The Blue Wolf Page 3

  In the spring of the year that Temüjin turned eight, Ö’elün gave birth to one more child, this time a girl, who was given the name Temülün. At the time of her birth, Temüjin was overcome with a deep emotion that included troubling doubts unlike anything he had experienced before about the blood of the wolf and doe flowing in Temülün’s veins. Certainly that blood flowed in the bodies of his younger brothers, Qasar, Qachi’un, and Temüge—and, for that matter, in his half-brothers, Begter and Belgütei. He had not the least doubt that their veins carried it, but in the case of his younger sister Temülün he harbored a sensation he couldn’t quite comprehend.

  The bewilderment that had stricken him unexpectedly when she was born was the result of a different eye applied by the eight-year-old Temüjin to seeing a female, something common among most adults and children. A female probably bore the blood of the doe within her, but it was inconceivable to him that she also had the blood of the wolf. At one point, Temüjin questioned his mother, Ö’elün, about this, and she replied:

  “What difference is there between males and females? All Mongols, be they men or women, carry on the blood of all their ancestors.”

  As far as Temüjin was concerned, his mother’s answer was altogether insufficient. He found it impossible to think of females in the same way that he did males—if they were knocked down, they would immediately stagger and fall; if beaten, they would immediately collapse into tears. He found the idea of being together with them odious. Was it possible that the weak who did not go into battle inherited the blood of the wolf that had crossed the lake to the west at heaven’s command?

  Temüjin never played with girls, and with the exception of truly important matters never listened to them. This was less a belittling of the weak than it was antipathy or indignation taking root in his eight-year-old mind at the notion that the frail shared the same blood of the Mongol people.

  From this time on Temüjin began to adopt a policy of always checking his surroundings with his own eyes. Although he was growing more rapidly than other youngsters, this taciturn, wild lad was maturing spiritually no less than they.

  Temüjin tried to learn many things and in fact did learn a great deal. While there was no reason to expect any changes in the conversations between his father, Yisügei, and his mother, Ö’elün, as far as Temüjin was concerned, things were completely different. From their conversations, Temüjin acquired knowledge of the family line and history of their Borjigin lineage, the position occupied by the Borjigin line within the Mongol people as a whole, and—more widely still—what place the Mongols held among all the residents of the Mongolian plateau. From the conversations of men and women in the settlement and from the words and deeds of villagers at small meetings of the settlement and at larger meetings of the entire people, the youngster absorbed these many pieces of information as a sponge soaks up water. Temüjin’s mind and body were always on the move from his youth through adulthood.

  First of all, Temüjin knew that within the larger Mongolian group the Borjigin lineage to which he belonged was not likely to advance smoothly with the Tayichi’ud lineage from his father’s generation forward, and that this was causing friction on many fronts. Originally, the Tayichi’uds belonged to the Borjigins, but they had become independent when Hambaghai became the second khan, established their own settlements, and took the ethnonym Tayichi’ud. Between the two, one might say, there was a main family–branch family relationship.

  From the time that Yisügei became khan, though, the children of Hambaghai had gradually extended the influence of the Tayichi’uds and were gathering under their own umbrella many other Mongol lineages. At present, a good number of them would probably not follow orders issued by Yisügei. All of the internal Mongolian troubles were rooted in this.

  In addition to the Tayichi’uds, there were any number of other lineages within the larger Mongolian grouping. Whether they were subservient to the Borjigins or to the Tayichi’uds, on the surface the entire Mongolian people were united with Yisügei as their khan. But in fact, they were divided into two camps.

