As an administrator, Ögedei continued to develop the fast-growing Mongol state. Working with officials such asYelü Chucai, he developedortogh trading systems, instituted methods of tax collection, and established regional bureaucracies which controlled legal and economic affairs. He also founded the Mongol capital city,Karakorum, in the 1230s. Although historically disregarded in comparison to his father, especially on account of his alcoholism, he was known to becharismatic, good-natured, and intelligent. He was succeeded by his sonGüyük.
Ögedei was the third son ofTemüjin andBörte Ujin. He participated in the turbulent events of his father's rise. When Ögedei was 17 years old, Temüjin experienced the disastrous defeat ofKhalakhaljid Sands against the army ofJamukha. Ögedei was heavily wounded and lost on the battlefield.[2] His father's adopted brother and companionBorokhula rescued him. Although he was already married, in 1204 his father gave himTöregene, the wife of a defeatedMerkit chief. The addition of such a wife was not uncommon insteppe culture.
After Temüjin was proclaimedGenghis Khan in 1206,myangans (thousands) of theJalayir, Besud,Suldus, and Khongqatan clans were given to him as hisappanage. Ögedei's territory occupied the Emil and Hobok rivers. According to his father's wish, Ilugei, the commander of the Jalayir, became Ögedei's tutor.
Ögedei, along with his brothers, campaigned independently for the first time in November 1211 against theJin dynasty. He was sent to ravage the land south throughHebei and then north throughShanxi in 1213. Ögedei's force drove the Jin garrison out of theOrdos, and he rode to the juncture of theXi Xia, Jin, and Song domains.[3]
During theMongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Ögedei andChagatai massacred the residents ofOtrar after a five-month siege in 1219–20 and joinedJochi who was outside the walls ofUrganch.[4] Because Jochi and Chagatai were quarreling over the military strategy, Ögedei was appointed by Genghis Khan to oversee the siege of Urganch.[5] They captured the city in 1221. When the rebellion broke out in southeast Persia and Afghanistan, Ögedei also pacifiedGhazni.[6]
Coronation of Ögedei in 1229, byRashid al-Din, early 14th century
The Empress Yisui insisted thatGenghis Khan designate an heir before the invasion of theKhwarezmid Empire in 1219. After the terrible brawl between two elder sons Jochi and Chagatai, they agreed that Ögedei was to be chosen as heir. Genghis confirmed their decision.
Genghis Khan died in 1227, and Jochi had died a year or two earlier. Ögedei's younger brotherTolui held the regency until 1229. Ögedei was elected supreme khan in 1229, according to thekurultai held at Kodoe Aral on theKherlen River after Genghis' death, although this was never really in doubt as it was Genghis' clear wish that he be succeeded by Ögedei. After ritually declining three times, Ögedei was proclaimed Khan of theMongols on 13 September 1229 at theKurultai of theKherlen's Khödöö Aral.[7] Chagatai continued to support his younger brother's claim.
After destroying the Khwarazmian empire, Genghis Khan was free to move againstWestern Xia. In 1226, however,Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu, the last of the Khwarezm monarchs, returned toPersia to revive the empire lost by his father,Muhammad ‘Ala al-Din II. The Mongol forces sent against him in 1227 were defeated atDameghan. Another army that marched against Jalal al-Din scored a pyrrhic victory in the vicinity ofIsfahan but was unable to follow up that success.
With Ögedei's consent to launch a campaign,Chormaqan Noyan leftBukhara at the head of 30,000 to 50,000 Mongol soldiers. He occupied Persia andKhorasan, two long-standing bases of Khwarazmian support. Crossing theAmu Darya River in 1230 and entering Khorasan without encountering any opposition, Chormaqan passed through quickly. He left a sizable contingent behind under the command of Dayir Baghatur, who had further instructions to invade westernAfghanistan. Chormaqan and the majority of his army then enteredTabaristan (modern-day Mazandaran), a region between theCaspian Sea andAlborz mountains, in the autumn of 1230, thus avoiding the mountainous area to the south, which was controlled by theNizari Ismailis (the Assassins).
