Shigi Qutuqu

The Secret History of the Mongols and Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh both provide details of the early life of Shigi Qutuqu, but the accounts differ greatly.[2] According to the Secret History, after the Mongol leader Temüjin (later titled Genghis Khan) had led a raid against a Tatar camp named Naratu Šitü’en, his plundering troops found a boy abandoned in the camp; he was recognised to be of aristocratic descent as he was wearing a nose ring made of gold and a silken jerkin lined with sable. The Secret History records that Hoelun, Temüjin's mother, adopted the boy as her sixth child, naming him Shigi Qutuqu.[3] The raid on Naratu Šitü’en can be dated fairly precisely to a campaign Temüjin fought in alliance with the Kereit chieftain Toghrul and the Chinese Jin dynasty in May–June 1196, but Shigi Qutuqu was already prominent in Mongol society by 1206, which is implausible if he were a small child a decade earlier. The Secret History's account is also improbable because all of Hoelun's full-blooded children were adults by 1196.[4] By depicting him as a noble at birth and later the adopted brother of Temüjin, this version may have intended to position Shigi Qutuqu as a more senior member of Mongol society.[5]

Börte and Temüjin, the likely adopted parents of Shigi Qutuqu. Painted by Basawan in a 16th century copy of the Jami al-tawarikh.

Rashid al-Din's account of Shigi Qutuqu's adoption takes place more than a decade earlier. He records that when Temüjin and his wife Börte were still childless, they found a young boy and raised him as their son; if true, this incident would have occurred in the early 1180s as Börte's eldest son Jochi was born in 1184 at the earliest. Rashid al-Din's explanation, which draws upon natural relationships, is considered more plausible by modern historians such as Paul Ratchnevsky and Christopher Atwood.[6] The comfort the adoption of Shigi Qutuqu brought Börte, who may have been depressed due to her difficulties conceiving, is sufficient to explain the honour and attention subsequently paid to him. It also clearly explains a scene reported after Börte's death, in which Shigi Qutuqu beats his hands upon her grave, wailing "O, sayin eke minu!" (lit. Oh, my good mother!).[7]

Two incidents in Shigi Qutuqu's childhood were transmitted by Rashid al-Din. In one, he managed to subdue a herd of gazelles in a winter blizzard; in the other, he had a role in saving Tolui, Temüjin's youngest legitimate son, from a Tayici'ut bandit.[5] In around 1204, Temüjin appointed the Uighur scribe Tatar Tong'a as a tutor for his sons; Shigi Qutuqu took to this new avenue very adeptly, recording his adopted father's jasaq and jarliq (lit. judgements and decrees) in concert with his tutor.[8]

During the great kurultai (lit. assembly) of 1206, Temüjin, newly entitled Genghis Khan, appointed many of his leading commanders to high positions in the new Mongol state. Two of them, Muqali and Bo'orchu, were honoured above all others, receiving legal protection and command of wings of the Mongol army.[9] Shigi Qutuqu took offence to this generosity, with the Secret History recording his words as follows: "Have Bo'orchu and Muqali rendered greater service than others? Have they given more of their strength than others? When it comes to distributing rewards I appear to have rendered less service [than they]!"[10]

Genghis Khan's response, as written in the Secret History, was to instruct Shigi Qutuqu to "punish the thieves and put right the lies" by writing down all legal details, including those concerning rewards distribution, in a köke debter (lit. blue book). He entrusted Shigi Qutuqu with legal jurisdiction throughout the entire Mongol nation alongside his own half-brother Belgutei, whom he appointed to the position of Minister of State and the first jarghuchi (lit. judge).[11] Modern historians consider this account biased: Ratchnevsky suggests that the Secret History, seeking to demonstrate that Genghis Khan was influenced by those around him, "obviously exaggerates Shigi Qutuqu's authority", while Atwood believes that the chronicle conflated the events of the 1206 kurultai with subsequent appointments.[12] Nevertheless, Shigi Qutuqu was at some point charged with "enforcing and maintaining the law of the land", in the words of the historian Timothy May.[13]

Depiction of the capture of Zhongdu, from a 15th century copy of the Jami al-tawarikh (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

