The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [124]
Just as the selection of a reign title for her husband showed Manduhai’s clear political agenda, the names of her children made it even clearer, proclaiming her agenda loudly. She named each of her sons Bolod, “Steel.” The first two were Toro Bolod and Ulus Bolod, meaning “Steel Government” and “Steel Nation.”
Manduhai and Dayan Khan now controlled all the Mongols and Oirat north of the Gobi, and south of the Gobi they had the alliance of the eastern and central clans. By 1483, Ismayil had been driven all the way to the Hami oasis at the farthest edge of the Mongol territory, almost where it turns into uninhabitable desert. With his old ally and rival Beg-Arslan removed, he was the undisputed leader of the ragtag army left behind, and at any moment he might choose to attack again. He certainly would not sit idly at Hami pursuing the life of a melon farmer or winemaker. If the Mongols showed any sign of weakness or distraction, he would return.
Ismayil’s presence at Hami served as a constant alternative to the rule of Manduhai and Dayan Khan. It would be hard for them to assert much authority over the southern tribes if they faced the constant threat that those tribes might bolt to Ismayil. He had to be removed.
Of course, Dayan Khan had a much deeper and more powerful reason to go after Ismayil. After being kidnapped by Ismayil nearly twenty years earlier, Dayan Khan’s mother, Siker, was still with him. Hami was located too far across a barren strip between the Gobi and the sand desert to send a large army after Ismayil. There simply would not be enough grass for the animals to get there and return safely. But sometime around 1484, Manduhai and Dayan Khan assembled a select group of men with the mission to bring back Dayan Khan’s mother and to kill or capture Ismayil.
Heretofore Dayan Khan had not expressed much interest in finding his missing mother, but something in him was changing. Now that he was fully grown and had become a father, some new longing awoke in him to connect again with his original family that had been shattered so soon after his birth.
13
Her Jade Realm Restored
MOST OF THE MEN CHOSEN FOR THE RAID AGAINST Ismayil came from Manduhai’s Choros clan. She trusted them, and they best knew the area that had once been ruled by her father. Because of the difficulty of fielding and supplying an army over vast stretches of desert, Manduhai sent out a small, but highly skilled, detachment that probably consisted of between 200 and 250 men. A man named Togochi Sigusi commanded the raiding party and had 22 experienced officers with him; each of them probably led a squad of about 10 men.
Ismayil lived out in the open fresh air of the desert in a nomad’s camp of gers and horses, where a man could breathe free and also freely flee if needed. The circumstances revealed in the chronicles suggest that he may have lost much of his support. Though he once ruled over vast areas, Ismayil had now been forced to flee to the distant oasis of Hami, which he did not actually control so much as harass its inhabitants. The desert beyond the oases certainly could not support a large army. Therefore Ismayil’s troops had been sent elsewhere at the time, or they had deserted him. He apparently retained so few followers that he no longer had sufficient men to post an adequate guard.
The chronicler of the Altan Tobci described how, well before anyone could hear their hoofbeats, a servant woman in the ger of Ismayil sensed the vibrations in the ground made by the approaching horsemen. “Why is the ground shaking?” she called out in panic, instinctively bolting from the ger and running to the hitching post, where several horses always stood ready.
She untied a horse