UNIVERSITY OF SZEGED DOCTORAL SCHOOL OF HISTORY MEDIEVAL STUDIES PROGRAM MÁRTON VÉR The postal system of the Mongol Empire in northeastern Turkestan PhD Dissertation Advisors: Prof. Dr. István Zimonyi Dr. Simone-Christiane Raschmann Szeged 2016 Diese Arbeit ist meinem verstorbenen Großvater, Vilmos Kun, dem besten Anekdotenerzähler, den ich kannte und meinem Vater, Tibor Vér, in Dankbarkeit für nächtelange inspirierende Gespräche in unserer Küche gewidmet. 1 Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 8 PART ONE: ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER I: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................................... 16 1.1. Antecedents ................................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Submission to the Mongols and the period of the united empire (1209 – mid 13th century) ................................................................................................................................. 17 th th 1.3. Civil wars in Central Asia (mid-13 –early 14 cc.) ..................................................... 21 th th 1.4. Under Chaghadaid rule (from the early 14 to mid-14 century) ................................ 24 CHAPTER II: THE SOURCES OF THE POSTAL SYSTEM OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE IN GENERAL 28 2.1. The Secret History of the Mongols ............................................................................... 28 2.2. Chinese sources ............................................................................................................. 29 2.3. Persian sources .............................................................................................................. 33 2.4. Latin sources ................................................................................................................. 36 2.5. Other sources ................................................................................................................. 39 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH HISTORY OF THE POSTAL RELAY SYSTEM OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE ....................................................................................................................................... 42 3.1 The creation of the postal system ........................................................................... 42 3.2 Purposes and services of the postal system ............................................................ 43 3.3 Administration and finances .................................................................................. 48 3.4 Runners .................................................................................................................. 50 3.5 Inheritance of the yam-system ............................................................................... 51 CHAPTER IV: DESCRIPTION OF THE MATERIAL ................................................................. 52 4.1. Uyghur documents ........................................................................................................ 52 4.1.1. Official documents ................................................................................................. 52 4.1.1.1. Decrees and administrative orders .................................................................. 53 4.1.1.1.1. Provision orders ........................................................................................ 53 4.1.1.1.2. Käzig orders ............................................................................................. 58 4.1.1.1.3. Miscellaneous orders ................................................................................ 61 4.1.1.2. Official accounts ............................................................................................. 62 4.1.1.3. Official register ............................................................................................... 67 4.1.2. Private documents .................................................................................................. 67 4.1.2.1. Lists and registers concerning the ulag-system ........................................... 68 4.1.2.2. Other private lists ........................................................................................ 72 4.2. Middle Mongolian Documents ...................................................................................... 72 4.3. The Middle Mongolian decrees in comparison with the Uyghur administrative documents ............................................................................................................................. 75 2 CHAPTER V: ANIMAL TERMINOLOGY IN THE UYGHUR DOCUMENTS .................................. 77 5.1. Ulag .......................................................................................................................... 77 5.2. Boguz at .................................................................................................................... 87 CHAPTER VI: THE ORIGIN OF THE POSTAL SYSTEM OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE .................... 91 6.1. Linguistic approaches ............................................................................................... 91 6.2. Historical approaches ............................................................................................... 95 6.3. Central Asia tradition ............................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER VII: RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THE POSTAL SYSTEM OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE ..................................................................................................................................... 102 7.1. Taxation .................................................................................................................. 104 7.2. Confiscation and requisition ................................................................................... 111 7.3. Usage of the postal system by the religious communities ..................................... 112 PART TWO: THE CRITICAL EDITION OF THE DOCUMENTS ................................................. 115 INTRODUCTION TO THE CRITICAL EDITION OF THE DOCUMENTS ...................................... 116 Order of the documents ...................................................................................................... 116 The system of transliteration and transcription and the system of quotation ..................... 122 Vocabularies ....................................................................................................................... 123 CHAPTER VIII: RESEARCH HISTORY OF THE MATERIAL .................................................. 124 8.1 Expeditions and excavations .................................................................................. 124 8.1.1. Russian Expeditions ............................................................................................. 124 8.1.2. British expeditions ................................................................................................ 127 8.1.3. German Expeditions ............................................................................................. 127 8.1.4. Japanese expeditions ............................................................................................ 129 8.1.5. Chinese expeditions .............................................................................................. 131 8.2 Research history of the material ............................................................................. 131 8.2.1 Uyghur civil documents ................................................................................... 132 8.2.2 The Middle Mongolian documents .................................................................. 140 CHAPTER IX: UYGHUR DOCUMENTS .............................................................................. 141 9.1 Official documents ....................................................................................................... 141 9.1.1 Provision orders ..................................................................................................... 141 PO01 Ch/U 7370 v (Glas: T II 1054) ..................................................................... 141 PO02 MIK III 6972a (T I α) ................................................................................... 145 PO03 MIK III 6972b, c (T I α) ............................................................................... 146 PO04 U 5283 v (TM70) .......................................................................................... 147 PO05 U 5285 (TM71) ............................................................................................. 149 PO06 U 5291 ([T I] D 51/T.M. 91.) ....................................................................... 151 PO07 U 5315 ([T] II S 18) ...................................................................................... 153 3 PO08 U 5329 (T II B 28) ........................................................................................ 155 PO09 U 5790 + *U 9261 ........................................................................................ 157 PO10 *U 9180_Side 2 (a) ....................................................................................... 159 PO11 *U 9180_Side 2 (c) ......................................................................................