Shigi Qutuqu participated in the first Mongol campaign against the Jin dynasty. After Emperor Xuanzong fled south to Kaifeng, the city of Zhongdu fell to the Mongols after a long siege on 31 May 1215. Although the city was thoroughly plundered, Genghis Khan personally dispatched Shigi Qutuqu to secure and confiscate the Jin dynasty treasury.[14] For his honest accounting and recording of the plunder, he was praised highly by Genghis Khan—an event not only recorded in the Secret History and by Rashid al-Din but also in the Shengwu qinzheng lu.[15] The Yuan Shi notes that Shigi Qutuqu took administrative roles following the occupation of northern China, with his remit including the appointments of minor officials.[16]

Leading the imperial vanguard during the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, Shigi Qutuqu was in command during the Battle of Parwan, the first defeat of the campaign for the Mongols.[17] This reverse was described in detail by Rashid al-Din and other Persian chroniclers such as Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani and Ata-Malik Juvayni, and more laconically by the Mongol chronicles: the Secret History, the Shengwu qinzheng lu, and the Yuán Shǐ. According to Juvayni, before the battle at Parwan, Shigi Qutuqu had sacked and burned the city of Ghazni with around 10,000 soldiers, before helping to complete the capture of Merv in 1221.[18] He was dispatched with around 30,000 men to defeat the renegade Khwarazmian prince Jalal al-Din Mangburni but was repulsed by his enemy after two days of hard fighting, narrowly escaping a painful death at the hands of Jalal's forces.[19]

Upon hearing of his adopted son's defeat, Genghis Khan masked his private distress with anger and set out to avenge the loss with his three elder sons—Jochi, Chagatai, and Ögedei.[20] At Parwan, Genghis publicly humiliated Shigi Qutuqu by having him outline the battlefield site and criticizing his choice of tactics and lack of initiative; he privately confided to Bo'orchu that he thought his adopted son had been spoiled by constant victories.[21] At the Battle of the Indus, during which Genghis comprehensively defeated Jalal al-Din, Shigi Qutuqu was appointed to guard the captured Khwarazmian soldiers.[22]

Upon Ögedei's accession to the Mongol throne after Genghis' death in 1227,[23] he honoured his adopted sibling by naming him "elder brother" and placing him after his sons in the Mongol order of precedence. Shigi Qutuqu participated in the 1231 campaign against the Jin under the command of Tolui and was involved in action along the Yellow River; he was assigned to the service of Sorghaghtani Beki after her husband Tolui's death and was present at the fall of Kaifeng.[24] He also briefly participated in a 1235 campaign against the Southern Song dynasty under the command of Köchü, Ögedei's third son.[25]

As a leading Mongol scholar and official, Shigi Qutuqu was appointed in 1234 to the position of chief jarghuchi in Northern China. Acting in concert with the Chinese official Yelü Chucai, he executed a general census of the captured territories from Yanjing in 1235–6.[26] Medieval historians credit him with judicial integrity and administrative quality, while modern historians ascribe a good part of the success of Ögedei's fiscal reforms to Shigi Qutuqu's implementation of the census and other reforms.[27] He was however known to favour Buddhist adherents such as the monk Haiyun (1203–57), whom he consulted for advice on matters practical and personal; Haiyun took advantage of this connection to obtain concessions for the Buddhist population during Mongol rule.[28] The Song dynasty ambassador Xu Ting termed Shigi Qutuqu's financial excesses "dreadful", while other authors such as Liu Bingzhong blame him for high corvée assignments and a generally repressive economic atmosphere.[27]

The remainder of Shigi Qutuqu's life is uncertain. As a senior member of the Mongol imperial family, he probably returned to Karakorum to participate in the kurultai following the death of Güyük in 1248;[lower-alpha 1] he managed to avoid death in the subsequent power struggles, possibly due to his divided loyalties between the Ögedeid and Toluid branches of the Borjigin imperial family. Having survived the new khagan Möngke (d. 1259),[30] Shigi Qutuqu died in 1260 during the Toluid Civil War. It is unknown what side he took in the dispute, fought between Tolui's sons Ariq Böke and Kublai.[31]