The Ethnic Question of China in Past Dynasties Mongolia IV
After Temujin's death, the attribution of the Khan throne attracted much attention. Among the four heirs, Ogedai is the most mediocre, but he has become the heir, which is puzzling. In fact, as early as the Western Expedition, Temujin began to consider the issue of heirs, and decided that Ogedai would inherit the throne.
Temujin's four concubines were all born by the empress's son-in-law: Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedai, and Tuolei. Jochi's military exploits were prominent, but due to his origin, his inheritance was passive.
Chagatai was principled and believed that Jochi was not qualified to inherit, and the two had sharp contradictions. Although Wokotai has been in charge of internal affairs for many years, he is inferior to other brothers, but he has a very good relationship with Chagatai, and Chagatai strongly supports Wokotai to succeed him.
Loved by Temujin, he was a bloodthirsty butcher with outstanding military prowess. In short, the succession to the throne was fraught with controversy and contradictions.
The Mongolian tradition is that the younger son guards the stove, in which the other sons first start their own families, and the youngest son inherits the father's property and status. After the end of Temujin's crusade to the west, he divided his sons according to this tradition.
The eldest son, Jochi, was assigned to the land of the Khwarazm dynasty, which basically meant that he had no chance of inheriting the throne. The second son, Chagatai, was assigned to the land of Western Liao, and Laosanwo Kotai was assigned to the land of the Gaochang Uighurs and the Naiban tribe.
The lands where the three sons were divided were all to the west of the Mongol royal court, and were therefore called the kings of the Western Dao, as opposed to the feudal kings of the host provinces (the four brothers of Temujin) who had been divided in the earlier years.
The fourth son, Tulei, was assigned to most of Temujin's direct elite troops and the central and western Mongols, becoming the most powerful of all the sons. Before Temujin's death, the eldest son Jochi had died of illness, and the second son, Chagatai, was resolutely supportive of the third child, but Tuolei's personality was too violent, and although he was strong in military affairs, he lacked literacy in politics, so no matter how it was weighed, Ogedei was the best successor.
In order to protect Tulei, Temujin handed over the Praetorian Guards directly to the Khan to Ögedei before his death, and summoned all his sons again, making it clear that Ögedei was his successor, and asking all his sons to swear allegiance to Ögedei, and admonishing them to be united.
The Mongol throne had to be decided by the Kuriltai (assembly of the Mongol tribal alliance), and although Temujin had already appointed an heir, there was a process that was fraught with variables.
In July 1227, Genghis Khan died in the territory of Western Xia, and according to the tradition of "young sons guarding the stove", Tuo Lei was temporarily in charge of supervising the country. Temujin's last order was to keep it secret after his death, wait for the surrender of Western Xia, and then drive out all their kings and ministers.
Soon, the Western Xia surrendered after holding out for more than half a year. Then, the news of Genghis Khan's death spread, and the last emperor of Western Xia, Li Wei, led his family and important ministers to pay respects, but they were all killed by the Mongols on the way, and the famous general Wei Ming Linggong also died at this time, and Western Xia perished.
Subsequently, the Mongol army entered Zhongxingfu (now Yinchuan, Ningxia) and is said to have carried out a bloody ** (killed 800,000 people), but some people say that the Mongols ** nearly 20 million people, and even exterminated the Dangxiang people.
But a more credible version is that the Dangxiang clan was stopped by Chahan (a Mongol general) and escaped. After the destruction of Western Xia, the main force of the Mongol army withdrew to Mongolia.
In the autumn of 1229 A.D., Tulei summoned the princes and nobles of Mongolia and convened the Kuriltai. At the meeting, the prince and the nobles argued for more than 40 days about the succession of Ogedai and Tuolei.
In the end, Tuo Lei obeyed his father's last orders, and together with all the princes and nobles, he supported the third brother Wokotai to succeed to the throne. After some traditional persuasion performances, Ögedei succeeded to the throne and became the second monarch of the Mongol Empire, Yuan Taizong.
The Mongol destruction of Jin stemmed from the delay in the succession of the Khan, and after Ögedei ascended the throne, he immediately formulated a plan to destroy Jin. In the first month of 1230 AD, a great battle broke out between the Mongol army and the Jin army in Dachangyuan, and the elite loyal and filial piety army led by the famous Jin general Wanyan Chen defeated the Mongol army of 8,000, forcing Ogedai to decide to go out in person.
In 1231 A.D., the Mongol three-way army attacked, and Wokotai, Tuolei, and Temuge Chijin each led an army and advanced to the Jin State. In accordance with his father's last words, Wokotai hoped that the Southern Song Dynasty would take the initiative to borrow the Tao.
But the Southern Song Dynasty rejected this request, and Tuo Lei led the South Road army to attack Sichuan, creating a tragic **, and then successfully bypassed Tongguan, an important town of Jin**, and drove directly from southern Shaanxi to Nanjing.
The main general of the Jin army, Wanyan Heda, fought with the army of Tuolei in Sanfeng Mountain, and finally Tuolei won more with less and defeated the Jin army. The elite of the Jin army was wiped out, Wanyan Heda was killed in battle, and the monk Wanyan Chen refused to surrender after being captured, and was beheaded by the Mongols.
Mongolia destroyed Jin, the Jin State was gone, Tuolei's military ability was too outstanding, and he was the legitimate heir to the throne, becoming the first hero of Mongolia's destruction of Jin. Fearing that the strength of the Tractor would be too strong, Ogedai would threaten his rule, so he designed to get rid of the Tractor.
After the departure of the Great Khan, Subutai attacked Nanjing (Kaifeng, Henan) with all his might, bombarding the city with hundreds of cannons, while the Jin army used firearms to carry out a stubborn counterattack. However, the ensuing outbreak of the plague caused both sides to suffer heavy losses.
As a result, the fighting was temporarily suspended on both sides. In August, the Mongol army made another comeback and wiped out the main forces of the Jin army. In December, the food in the city of Nanjing had run out, and Jin Aizong Wanyan Shouxu led a few henchmen to flee to Caizhou.
In 1233, the Nanjing garrison general Cui Li surrendered to the Mongol army, and the capital of the Jin State fell. In August of the same year, the Southern Song Dynasty saw that the situation in the Jin State was irreparable, so they reached an agreement with the Mongols to jointly eliminate the Jin State.
In November, the combined forces of the Mongol and Southern Song Dynasty surrounded Caizhou. In the first month of 1234, Caizhou was besieged for three months, the city was about to run out of food, and the day of the country's demise was approaching.
Jin Aizong did not want to become the king of the dead country, so he ceded the throne to Wanyan Chenglin, an important minister of the clan. However, on the day Wanyan Chenglin ascended the throne, Caizhou City was breached, and Jin Aizong committed suicide in Youlanxuan at the age of 37.
Wanyan Chenglin also committed suicide after reigning for less than an hour, becoming the shortest reigning emperor in history. The Kingdom of Jin was eventually wiped out. Because the Song army was so prominent in this battle, the Mongols gave them most of the spoils, including the corpse of Wanyan Shouxu, which the Southern monarchs could use to sacrifice their ancestors.