Temujin proclaimed Chinggis Khan (1206) with his sons Ögödei and Jochi on his right, from Rashid al-Din’s early 14th century manuscript

Cinggis-qan’s death meant an era of potential crisis and retrenchment for the Mongol Empire, and enemies in China and elsewhere were quick to take advantage of it to recover territory from the preoccupied Mongols. During the interregnum, the youngest son of the qan, Tolui-noyan, was regent. Middle son Ögödei, born in 1186, was the designated successor of the qan and was dutifully elected as his father’s successor in the quriltai of 1229, ending the interregnum.

 

Ögödei (r. 1229-1241) came to the throne at a critical juncture. Most Mongol conquests were still new, and the very existence of a Mongol Empire was in danger not only from counterattacks by enemies, but due to internal pressures as well. In the end, Ögödei was able to respond successfully to the needs of the times. He laid down an institutional basis that served the unified empire well during the final two decades of its existence, and later became the foundation for the systems of the Mongolian successor states, and even for some of their successors. Much, in fact, of the great reorganization attributed to qan Möngke (r. 1251-1259) was due to the efforts of Ögödei and his ministers. Unfortunately, Ögödei had no one to praise his achievements quite like what the Persian historian Juvayni, a partisan of the house of Tolui-noyan, represented by Möngke, and by Mongol rulers in Iran, did for Möngke. Chinese historiography also plays down the role of Ögödei; their own Mongol house also branched from Tolui.

 

Ögödei’s single biggest problem was an empty treasury. Cinggis-qan had made moves in the right direction, but never put his empire on a sound fiscal basis overall because enormous booty was still being generated by conquest. Conquest continued under Ögödei, some of it in Russia and Eastern Europe quite spectacular, but his rule is less noteworthy for its expansion of the frontiers of empire than it is for consolidation of what had already been conquered and for the creation of an effective organizational system.

 

As under Cinggis, power had three sources for Ögödei. One lay in the central establishment of the qan himself: in his administration, in his bodyguard, and in other parts of the central military establishment (qol-un cerik), and in territories and populations held or administered by the central authority by right of ownership, or of custodianship prior to further disbursement.

 

A second source lay in the tribal units of the Mongolian world, its thousands, each comprising their own little worlds, their own mini-empires with subject populations; the more so as time went on. Here horizontal relationships of kinship and fictive kinship were as important as the vertical hierarchy of imperial authority. Also at work was the traditional system of tribal federation and re-federation with tribal units and groups of tribal units providing cells for a larger development. Despite his control over large central forces, the qol-un cerik, “army of the pivot,” primarily his bodyguard myriarchy, Ögödei was dependent upon these tribes if his empire was to prosper and expand, since the forces he commanded directly were inadequate for this purpose. He could ignore the needs of the tribes only at his great peril.

 

The third source of power, never to be ignored, was the imperial clan. It claimed rights of joint control over empire as part of a common ulus, a “joint patrimony.” It expected assignment of definite shares of all booty, including tribal groups, and rights of consultation in imperial governance. This found expression in the institution of the quriltai, in which all the members of the imperial clan participated, to elect new qan and make important decisions. It also found expression in the idea of government as permanent jarqu, a legal inquiry into booty distribution in which all interested parties participated.

 

Ögödei’s task was to build up his own power and that of the center, while balancing this against the needs of the empire’s tribal sector and clan interests. This he did by strictly asserting the power and prerogatives of the center and subordinating other kinds of power to it, to the greatest degree possible.

 

The first requirement of the new qan was for revenue and there could be no revenue without a well-organized administrative structure. Thus the early years of Ögödei’s reign saw a proliferation of daruqaci in occupied China, for example, appointed at various levels. Most were appointed in connection with a new administrative unit, the cölge . They were called lu in Chinese, although the small Mongol units had little in common but the name with the relatively large administrative units previously called that in China. The early Mongol cölgellu was basically a city and the territories immediately dependent on it.

 

Initially there were 10, around the cities of Xuande, located northwest of the former Jin capital of Zhongdu, Yanjing, the renamed Zhongdu itself, Xijing, the former Jin “Western Capital” on the northern border of modern Shanxi, Taiyuan, in central Shanxi, Pingyang, in southern Shanxi, Zhending, in what is now Hebei, Dongping, in what is now western Shandong, Jinan, in north-central Shandong, Pingzhou, on the gulf of Bohai, some 200 miles east of Zhongdu, and Beijing, the former Jin “Northern Capital” in south-central Manchuria. Later others were added, at first 20 or so, then many more. As far as can be determined, each cölgellu was administered by a senior daruqaci, who took charge of its capital and immediate district, with subordinate daruqaci administering other parts of the cölgellu. Such direct lines of authority were quite new to north China.

 

To levy taxes in these new administrative units, each was also to receive a tax office managed by two officials recruited from among traditional Chinese scholars. These officers are noticed in the Secret History where they are called balaqaci, “storehouse managers,” and amuci, “granary officers.” Some of the tax offices may have been in existence before Ögödei, but the main system was of his making.

 

To shore up the authority of these tax offices, Ögödei ruled that only his agents could collect taxes even when the taxes came from an area granted to some prince or other potentate as a fief. In that case, the qan shared revenues with the fief holder according to a set formula. Although the members of the imperial clan could claim shares of other revenue collected according to another formula, it was still the qan who distributed it.

 

The system worked perfectly and began producing substantial, regular revenue almost immediately. To administer at a higher level, Ögödei reorganized too. The bodyguard remained the center of imperial administration, but a specialized chancellery was created in association to administer the new system. Chinese sources call this chancellery Ögödei’s Zhongshu sheng, “Central Secretariat,” using a name later applied to the chief executive authority of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368), the Mongol successor state in China. Strictly speaking, the designation is a misnomer since Mongol government was not organized in a Chinese manner at the time. The Chinese term was for local consumption only. Likewise for local consumption were the titles reported for individuals in the chancellery. This was obvious even to Chinese commentators.