  Besides this internal situation, there were also incessant small disputes with other peoples that kept Yisügei busy on a daily basis. The most powerful among these other groups were the Tatars, a people with whom the Mongols had long been on bad terms. From ancient times, the biggest issue on the Mongolian plateau had been structuring a unified confederated body of peoples. For the nomadic groups living on the same Mongolian plateau, such a confederation was absolutely essential not only for living together in peace but also for dealing with the neighboring states of the Jin dynasty, the Xixia, and the Uyghurs. The Jin bordering them on the plateau across the Great Wall was most desirous that such a confederation not be created. Should the numerically small groups scattered across the plain come together to form one great force, this would be a wholly unwelcome event. Whenever it witnessed the circumstances necessary for the formation of a confederation on the plateau, the Jin state intrigued to nip it in the bid, causing rifts and rivalries among the various ethnic groups on the plain.

  The first four khans of the Mongol people—Qabul, Hambaghai, Qutula, and now Yisügei—were all thoroughly determined to create such a confederation, but were always obstructed by the Tatars, who joined in with the plotting of the Jin. Qabul had been nearly poisoned to death by a Jin emissary; Hambaghai was taken by a Tatar escort to the Jin and there executed; and Qutula and most of his six brothers had lost their lives fighting against the Tatars. In other words, Temüjin’s great-grandfather and his grandfather and great uncles had all been killed in combat against the Tatars.

  In the warfare at the time of Temüjin’s birth, Yisügei had been able to launch a major assault against the Tatars for the first time, and a state of relative tranquility had been preserved thereafter between the two peoples. The dispute between them, however, was certain to flare up again sometime as long as the Jin was working behind the scenes.

  The young Temüjin knew that both the Tatars and the Jin state were enemies of the Mongol people. The name Tatar and the name of the great state of Jin on the far side of the Great Wall were both etched in his mind as ghastly, diabolical appellations.

  On one occasion, while drinking wine in his yurt, Yisügei blurted out:

  “I won’t die, so help me, until we attack the Tayichi’uds and the Tatars.”

  At the time, Temüjin thought it suspicious that his father had not mentioned the third name of the Jin. When he said as much, Yisügei said, laughing:

  “Launching an attack on the Jin is an enormous undertaking. Even if we were able to rally all the peoples living on the Mongolian plain right now, our numbers would not reach 200,000 troops. By contrast, the Jin has an army dozens of times as large, every soldier with a weapon so fine you can scarcely imagine it.”

  He then went on to discuss how, after concluding the fighting with their enemies, they would face the Jin on the southern side of the Great Wall and the Song state beyond the Jin, farther south. Their people formed cities on sites surrounded by immense walls. They constructed houses out of earth and wood from which they never moved. Each person had a specialized job: merchants built shops and sold their wares; farmers plowed the earth and produced agricultural crops; bureaucrats traveled between offices and handled all manner of affairs; soldiers spent their time training for battle with weaponry. Within these city walls were large temples and government offices built of stone and rising into the sky.

  Temüjin wondered if such lands, which were like figments of his imagination, really existed. He wanted to know more and more, and he asked his father all sorts of specific questions, but Yisügei had not seen any of this with his own eyes and was thus unable to speak in any more detail about it.

  At some point later, Temüjin asked Bültechü about the states of Jin and Song. He assumed that Bültechü, who knew everything, would be able to fill him in. The old man with the fine memory prefaced his response with:

  “They’re despicable pla
ces!”

  Then, not touching on what Temüjin really wished to know, he told the lad as proof of the Jin’s foulness the story of Hambaghai Khan, who had been put to death by its men.

  “Hambaghai Khan was taken captive by the Tatars and escorted to the king of the Jin state. There he was somehow nailed to a wooden donkey and then, while still alive, had his skin peeled off and his body chopped up into small pieces. Hambaghai Khan was a stouthearted man, and at the time of his death the servant who had accompanied him was sent home to report on what had transpired: ‘You must take revenge for me on this enemy, even if you wear down all ten of your fingernails and then lose all ten fingers.’ The servant ran off, returned home, and conveyed everything. Everyone cried. Your father cried. I cried.”

  This servant had by now passed away, but a few years earlier, while in his mother’s lap, Temüjin had seen the diminutive elderly man. To the extent that he was somewhat familiar with this man, the tragedy of Hambaghai Khan now struck the young boy with its verisimilitude and profound, unalleviated gloom. That his father, Yisügei, had given up seeking revenge upon the Jin state, a great land beyond his reach, was vexing to Temüjin. For him, this Jin state was at once an immense, unknown place about which he often dreamed and that he wanted to see just once and an implacable enemy that had earlier murdered their khan. It was a state that, even were he to lose ten fingers and ten fingernails, had to be fought by way of retaliation.

  In the summer of the year Temüjin turned nine, his father, Yisügei, took him on a trip, at the request of his wife Ö’elün, to her own hometown, an Olqunu’ud settlement, to find the girl who would be Temüjin’s future bride. This was Temüjin’s first journey into scenery altogether different from what he had experienced in his first nine years. To be sure, the Mongols moved their dwellings to various sites with the seasons, but they were always in the foothills of Mount Burqan along the shores of the Onon and Kherlen rivers, within a limited radius determined by natural conditions. All that Temüjin knew until then were the dense forests comprised of the same kind of trees and grasslands all the same color. On this trip, however, there unfolded before his eyes thoroughly dissimilar topography and surroundings. A row of a dozen or more men mounted their horses, and they led as many camels laden with food supplies. The row of men followed the Kherlen downstream into a valley luxuriantly overgrown with trees, midway through left the river and crossed the grasslands, climbed up hills with numerous rocky crags, and advanced through gravel and desert sands. Lakes were scattered here and there, and Temüjin found every day’s itinerary pleasing. Because it wasn’t a rushed trip, the men fished and hunted birds and rabbits en route.

  Before they reached the village from which Ö’elün had come, an unexpected incident disrupted their journey. While they were passing between the two mountains of Chiqurqu and Chegcher, they met a group traveling with Dei Sechen, leader of the Unggirad lineage. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the leaders of these two families, but they were immediately able to speak frankly with each other. When Dei Sechen learned of the goal of Yisügei’s group, he encouraged them to change their plan of travel to the Olqunu’ud village and instead come to a settlement of his own Unggirad lineage.

  “I have taken a liking to your son Temüjin,” said Dei Sechen quietly as he bent his solid torso back a bit. “Happily there is a girl named Börte, and they will surely be a well-matched couple in future.” Yisügei was favorably impressed by this easygoing leader of another family, and he had oftentimes heard that the Unggirads were quite wealthy. He quickly accepted the invitation. It was never a losing transaction for the Mongols to establish a marriage relationship with the Unggirads.

  When their conversation came to an end, the two groups joined together and, changing direction slightly, headed toward the grasslands in the southern foothills of the Xing’an range. Among the various peoples on the Mongolian plateau, the Unggirads held terrain closest to the Great Wall, which put them closest to Jin culture just on the other side, so they enjoyed the highest cultural life of the residents of the plateau.

  The Unggirad pastureland was far better than that of the Mongols. The gently sloping grasslands continued as far as the eye could see, and a large number of sheep and horses had been put to pasture there. Dei Sechen’s yurt was incomparably larger and more lavish than Yisügei’s. All of his personal effects too were polished and fine looking. His storehouse was full of animal hides and varieties of pelts. As for items he had acquired, it seemed, in exchange for these hides and pelts, both Temüjin and his father were overwhelmed. He had lacquered furniture, finely crafted weapons and armor, and magnificent ornaments—also ivory and jade. Temüjin was forced to confront the fact that, by comparison, their own Mongol yurts were humble and shabby.

  Börte was ten years old, a year older than Temüjin. Yisügei liked her the moment he set eyes on her, and Temüjin found her lovely, a girl with a large build who had grown up quickly. There was a luster to her white skin and light brown hair. Ever since he was a little boy, Temüjin had heard of the people known as “white Tatars,” as opposed to the “black Tatars,” but not until this trip to the Unggirads did he discover it was not simply a rumor.

  After entertaining Yisügei’s party for three days, Dei Sechen hoped that Temüjin alone would remain behind for a time so that he might become closer to the Unggirad people. In this instance as well, Yisügei readily consented to Dei Sechen’s proposal. Although Temüjin was heavyhearted about living with an alien group of people, when he realized how much knowledge he could acquire by doing so, he obediently followed his father’s wishes and remained in Dei Sechen’s yurt. Eventually Yisügei’s group headed back toward the foothills of Mount Burqan, while Temüjin from that day began an entirely new life with a new language and new customs.

  From the autumn of his ninth year until the spring of his thirteenth, Temüjin lived under Dei Sechen’s roof. He showed no interest at all in Börte, the young girl destined to be his future wife, but he did demonstrate an extraordinary interest, for one so young, in everything to do with quotidian Unggirad life. The Unggirads had a small number of young men specially trained to defend against raids by other peoples. They could manage a horse and manipulate a bow with extraordinary dexterity. Almost every day they trained at deployment over the grasslands and practiced drawing their small bows while on horseback so as to protect their flocks of domesticated animals from marauders. At Dei Sechen’s request, Temüjin joined one of these armed bands.

  The most important thing Temüjin acquired during this period of time spent with the Unggirads was knowledge of the great state of Jin. At times, merchants from Jin who had crossed the Great Wall came by camel to their settlement. He learned all manner of things about Jin that he never could have attained had he remained along the upper reaches of the Onon River. What struck Temüjin as most awe-inspiring was that the Jin state and the Song state beyond it were each unified under a single ruler whose soldiers moved in concert with his orders.

  In the spring of Temüjin’s thirteenth year, a young man some thirty years of age by the name of Münglig, a blood relative of Yisügei’s from their Borjigin settlement, came as the latter’s express messenger to meet Temüjin at the Unggirad village. It was not clear what Münglig actually said, but he noted that Yisügei had not seen Temüjin for quite some time. Although Dei Sechen wasn’t entirely satisfied with such an abrupt suggestion that Temüjin depart, he permitted the boy to return home on the condition that he would soon retrace his steps back to the Unggirad village.

  Temüjin and Münglig rode their horses across the plain day and night. En route he learned from Münglig of the death of his father, Yisügei. As was the custom of a traveler on the road, Yisügei had attended a banquet of one Tatar lineage and fallen victim to a plot: his cup was filled with poison. He rode his horse for three days in great pain, making his way back to his own yurt, but at last did not survive. Yisügei had spent his entire life fighting his archenemies, the Tatars, and had launched
a massive assault on them from which his people had gained twelve or thirteen years of peace, but his ultimate fate was to fall prey to their revenge.

  When Temüjin learned of this from Münglig, he felt less a sadness at the death of his father than a flaming indignation. When Yisügei had fought against the Tatars thirteen years earlier and won a great victory, he ought not to have let them remain as they were. He should have rooted out what would become the fundamental cause of this latest incident. Every male should have been put to death, and every female child should have been assimilated into his father’s settlements as lowly servants. As a result of his failure to take these measures, naturally enough, his father had learned a divine lesson.

  The thirteen-year-old Temüjin returned to the Borjigin base, a settlement that compared far less favorably with that of the Unggirads and that appeared to be sunk into even deeper wretchedness because of mourning for Yisügei. Temüjin and Münglig walked their horses slowly among several hundred yurts. It was still, with no sign of life in any of them. The lad finally dismounted in front of his own dwelling and entered. Suddenly, close to the entrance, he saw his two younger half-brothers, Belgütei and Begter, grown so big he would not have recognized them, standing before him. How was it possible for not a single shaft of light to enter through a hole in the roof and for the interior to be floating in such a dark, melancholy atmosphere? Temüjin stood by the entrance momentarily until his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. Gradually the image of his mother, Ö’elün, seated before him and surrounded by his four siblings, came more clearly into view.

  “Your father, Yisügei, has died. From now on, you will have to stay here as the family pillar.” Temüjin heard these first words from Ö’elün and remained silent. Then, as if just becoming aware of something, she added: