The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [105]
In the winter, Manduhai moved her capital down the Ongi River into the edge of the Gobi. The Ongi was the only river that flowed south into the Gobi, and it had long been a major route connecting Karakorum with the old empire in China. The Ongi had water for only a few months of the year, in the summer when the snow in the mountains melted and the spring rains combined to create this small river. Occasionally, it carried enough water to make a small lake called Ulaan Nuur, but usually the empty lake bed and the river stood dry.
Of course, even when the water ceased to flow aboveground, moisture still seeped below the surface. It occasionally bubbled up to form a spring, or one could dig a short way into the light soil and quickly find water. The backdrop of mountains on the northern side offered some protection from the winds blowing directly from the Arctic. The drier conditions prevented blizzards except in the most exceptional of years.
In changing her capital camp from the more isolated place she had inhabited with Manduul Khan, Manduhai made a break with the past. Whether intentionally signaling her plans or merely following her own preferences, the move south and out into an open area closer to a trade route indicated a new engagement with the world. She herself probably did not yet know the precise nature of the new policies she would pursue, but she certainly knew that they would be different from the past. Perhaps she would expand Mongol commercial participation in the Silk Route; she might confront the Muslim warlords or even the Ming Court. Or, she might do all of those things.
Manduhai Khatun and Dayan Khan went to their new camp to enjoy it for a short while and to give the boy a little time to adjust to her and the new people around him. He needed to become comfortable with them because she was about to take him to war. As a khan, even as a little boy, war would be his profession, and it could never be too soon to begin learning it.
With a Great Khan at her side, her newly found firmness and strength, Manduhai was ready to set out on her white road of life.
11
Winning the War and Raising a Husband
VOWS, PRAYERS, AND RITUALS BEFORE A SHRINE ADDED much needed sacred legitimacy to Dayan Khan’s rule, but without force of arms, they amounted to empty gestures and wasted breath. Only after demonstrating that she had the skill to win, as well as the supernatural blessing to do so, could Manduhai hope to rule the Mongols. She had enemies on every side, and she needed to choose her first battle carefully. She had to confront each enemy, but she had to confront each in its own due time. Manduhai needed to manage the flow of conflicts by deciding when and where to fight and not allowing others to force her into a war for which she was not prepared or stood little chance of winning.
The enemies she faced after proclaiming Batu Mongke as Dayan Khan were the same who had vied for control over her before she made the proclamation. The Ming Dynasty to the southeast, although weakening, still presented a major threat to the Mongols and claimed the right to rule over them. The Muslim warlords of the Silk Route, fractious and quarrelsome as ever, continued to grow in power in the southwest and still sought to control the Mongols by controlling their khans.
Throughout their history, the steppe tribes had periodically experienced population and military pressure from both China and the Turks, but for thousands of years, the way west remained open as the escape valve. The Slavic people had never been able to close that valve or resist the Asian tribes’ thrust toward Europe. In the fifteenth century, however, for the first time, Ivan III managed to close it and even reverse the pressure by pushing some of the Mongols back toward their homeland.