Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom

The trefoil of the Barrow

Lev Gumilev

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3. Distribution of Religions in the Mid-Twelfth Century (168 KB)

8. The Loss of a Dream (1218-1259)

Advantages and Disadvantages of the View from the Barrow

As we have seen, each degree of approximation affords the opportunity to view the subject in a new way, but losses grow in direct proportion to gains. Thus, looking at the object with a bird's eye view, or an approximation of 2.5, we were able to disclose the geographic location of the non-existent Christian Kingdom in Asia and even the period in which the events which gave rise to the medieval legend took place. But with this approach we are in no position to establish the details of events, still less their causes: economic, social, political and ideological. The latter, least weighty in the actual course of history, are of value as an indicator disclosing deep patterns. But even the surface description was inadequate, because the polemical literature of the Nestorians against Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Bon, shamanism and even Sufism has not survived; it did, of course, exist, it has just not come down to us.

Therefore, selecting the most important link in the chain of events, we have looked at it in more detail and, thanks to this, have explained some patterns in the "force of circumstances" or, more academically, the logic of events. But the global perspective has been lost. In the haze on the horizon objects are depicted indistinctly; that is as it should be. If the history of Europe, Byzantium, the Caliphate and China are depicted at the same approximation, our Kara-Khitan, Naiman and even the Mongols will drown in a sea of facts, extremely interesting, but remote from our subject as the silhouette of a camel seen against the sky where it touches the earth; of course, this is only for our eyes. But it is impossible to get by without a perspective, for the link between events is felt throughout the whole of the Eurasian continent and North Africa. So we shall try to {170} find a way out, depicting remote but important phenomena as outlines or, metaphorically speaking, silhouettes.

During the 108 years from the break up of the nomad unity conventionally known as Zubu to the great kuriltai on the Onon where the new nomad empire had been proclaimed, Europe and Hither Asia had changed beyond recognition. The First Crusade had led to the formation of the feudal Kingdom of Jerusalem; the Second summoned a genius, like a spirit from the abyss, the Kurd Yusuf son of Eyub, Sala ad-Din, who conquered Jerusalem and united Egypt and Syria, thus creating a barrier which even the kings and knights of the Third Crusade were unable to pass.

Enmity between Franks and Greeks grew, not daily, but hourly. The devastation of Epirus and Thessaloniki by the Sicilian Normans, the robberies by the Crusaders in friendly Thrace, the insults by Italian merchants in Constantinople itself evoked justified dissatisfaction among the Greeks. The Greeks" refusal to help the Crusaders with provisions, the obligation, imposed by the Byzantine Emperor on the leaders of the crusading levy, to take the oath of vassals, the enlisting of Pechenegs and Turks against the European forces of Gottfried of Bouillon and Frederick Barbarossa perturbed the whole Catholic world. The Crusaders" failure was blamed on the Greeks and Geoffroy de Villehardouin wrote that: "The land over the sea (Palestine) was in the clutches of Persida and Byzantium." Both cultural regions were to him equally hostile, despite the fact that one of them was Christian. The ethnic and cultural gulf was greater than the similarity of dogma. Finally, blood flowed; in 1182 the Greek population of the coastal towns organised a massacre of the factories of the Italian merchants and a merciless slaughter. The reply to this, not thought out, but emotional, based not on political consideration, but on the "force of circumstances" became the Fourth Crusade. Only thanks to the accumulated hatred did Doge Dandolo succeed with his hellish idea.

There was no smooth transition from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. A fierce spasm in East and West set a sharp border between the two periods, changing in the course of some three years the whole disposition of forces in the Eurasian continent. This border passed through 1204.

In the twelfth century Constantinople was the Paris of the Middle Ages. It was "famous for its wealth", writes Eudes de Deuil, "but in reality its treasures exceed their fame". Robert de Clary asserted {171} that "two thirds of the world's wealth is in Constantinople and one third is scattered throughout the world". [+65] Then, on 12 April 1204 Constantinople was taken by assault and the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist.

