The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [94]
By so defying as powerful a man as Beg-Arslan, she knew that her life and the lives of her sons might be in danger. To protect them, Borogchin then sent her sons away; however, she decided to stay behind to face Beg-Arslan’s wrath. “I myself will die,” she explained to the boys as she bade them farewell. After that encounter, no further mention of Borogchin occurs in the chronicles.
Having failed to find refuge with Beg-Arslan, the Golden Prince fled this time out into the Gobi in search of sanctuary with his wife, Siker, and their son. The Gobi, however, does not keep secrets. Word soon reached the Mongol royal camp that the prince had returned to his former home, and Ismayil set out in pursuit of the young prince. Always fortunate enough to hear when someone came after him, the prince again abandoned his wife and son and fled farther east into the Gobi.
Ismayil found the camp of the prince’s family and seized it, all the animals and everyone there. He even claimed Siker, the prince’s wife, for himself. Somehow in the mêlée, the baby boy born to Siker and the prince disappeared.
For the moment, Ismayil’s work seemed done. He had rid the Mongol court of both General Une-Bolod and the young prince. With the prince’s wife as his own, he now returned south, where the Mongols were having some renewed success raiding the Chinese, and where Beg-Arslan, still his overlord, was planning a full assault on the Chinese in the Gansu Corridor and the territory of Ningxia.
Ismayil departed, but his allies now occupied most of the Gobi, and it would not be long before they would find the Golden Prince.
The political scene at the Mongol court changed dramatically and permanently: Manduul Khan was dead. The senior queen, Yeke Qabar-tu, disappeared, never to be heard from again. How these events transpired, and in what order, remains unknown, but around the same time, the exiled Golden Prince also met his final fate.
Chinese and some Mongolian sources record that at this point the prince began to style himself as the Great Khan and actually tried to raise an army of supporters. No matter what title he used at this moment, the Golden Prince seems to have been wandering alone in the immense Gobi. Having deserted his family and fled from the royal camp, the prince who had so recently dazzled the court now had only a few loyal companions remaining. He still had his beautiful clothes, his handsome horse, and dreams to rule as Great Khan of the Mongol nation.
It was 1470, the Year of the Tiger. Without allies in Mongolia, he seemed to have the idea that he might escape back to China, where he had been received with some enthusiasm in his failed effort to challenge the Ming court. Perhaps he could enlist the help of the Chinese and return to enforce his claim as Great Khan, or perhaps the Ming emperor might receive him and be willing to help put him in command of their distant enemy.
He followed a remote trail southward with one attendant who knew the area. To reach China, he had to cross the territory of the Yungshiyebu, the allies of Ismayil. He ran out of food and water somewhere near the modern Mongolian-Chinese border, in the area where today the Beijing-Moscow train crosses. Since his companion came from the area, he sent the man to seek out his family and possibly secure assistance from them. The companion found his family, but rather than offering help for the prince, they convinced the man to stay at home and abandon the prince in the desert.
The Gobi has occasional springs and wells, but there are so few that there is almost always someone camped around each one. The prince knew that in order to reach water, he had to pass through the encampment and certainly would be seen. Nearly dying of thirst, he took a chance and went anonymously into a small camp, where he obtained some airag from a young girl. Although he did not reveal his