Upon reaching the city ofRey, Chormaqan made his winter camp there and dispatched his armies to pacify the rest of northern Persia. In 1231, he led his army southward and quickly captured the cities ofQum andHamadan. From there, he sent armies into the regions ofFars andKirman, whose rulers quickly submitted, preferring to pay tribute to Mongol overlords rather than having their states ravaged. Meanwhile, further east, Dayir Baghatur steadily achieved his goals in capturingKabul, Ghazni, and Zabulistan. With the Mongols already in control of Persia, Jalal al-Din was isolated in Transcaucasia where he was banished. Thus all of Persia was added to the Mongol Empire.
At the end of 1230, responding to the Jins' unexpected defeat of Doqolqu Cherbi (Mongol general), Ögedei went south toShanxi withTolui, clearing the area of the Jin forces and taking the city ofFengxiang. After passing the summer in the north, they again campaigned against the Jin inHenan, cutting through territory of South China to assault the Jin's rear. By 1232 the Jin Emperor wasbesieged in his capital ofKaifeng. Ögedei soon departed, leaving the final conquest to his generals. After taking several cities, the Mongols, with the belated assistance of theSong dynasty, destroyed the Jin with thefall of Caizhou in February 1234. However, a viceroy of the Song murdered a Mongol ambassador, and the Song armies recaptured the former imperial capitals of Kaifeng,Luoyang, andChang'an, which were now ruled by the Mongols.
The Mongols under Chormaqan returned to theCaucasus in 1232. The walls ofGanja were breached bycatapult andbattering ram in 1235. The Mongols eventually withdrew after the citizens ofIrbil agreed to send a yearly tribute to Ögedei's court. Chormaqan waited until 1238, when the force ofMöngke Khan was also active in the north Caucasus.[8] After subduingArmenia, Chormaqan tookTiflis. In 1238, the Mongols captured Lorhe whose ruler,Shahanshah, fled with his family before the Mongols arrived, leaving the rich city to its fate. After putting up a spirited defense at Hohanaberd, the city's ruler,Hasan Jalal, submitted to the Mongols. Another column then advanced against Gaian, ruled by Prince Avak. The Mongol commander Tokhta ruled out a direct assault and had his men construct a wall around the city, and Avak soon surrendered. By 1240, Chormaqan had completed the conquest ofTranscaucasia, forcing theGeorgian nobles to surrender.
In 1224, a Mongol envoy was killed in obscure circumstances and Korea stopped payingtribute.[9] Ögedei dispatched Saritai Qorchi to subdue Korea and avenge the dead envoy in 1231. Thus, Mongol armies began toinvade Korea in order to subdue the kingdom. TheGoryeo King temporarily submitted and agreed to acceptMongol overseers. When they withdrew for the summer, however,Ch'oe U moved the capital fromKaesong toGanghwa Island. Saritai was hit with a stray arrow and died as he campaigned against them.
Ögedei announced plans for the conquest of theKoreans, theSouthern Song, theKipchaks and their European allies, all of whom killed Mongolenvoys, at the kurultai in Mongolia in 1234. Ögedei appointed Danqu commander of the Mongol army and made Bog Wong, a defected Korean general, governor of 40 cities with their subjects. When the court of Goryeo sued for peace in 1238, Ögedei demanded that the king of Goryeo appear before him in person. The Goryeo king finally sent his relative Yeong Nong-gun Sung with ten noble boys toMongolia ashostages, temporarily ending the war in 1241.[10]
Amid the conquest, Ögedei's sonGüyük and Chagatai's grandsonBüri ridiculed Batu, and the Mongol camp suffered dissension. Ögedei harshly criticized Güyük: "You broke the spirit of every man in your army... Do you think that the Russians surrendered because of how mean you were to your own men?". He then sent Güyük back to continue the conquest of Europe. Güyük and another of Ögedei's sons,Kadan andMelig attackedTransylvania and Poland, respectively.
Although Ögedei Khan had granted permission to invade the remainder of Europe, all the way to the "Great Sea", the Atlantic Ocean, the Mongol advance stopped in East Europe early in 1242, the year after his death. Most historians agree with Mongol accounts which attribute the drive's failure to his untimely demise necessitatingBatu's withdrawal to personally participate in the election of Ögedei's successor. Batu, however, never reached Mongolia for such an election and a successor wouldn't be named until 1246. A minority of historians have argued that the advance stalled because European fortifications posed a strategic problem for the Mongols.[11]
In a series ofrazzias from 1235 to 1245, the Mongols commanded by Ögedei's sons penetrated deep into the Song dynasty and reachedChengdu,Xiangyang andYangtze River. But they could not succeed in completing their conquest due to climate and the number of Song troops, and Ögedei's son Khochu died in the process. In 1240, Ögedei's other sonKhuden dispatched a subsidiary expedition toTibet. The situation between the two nations worsened when Song officers murdered Ögedei's envoys headed by Selmus.[12]
The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent under the leadership of Ögedei helped bring political stability and re-establish theSilk Road, the primary trading route between East and West.