The crusading knights justified themselves as having done something pleasing to God, for the Greeks were schismatics, heretics, perhaps worse than the Muslim and the heathen. [+66] The cultural and historical principle prevailed over the question of dogma, and the Catholics, unable to conquer Islam, declared war on Orthodoxy. Pope Innocent III, who at first had been opposed to the war against Christians and had threatened the Crusaders with excommunication, in 1207 put himself (or was obliged to put himself) at the head of a new drive to the east. [+67] That year Catholic diplomacy managed to conclude an agreement with the Bulgarian king, which saved the Latin Empire, and the Pope demanded that Poland, the Order, Sweden, and Norway stop taking iron into Rus`. The Russian princes" political shortsightedness ensured the success of Catholic penetration. In 1212 Bishop Albert of Livonia concluded an alliance with the Polotsk prince against the Ests, then married his brother to the Pskov prince's daughter, after which, in 1228, a pro-German boyar group appeared in Pskov. [+68] In 1231 Pope Gregory IX proposed to Yurii II, Prince of Vladimir and All Rus`, that he accept Catholicism. [+69] In reply, Yurii sent the Dominican monks out of Rus`; then the forces of the Swedes, Germans and Lithuanians began their advance on Novgorod and Pskov. At this time the Lithuanians were seeking an alliance with the papacy to muzzle the Livonian Knights.

In 1239, when relations between the Latins and Bulgaria had deteriorated, Narjot de Toucy concluded an alliance, sealed by {172} marriage, with one of the Polovtsy khans in order to threaten Bulgaria and Rus` with a pincer movement. K. Marx considered this "the last word of stupidity by the crusader-knights", [+70] and he was right, even though educated Europeans in the thirteenth century thought the conquest of Rus` would be no more difficult than the subjection of Prussia. [+71] Essentially, the war which started in 1204 was one of the first aimed at acquiring colonies; the religious colouring corresponded to the spirit of the times.

At the same time, in the Mongol steppes, Chinggiskhan was victorious and conquered two of the strongest and most cultivated of khanates: the Kerait in 1203 and the Naiman in 1204. But Chinggiskhan dealt with the vanquished Kerait and Naiman much more humanely than Baldwin of Flanders did with the Greeks. The Kerait and Naiman increased the strength of the Mongol army, the royal princess Sorqoqtani [+72] married the khan's favourite son, Tolui, and kept her Nestorian church by her with its clergy and property. [+73] Her children, Mongke, Kubilai, Hulegu and Arik-Boke, were brought up in the spirit of respect for the Christian religion, although, according to the Mongolian Yasa, they could not be baptised. [+74] There was no benefit to Orthodoxy in the triumph of Nestorianism since the nomad clergy still recalled in the thirteenth century that the founder of their faith had received the martyr's crown from the Greeks. [+75]

But the victory of Nestorianism perhaps threatened the Muslims with even more troubles. It was, of course, the Christian Uighurs who had set the Kara-Khitan and Naiman on the Muslim population {173} of Central Asia and, as soon as they were convinced that the gurkhans restricted themselves to the exaction of tribute, withdrew their support. The Chinese Confucians evoked no sympathy among the Nestorians; they had two hundred years earlier driven the Christian faith from China. Now, when they formed a majority in the army and the bureaucracy, when the royal princes and many Mongol noyans were linked with them by ties of marriage or friendship and when their merchants had obtained luxurious privileges and income merely because they had not obliged the Mongols to exterminate them, now the Nestorians considered the time was ripe to realise, with the help of a heathen khan, that very dream of an eastern Christian kingdom which had not so far been achieved. Therefore, they became fervent adherents of Chinggiskhan, true defenders of his authority.

For his part, Chinggiskhan knew how to value their faithfulness and diligence. It is difficult to say whether he knew of the hopes they placed on him. Probably he knew but did not burden himself with speculation about it. He had enough cares without that. The Jurchen in China were manly and obstinate, like the Mongols themselves, and war in the east continued, though without due energy, throughout his reign. His western neighbour, the Khwarizmshah Muhammed, had a regular army twice the size of Chinggiskhan's whole force. The attitude of the Khwarizm people to the Mongols was openly hostile and they held the initiative to unleash war. The Mongols displayed enviable restraint. They failed to react to the uncalled for attack on their troops on the Irgiz in 1216. After the pillaging and destruction of a caravan in Otrar in 1218 Chinggiskhan attempted to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means, but when the Khwarizmshah ordered the Mongol emissary to be killed war became unavoidable. For the first time since the First Turkish Kaganate, a united Great Steppe arose before the Near East.

Consequences and Causes

The chronological period in which the problem we have posed occurs comes to an end with the tragedy of 1218, or more precisely, with the death of Kuchlug. But, as we devoted an introductory chapter, on the preconditions of the original moment, to exposing the events directly concerning us, so, for the sake of clarity, we have to trace the contours of a new period, the greatness and dissolution {174} of the Mongol ulus, because the main sources for our theme were written in the thirteenth century. And the reliability of information in the sources depends not only on the material their authors used, but also on the circumstances in which they worked and the reader they were addressing.

