The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

When Siker still refused to answer or obey, the exasperated officer ordered his men to seize her and forcefully mount her on a horse to be taken away as a captive. He ordered everyone in the camp rounded up and taken prisoner, including Siker’s two sons and a young woman, either an older daughter of Ismayil or a younger wife. Later, in appreciation of his successful raid, Togochi Sigusi received her as his wife.

Upon his return, Togochi Sigusi announced to the khan, “I have killed the one who was envious of you. I have subdued the one who hated you.”

He presented Dayan Khan to his mother, a woman of whom the Khan had no memory and whom he had not seen in twenty years. No chronicle mentions what she said to him—or he to her—but she was by no means happy to see him.

The convoluted kinship, political, and emotional lines between them were inordinately complex, and no one had a precedent by which to act. Even if Siker was the birth mother to Dayan Khan, Manduhai had raised him and married him. There was no more of a place for Siker in the present or the future of her son than there had been in the past.

The failed effort to reconcile with Dayan Khan’s mother left him and Manduhai where they had always been, emotionally alone. They remained totally dependent on each other and bereft of relatives who might help them.

Around the time of Ismayil’s defeat, and only two years after the birth of her first two sons, Manduhai gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Toroltu—a name similar to Toro, meaning “State” or “Government,” but which had the more specific meaning of giving life or birth and was part of the word for humanity. Over the next decade Manduhai had three additional pregnancies, resulting in five sons. Although the chronicles disagree as to precisely which were twins, they generally agree on the names and birth order. After Toroltu’s birth, Manduhai had two boys, Barsu Bolod, meaning “Steel Tiger,” and Arsu Bolod, “Steel Lion.” Soon after came Alju Bolod and Ochir Bolod, followed by the final single birth of Ara Bolod.

After the birth of two sons, Manduhai or Dayan Khan could straightforwardly have terminated their relationship, or if they had been so inclined, disposed of each other. With such heirs, Manduhai could have ruled as regent without sharing power. Had she wished to live with Une-Bolod for example, she could easily have rid herself of her husband and taken whomever she wished.

As he grew older, Dayan Khan also had the option to replace Manduhai with another woman; he could simply have left her with her retainers in some distant part of the country, or if he feared what she might do under those circumstances, he could easily have arranged her death. Many rising young soldiers would be anxious to curry favor with the monarch by committing such an act, by testifying against her in a trial, or by assisting in any one of a dozen other methods to dispose of an unwanted queen. Such killings of khans and khatuns had occurred routinely among the Mongols in the generations since the successful attacks on Genghis Khan’s daughters. Despite such opportunities to each be rid of the other and have a different life, Manduhai and Dayan Khan stayed together willingly and seemingly with great affection. They had a solid political and marital union.

As the sons grew older, Manduhai sent them to live with allies in different tribes. In this way, they became acquainted with different parts of the country in preparation for their role as rulers. At the same time, each son provided Manduhai with information about the tribe where he lived and served as her link to the local population. Manduhai began using her sons as “intercessors” in much the way that Genghis Khan had used his daughters.

The Chinese had left the Mongols to fight among themselves and scarcely noticed the comings and goings of the barbarians. The court had never been a vibrant place, but with the aging of Lady Wan and her increasing attention on keeping the emperor comfortable while making her formerly impoverished relatives rich, life in the court grew stagnant and stale.

Being pregnant, giving birth, and raising children did not initially slow Manduhai’s military campaigns. She and Dayan Khan continued to live the life of nomadic warriors. Like Genghis Khan, Manduhai recognized that a nation conquered on horseback had to be ruled from horseback. Genghis Khan had fought and lived in the field, but his sons and grandsons had settled down to build cities, and eventually their descendants had lost all that Genghis Khan had acquired for them.