Ögedei appointed Dayir Baghatur in Ghazni and Menggetu Noyan inQonduz. In winter 1241 the Mongol force invaded theIndus valley and besiegedLahore, which was controlled by theDelhi Sultanate. However, Dayir Baghatur died storming the town, on 30 December 1241, and the Mongols butchered the town before withdrawing from theDelhi Sultanate.[13]
Some time after 1235 another Mongol force invadedKashmir, stationing adarughachi there for several years. Soon Kashmir became a Mongolian dependency.[14] Around the same time, a KashmiriBuddhist master, Otochi, and his brother Namo arrived at the court of Ögedei.
Mahamud Yalavach promoted a system in which the government would delegate tax collection totax farmers who collect payments in silver. Yelu Chucai encouraged Ögedei to institute a traditional Chinese system of government, with taxation in the hands of government agents and payment in a government issued currency. The Muslim merchants, working with capital supplied by the Mongol aristocrats, loaned at higherinterest the silver needed for tax payments.[15] In particular, Ögedei actively invested in theseortoq enterprises.[15] At the same time the Mongols began circulatingpaper currency backed by silver reserves.
Ögedei abolished the branch departments of state affairs and divided the areas of Mongol-ruled China into ten routes according to the suggestion of Yelü Chucai. He also divided the empire intoBeshbalik andYanjing administration, while the headquarters in Karakorum directly dealt with Manchuria, Mongolia and Siberia. Late in his reign,Amu Darya administration was established.Turkestan was administered by Mahamud Yalavach, while Yelu Chucai administered North China from 1229 to 1240. Ögedei appointedShigi Khutugh chief judge in China. InIran, Ögedei appointed first Chin-temur, aKara-kitai, and thenKorguz, an Uyghur who proved to be honest administrator. Later, some of Yelu Chucai's duties were transferred to Mahamud Yalavach and taxes were handed over to Abd-ur-Rahman, who promised to double the annual payments of silver.[16] The Ortoq or partner merchants lent Ögedei's money at exorbitant rates of interest to the peasants, though Ögedei banned considerably higher rates. Despite it proving profitable, many people fled their homes to avoid the tax collectors and their strong-arm gangs.
Ögedei had imperial princes tutored by the Christian scribe Qadaq and theTaoist priest Li Zhichang and built schools and an academy. Ögedei Khan also decreed to issue paper currency backed by silk reserves and founded a department responsible for destroying old notes. Yelu Chucai protested to Ögedei that his large-scale distribution ofappanages in Iran,Western and North China, and Khorazm could lead to a disintegration of the empire.[17] Ögedei thus decreed that the Mongol nobles could appoint overseers in the appanages, but the court would appoint other officials and collect taxes.
He proclaimed the GreatYassa as an integral body of precedents, confirming the continuing validity of his father's commands and ordinances, while adding his own. Ögedei codified rules of dress and conduct during the kurultais. Throughout the empire, in 1234, he created postroad stations (Yam) with a permanent staff who would supply post riders' needs.[18] Relay stations were set up every 25 miles and the yam staff supplied remounts to the envoys and served specified rations. The attached households were exempt from other taxes, but they had to pay a qubchuri tax to supply the goods. Ögedei ordered Chagatai and Batu to control their yams separately. He also prohibited the nobility from issuingpaizas (tablets that gave the bearer authority to demand goods and services from civilian populations) andjarliqs. Ögedei decreed that within decimal units one out of every 100 sheep of the well-off should be levied for the poor of the unit, and that one sheep and one mare from every herd should be forwarded to form aherd for the imperial table.[19]
From 1235 to 1238 Ögedei constructed a series of palaces andpavilions at stopping places in his annualnomadic route through central Mongolia. The first palace Wanangong was constructed by North Chinese artisans. The Emperor urged his relatives build residences nearby and settled the deported craftsmen from China near the site. The construction of the city,Karakorum (Хархорум), was finished in 1235, assigning different quarters to Islamic and North Chinese craftsmen, who competed to win Ögedei's favor. Earthen walls with 4 gates surrounded the city. Attached were private apartments, while in front of stood a giantstone tortoise bearing an engraved pillar, like those that were commonly used in East Asia. There was a castle with doors like the gates of the garden and a series of lakes where many water fowl gathered. Ögedei erected several houses of worship for his Buddhist, Muslim, Taoist, and Christian followers. In the Chinese ward, there was a Confucian temple where Yelu Chucai used to create or regulate a calendar on the Chinese model.
Ögedei was also known to be a humble man, who did not believe himself to be a genius, and who was willing to listen to and use the great generals that his father left him, as well as those he himself found to be most capable. He was the Emperor but not a dictator.[20] Like all Mongols at his time, he was raised and educated as a warrior from childhood, and as the son of Genghis Khan, he was a part of his father's plan to establish a world empire. His military experience was notable for his willingness to listen to his generals and adapt to circumstances. He was a pragmatic person, much like his father, and looked at the end rather than the means. His steadiness of character and dependability were the traits that his father most valued, and that gained him the role of successor to his father, despite his two older brothers.
Statue of Ögedei Khan in Mongolia
Ögedei was considered to be his father's favorite son, ever since his childhood. As an adult, he was known for his ability to sway doubters in any debate in which he was involved, simply by the force of his personality. He was a physically big, jovial, and charismatic man, who seemed mostly to be interested in enjoying good times. He was intelligent and steady in character. His charisma was partially credited for his success in keeping the Mongol Empire on the path that his father had set. Ögedei was a pragmatic man, though he made some mistakes during his reign. Ögedei had no delusions that he was his father's equal as a military commander or organizer and used the abilities of those he found most capable.[21]
Ögedei was well known for his alcoholism. Chagatai entrusted an official to watch his habit, but Ögedei managed to drink anyway. It is commonly told that Ögedei did so by vowing to reduce the number of cups he drank a day then having cups twice the size created for his personal use. When he died at dawn on 11 December 1241, after a late-night drinking bout with Abd-ur-Rahman, the people blamed the sister of Tolui's widow and Abd-ur-Rahman. The Mongol aristocrats recognized, however, that the khan's own lack of self-control had killed him.
The sudden death ofTolui in 1232 seems to have affected Ögedei deeply. According to some sources, Tolui sacrificed his own life, accepting a poisoned drink in shamanist ritual in order to save Ögedei who was suffering from illness.[22] Other sources say Ögedei orchestrated Tolui's death with the help of shamans who drugged the alcoholic Tolui.[23]
According toPamela Kyle Crossley, a posthumousYuan dynasty portrait of Ögedei depicts him as having a stocky build, a red beard, and hazel eyes.[24] Contemporary Chinese authors such as Xu Ting wrote that Ögedei's beard was unusual for a Mongol because most had little facial hair.[25]
According to Persian chroniclers, Ögedei ordered the rape of four thousandOirat girls above the age of seven. These girls were then confiscated for Ögedei's harem or given to caravan hostels throughout the Mongol Empire for use as prostitutes. This move brought the Oirat and their lands under Ögedei's control following the death of Ögedei's sister Checheyigen, who previously controlled Oirat lands.[26]
Anne F. Broadbridge links an "infamous alleged mass rape of Oirat girls" to Ögedei's requisitioning of girls from his uncle Temüge Otchigin's territories without Temüge's approval. Broadbridge notes however that "with all the evidence suppressed, this can only be a surmise".[27] The History of the Yuan orYuanshi and Secret History of the Mongols speak of a forceful requisitioning of women by Ögedei from the "left wing" and "uncle Otchigin's domain" respectively but do not mention a rape. In the Secret History Ögedei expresses remorse for his act stating "as to my second fault, to listen to the word of a woman without principle, and to have the girls of my uncle Otchigin's domain brought to me was surely a mistake" but De Rachewiltz notes that the entire paragraph listing four good deeds and four mistakes may be a posthumous assessment.[28]
The only account alleging a rape is in Chapter 32 of theTarikh-i Jahangushay (History of the World Conqueror) written in 1252 byJuvayni (1226–1283).[29] In Chapter 32 Juvayni starts by praising Ögedei Khan then proceeds to give 50 highly detailed anecdotes to illustrate Ögedei's "clemency, forgiveness, justice and generosity" followed by one anecdote to illustrate his "violence, severity, fury and awesomeness" which was the rape incident. This anecdote closes the chapter. The name of the tribe is unclear in two manuscripts of Juvayni but Manuscript D and Rashid-Al-Din give it as Oirat. Broadbridge and De Rachewiltz questioned the factual accuracy of this identification with the Oirats.[27][28]
In the Tarikh-i Jahangushay claims Ögedei died shortly after his lion-like hounds chased and tore to pieces a wolf he saved and released despite his having hoped God Almighty would spare his ill bowels if he released a living creature. This anecdote (Anecdote 47) contradicts the standard account of Ögedei's death from a late-night drinking bout with Abd-ur-Rahman.
