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The Twelve Tümen of the Aglag Khüree Khalkha Mongols

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The Twelve Tümen of the Aglag Khüree Khalkha Mongols ᭿ Translated excerpt from D. Gongor, Khalkh Torchoon (The History of Khalkh), Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Science, 1970 20 THE TWELVE TÜMEN OF THE AGLAG KHÜREE KHALKHA MONGOLS Gongor lthough the empire that had, as a result of Chinggis Khaan’s conquests, brought A so many countries of Asia and Europe under a unified rule had fallen apart with the demise of the Yuan dynasty in China in 1368, the national state of the Mongols that was born in 1206 did not collapse. For this reason the downfall of the empire and the destruction of the Mongolian feudal nation-state should be approached separately. In our view, the unified, central Mongol feudal state continued to exist after the Yuan dynasty, well into the later stages of feudal society as such. For this reason, our histor- ical chronicles made a point of carefully distinguishing between the sixteen Ikh Khaad (Yeke Qaghad, Great Khaans) from Chinggis to Togoonto˝mo˝r whose reigns encompassed Mongolia, China and many other countries of Asia and Europe from 1206 to 1368, and the twenty-one Baga Khaad (Lesser Khaans) from Bilegtu to Ligden, the dynastic rulers who held sovereignty over the Mongolian people in their native land from 1370 to 1634. Or, in other words, the chronicles differentiate between the imperial overlords and those who came in their wake. Also, some of the historical sources identify Mongolia in the second half of the fourteenth century as Ar Yuan Uls (Aru Yuvan Ulus, the Northern Yuan) and describe the period as ‘the time of the baga khaad ’. This could be viewed as proof of the fact that the rule of the Mongol khaans in this period no longer extended over the many Asian and European countries as it had in the imperial times and was confined to the limits of their native country and her people, and, on the other hand, that the Mongol nation state was not entirely destroyed after the empire. A true picture of the period from the second half of the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century would be one of rampant feudal strife, which drained the khaans of their strength and authority, and at times made the khaan’s throne a trophy in the hands of one contentious prince or another. However, it is also true that this period saw the emergence of such powerful khaans as Esen, Batmo˝nkh Dayan Setsen and Tümen Zasagt, who were able to unify all Mongols. And it is to this period that our history books ascribe ‘the coming of the Forty and the Four under the rule of one khaan’. Hence, the end of the Mongol feudal nation-state came about not with the demise of the Yuan dynasty but only with the establishment of Manchurian dominion over the Mongols in the seventeenth century. The period from the second half of the fourteenth century onward marked notable changes in the situation of the Mongol feudal state. In the times of the empire, the THE TWELVE TÜMEN OF THE AGLAG KHÜREE KHALKHA MONGOLS 509 eastern Mongols or the Eastern Wing numbered forty tümen (units of ten thousand) while the western Oirat Mongols or the Western Wing were made up of four tümen, all collectively known in short as ‘the four and forty pair’ (do˝chin do˝rvo˝n khoyor). But after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, the eastern Mongols, döcin dörban qoyar became the Six Tümen or Six Great Realms (Ikh Uls, Yeke Ulus) and western Mongols the Four Tümen or the Four Oirats, described in some sources as the Ten Tümen.1 The suzerains of feudal states used a method that they deemed to be a practical means of enforcing their rule by distributing land and serfs to their kin and to officials who had served well in government, to use for one generation. Over time these shares acquired the character of hereditary property belonging to feudal princes who began to have second thoughts about their loyalty to the central power, and would rather follow their own wishes. The suzerain soon had no option other than accommodating his now powerful vassals. Such is the logic underlying the disintegration of the feudal system. The same logic applied equally to the feudal relations that took root on Mongolian soil. The land and serfs once handed out by Chinggis Khaan to the princes and other members of the Golden Lineage (altan urag), some loyal comrades, ministers and com- manders who had served the state well, had gradually turned into hereditary fiefdoms, thus laying the ground for the crumbling of the feudal system. This protracted process of disintegration that gained momentum in the second half of the fourteenth century, corroded Mongolia’s national independence and eventually became a cause of her subjugation to Manchurian domination and of economic and cultural humiliation. The circumstances mentioned above had led the Eastern Wing of Mongolia to fall apart into the Six Tümen or the Six Great Realms of East Mongolia, one of which was the Khalkha Tümen or the Khalkha Uls (ulus, realm). Some historical writings describe the East Mongolian Six Tümen also as tüg tümen2 (multitude) where the word tümen meant not the unit of ten thousand mounted troops of imperial times, but a feudal fiefdom that included tens of thousands of people and sprawled over an enormous land area. So it would be a mistake to conceive of the Khalkha tümen of the second half of the fourteenth century as an emulation of the system of military organization of the imperial past. It is for precisely this reason that historians such as Sagan Setsen imbued the words uls and tümen with one and the same meaning and used them interchangeably. The East Mongolian Six Tümen were divided into eastern and western wings, each comprising three tümen, with the Khalkha figuring as one of the tümen in the eastern banner. Among these six tümen, seniority was assigned to the three tümen of the eastern wing, including the Khalkha. This fact is mentioned in one Mongolian historical source as follows: With hearts loyal to the khan, With the power to sustain our lives, With the strength coming from togetherness, The beloved Three Eastern Tümen.3 Among the Six Tümen, the Khalkha tümen was the central or core tümen. It occupied a territory roughly matching that of the Mongolian People’s Republic. Historical sources refer to ‘the heartland of the Mongol country or the Khalkha country’.4 Our own historical writings tell about ‘the Aglag Twelve Khüree Khalkha’,5 ‘the Twelve Khalkha’,6 ‘the Twelve Khalkha otog [administrative divisions]’.7 This, first of all,.
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