Second, a still more important circumstance compels us to devote space to the consequences of the events described. Knowing the causes, it is not difficult to consider their consequences, but, knowing the consequences, by the reverse mental process we may recover the causes giving rise to them. Therefore, the more we extend our aim in space and time, the easier we shall achieve it In the course of the hundred years from the appearance of the legend of the priest-king John to complete disillusion with the hopes of an eastern Christianity, changes took place in Europe which are directly related to our subject. Let us try to see them at a glance, leaving out, of course, details and minor points which can only hinder us here. A special place and its own method of analysis and synthesis will be found for them, but on a different scale.

Equally, we shall leave aside the problem of the disappearance of Nestorianism in Asia, since it is so complex that it deserves a special investigation of no less a size than that we have undertaken. You cannot write everything in one book, but you should have a lot in your field of vision. This is the practical value of the "panoramic method" we have proposed and applied in this work. So, let us begin with a historical panorama.

In 1211 the Mongols took the Jurchen frontier fortress of Wu-sha and thus declared that they would wage war on the Jurchen. The first round in the war ended in 1215 with the capture of Beijing and the conclusion of an armistice, which was broken the following year since the Mongol khan's proposals were unacceptable to the Jurchen. Chinggiskhan demanded that all the lands north of the Huang He be ceded and that the Jurchen ruler should renounce the title of emperor, in other words, his independence.

The war between the Jurchen and the Mongols was extremely bloody. Thus, at the fall of Beijing "a great multitude of officials and inhabitants perished". [+76] In order not to fall into enemy hands, many women flung themselves from the town walls and were crushed to death. The heart-rending pictures which impressed the imagination {175} of Chinese historians gave them the grounds to depict the Mongols as monstrous exterminators and Chinggiskhan as a fiend. However we must look at the subject from two sides. The war with the Jurchen had not been started, but continued by the Mongols. Its first period, 1135-47, began with the killing of the Jurchen spy and ended with the victory of the Mongols who had defended their nomadic grazing grounds from Jurchen aggression. The second period, constantly forgotten, began in the year of Chinggiskhan's birth, 1161/2, and continued to 1189. Meng Hong, [+77] a learned and intelligent Chinese, described it brilliantly. "The head of the Jin exclaimed with alarm: "The Tatars will unfailingly be a cause of disturbance to our kingdom!" Therefore, he gave orders for an immediate attack to be mounted against their remote and desert country. Every three years troops were sent to the north to exterminate and plunder; this was called "the reduction of slaves and extermination of people". Even now they remember in China that for twenty years before this, in Shandong and Hebei, what home had not bought Tatar boys and girls into slavery? These had all been captured by the troops. Those who at the present time [the thirteenth century - L.G.] are grandees among the Tatars were then for the most part led off into captivity... The Tatars fled into Shamo [the desert - L.G.] and vengeance entered their blood and brain." [+78] It were better unsaid! What the Chinese scholar described recalls the hunt for Indian scalps organised by the Puritans of New England and the Baptists of Massachusetts, the slave trade of the French and English merchant venturers, the slaughter of the Patagonians undertaken by the Argentine government, i.e. pages of history branded as those most shameful for mankind. After such crimes committed by the Jurchen themselves, the bitterness of the Mongols is to be explained as a psychological reaction to an external irritant or as a conditioned reflex: pain comes from the Jurchen, so, one has to destroy the source of the pain. In such a situation, formed by history, Chinggiskhan's personal qualities were not significant. He led his people {176} against their ancient, merciless enemies because his whole people, the children of the dead and the brothers of those sold into slavery, wanted it. And had he not done this, he would not have been khan!

Moreover, we must note that the Mongols waged war correctly. When the Ongut and Khitan, also offended by the Jurchen, proposed peace and help to Chinggis, he accepted it and these people suffered in no way. Moreover, the northern Jurchen (in Manchuria) capitulated and were not only granted mercy, but were included in the Mongol army as a separate corps (tumen). War, of course, is a terrible thing, but in class society it is unavoidable as the sole means of resolving contradictions. One may morally condemn whoever started the war; the Jurchen were guilty of that. But to find fault with the victor who has transferred the battlefield to his opponent's territory is senseless and immoral. Here, it seems, not historical perspicacity, but prejudice dominates.