In the early 1230s, Ögedei had nominated his son Kuchu as his heir; following Kuchu's death in 1236, he named his grandson Shiremun as his heir. His preference was not binding on the Mongols.[30]Güyük eventually succeeded him after the five-year regency of his widowTöregene Khatun. However,Batu, the Khan of theGolden Horde (also known as the Kipchak Khanate or the Ulus of Jochi), only nominally acceptedGüyük, who died on the way to confrontBatu. It was not until 1255, well into the reign ofMöngke Khan, thatBatu felt secure enough to again prepare to invade Europe. He died before his plans could be implemented.
WhenKublai Khan established theYuan dynasty in 1271, he had Ögedei Khan placed on the official record as Taizong (Chinese:太宗). Ögedei was also given the posthumous name of Emperor Yingwen (英文皇帝) in 1266.[1]
Like his father Genghis Khan, Ögedei had many wives and sixty concubines:[31] Ögedei married firstBoraqchin and thenTöregene. Other wives includedMöge Khatun (former concubine of Genghis Khan) and Jachin Khatun.
^According toHistory of Yuan, Ögedei was buried at Qinian valley (起輦谷).[1] The concrete location of the valley is never mentioned in any documents, many assume that it is somewhere close to theOnon River and theBurkhan Khaldun mountain,Khentii Province, present-day Mongolia.
^abEnkhbold, Enerelt (2019). "The role of the ortoq in the Mongol Empire in forming business partnerships".Central Asian Survey.38 (4):531–547.doi:10.1080/02634937.2019.1652799.S2CID203044817.
^Crossley, Pamela Kyle (28 February 2019).Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 119.ISBN978-1-4422-1445-3. "Ogedei was confirmed as the new ruler in 1229 and reigned until his death in 1241. We may know what he looked like, thanks to his well-known portrait, (painted about a hundred years after his death), showing him as stocky in the same way as Genghis, red bearded, hazel eyed, and well prepared for Northern interiors with his domed, fur-trimmed winter helmet."
^Garcia, Chad D. (2012)."A New Kind of Northerner: Initial Song Perceptions of the Mongols".Journal of Song-Yuan Studies.42: 335.ISSN1059-3152.JSTOR43855132. "The significance of Ögödei's beard is mentioned by Xu Ting when he writes "The Black Mongols have little facial hair. Thus full beards must be highly valued by them." Here, Xu's words closely mirror those of Zhao Gong, in not only describing a Khan s full beard, but that the majority of the Mongols were unable to grow them.
^abBroadbridge, Anne F. (2018).Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 187.ISBN978-1-108-42489-9.
^abDe Rachewiltz, Igor.The Secret History of the Mongols, A Mongolian Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, Translated with a Historical and Philological Commentary, Volume One. Brill Leiden Boston: Brill's Inner Asian Library. pp. 1032–1035.
^Boyle, John Andrew (1958).The History of the World Conqueror by Ala-ad-din Ata-Malik JUVAINI, Translated from the text of Mirza Muhammad Qazvini. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 201.
^Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb, 1247-1318. (1971).The successors of Genghis Khan. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 620.ISBN0-231-03351-6.OCLC160563.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Following Kublai's enthronement asKhagan-Emperor in 1260, proclamation of the dynastic name "Great Yuan" in 1271, andconquest ofSouthern Song in 1279, Yuan ruled all of China.
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