A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

108 A history of Inner Asia
end to the Mongol empire – or at least to its expansion – before the conquest
of the Russian principalities, Iran, and Sung China.
The patrimony was divided up as fiefdoms called ulus (whose original
meaning was not territorial but military-logistical: a group of tribesmen,
with their families, assigned to a leader) among Genghis Khan’s sons and
grandsons.The youngest, Toluy, received the home territory of
Mongolia as otchigin, “prince of the hearth.” This did not mean that
Toluy inherited the title of qaghan or Great Khan, however: Genghis
Khan, as we have seen, had designated Ögedey as his successor.Ögedey
was also loyally backed by Chaghatay, the eldest surviving son, who had
thus honored his father’s wishes.Besides receiving the supreme title,
Ögedey was given his ulus: central Siberia and eastern Sinkiang; his
favorite area was the valleys of the Emil and upper Irtysh.The complexity
(and in another sense unity) of the Mongol empire, however, is illustrated
by the fact that as qaghan, Ögedey still used Toluy’s fiefdom – the
hearth of the royal house – for ceremonial purposes: it was he rather
than his younger brother who carried out their father’s command to
found an imperial city at Qaraqorum.Chaghatay himself received
Central Asia, a decision of greater importance than may have seemed
at the time.Juchi, the eldest, was dead, so it was his sons who acceded to
his fiefdom: Orda, the eldest, received western Siberia roughly from the
River Irtysh to the River Ural; Batu, the second, was given the territories
west of there.Besides these principal uluses, there also briefly existed
two smaller ones apportioned to Genghis Khan’s brothers Juchi Qasar
and Temüge-Otchigin; they were located at the northeastern fringes of
the empire, in what would today be northern Manchuria, northern
Korea and the Maritime Province of the Russian Republic.Juchi
Qasar’s ulus partly corresponded to what was the original Mongol territory
before the expansion launched by Genghis Khan.
It took two years before Ögedey was enthroned as qaghan in a ceremony
that again took place on “native grounds” between the Onon and
Kerulen.Benefiting from the loyalty and cohesion his brothers and
nephews displayed, he set in motion two grandiose waves of conquests:
the first (1230–33) put an end to what was left of the Chin kingdom in
central China, the second (1236–40) engulfed the Russian principalities.
The latter conquest also created the appanage promised to Batu by
Genghis Khan.
The fact that the territories given to Batu still remained to be conquered
reveals the supreme confidence of the Mongols that he and his
generals and troops would prove equal to the task, and they did.The ter-