputation by massacring all his prisoners—the first gross act of inhumanity he committed during his Chinese wars.

When Utubu saw the Mongols retreating, he thought to provide against the most serious consequences of their return by removing his capital to a greater distance from the frontier, and with this object he transferred his residence to Kaifong. The majority of his advisers were against this change, as a retirement could not but shake public confidence. It had another consequence, which they may not have contemplated, and that was its providing Genghis with an excuse for renewing his attack on China. The Mongol at once complained that the action of the Kin emperor implied an unwarrantable suspicion of his intentions, and he sent his army across the frontier to recommence his humiliation. On this occasion a Kin general deserted to them, and thenceforward large bodies of the Chinese of the north attached themselves to the Mongols, who were steadily acquiring a unique reputation for power as well as military prowess. The great event of this war was the siege of Yenking—on the site of which now stands the capital Pekin—the defense of which had been intrusted to the Prince Imperial; but Utubu, more anxious for his son's safety than the interests of the state, ordered him to return to Kaifong. The governor of Yenking offered a stout resistance to the Mongols, and when he found that he could not hold out, he retired to the temple of the city and poisoned himself. His last act was to write a letter to Utubu begging him to listen no more to the pernicious advice of the man who had induced him to murder Hushahu.

The capture of Yenking, where Genghis obtained a large supply of war materials, as well as vast booty, opened the road to Central China. The Mongols advanced as far as the celebrated Tunkwan Pass, which connects Shensi and Honan, but when their general, Samuka, saw how formidable it was, and how strong were the Kin defenses and garrison, he declined to attack it, and, making a detour through very difficult country, he marched on Kaifong, where Utubu little expected him. The Mongols had to make their own road, and they crossed several ravines by improvised "bridges made of spears and the branches of trees bound together by strong chains." But the Mongol force was too small to accomplish any great result, and the impetuosity of Samuka nearly led to his destruction. A prompt retreat, and the fact that the Hoangho was frozen over, enabled him to extricate his army, after much fatigue and reduced in numbers, from its awkward position. The retreat of the Mongols inspired Utubu with sufficient confidence to induce him to attack Yeliu Liuko in Leaoutung, and the success of this enterprise imparted a gleam of sunshine and credit to the expiring cause of the Kins. Yeliu Liuko was driven from his newly-created kingdom, but Genghis hastened to the assistance of his ally by sending Muhula, the greatest of all his generals, at the head of a large army to recover Leaoutung. His success was rapid and remarkable. The Kins were speedily overthrown, Yeliu Liuko was restored to his authority, and the neighboring King of Corea, impressed by the magnitude of the Mongol success, hastened to acknowledge himself the vassal of Genghis. The most important result of this campaign was that Genghis intrusted to Muhula the control of all military arrangements for the conquest of China. He is reported to have said to his lieutenant: "North of the Taihing Mountains I am supreme, but all the regions to the south I commend to the care of Muhula," and he "also presented him with a chariot and a banner with nine scalops. As he handed him this last emblem of authority, he spoke to his generals, saying, 'Let this banner be an emblem of sovereignty, and let the orders issued from under it be obeyed as my own.'" The principal reason for intrusting the conquest of China to a special force and commander was that Genghis wished to devote the whole of his personal attention to the prosecution of his new war with the King of Khwaresm and the other great rulers of Western Asia.