The unification of the steppe by means of war had both positive and negative consequences. The merchants leading caravans between the Far and Near East gained, as did the Mongol noyans purchasing luxury fabrics for their wives. The poor population of the steppes lost, since in wartime the number of livestock fell and the steppe was impoverished. But as the 110,000 army that had been formed had to be fed, continuous war had to be waged in China where the soldiers found their own food and booty. After their first defeats the Jurchen recovered and offered frantic resistance to the Mongols so that the war continued till 1234 and its successful completion was, to a certain extent, due to the Southern Song (the truly Chinese empire) attacking the Jurchen in the rear and tying down forces which were needed to repulse the Mongols. The Jurchen who continued to resist in the fortresses to the south of the Huang He for the most part perished.

The conflict between the Mongols and the Khwarizmshah Muhammed led to war in 1219 which ended in the complete rout of the Khwarizm forces. Mongol troops penetrated into India, into the Caucasus and into the south Russian steppes, but they only managed to occupy Central Asia as far as the Amu Darya; the Khwarizm forces were somewhat restored by Muhammed's son, Jalal ad-Din, who tried to unite the possessions of the Muslim sultans and emirs of Hither Asia for the struggle against the Mongol incursions. He had to waste time and effort, however, on a war with Georgia and as a consequence he lost the pace of his offensive and {177} this enabled the Mongols to consolidate in Central Asia. By 1227 the position of the fronts here had become threateningly tense.

Successful wars in China, Central Asia, Iran and the Polovtsy steppe allowed the Mongol government to feed the army, but did not save the country from an economic crisis, because with enormous distances and poor means of communication it was very difficult to get the booty home. The greater part was lost on the way and never reached Mongolia, where the lack of textiles and livestock grew. Therefore, Chinggiskhan seized on a reason for war with the nearby Tangut which the Tangut king himself provided. He refused Chinggiskhan the military help against Khwarizm which he should have provided under the treaty of 1211. Evidently, the Tangut king hoped that Chinggiskhan would suffer defeat in the war with Khwarizm and the Tangut kingdom would become independent again without bloodshed. Chinggiskhan, after completing his Central Asian campaign early in 1225, fell on the Tangut with the troops released and besieged the town of Etzin-ai (now the ruins of Qaraqoto). During the siege, in August 1227, Chinggiskhan died, but the noyans concealed the khan's death, compelled the town to surrender and dealt harshly with its population. An enormous booty in cattle and especially camels saved Mongolia from a severe economic crisis caused by the military expenditures. This last victory ensured the dominance of the Mongol Empire in east Central Asia where the Mongols no longer had any competitors. At one time it was believed that the Mongols completely exterminated the Tangut and turned the country into a desert, but research on texts brought from Qaraqoto by P.K. Kozlov has shown that the town of Etzin-ai existed until 1372 under the Mongol name of Uraqai; it was then taken by the Chinese and destroyed. [+79]

The victory over the Tangut kingdom brought with it the voluntary submission of Tibet. After the first incursion into Northern Tibet, when the Mongols seized several monasteries and slaughtered the monks, the Tibetans proposed that the Mongols should accept from them a tribute in learned lamas and agreed to allow their young men to enter the ranks of the Mongol army, evidently in order to lose some surplus population. [+80] The agreement {178} suited both sides, since the Mongols needed literate officials and soldiers and the barren plateaux and mountain ranges did not attract them In Tibet there was no central authority and anarchy oppressed the fragmented country. The steppe was an accommodating landscape for the Mongols and they did not wish, and were unable, to settle outside its limits.

One must note that the nomad is much more closely linked with his primary setting than the farmer. The latter adapts nature to his needs and habits, changes the flora on the plots he cultivates and, having a surplus product, raises domestic animals, i.e. influences the fauna. The farmer always has a stock of provisions allowing him to make long migrations and create his accustomed conditions in suitable new locations. The nomad is tied to his animals adapted to particular conditions which are strictly specialised. Therefore, although the habitat of the nomad is wide, it can only be replaced by an analogous one, for example, feather grass by wormwood steppe, but not by forest, hills or desert. This so reduces the ability of nomad peoples to migrate that the Mongols, after conquering the Kipchak steppes up to the Ural and Central Asia to the Amu Darya and the Aral Sea, did not transfer their grazing grounds there, but restricted themselves to acquiring part of Dzungaria. Even there, in the foothills of Tarbagatai, the true Mongols mixed with the local Turkic population whose economy was adapted to seasonal pasturing of livestock and "vertical nomadism" [i.e. transhumance - tr.], from steppes to mountains and back. As a result of a secondary adaptation and intermingling, a new people arose which in course of time became completely distinct from the true Mongols and acquired the ancient name of Oirat, or the new one of Kalmuk. [+81]

It would seem that, based on the principle we have described, further conquests by the Mongols were quite unnecessary. And in fact Mongolia was drawn into the subsequent wars not of its own will, but by the logic of events in world history and a policy in which it could no longer fail to take part.

The Force of Inertia

Chinggiskhan had four sons (by his first legal wife) entitled to inherit. The eldest, Jochi, did not get on with his father, attempted to show mercy to the conquered and early in 1227 was killed by men sent to murder him. His children, Orda and Batu, received modest portions on the infertile north-western borderlands of the empire. Orda had Southern Siberia and Batu the Ural-Caspian steppe with Khwarizm thrown in. The second son, Chagatai, was "guardian of the Yasa" and received Central Asia as his portion. He was so stern and severe that Chinggiskhan before he died recommended that not he, but his third son, Ogedei, should be chosen to rule; he received Western Mongolia and Dzungaria as his portion. Ogedei was kind, ungifted and inclined to drink, so he did not seem dangerous to the Mongol military nobility who feared arbitrary rule by the khan. The fourth son, Tolui, who according to Mongol custom received his father's lands as his portion, was one of the most gifted commanders and energetic rulers. He had had his military training in China, fighting against the best Jurchen commanders, and guided by Sube'etei-ba'atur who in fifty years of military service never lost a single battle and never violated the Mongolian Yasa. His close association with Sube'etei assured Tolui of popularity with the troops. According to Mongol law the kuriltai (a general meeting of warriors) selected khans; until it was convoked, which required time, a regency was instituted and Tolui was put at the head of the government.

The kuriltai at which Ogedei was chosen as khan took place in 1229, and while the Mongol forces were withdrawn from their fronts the Jurchen and Muslim were able to recover and put pressure on the Mongol covering forces. But from 1230 the Mongols again went onto the offensive, completed the conquest of the Jurchen in China and, after in 1230 routing Jalal ad-Din, irrupted into Hither Asia where they overcame all the Muslim rulers except the Caliph of Baghdad.

In 1235, after the victory over the Jurchen, a kuriltai was held in the Mongol capital, Karakorum, built by Chinggiskhan, and decided to carry the war with the Polovtsy, Bolgars and the Russians who were supporting them, to its conclusion. Troops from all four ulus of the Mongol Empire were sent on the "Western campaign". The highest command was held by Batu-khan, but he was given the {180} best of the Mongol commanders, Sube'etei, for the actual direction of operations. Ogedei's son, Guyuk, Chagatai's son, Buri, and Tolui's son, Mongke, commanded separate corps. Detachments of Central Asian Turks who had been wandering around with nothing to do after the devastation of Khwarizm were attached to the basic regular forces. They were not particularly battleworthy, but were of help to the basic forces.

In 1236 the Mongols crossed the Volga and took the town of Great Bulgar (near Kazan`). Then Mongke fell on the Polovtsy on the lower reaches of the Volga and defeated their leader, Bachman, who was hiding from the Mongols in the Volga-Akhtyubinsk flood plain. Next Mongke conquered the Alans in the Kuban and reached the Don, driving the remnants of the Polovtsy forces before him. At the same time Batu with the main force burst into the Ryazan` principality and took Ryazan`. The Mongols then fell on the Vladimir principality and burnt Suzdal`. Prince Yurii II ordered his military commanders to defend the capital and went himself to the north to raise a levy. The Mongols took Vladimir on 7 February 1238, and on 4 March on the river Sit` routed the levy raised by Yurii II who himself fell in the battle. After the battle and after taking Torzhok, the Mongols moved towards Novgorod, but the spring flooding made them withdraw to the steppe for the summer. On their way the town of Kozel'sk detained them for seven weeks; the Mongols left not a single living being in it.

In 1239-40 the Mongols entered Southern Rus` and took Chernigov and Kiev. The latter suffered particularly badly, because the Kievans had killed the Mongol envoys. From there the Mongols passed through Volyn` and Galicia into Poland and at Liegnitz in 1241 routed a levy of Polish and German knights.

