The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [89]
For the moment, she had two rivals, both about her same age and at the start of their careers. Her immediate rival for power at court and within Mongolia was Bayan Mongke. In the longer term, however, she and the Ming emperor, using intermediaries and proxies, would become involved in an indirect but lifelong struggle for control over the borderlands, while living lives that would have uncanny, and probably not coincidental, similarities.
9
The Falling Prince and the Rising Queen
SEXUAL POLITICS DESTROYED THE COURT OF MANDUUL KHAN. The Tibetan chronicle states that the horrendous charges and countercharges about the incidents were too dreadful to repeat, but of course the author teases the reader with a hazy sketch of events displayed to tantalize more than inform. The Mongolian chroniclers more eagerly described specific details of some events while obscuring others, depending on the genealogical connections and political allegiances of the writer. Each chronicler had some personal connection to the people in the story and often wanted to protect a particular person’s reputation while placing the blame firmly on another.
Sex is always political, and in politics every relationship is potentially sexual, or at least is open to accusations of being so. Usually the sex remains just a little hidden in the domain of speculation, gossip, and rumor, but in the breakup of Manduul Khan’s court, almost every person was accused of an inappropriate relationship with someone, or several people, in the group.
Bayan Mongke came to court for sexual purposes, at least some of which were clearly stated. He had already proved his ability to father a son, and now he would be expected to do so again to carry forth the Borijin clan. As the heir, the young prince Bolkhu Jinong would also marry the wives of the old khan when he died. This custom reached far back into steppe history and set them clearly apart from their Chinese and Muslim neighbors, who disapproved highly of this practice. As a Confucian scholar wrote of them, “They marry by succession their stepmothers, the wives of their deceased younger paternal uncles, and the wives of their deceased elder brothers.” He further described the Mongols as facing the ridicule of future generations, stating that only through “civilization and law” could the Mongols abolish these incestuous, barbaric traditions.
By installing Bayan Mongke and giving him the title Bolkhu Jinong, Manduul made this expectation clear. As the khan bragged about the nephew when presenting him, “He will be a fruitful branch from the noble Borijin family tree.” The khan used a metaphor understood by every Mongol. He compared the young prince to the fermented mare’s milk saved at the end of the horse milking season for next year’s fermentation. Manduul Khan called his nephew the khorongo for the Borijin lineage.
According to Mongol tradition, the heir would wait until the father died before taking one of his wives. Yet sometimes among the tribes from Siberia to Tibet, when one man failed to father a son, another member of his lineage, or bone, might help to do so. In Tibet, such relations had official standing for two or more brothers married to the same wife, but in Mongolia, such marriages had no historical validity. Still, any child born of a married woman became the child of her husband. Genghis Khan made this rule clear in acknowledging his wife’s first-born child as his own son, despite his wife’s capture and brief marriage to another man. As Genghis Khan declared, if he himself claimed to be the father, what right did any other person have to dispute it?
Ahmad Ibn Arabshah, an Arab writer who lived and traveled extensively in the Mongol world at the opening of the fifteenth century, carefully observed and recorded the habits and customs of