The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [59]
Instead of a string of khanates around the central one in Mongolia, three miniature empires emerged. In 1271 Khubilai Khan ruled most of Mongol East Asia and had declared a new Chinese dynasty that he called the Yuan. His brother Hulegu had created a soon-to-be Muslim dynasty known as the Il-Khanate over the Middle East. The only one of the three that survived in something approaching the manner created by Genghis Khan was the Russian territory given to the family of Jochi and known eventually as the Golden Horde.
The Il-Khanate of Persia, the Golden Horde of Russia, and the Yuan Dynasty of China formed three points of a large triangle, and although they tried, none of them could control the middle of the continent. This central zone of mountains and adjacent deserts extending roughly from Afghanistan to Siberia became the gathering point for all the disaffected lineages, the deposed Borijin members, dreamers bent on becoming the new Genghis Khan, and those who simply wanted a refuge from the rapidly changing world. Some of the granddaughters of Genghis Khan took up the struggle against the aggression of Sorkhokhtani’s lineage, and they found new allies in the other defeated lineages of Ogodei and Chaghatai. Together they formed a vortex of resistance in the center of the Asian steppe in what is now Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the western parts of Mongolia and China. These factions directed most of their anger against the newly formed China under Khubilai Khan, since he claimed to be the new Great Khan of the whole empire, but they pitted one part of the empire against the other when possible and rapidly changed sides when advantageous.
Between 1250 and 1270, Orghina, one of Checheyigen’s Oirat daughters who had escaped the mass rape, became the center of resistance. After serving as regent in Central Asia from 1251 to 1260, but unable to form a powerful independent force, she switched sides back and forth among the contenders for the office of khan over the following decade. Orghina Khatun, described as “a beautiful, wise, and discerning princess,” maneuvered through a succession of power struggles, changing allegiances and religions as needed, sometimes coming out on top and sometimes temporarily losing everything and starting again.
Inner Asia provided a constant refuge for the enemies of the large Mongol states around it. After Khubilai defeated his youngest brother, Arik Boke, who as otchigen had ruled the family homeland of Mongolia, he seized the courts from the widowed queens and dispersed their gers and other possessions to his male allies. In this way, Arik Boke’s wives and their courts were treated more as booty from a defeated foe than as defeated members of the royal family. Such actions produced a constant flow of rebels and refugees into the free zone of the interior of the continent.
The hostile tribes of the interior would have constituted little more than a nuisance for the three Mongol factions ruling except for one important factor. All trade goods had to pass through their territory. Under the Mongols, the trade of the Silk Route had grown from transporting mere luxuries into an important international commerce at the core of the world economy. The importation of silks, bronze mirrors, and medicines from China made the Muslims more willing to tolerate the Mongol Il-Khanate as their overlords. The Golden Horde used Chinese silks and Persian carpets to maintain the loyalty of the Russian nobles, who in turn kept the peasants from revolting. The Mongol emperors of China needed Damascus glass and steel, Indian jewels, and Siberian furs as well as Muslim and European technology to sustain their power. Gold brocade became the Mongol fashion throughout the empire, and huge quantities passed back and forth, as did more prosaic items such as asbestos and dried insects used to manufacture exotic dyes.
Just as important as the trade commodities, the Silk Route carried the information that the empire needed to function: