The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [86]
The small Mongol force lacked the ability to conquer even a single Chinese city, but the Mongols devised a strategy of following the example of Genghis Khan, who acquired a beachhead south of the Gobi by making an alliance with the Onggud prior to his invasion of China. Now these same lands were occupied by Mongols allied to the Ming but performing the same old Onggud function of guarding China from assault by the tribes of the north. Bayan Mongke and Manduul sought to use their ethnic ties and shared heritage to reunite the Mongols north of the Gobi with the ones living under Chinese control. Many more Mongols lived in China under Ming rule than in Mongolia, and perhaps if unity could be reasserted between the two groups, they might be able to overcome the Chinese once again and restore the empire.
Only a teenager could have had such a dream, and only an inexperienced old man could have encouraged him in it. Bayan Mongke headed off on his first major assignment. He rode into the border zone to lure the Mongols away from the Ming and to negotiate a pan-Mongol alliance. He found a receptive audience among the Mongols, who had grown weary of the Ming rule and the unfulfilled promises and obligations of the court. As a youthful soldier, apparently destined to one day become the Great Khan of the Mongol nation, Bayan Mongke excited their pride and ambition. For those prone toward imperial nostalgia and visions of Mongol glory, the dream rose again of uniting the tribes and restoring Mongol rule over China. For those who wished more material rewards, Bayan Mongke stimulated greed for the days when the Mongols controlled all the productive wealth of China and the mercantile traffic of the Silk Road.
Both the Mongols and the Ming court maintained false and often silly perceptions of themselves and each other. Every society produces its own cultural conceits, a set of lies and delusions about itself that thrives in the face of all contrary evidence. The Mongols believed that they could not be completely defeated. Even after being driven back north of the Gobi, they still pretended to be the rightful rulers of China and much of the rest of the world. The Mongol royal court was just waiting for a shift in the will of heaven that would propel them back to their rightful place as rulers of the most extensive empire on earth. To fill in the gaps between their beliefs and reality, they sat around the fire telling of clever Mongol concubines, morally lax Chinese queens, oversexed Mongol soldiers, impotent Chinese emperors, and secret pregnancies. All the tales ended with the deception of Chinese court officials and the conclusion that through some form of clever deceit, the Ming emperor was really a Mongol. Thus, the Mongols had never been truly defeated or chased out of China, merely replaced by some of their Mongol kinsmen in another guise. The men chuckled over the stories and then headed out to hunt another marmot and gather some dried cow dung to build a fire.
These stories also served as justification for any type of raid or military expedition. They had a story that while the Ming emperor had been held captive by the Mongols, he fathered a son with a Mongol girl. Thus, if needed, they had yet one more claim to be the legitimate rulers of China and even to have the legitimate heir of the dead Ming emperor. In the intervening years, the identity of the girl and her son had been lost, but they could certainly be found if needed. The justification, however, did not matter until the Mongols had a sufficiently strong military force to rival the Ming. The story of the secret heir might be useful as a propaganda