How Genghis Khan reacted to the Death of his Favourite Grandson

This short covers very briefly the events around the death of Mötügen, favourite son of Chagatai and favourite grandson of Chinggis Khan, who fell during the siege of Bamiyan in 1221.
The main sources for this event come from Juvaini (writing in the 1250s) and Rashid al-Din (writing ca.1300-1310). Mostly they provide the same details (fall of Mötügen to an arrow at Bamiyan in 1221, and renaming of the city to Ma'u Balik/Ma'u Qorghan). But Rashid provides the extra details on this strange interaction between Chinggis and Chagatai afterwards. Why Chinggis would have done this, I am not quite sure.
Rashiduddin Fazlullah. Jami’ u’t-tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles: A History of the Mongols. Translated by W. M. Thackston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998.
‘Ala-ad-Din ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini. The History of the World-Conqueror. Translated by John Andrew Boyle. Vol. I. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University press, 1958.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

This short covers very briefly the events around the death of Mötügen, favourite son of Chagatai and favourite grandson of Chinggis Khan, who fell during the siege of Bamiyan in 1221. The main sources for this event come from Juvaini (writing in the 1250s) and Rashid al-Din (writing ca.1300-1310). Mostly they provide the same details (fall of Mötügen to an arrow at Bamiyan in 1221, and renaming of the city to Ma'u Balik/Ma'u Qorghan). But Rashid provides the extra details on this strange interaction between Chinggis and Chagatai afterwards. Why Chinggis would have done this, I am not quite sure. Rashiduddin Fazlullah. Jami’ u’t-tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles: A History of the Mongols. Translated by W. M. Thackston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998. ‘Ala-ad-Din ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini. The History of the World-Conqueror. Translated by John Andrew Boyle. Vol. I. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University press, 1958.

[@benjamindo8142]

i believe chiingis also wept in the death of his favorite grandson motuken, chiingis told chagatai to select a new heir due to which chagatai responded that chiingis promised motuken was in safe hands under the supervision of chiingis. chiingis ordered chagatai that he wasn't allowed to cry

[@morganlefay195]

Your guess has a lot of sense.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

Why do you think Chinggis would demand this of Chagatai? Definitely an unique parental strategy.

[@morganlefay195]

I've never thought of Chinggis Khan as a cruel man (ruthless, yes, it's obvious, but never cruel) till this particular episode.

[@AGS363]

Here we do not see parenting, but politics: If your status, the loyalty of your subjects and therefore your very life depends on your toughness, you have to maintain a stone face facade at all costs. If his son had cried in public, it would have appeared emotional and weak; inviting disobedience and even rebellion.

[@morganlefay195]

@@AGS363 I understand that, but in the Secret Story we see the Khan weeping overtly and it's no shame. Ironically, it's because of Chagatai himself

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

Assuming the incident, as it's been reported to us, is accurate of everything that went down, I've always personally thought, regarding this episode, that Chinggis had such a strong reaction to Mutugan's death that he basically didn't know how to handle it, or how to approach Chagatai about it. And after putting it off for a few days decided to "rip the band-aid off" and get it over with, and then didn't want to deal with Chagatai's emotions too. Basically a really unhealthy coping mechanism to a family tragedy.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

@@morganlefay195 We can see it, paradoxically, as both a cruel episode and, possibly, a rather human one too.

[@ElBandito]

Heard rumors that the Mongol soldiers in general were not allowed to mourn for their dead comrades after battles, for Chinggis mayhaps thought it was bad for morale.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

I don't know specifically about that, but there were many cultural taboos around death, i.,e being around the dead, touching things that were owned by the dead (without purifying them first by passing them between two fires) and even mentioning the word death. Part of the reason we don't know how so many early figures of the empire died, is because of these aversions to discussing the subject.

