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[thejackmeister-mongolhistory]

The Toluid Civil War: 1260-1264

The Toluid Civil War started after the death of the Great Khan Mongke in August 1259. The Mongol Empire  never developed anything but the vaguest of succession systems:  in theory, anyone who was a descendant of Chinggis Khan could have been elected Great Khan if they could gather the support of the tribes, although this was limited to his four sons with Borte, seems to have excluded the descendents of Jochi and became dependent on taking the position through force. After Mongke’s death, the two candidates who put their names forward were his younger brothers Kublai and Ariq Boke.

It appears both brothers began efforts to consolidate their positions as soon as they learned of Mongke’s death. Kublai had been campaigning against the Song Dynasty in China, and to not waste his effort there, and likely to not look like he abandoned the campaign to grab power, continued to campaign for another two months before moving north. Ariq on the other hand immediately began building support, getting some of Mongke’s widows and children to support him, as well as their powerful cousin Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde, and a grandson of Chagatai, Alghu, a major power in the Chagatai Khanate. Even by this point, Kublai was noted for his affinity to Chinese culture, having spent considerable time there and had already built a Chinese style city in modern Inner Mongolia, K’ai-ping (renamed to Shangdu in 1263, better known in English as Xanadu). Ariq on the other hand, was a staunch traditionalist, and saw no use for the Chinese except as subjects of the Mongols. As Kublai was seen as too soft and sedentary (it seems he was already rather heavy set, an alcoholic and suffering from gout) it was easy for Ariq to garner support on the grounds of maintaining the legacy of Chinggis.

Kublai and Ariq’s brother Hulagu, conqueror of Baghdad, supported Kublai’s claim to the throne and had been on his way back to Mongolia when his attention was turned by two things: the defeat of his general Kitbuga by the Mamluks at Ain Jalut in September 1260, and Berke of the Golden Horde attacking Hulagu’s territory. Berke was a Muslim, and while Mamluk sources describe the invasion as being due to Hulagu’s destruction of Baghdad, it seems more likely that was a secondary concern, with the primary cause being arguments over the valuable territory in the Caucasus and Hulagu’s treatment of Jochid princes. The Berke-Hulagu war meant that the powerful Golden Horde and emerging Ilkhanate would take little part in the battle between Ariq Boke and Kublai.

On May 5th, 1260, Kublai declared himself Great Khan at K’ai-ping, retaking it after one of Ariq’s allies had seized the city. The location of Kublai’s declaration was notably in his Chinese style city rather than trekking to Karakorum . In June Ariq was also elected Khan, and the two brothers were now unavoidably at war. Kublai had a significant advantage however. Ariq based himself at Karakorum and had the support of a good amount of the nobility, but Karakorum was infamously in need of daily deliveries of supplies, dozens upon dozens of cartloads of food to feed the city regularly, let alone the armed forces Ariq needed to defeat his older brother. Kublai on the other hand controlled northern China, his hand firmly on the wheat, grain and rice which was needed to keep Karakorum fed. In Gansu which was a key route to supplying Karakorum, Kublai had a staunch ally in Khadan, a son of Ogedai. Khadan defeated Ariq’s general Alandar in late  summer 1260, who had kept the supply routes to Central Asia open, further harming Ariq’s position. Kublai also had considerable numerical superiority: aside from a substantial Mongolian force, he controlled the important troop reserves of north China, from Khitans and Jurchen, who fought in similar style to the Mongols themselves, and thousands upon thousands of Han Chinese infantry. All three groups had been a mainstay of Mongolian armies in China since the invasion of the Jin Empire by Chinggis in 1211.

By fall 1260 Kublai had forced Ariq to rely solely on the Yenisei River Valley to support his army, which simply was not enough to serve as a staging ground against someone who controlled the resources of northern China. Seeking to widen his circle,  Ariq placed Alghu as the new Khan of the Chagatai Khanate, hoping to rely on his resources to support his efforts to defeat Kublai.

In November 1261, Ariq fought Kublai’s forces at Shimultai, near the China-Mongolian border, and later than month on the western edge of the Khingan Mountains. The battles were inconclusive in themselves, but Ariq could not afford to lose men and Kublai used these battles to wrest control of the rest of Mongolia. In the west, Alghu had stopped sending supplies to Ariq, so to shore up his position Ariq attack his former ally while Kublai was distracted by rebellion in China. Ariq took Almaliq in 1262 and forced Alghu to flee to Khotan and Kashgar, but by then Ariq was isolated. Alghu still controlled a significant portion of the Khanate, Kublai now had Mongolia and China and Ariq simply lacked the supplies and men to control either. Over the harsh winter of 1263, his supporters began to desert him for Kublai, and Ariq figured that his only option left was to surrender to his brother, reaching Shangdu in 1264.

Kublai put on a good show of embracing his brother and welcoming him, but his advisers saw Ariq as a troublemaker and untrustworthy. Despite ignoring him for a year and executing some of Ariq’s followers, this didn’t end their concerns. Kublai had called a kurultai to meet with the other Khans to decide Ariq’s fate, but they all made excuses to not come, and anyways all died within the next year or two. Conveniently for Kublai, Ariq died early in 1266, and many suspect it was not a natural death.

However, the controversy around Kublai’s ascension would never leave, and the conflict between the nomadic and sedentary elements of his kingdom continued. Kublai had influence, but not power over the other Khanates, which were effectively independent from now on, while his cousins Kaidu and Nayan would each battle Kublai over his control. Kublai’s successors would have similar problems, with further civil wars fought over the succession, on whether power should be based in the steppe, as a Mongol dynasty, or in China, as a Chinese dynasty, with the Yuan Khans never really fitting into either.

The question remains though: what if Ariq had won? Would things have been different? Would the breakup of the empire have been avoided? While we can never know for sure, I have my doubts. First of all, I don’t think Ariq could ever have beaten Kublai, he was not that much better of a commander, his support base to narrow and his logistics too unreliable to overcome Kublai. Had he won, or if Kublai had recognized Ariq’s authority, the cracks between the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde would have still remained, and it seems doubtful that the fate of the Mongol rulers of China would be much different. Every non-Chinese group that established a dynasty in China sooner or later took on the trappings of Chinese emperors. If not the first few generations, there would come some son who wanted the softer pleasures and authority that came with Chinese styles of governance. In addition, Kublai put considerable effort into rebuilding China and trying to ingratiate himself to the populace: it seems difficult to imagine Ariq doing the same, and thus doubtful that his dynasty would reign much longer that Kublai’s. But that is just my speculation.

Most of this was from Morris Rossabi’s biography of Kublai, “Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times.” A bit dated now, but an excellent source none the less and still very much the standard work on Kublai, a very readable and detailed way to learn about all facets of Kublai’s life.