Meanwhle another Mongol force had penetrated into Hungary through passes in the Carpathians and routed a Hungarian army on the river Shayava. Then the Mongols took Pesht and, pursuing the Hungarian king, reached the Adriatic. However, in Moravia the Czechs defeated the Mongols near Olomouc and compelled one of the Mongol armies to retreat into Hungary to join up with the main force. Here Batu received news of the death of khan Ogedei and hurriedly left with his troops through Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia and the Polovtsy steppes for the east, since the exacerbation of contradictions within the Mongol Empire demanded his direct intervention: parties had been formed in the Mongol force {181} itself between which clashes were unavoidable and which promised brutal death for the loser. [+82]

Party Strife

The Mongol troops included in their ranks so many conquered people that they had begun to claim their rights. The basic problem facing Chinggiskhan at the time of his death was the attitude to the conquered. One trend was to keep them in subjection by force, a second was to bind them by kindness. Jochi tried to take the second line and paid for it with his life. In 1240-1 Batu quarrelled with his cousins, Guyuk and Buri, sent them from the army and complained about them to their fathers. The khan and the guardian of the Yasa punished their sons by declaring them disgraced, but all the same the question arose as to who would become khan and who would be executed. Both competitors, Guyuk and Batu, began to seek support; Chagatai's children joined Guyuk, and Tolui's children Batu. But the genuine power in the country no longer belonged to the khans and the royal princes, but to a foreigner, the official Ye-lu Chu-cai, appointed "head of the great imperial secretariat" by Ogedei, i.e. chief of the civil administration of conquered China. A Kerait, Chinkai, who had far less influence, controlled the lands of the west.

Ye-lu Chu-cai was a member of the Khitan royal house which had been overthrown by the Jurchen. He had been educated in the spirit of Confucian philosophy and had been an official of the Jurchen government. Going over to the Mongols, Ye-lu Chu-cai made his career and became one of the closest advisers of Chinggiskhan who felt a need for cultivated people.

At the end of Chinggiskhan's reign the question was raised at the kuriltai of what to do with the population of Northern China, now conquered. The people, frightened of the Mongols, were dispersing among the hills and forests and forming bands; this was of no benefit to the Mongols. The Mongol military leaders proposed to slaughter all the Chinese and convert the land into pasture; but Ye-lu Chu-cai opposed this. He showed, with figures, what taxes might be {182} collected, if the people were given the right to live and work. The money tempted the khan, and the Chinese population was spared.

Ogedei was completely under the influence of his minister who, in 1229, produced reforms which should have converted the military monarchy into a bureaucratic one. A judicial reform established legal proceedings, thus limiting the arbitrary exercise of authority by Mongol officers on civilian service. A financial reform introduced taxation of the Mongols themselves at a rate of one per cent. In 1230 Ye-lu Chu-cai said to Ogedei: "The Empire was conquered on horseback, but it is impossible to run it from horseback." The khan listened to this favourably and in 1231 appointed Ye-lu Chu-cai zhongshuling, i.e. chancellor, and allowed him to pursue his political line. It was crowned with success. The taxes gave an income which astounded the khan. Ye-lu Chu-cai obtained the khan's complete confidence and, concentrating in his hands financial, legal and administrative authority, he became the manager of the whole internal policy in China. But this system encountered opposition on the part of the army; the first clash took place in 1233. After a long and arduous siege Sube'etei took the Jurchen capital of Bianjing (Kaifeng). According to Mongol law, a town not surrendering before the siege implements had been brought into use should be cut down to the last man. this fate awaited the inhabitants of Bianjing, but Ye-lu Chu-cai showed that exterminating the town's inhabitants would harm the treasury and stated the amount of income which would result by sparing the inhabitants. Ogedei agreed with him.

With the money obtained from the population that had been spared, Ye-lu Chu-cai finished the building of Karakorum, the capital of the empire, which had been started by Chinggiskhan in 1220. A luxurious palace was built for the khan, but Ogedei preferred to live in a yurt.

In 1235 it seemed that the human resources of Mongolia were insufficient to continue the policy of conquest. A project was put forward to use Muslim troops in China, and Chinese ones in the west. Ye-lu Chu-cai managed to counter this project, arguing that, in strange and unaccustomed circumstances, these troops would be of little use, would involve considerable losses and that the transfer of these troops would be too difficult. In this case, too, Ye-lu Chu-cai defended the interests of the conquered peoples, not of the Mongol forces.

{183} At the conquest of China, Ogedei promised his generals to divide the subjugated lands between them Ye-lu Chu-cai proposed not to reward them with portions of land, which would harm the authority of the cent