[@ElBandito]

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Thanks for the reply. I've heard Turkic/Mongol tribes back in those days used to leave their dead (including those who have fallen in battle) in the open for open burial. The custom was only changed to underground burial when they invaded and fought civilizations who practiced looting the dead. Dunno how accurate is that.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

There was in fact burial of the dead (hence the very long tradition of burial mounds/barrows/kurgans going back to Scythian times!), but most of our evidence for it (both archaeologically and in written accounts) focuses on elite burials, so hard to say if it was wide-spread across the culture, or just for the ruling classes and wealthy. A practice noted among the Mongols in the 13th century was to leave the body, for a time, on a high exposed area, let it decompose and then bury the bones (this is in Jamuqa's final speech to Chinggis in the Secret History, for example). Secret burials are of course well-known, but we see also burials in wooden coffins (sometimes with expensive, imported wood from southern Asia) and even cave-burials. We are even told that for warriors who fell during Batu and Subedei's great western campaign, that their bodies (or at least, heads) were even transported all the way back to Mongolia to be buried in a designated cemetery for that campaign (but again, it seems this was for wealthier individuals rather than the 'average joe.') What changes with exposure to sedentary cultures is a gradual shift to tombs; such as those built by Ghazan and Öljeitü Ilkhan in the Ilkhanate, taking of monument islamic tomb building.

[@superfly19751]

This is how the Chinese TV series about the Mongols also mentioned. Chinggis fav daughter and nephew didn’t not meet happy endings.

[@grugg5353]

I really love this channel and the artwork you put into it, I’m glad someone else shares my interest in the mongol empire

[@Chonobataar]

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory I heard about this. Was this the reason why Chinghis ordered Afghanistan to be made into a desert, farming land was burnt and salted and animals killed, so that the Afghans could never live there again. My grandfather told me, there was so much anger toward the Afghans by our Khaans, but eventually, they just gave up and subdued the Afghans with marriages and money, because they were too stubborn to just die!

[@ACRealmz]

Poor Mutukan….R.i.P died at the young age of 21 . Very young age indeed.

[@ACRealmz]

How do you make videos like this? I like to know I have good history of Mongol knowledge.

[@ironmiketyson220]

Jackmiester I was reading genghis and the making of the modern world. In it says "when genghis found out sha muhammad had killed his envoys he weeped" what does that mean? Did he actually cry?

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

I would have to double check, but he was certainly quite angry and spent several days on Burkhan Khaldun in prayer. I don't remember crying being specified though.

[@jaykatz9785]

Was the Orlok an actual title of commander of 30,000? Or did that only apply to Subutai?

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

I have not tried specifically to hunt down the origin of "orlok" and its association with Subedei. At the moment though, I can say that I have never seen it in a medieval source or used in conjunction with him. Only ever Noyan, Ba'atar or variations/translations of that are what I have seen associated with him during his lifetime. Noyan-u minggad (commander of a thousand) was probably what his official title was (though he probably also had a title from his days in the keshig; I don't know what that is though). I have seen no evidence for the Mongols giving out titles for army groups of specifically 30,000. The command titles reflect the decimal organization (10, 100, 1000); so someone is "commander of 1000" even if they command many thousands more than that, because the title reflects the fact that he has been assigned a minggan (or more) of people/subjects who pay him tax, provide him soldiers and other services. Probably Subedei was also given posthumous titles in the Yuan Dynasty, but these would be based on Chinese titles rather than something like orlok.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

My guess, if I tried to look into it, was that orlok (if it was ever actually used as a Mongolian military title) dates to much later (i.e, northern Yuan period) and was probably assigned to Subedei only in the 1900s by some European historian.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

At the very least, having a quick look through the dictionaries I have for classical Mongolian, I did find Orlok (örlök probably being the pronunciation) in them.

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

It does actually appear though, in the name of Khoo-Örlög (Khö Örlökh, Kho-Urlük), a seventeenth century Kalmyk-Oirat leader who led his people to settle on the Volga River. While his title was Taishi, Örlög may be a title-component of his name. It's presence among the Kalmyks in the 1600s may have lead some European writers to anachronistically place it amongst the earlier 13th century Mongols, and give it to Subedei, who had led armies through the region Khoo-Örlög later led his people.

[@jaykatz9785]

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Thank you for your replies. I saw someone claim that the Mongols had an Orlok for groups of 30,000 men, and it was this Orlok who would appoint the commanders of the three Tumens under him, and the commanders of Tumens would then appoint the commanders of the Minghans. I doubted this because, to me, it would give the Orlok way too much power. And I thought it was only the Khan who could make someone a Noyan of 1,000 or 10,000

[@CraigCraigbottom]

When did they stop calling it Badtown?

[@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory]

Probably Ma'u-Balik/Ma'u-Qorghan never actually replaced Bamiyan, except in use among the Mongols themselves. They were still using it at least until the end of the thirteenth century, but it probably never stopped being called Bamiyan by everyone else.

[@HotZetiGer]

well... Semite god Mot is the god of death English: toM = tooM = dooM