Imperial Itinerance and Mobile Pastorali

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349 Inner
ASIA
brill.com/inas
Special Section
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Imperial Itinerance and Mobile Pastoralism
The State and Mobility in Medieval Inner Asia
Christopher P. Atwood
Indiana University (Bloomington)
catwood@indiana.edu
Abstract
Mobility in pastoral societies has often been treated as either a necessity for efficient
pastoral production or else as a method of avoiding state power. Yet both the examples
of itinerance in medieval Europe and the attested itineraries of medieval Inner Asian
rulers suggest that power projection, not power avoidance, was a key component of
Turco-Mongolian imperial mobility. By using new historico-geographical evidence,
the itineraries of several pre-Chinggisid and Mongol empire figures—Ong Qa’an, Batu,
Ögedei, and Möngke—may be mapped. The results show that imperial itinerance
must be distinguished from pastoral mobility. They also show that movement in vast
agglomerations of mob-grazing herds was not just a temporary response to military
crisis but continued long into the peacetime of the Mongol empire. These results chal-
lenge a functionalist understanding of mobility and state structures in Inner Asia.
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies
Unit (MIASU) at the University of Cambridge on 11 March 2014. The author is grateful to Dr
David Sneath and MIASU for inviting him to speak and to members of the unit and oth-
ers of the public for the many helpful questions, suggestions and comments that followed.
He would also like to thank Professors Jean-Luc Houle (Western Kentucky University) and
William Honeychurch (Yale University) for their assistance on archaeological matters and
Marissa Smit, graduate student in the Central Eurasian Studies Department, for her helpful
comments on itinerance in medieval Europe. The author would also like to thank colleagues
and staff at the Minpaku (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan) for their hospitality during
the research and writing of much of this paper.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi 10.1163/22105018-12340046

294 Atwood
Keywords
Batu – ger – itinerance – Kereyid – mob grazing – mobile pastoralism – Möngke –

Mongol empire – Ögedei – Ong Qa’an – pastoral nomadism – yurt
Introduction
From the first picture of mobile pastoralism given by an outsider, that of

Herodotus in his description of the Skythians, it has been seen as a political
strategy as much as a subsistence strategy. In his depiction of their customs,
he wrote:
The Scythians were more clever than any other people in making the
most important discovery we know of concerning human affairs, though
I do not admire them in other respects. They have discovered how to
prevent any attacker from escaping them and how to make it impossible
for anyone to overtake them against their will. For instead of establish-
ing towns or walls, they are all mounted archers who carry their homes
along with them and derive their sustenance not from cultivated fields
but from their herds. Since they make their homes on carts, how could
they not be invincible or impossible even to engage in battle? (IV.46.2–3:
translation from Strassler 2007: 301).
Thus the subsistence requirements of mobile pastoralism (‘derive their sus-

tenance not from cultivated fields but from their herds’) are seen as simulta-
neously linked to political desire for the maintenance of independence (‘they
have discovered how to prevent any attacker from escaping them’). The coex-
istence of pastoralism as a subsistence strategy and resistance to centralised
authority as a political strategy have since become virtually inevitable fixtures
in writing about nomads (e.g. Barfield 1993; Salzman 2004).
Yet in many other political contexts, mobility is seen not solely as a means
of escaping power, but also as a means of projecting power. As has long been
known, the almost constant movement of the Holy Roman Emperors and
other European medieval monarchs may be explained by both the need to dis-
tribute over a wide space the burden of feeding the emperor’s enormous reti-
nue, as well as the need to deliver periodically in person the emperor’s power
and charisma to each of the various localities in his vast domain (Bernhardt
2013; Leyser 1981: 746–51; McKitterick 2011; Thompson 1923). Where regular
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Imperial Itinerance and Mobile Pastoralism 295
institutions of taxation and policing have not been developed, such mobility,
referred to as itinerance in European medieval studies, forms a vital strategy
not for avoiding the state, but for bringing the state’s reach to the people who
form its financial and military base. Mobility also helps even out extraction,
preventing particular areas from suffering over-taxation. If political itinerance
is applicable to Inner Asia, then itinerance may interact with mobile pastoral-
ism not to disperse governmental power, but as an instrument for concentrat-
ing it under conditions of low efficiency.
The need to pursue such a strategy also raises the possibility that mobility
may be pushed well beyond the needs of mobile pastoralism, thus sacrificing
subsistence needs for political needs. While Humphrey and Sneath (1999) have
demonstrated that Inner Asian market- and taxation-oriented pastoralism—
what they call ‘yield-focused’ or ‘specialist’ mode—is qualitatively more mobile
than subsistence production, common sense would suggest that mobility, like
any subsistence strategy, could reach a point of diminishing returns, and if
pushed beyond that actually become harmful to subsistence. Livestock could
be fatigued by over-long or too frequent movement, or herded into a range of
biomes more diverse than can be utilised with optimal efficiency, or not given
rest during crucial periods of calving and milking. One can also easily imagine
how excessive movement could generate hardship for the subjects carrying
out the menial tasks needed for frequent movement of a large-scale nomadic
court. Indeed, Humphrey and Sneath’s argument that the ideal levels of pasto-
ral mobility can only be achieved when management of the herd is removed
from the actual herders and placed in some person or institution disposing of
regional-scale jurisdiction (whether a monastery, a prince, or a socialist collec-
tive) implies that even mobility intended to increase pastoral productivity was
often unpleasant for the subject classes responsible for actually carrying it out.
At the same time, the descriptions of Inner Asian courts given by observers
such as William of Rubruck at the court of Batu (xix.4: Jackson & Morgan 1990:
131) emphasise the vast numbers of persons that such courts drew together on
an on-going basis. Similar such vast courts appear frequently in the history of
Inner Asia, at least if designations of guards units, such as the 10,000 keshigten,
or the Kitan dynasty’s ordo with their 10,000–20,000-strong ‘Heart and Belly
Guards’ (Secret History of the Mongols or SHM §224–34, 278; Wittfogel & Fêng
1949: 509–17) are anything like the reality. Research on Inner Asian mobile pas-
toralism has long emphasised the need for dispersal of herds to achieve opti-
mal use of pasture resources, but with this sort of mob grazing (International
Rangeland Congress 2008: §IV.16 [p. 48]), even granted the use of widely
dispersed satellite camps, it would seem hard to avoid a harmful trampling
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296 Atwood
and over-grazing near the imperial court. Political tensions, by restricting

the utilisation of satellite camps and inhibiting mobility, would only further
increase the negative impact of such mob grazing methods on the pastures.
Such a contrast between the needs of state building and those of subsis-
tence is by no means unique to pastoralism. James Scott (2010: 64–97) has
argued that Southeast Asian monarchs’ need for fixed residence based on
paddy agriculture often came at the expense of both agricultural productivity
and their subjects’ interests. Calling the Southeast Asian state a ‘centripetal
population machine’, its rulers used war, slave raiding and conscription to fight
the constant drain of population due to fugitives fleeing to less oppressive
environments in the hills. Nor was this coercion in service of economic ratio-
nality—far from it. Scott argues that, by concentrating farmers in low-lying
paddy agricultural areas, petty kings created an environment that was often
unhealthy, riddled with infectious and water-borne diseases, and less produc-
tive economically than the mixed economies in which the subjects would
otherwise have been engaged. Yet the rulers’ priority was not production in
the abstract, but maximising those forms of production which they, the rulers,
would be able to capture. Thus, he argues, Southeast Asian states governed the
mobility and production of their subjects by political criteria, not efficiency-
oriented ones.
This is not the first discussion of the potential political role of imperial itin-
erance within a mobile pastoralist context. Charles Melville’s seminal study
(1990) of the itineraries of the Il-Khan Öljeitü, continued by studies on the
itineraries of Shāh ‘Abbās (1993) and Shāhrukh (2013), first explicitly raised
both the comparison with medieval monarchs of Europe and attempted to
test what the purpose of the constant itinerance of Öljeitü as ruler of Mongol
Iran might have been. After observing that Öljeitü’s movements did not seem
to have a clear political or military purpose, he concluded that the Sultan’s
movements show an ‘underlying nomadic nature’—or, as he phrases it in a sat-
isfactorily frank essentialist manner, ‘he moved about because he was a nomad
chief’, in contrast to European monarchs, who moved for primarily instrumen-
tal reasons (Melville 1990: 63). Without analysing the potential type of mobile
pastoralism involved, he goes on to link these movements to the pastoral econ-
omy. Similarly, a need to fatten horses and camels is suggested in his study of
Shāhrukh’s itineraries as a link to pastoral nomadism, although Melville notes
(2013: 312) that it would not seem necessary for Shāhrukh to make those moves
himself.
Other analysts of post-Mongol nomadism or imperial itinerance in Iran
have not dismissed the idea of comparison with European monarchs and the
political significance of itinerance. David Bradburd has argued that seeing
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

nomadism in Iran as some unique force standing in the way of centralisation

and modernisation is a confusion of cause and effect. After an explicit com-
parison with itinerance in both pre-revolutionary France and Scotland, he did
not find anything distinct about the role of ‘tribes’ and ‘nomads’ in post-Safavid
Iran. Rather, he concludes, ‘as elsewhere in the world, local interests resisted
consolidation and . . . in Iran they used the idiom of kinship and of “tribe” as
a means of generating and consolidating local opposition. “Tribes” did not
cause the resistance to centralization; they were the local idiom of resistance’
(Bradburd 2001: 137–8). Bradburd’s analysis, while not directly addressing the
role of mobility for the dominant state, contradicts Melville’s assumption that
‘nomads’ and ‘nomadism’ are by definition exceptional elements within the
Iranian polity, characterised by an exclusive penchant to mobility.
Before concluding that Öljeitü’s movements did not serve a political pur-
pose, however, Melville makes a crucial concession. After noting that Öljeitü’s
movements brought him in constant contact with powerful Mongol com-
manders at their own camps, he writes:
Nevertheless, the fact that Öljeitü itinerated within those regions where
Turco-Mongol populations were concentrated, suggests that he was at
least moving among his nomadic Mongol subjects, ensuring their obedi-
ence and projecting his authority, in a way that might not have been pos-
sible had he become static in a permanent capital city. (Melville 1990: 62)
Only by being a nomad himself could Öljeitü ensure the obedience of other
nomads. Subsequently, however, Melville notes that Öljeitü did not include
areas such as Fars, Kerman and Khurasan in his itineraries, and hence con-
cludes that administrative functions were not essential. Perhaps one might
conclude that, while Öljeitü was not projecting power in the areas that ought
to be important (at least in the eyes of Iran’s sedentary population), he was
projecting power in the populations that actually were important, the actual
subordinate lords who in Bradburd’s formulation could be ‘generating and
consolidating local opposition’ most effectively. This impression is confirmed
by Melville’s subsequent study of the itineraries of Shāhrukh, where he con-
cludes that Timurid princes were mobile in part because mobility ‘kept them
in touch with the Turko-Mongol forces who constituted the backbone of their
military power’ (Melville 2013: 311).
Yet any discussion of the political role of itinerance, and its relation to or
contrast with mobile pastoralism, centred on Iran would inevitably face the
legitimate objection that too many variables are left uncontrolled when placed
within a context which is mostly non-pastoralist (Bradburd’s highest estimate
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298 Atwood
of pastoral nomads in Iran is 50 per cent and the 25 per cent figure seems better
documented—see 2001: 138). By contrast, investigation of nomadic itineraries
and mobile pastoralism in the Mongolian plateau itself could shed light on the
relation of the political role of itinerance with a pastoral society without the
distracting influence of a large sedentary farming population. In the past such
data has not existed or not been geographically localisable. Unfortunately,
the evidence is still by no means as rich as that assembled by Melville for
Öljeitü, which he already (1990: 57) described as ‘sketchy and incomplete’ in
comparison to that available for European monarchs’ movements. Yet while
the data presented below on mobile pastoralism in the Mongol empire is yet
more incomplete and sketchy, it can, I believe, demonstrate a significant con-
trast between itinerance as governed by political aims and objectives and the
diverse forms of mobile pastoralism practised in Mongolia when governed by
economic needs, whether for subsistence or taxation.
Mobile Pastoralism in the Mongol Empire
Any discussion of mobile pastoralism in the Mongolian plateau must begin

with the foundational research of A.D. Simukov. His typology of types of mobil-
ity in Mongolian pastoralism is still widely used by researchers on Mongolia
(BNMAUÜA 1990: pls. 208–209; Endicott 2012: 37–40, cf. 26–33; Humphrey
& Sneath 1999: 220–25; Simukov [1934] 2007). He divided Mongolian pasto-
ral movements into six types, each designated by a particular area, although
as Humphrey and Sneath point out, the implication that in each region all
herders practice one form of seasonal movement is not necessarily the case
(Humphrey & Sneath 1999: 222–7).
As reworked by the editors of the National Atlas of the Mongolian People’s
Republic (BNMAUÜA, maps 208–209), this may be reduced to two main types,
four sub-types, with two variants:
1 Mountain-area Vertical Alternation of Pasture

a Khangai-Khentii sub-type: wintering in the uplands and summering in
the lowlands
i Khangai variant (Simukov’s Khangai type)
ii Eastern variant
b Altai sub-type: summering in the uplands and wintering in the
lowlands
i Gobi-Altai variant (Simukov’s Öwörkhangai type)
ii Khowd variant (Simukov’s Western type)
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2 Steppe-area Horizontal Alternation of Pasture

a Central Khalkh sub-type: summering in the north and wintering in the
south (Simukov’s Steppe and Eastern types)
b East Gobi sub-type: wintering in sheltered areas and summering in
exposed areas (Simukov’s Gobi type).
Using these typologies, one can discern quite similar patterns of mobile pasto-
ralism within the Mongol empire.
For the period of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century, there are sev-
eral general descriptions of pastoralism and one fairly detailed yearly itinerary.
William of Rubruck described the movements of the Mongols, although not
necessarily in Mongolia, as follows:
In the winter they move down southwards to the warmer regions, and in
the summer they move up northwards to the colder ones. They pasture in
the waterless grazing grounds in the winter, when the snow is there, since
snow serves them for water (II.1: Jackson & Morgan 1990: 72).
The description here is of a horizontal type of movement, in which the tem-

perature gradient is supplied by changing latitude. It matches the National
Atlas’s Central Khalkha type, or Simukov’s ‘Steppe Type’ or ‘Eastern Type’—
they differ primarily in the length of movements—in which the use of snow
for winter water is also explicitly mentioned (Humphrey & Sneath 1990: 221;
Simukov [1934] 2007: 445).
Since William of Rubruck never travelled east of Qara-Qorum, however,
this description presumably pertains to areas outside Mongolia, such as
Kazakhstan. Actually Rubruck appears to have become aware of this type of
mobile pastoralism when he crossed Kazakhstan on his way back from Qara-
Qorum from July to September, 1254: ‘For the most part our return journey took
us among the same folk but through altogether different country (for we went
out in the winter and came back during the summer, through far more north-
erly latitudes)’ (xxxvii.1: Jackson & Morgan 1990: 254). As commentators have
noted, this passage describes Rubruck’s journey between the Ürünggü River
in the Junggar Basin in the east and the Volga along which Batu nomadised
(Jackson & Morgan 1990: 254).
But a chance reference in Rashīd al-Dīn allows us to localise this ‘Central
Khalkha’ (or ‘Steppe-Eastern’ type of movement) also in eastern Mongolia. The
note about wintering in waterless steppe with only snow is also cited by Rashīd
al-Dīn with regard to one particular pasture, that of Abji’a-Köteger. He writes:
‘That site was the Qunqirat’s winter pasture . . . The ground there is waterless
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300 Atwood
chöl [desert], and the inhabitants make do with snow’ (Rashiduddin 1998–99:
183–4; Rashid-ad-Din 1952b: 122). This Abji’a-Köteger may be identified with
the Matad mountains in Matad sum, Sükhbaatar province, which is indeed an
area with little surface water, but significant snowfall.1 Given the general loca-
tion of the Qonggirad, which are usually placed in the Hulun Buir area, and
the reference to using snow for winter water, this description matches a some-
what lengthier version of Simukov’s ‘Eastern Type’ (cf. Simukov [1934] 2007:
447; Humphrey & Sneath 1990: 221) with an approximately 200 km diameter
of movement from a summer camp in the well-watered Hulun Buir area, such
as at Buyir Lake,2 to a winter camp in the shelter of the southern slope of the
Matad uplands.
A different type of mobile pastoralism is described by Marco Polo. In a gen-
eral description of the Mongolian way of life he writes:
The Tartars never stay in one place, but live in the winter in plains and
in hot places where they have grass in plenty and good pasture for their
beasts; and in the summer they live in cold places in mountains and
in valleys where they find water and woods and good pasture for their
beasts; and also for this cause, that where the place is cold flies are not
found nor gnats and suchlike creatures which annoy them and their beasts;
and they go for two or three months ascending continually and grazing, for
they would not have enough grass for the multitude of their beasts, feeding
always in one place (§69; Moule & Pelliot 1976: 168).3
1 On the area’s precipitation and ground water, see BNMAUÜA: maps 64–68, 75, 83–86, 101. The
location is fixed by Rashīd al-Dīn’s identification of it with the battle site between the forces
of Qubilai Sechen Qa’an and Ariq-Böke, which took place at Shimu’ultu Na’ur 昔木土腦兒
[Mosquito Lake]; that the battle took place in Qonggirad land is confirmed in YS 118.2716.
Chen Dezhi (2012: 460) and Tan Qixiang (1982: pl. 11–12:(5)13) locate this ‘Mosquito Lake’
and associated mountain (YS 6.113) at the present-day seasonal lakes and marshes of Merten
Tolgoin Nuuruud south of Matad sum, Eastern Province. Since köteger means an ‘upland’,
Abji’a-Köteger should be one of the low Matad mountains to their north.
2 Said to be a camp of the Qonggirad ruler Terge Amal in the late spring or summer of 1203; see
SHM §176.
3 Italics indicate text drawn from the Ramusio edition. I follow Haw in seeing the Ramusio edi-
tion and the Toledo ms of the B tradition as having material derived from Marco Polo’s own
commentary on the original edition produced with Rustichello (Haw 2006: 43–5). As here,
this material is often particularly valuable. The other variants cited in Moule and Pelliot’s
translation (here the manuscripts designated P, V, and L) are, however, expansionistic read-
ings by later scribes within the A tradition and have been eliminated.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

This description evidently pertains to the vertical type of movement in which

the temperature gradient is supplied not by latitude, but by moving up and
down hills. Marco Polo’s description fits the National Atlas’s Altai subtype, with
summer camps in the uplands and winter camps in the lowlands. The descrip-
tion of the winter sites as hot plains would also seem to imply a reference to a
horizontal or latitudinal element. One might thus tentatively assign the type
of movement described by Polo more specifically to the National Atlas’s Gobi-
Altai or Simukov’s Öwörkhangai type. ‘Two or three months ascending con-
tinually and grazing’ would nicely fit the pattern of frequent short movements
in fall while ascending to higher pastures, characteristic of the Öwörkhangai
type (Endicott 2012: 39; Simukov 2007: 446). Similarly, the reference to escap-
ing flies matches the contemporary practice of moving to higher areas for their
exposure to wind, which cuts down on obnoxious biting insects (Endicott 2012:
37–8). In terms of location, it is notable that Polo placed this description in
the context of describing how one moves from Izina [modern Ejina banner
in far western Inner Mongolia] through the Gobi to the Mongol heartland. In
other words, he described the ‘Gobi-Altai’ or ‘Öwörkhangai’ type precisely in
the place in his travelogue where he would be crossing the Gobi lands south
of Khangai.
Overall, then, data from the thirteenth century show that many of the basic
forms of movement classified by Simukov and his successors were also used
by pastoralists in the Mongol empire. The Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai and the
Central Khalkha type of movements (in its Eastern variant) can both be identi-
fied and shown to be operating in the same areas where they operate today.
Further to the west, we can also see a long-distance form of the Khalkha type
in Kazakhstan and along the Volga. The largest difference is that there seems to
be no example of either the Khangai-Khentii type of movement or the Eastern
Gobi attested during the period of the Mongol empire. While the data are cer-
tainly ‘sketchy and incomplete’ they do give a certain level of confidence that
mobile pastoralism in the thirteenth century proceeded according to patterns
familiar today. As a result, where movements involve quite different sequences
of terrain and environment, one may suppose that correspondingly different
considerations were used to decide when and where to move.
Imperial Itinerance in the Mongol Empire
If movement in medieval Mongolia had a major political component, one

would expect to find it represented in the movements of figures disposing
of sovereign political power. Thus, following the previous examination of
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302 Atwood
ovements governed by pastoralist criteria, an examination of movements

m
made by sovereigns ought, if political criteria are important, to show signifi-
cantly more deviation from the descriptions of pastoral movements already
discussed. In order to keep the cases comparable, however, I have tried to con-
sider only cases of movement within the area of Mongolia, or at most in the
western part of the steppe belt, both to avoid the potential complication of
intervening agricultural populations and resources and to ensure comparabil-
ity with the categories established by Simukov and later researchers, which
may or may not be applicable outside Mongolia. These factors lead me to a
focus on the reigns of Ögedei, Güyüg and Möngke Qa’ans, among the post-
Chinggisid rulers, and the movements of the pre-Chinggisid Kereyid rulers.
These general descriptions of mobile pastoralism in the thirteenth century
can be supplemented by two slightly more detailed itineraries of two princes,
one of the horizontal type and one of the vertical type. The horizontal type is
given by William of Rubruck, who describes the movements of Batu along the
Volga. After reaching a ferry point across the Volga, manned by Ruthenian and
‘Saracen’ (Muslim) boatmen, he writes:
When [Batu] moves upstream in the summer, he does not go further than
the point we reached; and he was already beginning to head downstream.
He moves up—as do all the rest—to the cold regions from January to
August, and in August they begin to turn back. (xix.1; Jackson & Morgan
1990: 130)
And speaking of the delta of the Volga, he writes:
In that neighborhood around Christmas Baatu is to be found on one side

of the river and Sartach on the other, and they do not move any further
down. It can happen that the river completely freezes over, and in that
event they move between the streams where there is the most abundant
quantity of grass, and there lurk among the reeds until the ice begins to
thaw. (xxxvii.9; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 258)
The northern ferry point is identified as Ügek, 6 km south of Saratov, and the
southern point is Old Saray, or modern Selitrennoye (xxxvii.8; cf. Jackson &
Morgan 1990: 130, 257). Following along the Volga, this adds up to an annual
diameter of about 700 km. Assuming the movement south took place around
the end of August, arrival in December would suggest an average pace of
around 8 km a day. Without data on the number of rests, however, this figure
is not very meaningful. The scale is, however, well above that of contemporary
movements in Mongolia, although slightly shorter than some of the longest
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

north–south movements recorded for traditional Kazakh pastoralism, where

maximal movement can reach up to 900 km (Abramzon 1973).
A more detailed itinerary is given by the Chinese scholar Zhang Dehui 張
德輝 when he travelled for a year with the young prince Qubilai in 1247–48.
Although place names for the camps are not given or not currently identifi-
able, he does give a description of the topography of the major stopping points
attached to a detailed chronology, which allows the main points to be delin-
eated (Table 1).4
TABLE 1 Itinerary of Prince Qubilai, 1247–48.
Date Place (name) Terrain Comments
Late August or early West of Tanggu River Southern slope of

September ridge with pine
forests on northern
slope
15 September Moved northeast for Passed ‘beacon
three post-road stations, tower’ into craggy
followed by repeated mountains
movements
9–18 October Mountain hollow, Winter move
amid thick forests, to sunny and
well watered warm place
with easy
access to fuel
and water
28 January 1248 One day move to
new site
25 February Travelled southwest
6–15 March Reached Qulan-Chikin Camping by melting
and then east to ‘Horse- Tamir river
Head Mountain’
4 Zhang Dehui’s travelogue was preserved in the Yutang jiahua 玉堂嘉話 of Wang Yun 王惲,
juan 卷 8, §308 (Wang Yun & Yang Yu 2006: 174–6). It was also partially cited by Su Tianjue
蘇天爵 in his prosopographical history of the Yuan dynasty, Yuanchao mingchen shilue
元朝名臣事略, juan 卷 10 (Su Tianjue 1996: 206–7), which was blockprinted in 1328. The
most recent edition with commentary is Erdemtü (1994).
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304 Atwood
TABLE 1 Itinerary of Prince Qubilai (cont.)
Date Place (name) Terrain Comments
3 May Began to ‘return’,

southwest to summer
campsite
Following 3 May Series of rapid Summer go to
movements high and cool
site
Unfortunately, most of the specific place names Zhang Dehui gives are of uncer-
tain location (for a tentative attempt at more precise location, see Appendix).
Regardless, however, the altitude, broad direction and radius of the movements
can all be determined. Since the geography is clearly north of the Khangai
(due to references in context to Ögii Nuur, Qorum and the Tamir River), the
southwestern summer camps must be highest in altitude, since any southwest
motion from those areas will carry the traveller up into the higher Khangai
peaks. This is confirmed by Zhang Dehui’s explicit statement. The spring camp
along the Tamir River is identifiable and is clearly much lower. The fall camp
is found near a ‘stone beacon-tower’ which is said previously to be located on
level ground (ping di 平地). Although the exact identification of this ‘stone
beacon-tower’ (shi hou 石堠) is difficult, I suggest that it might be a khirigsuuri
or Bronze Age tomb. Since such tombs, especially the largest ones, which, with
a described height of 15 feet5 as this would have to be (Allard & Erdenebaatar
2005), are mostly situated within broad valleys, this would locate the autumn
pastures in lowland as well. The radius is at a minimum of at least three post-
stations from the spring to the autumn camp and a significant further amount
of travel to the winter camp. One could add one more post-road length for
5 The text as we have it speaks of the ‘beacon tower’ being ‘a little more than five feet high’ (gao
wu chi xu 高五尺許). As noted by archaeologists Jean-Luc Houle and William Honeychurch,
who both have extensive experience with surveys in the northern Khangai area (emails,
25 February–3 March 2014), a five-foot high structure would simply not have the ‘very won-
derfully high appearance’ or ‘seen from afar [look] like a great beacon-tower’ in any of the
valleys in question. A 15-foot or more high tower, however, would be equal to the two high-
est khirigsuuris found in the Khanui valley today, and among the largest of any khirigsuuris
found in Mongolia. A 50-foot high tower would, on the other hand, be far higher than any
extant archeological remains. I thus feel that Zhang’s text must be emended to read gao
shiwu chi xu 高十五尺許 [a little more than fifteen feet high].
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

the autumn-to-winter migration (assuming that the repeated movements

described by Zhang Dehui were not in anything like a straight line) and, esti-
mating between 28 to 47 km per post station,6 this would involve a summer-to-
winter diameter of roughly 120 to 185 km. In terms of vertical movement, both
summer and winter camps appear to have been in wooded mountains, but
the summer camps were higher, while shelter from winds is stated to be the
main desideratum for winter camps. The autumn and spring camps were in
valleys. As so described, both the length of movement and their basic orienta-
tion was much greater than found in current Khangai pastoralism, and fit the
Altai or Western type much more closely. Thus, although the environment of
the Khangai was, to judge from Zhang Dehui’s description, well wooded and
watered as it is today, it was exploited, at least by princely pastoralists, in a way
that was more similar to movements in the twentieth-century much drier Altai
(Humphrey & Sneath 1999: 233–4). Yet the impression clearly left on Zhang
Dehui was that movements were governed by pastoralist imperatives includ-
ing the need for fuel and shelter.
Yet it is striking that the form of movement practised by Qubilai as a prince
was the Western/Altai variant, not the short distance Khangai-Khentii type
practised there today. The reason for this difference is hard to identify. Is it
that Qubilai, even as a mere ‘private’ prince, had more labour at his command
and could thus pursue longer movements not feasible for low-level commoner
households? But in that case we might expect to find, in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, Khangai-area monasteries, collective farms, or other cor-
porate herding enterprises engaging in such types of movement, as Humphrey
and Sneath documented in the case in the Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai type. Did
he have to supervise multiple thousands and thus cross their territories? Or did
it involve changes in climate or population density compared to the present?
Only further research can elucidate this question.
The most studied case of itinerance in the Mongol empire is that of Ögedei
Qa’an, whose yearly movements were described by Juwaynī and Rashīd
al-Dīn (Juvaini 1958: 236–9; Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 41–2; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971:
61–5; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 328–9), analysed in a philological article by John
Andrew Boyle (1972), and later reanalysed with archaeological evidence by
Shiraishi Noriyuki (2004). In an appendix, I will attempt to improve some
of the identifications proposed by Shiraishi. As described by Rashīd al-Dīn,
Ögedei’s ordo nomadised through the round shown in Table 2.
6 Based on the number of post stations per road from known end points, I calculate the aver-
age distance between post-road stations as 28 km on the Tergen Route and 47 km on the
Müren route. Zhang Dehui took the Tergen route. See appendix. Cf Shiraishi (2012: 34, n.18).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

306 Atwood
TABLE 2 Yearly itinerary of Ögedei Qa’an
Date Medieval name Modern identification Location and terrain
21 March– Tusghu Balaghasu Unidentified site over Similar to Qorum,

21 April (stay 1 day) 30 li east of Qorum but on east side of
(Kharkhorin) Orkhon valley
Qarshi (Qorum) Erdene Zuu
(Kharkhorin)
21 April–31 May Qarshi Sa’urin at Doityn Balgas at By a lake and
Gegēn Chaghān Doityn Tsagaan Nuur wetlands, relatively
(Khotont-Ögiinuur) low-lying
Early June Qarshi (Qorum) Erdene Zuu By a river, relatively
(Kharkhorin) low-lying, on edge of
mountains
June–July Tusghu Balaghasu Unidentified site over Similar to Qorum,
(Qorum) 30 li east of Qorum but on east side of
(Kharkhorin) Orkhon valley
July–21 August Shira Ordu at Upper Orkhon valley High-altitude
Ürmegtü (Dalan- (Bat-Ölzii) well-watered pasture
Dabās area)
21 August– Küse(n) Khüis Nuur (Uyanga) Higher, forested
1 October Na’ur~between valley pasture
Küse(n) Na’ur and
Usun Qol
1 October– In transit
15 November
15 November– Ongqin Shaazan Khot Moderately hilly, by
21 February (Bayangol) a river with gobi
vegetation, a local
warm spot
Tülenggü and Hunting sites,
Jalinggü Mountains especially for kulans
(wild asses)
Ataghatai Kermen
21 February– In transit
21 March
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

As measured by Shiraishi Noriyuki (2004: 117), these movements added up to

approximately 470 km per year. Measured by maximum diameter (from the
winter camp in Ongqin Sa’urin to the spring camp in Qarshi Sa’urin) the move-
ment would be about 225 km. If one considered only the summer and winter
pastures, the movements could be described as of the Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai
type, with summering high in the Khangai and long-distance movement to a
winter site in the Gobi. Indeed, the hunting sites (Tülenggü and Jalinggü moun-
tains and the walled hunting park Ji’ig built by Ögedei) were probably well
south of Shaazan, making the distance even longer. But the placement of the
spring and autumn camps are quite untypical of the Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai
type. In this type, the summer and winters pastures are the anchors, with the
summer ones furthest north in the Khangai mountains and the winter ones
further south in the Gobi, and spring and autumn pastures located, logically
enough, in between them. In Ögedei’s itinerary, however, the spring pastures
include an extensive detour to the Qarshi-Sa’urin or Gegēn-Chaghān site, well
to the north both of his summer pastures and of any contemporary form of the
‘Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai’ type. This was followed by a late spring/early sum-
mer movement southwards to spend considerable time in the Qorum-Tusghu
Balaghasun area, before moving in the later summer southward up into the
high pastures in Dalan-Dabās.
Another problematic feature of this sequence was the excessively late move-
ments down from the mountains into the Gobi in the fall, and the excessively
early movements in the spring northwards. In the autumn, the emperor stayed
at Küse(n) Na’ur, high in the mountains, to the beginning of October, well after
one would expect him to begin moving south, thus potentially falling foul of
heavy snowfalls. Similarly, by moving northward in March, the khans would
engage in swift motion and cross the high Dalan-Dabās passes connecting the
Ongi and Orkhon watersheds at a time when the livestock were producing
young. The khans thus risked a heavy die-off of young. William of Rubruck
described such an incident during one of the springs when Möngke was fol-
lowing the round established by Ögedei. Perhaps because he was already
behind schedule, Möngke separated himself from the main body of his entou-
rage going north along the Ongi in late March and pushed on rapidly into the
Khangai passes. William of Rubruck described what then befell:
[The Khan] himself moved on around Passion Sunday [29 March 1254]
with the small dwellings, leaving the large ones behind. . . . He passed
through mountains where there was a powerful wind, the cold was
intense and the snowfall heavy, asking us to pray to God to alleviate the
cold and the wind: for all the livestock in our train were at risk, especially
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

308 Atwood
since at this time they were carrying young and producing. (xxx.5; Jackson
& Morgan 1990: 211)
Fortunately, after two days, the storms abated. But pushing weak and calving
livestock into rapid movements uphill was obviously dictated by consider-
ations entirely independent of mobile pastoralism.
Moreover, this particular round of camp sites does not appear to have been
traditional to Ögedei or the other Mongol khans. Rather, it appears to have
been created by Ögedei only during the later part of his reign, as indeed Rashīd
al-Dīn implies:
From the beginning of the qonin yil [Year of the Sheep] . . . when he

sent the princes to the Qipchaq Steppe, until the hüker yil [Year of the
Cow] . . . when Güyük Khan and Möngke Qa’an returned, a period of
7 years, [Ögedei Qa’an] concerned himself with pleasure and merrymak-
ing, moving happily and joyously from summer to winter residences and
from winter to summer residences, constantly employed in the gratifica-
tion of all manner of pleasures in the company of beauteous ladies and
moon-faced mistresses . . . (Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 61; cf. Rashid-ad-Din 1960:
40; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 328)
The implication, that his decision to occupy a fixed sequence of camp sites
was taken in 1234, is confirmed by his construction of permanent structures at
these spots, again, from 1234 on. The summer site of Ürmegtü, where John of
Plano Carpini first saw the vast Shira Ordo or Yellow Palace was occupied for the
first time by Ögedei in the fifth moon, or June, of 1234 (see Shengwu qinzheng
lu “Record of the Campaigns of Chinggis Khan” or SWQZL, III, 245b–46a).7
Although Qara-Qorum was settled by deportees earlier (Yuan shi “History of
the Yuan Dynasty” or YS 58.1382), Ögedei erected a palace at the spot only in
spring, 1235 (see SWQZL, III, 247b; YS 2.34; YS 58.1382) and what seems to be a
‘palace-warming party’ was held at the next year’s Lunar New Year (see SWQZL,
7 The SWQZL, III, 245b–46a, records that in that month, ‘the traveling palaces were first fixed at
Dalan-Dabās’ 扵荅闌·荅八思始建行宮 (emphasis added). Dalan-Dabās [Seventy Passes]
here is a general term for the area of the headwaters of the Orkhon, Ongi, Tui and Taats
Rivers. That it indeed included the location of the Shira Orda and thus roughly of Ürmegtü
is demonstrated by the fact that YS 2.38 places Güyüg’s coronation, which John of Plano
Carpini witnessed (chapter 9: Dawson [1955] n.d.: 62), there. The site is specified as Balili 八
里里 Dalan-Dabās in YS 2.34; Balili 八里里 should be Baril, referring to the construction of a
fixed palace there.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

III, 249b–50a; YS 2.34) or 9 February 1236. (Note that this violated the sequence
he established later, by which he would celebrate the New Year well to the
south of Qara-Qorum at Ongqin on the mid-course of the present-day Ongi
River.) Qarshi-Sa’urin or Gegēn-Chaghān was built in the fourth moon or May
of 1237 (see SWQZL, III, 250b–51a; YS 2.35, 58.1382–3) and the alternative spring
and summer residence of Tusghu Balaghasu (Tuzghu Balïq in Uyghur) was
built in the summer of 1238 (see SWQZL sub anno wu/xu 戊戌; YS 2.36, 58.1383).
Before 1234, Ögedei’s various camping spots were quite different—and
unfortunately most cannot be identified. The known sites may be listed as
follows:
1229, VIII.24 (September 21, 1229): Ködö’e Aral (SWQZL, III, 223a–24a; YS 2.29).
1230: Winter–spring: hunts with Tolui on the Orqan (Orkhon) (YS 2.30); fourth
moon (May–June) holds court on the Kelüren at ‘Ox Heart’ (Niuxin 牛心)
(YS 147.3488; Su Tianjue 1996: 6.93 [cf. YS 148.3506]; YS 151.3576),8 then sum-
mers on the Tamir River (YS 2.30).
From that autumn to summer 1232, he was on campaign in North China.

1232, IX (September–October): reaches ‘dragon court’, probably the Altan terme
or Altan orda inherited from Ong Qa’an;9 autumn–winter: hunts at Naran-
Chila’un (YS 2.32), perhaps to be identified with the Naran Bulag oasis
(Gurwantes sum, Southern Gobi Province).
1233, XII (January 1234): goes to Chinggis Khan’s palace tent, presumably at the
Awraga site on the Kelüren River; II (March–April): camps at Tele’etü, west
8 This was the second of two audiences where Ögedei created myriarchs of North China; those
honoured were Shi Tianxiang 史天祥, Yan Shi 嚴實 and Shimo Beter 石抹孛迭兒. Since it
is known that they were all received at the same time, specific date and place information
for all three references can be combined. The first of these such meetings took place in 1229
(己丑), at a place unfortunately unspecified. At it, Liu Heima 劉黑馬, Tabuyir 塔不已兒
(confused with his grandson Chongxi 重喜, cf. YS 123.3034, 133.3230) and Shi Tianze 史天澤
were honoured: YS 149.3517; Su Tianjue 1996: 7.115–16 (cf. YS 155.3658). After the conquest of
Henan, the Han myriarchs were redefined as four: Yan Shi, Shi Tianze, Zhang Rou 張柔 and
Liu Heima (Xu 2014: §47 [p. 184]; Su Tianjue 1996: 6.98–99, cf. YS 147.3474).
9 If this Altan orda was kept at a fixed location, like the Shira Orda, then we might identify this
locality with the ‘Golden Orda’ where Plano Carpini saw Güyüg’s second, public, enthrone-
ment at ‘a pleasant plain near a river among the mountains’ (chapter 9; Dawson [1955]: 62–3).
This location was called Onggi Süme-tür or ‘at Onggi Temple’ in YS 2.39; the ‘temple’ here
must be the remains of the old Turkic funerary temple on the upper Ongi River, 17 km from
Uyanga sum, that holds the Ongi Inscription today. See Ōsawa (2011). But the Altan orda was
likely still mobile.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

310 Atwood
or northwest of the Tuul (Pelliot & Hambis 1951: 262–3); summer–autumn:

hunts at Ubis (?) 兀必思; autumn–winter: reaches the palace tent at Aru
Uquq Kö’ü (?) 阿魯兀忽可吾, where he encounters seven days of heavy
wind; winter–spring: feasts on the Orqan (Orkhon) River (YS 2.32–3).
In 1233, his primary direction of movement seems east to west, not north to
south; the travel to Chinggis Khan’s palace tent brought him into the Onan-
Kelüren area, a trip Möngke Qa’an would also make many times in his reign.
Only from 1237 on did Ögedei always hunt at Gegēn-Chaghān in the spring,
and hunt in the southern Kulan steppes during the autumn–winter. But even
in that year, the reference to alighting at the ‘dragon court’ and then moving to
palace tents (YS 2.35) may indicate a detour to the Altan Orda, which may have
been fixed at Küse(n) Na’ur.
Ögedei’s son and successor, Güyüg, in his first half-year, at least, emulated
his father’s movements, camping first at a mid-summer site near the upper
Orkhon valley, and then later in the summer crossing the watershed into the
upper Ongi valley, where he was enthroned at the site of the old Turkic funerary
temple, marked by the Ongi Inscription. From thence he moved south to hunt
at the Kulan Steppe of his father in the tenth moon (November–December
1246). But from the following summer he was camped entirely outside his
father’s round10 as he prepared to go west for a confrontation with his enemies,
Mongol and foreign.
Güyüg’s successor, Möngke Qa’an, is also said to have followed Ögedei’s
sequence of camps (Juvaini 1958: 239), but he too spent as many years outside
that sequence as in it. His coronation was Ködö’e Aral on the Kelüren (YS 3.34),
whence he moved by the Lunar New Year 1252 to Shighui [forest] (location
unknown), in the spring–summer to Qara-Qorum, and then to Küsen Na’ur
in the sixth and/or seventh moon (July–August and/or July–September)11 and
10 His summer camp is given as Qulü Huaihei Hasu 曲律淮黑哈速, which could be some-
thing like ‘Gür’ or ‘Köl’ and ‘Qoiq’ or ‘Ghaiq’ and ‘Qas’. I cannot identify it.
11 At this site, he met his brother Qubilai and gave him orders to subdue the Dali kingdom
in present-day Yunnan. This meeting is dated to the sixth moon in YS 4.58 and to summer
(conventionally moons four through six) in Su Tianjue 1996 (8.159), but to the seventh
moon in YS 3.46. YS 3.46 also says that many other campaign commands were assigned
that moon. The source cited by Su Tianje in 8.159 implies that Qubilai met Möngke in the
summer (that is, in or before the sixth moon), and then together they went to Küsen Na’ur,
where a celebratory banquet was held the night before Qubilai departed. Reading that
passage with YS 3.46, the seventh moon would be when they arrived at Küsen Na’ur. While
a strict reading of the passage in YS 4.58 would contradict this scenario, it appears to be an
abbreviation of that cited by Su Tianjue, in which case it has no independent weight.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

in the tenth moon (roughly November) to Ögedei’s Ötegü-Qulan (YS 3.45–6).

The last three camps followed Ögedei’s usual sequence. But left unmentioned
is the fact that in between his stays at Küsen Na’ur and Ötegü-Qulan, Möngke
Qa’an departed from the area and returned to the Onan-Kelüren area in the
eighth moon (roughly September) of 1252 (ren/zi 壬子) to carry out the first
of what were intended to be annual sacrifices to the sacred Kürelgü Mountain
(YS 68.1691–2, 72.1781, 78.1935, 158.3714, 160.3769).12 The next year, Möngke once
again returned to the historic sites of the Mongol imperial founding on the
Onon-Kherlen. This involved moving north to Gegēn-Chaghān for hunting
much earlier than usual, during the Lunar New Year (31 January 1253), then
arriving north of the Onon River that same moon, and summering at Qorqonaq
Yobur (located in the modern Aga Buryat steppe).13 From there he migrated
southwest to spend summer–autumn at Gün Na’ur (YS 3.46–7).14
From there he returned for part of the year to Ögedei’s sequence, moving
westward from Gün Na’ur, reaching what appears to be the plains around
modern Arwaikheer, the capital of Southern Khangai Province, in time to
meet William of Rubruck, who arrived through the mountains to the south-
west on 27 December 1253 (xxvii.10; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 170). From there,
as is attested in both Chinese sources and by William of Rubruck, he moved
south along the Onggi River to reach the site of Shaazan Khot in the twelfth
moon (January) before moving back north up the Onggi to Qara-Qorum
(YS 3.47; Rubruck xxix.44, anent c. 17–22, Feb. 1253: Jackson & Morgan 1990:
200). The following movements in the spring and summer matched those of
Ögedei, moving through the passes between the Ongi and the Orkhon head-
waters, passing by Qara-Qorum (where William of Rubruck alighted from the
royal camp and stayed behind), hunting at Gegēn-Chaghān and then mov-
12 The exact day of the sacrifice is variously given as ren/zi, VIII/8 (YS 72.1781) or ren/zi,
VIII/11 (YS 68.1691–2). It appears that it may have been planned for the former day but
then postponed for some reason to the latter date.
13 Whether this assembly at Qorqonaq is the same assembly at Qorqonaq Yobur mentioned
by Rashīd al-Dīn (Rashid ad-Din 1971: 223) is unclear. Rashīd al-Dīn places it between 1254
and 1256 and its main decision he reports as a decision to conquer the Song. One could
find such a decision in the YS Basic Annals under years 1254 and 1257 only. I thus tend to
think RD’s Qorqonaq Yobur assembly was actually in 1254 and not the same as that listed
under 1253 in YS 3.46.
14 The exact location of this Gün Na’ur is debatable, but it is certainly in the Kherlen
Region. Tan Qixiang and his team identify it with Ikh Gün Nuur, about 17 km south of
Baga Nuur. Another possibility would be Gün Tsagaan Nuur, south of the Kherlen River in
Bayanmönkh sum, Khentii Province. The key to identifying it would be to identify which
area was of special significance in the founding of the empire.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

312 Atwood
ing back to Qara-Qorum briefly, before travelling on, probably to Ürmegtü on

the upper Orkhon.15 Although Jackson and Morgan concluded (1990: 170, n.2)
that ‘Möngke’s seasonal residences appear to have been identical to those of
Ögödei’, in the eighth moon, Möngke was once again performing sacrifice to
Heaven at the Kürelgü Mountain (YS 3.48), often identified with Monostoi
Nuruu range (Tsenkhermandal sum, Khentii Province), and appears then
to have held another assembly at Qorqonaq Yobur, where it was decided to
attack the Song dynasty (Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 223; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 413).16
Although Möngke was certainly partial to Ürmegtü in the upper Orkhon, he
visited the east at least once more in 1257, sixth moon (July–August), for an
audience at Chinggis Khan’s palace-tent on the Kelüren, before returning to
Gün Na’ur, which he had visited in 1253. There he again sacrificed to Heaven
(YS 3.50; 72.1781). In the intervening years, it is recorded that Möngke spent
his summers in Ürmegtü, along the Tamir, and at the Shira Orda on the upper
Orkhon (YS 3.48, 49), and hunted at Ögedei’s walled hunting park, Ji’ig.17 But
this does not preclude his visiting the sacred spots of the Onan-Kelüren, since
in 1257 he is explicitly said to have returned to Ürmegtü in between his visits to
the shrine of Chinggis Khan and performing sacrifices to Heaven at Gün Na’ur.
From there he departed south, crossing the Gobi into Inner Mongolia, on his
way to Sichuan, where he would die of disease.
From this survey, it appears that what I call ‘imperial itinerance’ operated
on a different schedule and with quite different considerations from ordinary
‘mobile pastoralism’. First of all, the sequence of Ögedei’s itinerance does not
match any actually existing pattern of mobile pastoralism. Although the sum-
mer and winter camps can be seen as a version of the Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai
mobility, the spring and autumn camps were fixed for much longer times
than in that model and were differently placed, generating a poor schedule
of movement. Fortunately, Ögedei’s round came to rely on far more than
15 See William of Rubruck xxx.1, 5 (29 March); xxx.1, 6 (5 April); xxx.8–10 (7 April), xxxii.2–3
(17–20 May), xxxvi.1 (31 May–7 June), xxxvi.16 (June–8 July). Within this sequence, the
two places mentioned in YS 3.47 can be fitted by placing Möngke’s hunting at ā Gegēn-
Chaghān between 7 April and 17 May, and his summering at Ürmegtü in June–July.
16 As already noted above, this assembly at Qorqonaq Yubur mentioned by Rashīd al-Dīn as
the site where the attack on the Song was planned is likely to be different from the assem-
bly at Qorqonaq Yubur in 1253, recorded in YS 3.48.
17 The location is called Atahatie Qi’rman 阿塔哈帖乞兒蠻 in YS 3.49. The name of the
place where he spent that autumn-winter, meaning Ataghatai Kermen or “Envious Wall,”
appears to be a reference to the criticism of this wall as an attempt to monopolize hunting
(SHM §281).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

purely pastoral resources. He institutionalised this round, at least in some

sense, only after he also built a number of sedentary residences along its path.
Rashīd al-Dīn describes some of the infrastructure assembled to support these
residences:
From the provinces of Cathay to that city [i.e. Qara-Qorum] they estab-
lished yams [post stations]—other than the tayan yams—and called
them narin yams. There was a yam every five farsangs, which came to a
total of thirty-seven yams. At every way station a hazara was stationed to
provide protection.
He had commanded that every day five hundred carts loaded with
foodstuffs and drink should be delivered there from the provinces and
placed in the storehouses, from which they could be brought out for use.
For bägni and sorma (beer and ale) large carts that took six oxen to pull
were arranged. (Rashiduddin 1998–99: 328–9; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 62–3)
While some of this may have been meant for the ordinary population of Qara-
Qorum, undoubtedly the bulk of these goods, certainly the beer and ale, were
intended for the imperial court. Thus Ögedei’s cycle was certainly freed from
exclusive dependence on pastoral products.
Another source of provisions and a vital consideration in movement was
the hunt. Whether in the spring at Gegēn-Chaghān or in the winter in vari-
ous spots in the Gobi, seasonal movements for the hunt appear to be equally
or more fixed than those of pastoralism. The precise role of the hunt within
imperial practice was of course extremely multi-faceted. As is well known
from writings such as Juwaynī, the hunt served as training and practice for war.
At the same time, it also enabled the khan to serve as a dispenser of bounty,
just as he did in war. To that extent, then, movements to engage in the hunt
were essentially political movements, intended to gather major figures in the
empire, engage them in violent action directly under the emperor’s gaze and
direction, and finally offer the participants rewards and status in the form of
share of game.18 Finally, although the amount is not specifiable today, the meat
was undoubtedly a major source of protein, particularly in the winter months
when ‘white foods’ (dairy products) were less available (Allsen 2006: 4–6;
Atwood 2004: 183–4, 227–8). Thus the battue hunt was another consideration
that both allowed and required alteration of mobile pastoralist schedules, not
18 Rashiduddin 1998–99: 329; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 64–5. See Allsen 2006: 197–201.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

314 Atwood
just for the emperor, but also for all the major stakeholders in the empire, and
many of their subjects.
On top of these considerations, Möngke Qa’an added an explicitly terri-
torial and religious one. By institutionalising one and probably two annual
cults, one at Köke Na’ur and Kürelgü Mountain and the other at Gün Na’ur,
Möngke created an obligation for himself and, he presumed, his successors
to travel at least once a year to the Onan-Kelüren. This pilgrimage already
existed in some form, as shown by Ögedei’s visit to the ordo (or former palace
tent and now shrine of Chinggis Khan), likely fixed at the Kelüren site. But
Möngke Qa’an’s focus on revival of Mongolian tradition, which I have argued is
reflected in the Secret History of the Mongols (Atwood 2007), also had a direct
impact on his movements, altering the roughly Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai type
of movement institutionalised by Ögedei into an annual lengthy east–west
movement that has no function or analogy whatsoever in any contemporary
pastoral practice. Moreover, since Möngke Qa’an held assemblies while in the
east (at least once and probably twice at Qorqonaq Yobur, and once on the
Kelüren near the Chinggis Khan shrine), this new ‘pilgrimage’ style route must
also have shaped the nomadic movements of other members of the elite and
their subjects who had to serve them. As a result, the logic of the elite move-
ments under Möngke was shaped by an emerging network of holy times and
places of the type familiar from Christian and Islamic studies of royal itiner-
ance (Berhnhardt 2013: 310, 313; Melville 2013: 291–3). Unless Möngke were to
abandon the area of Ögedei’s itinerance entirely and confine himself to the
Onan-Kelüren area, the resulting movements would inevitably contradict any
form of actual pastoral practice of mobility. This is not to say that camp sites
and travel routes were never chosen with regard to seasonal and pastoral con-
siderations—as the period of Rubruck’s travels with Möngke demonstrates,
substantial periods of time could be spent along existing mobile pastoralist
tracks—but it does mean that such movements were inserted into a broader
scheme of itinerance whose rationale was religio-political, not pastoralist
at all.
Finally, the contrast between the relative mobility of Möngke Qa’an and
the immobility of Ögedei in the latter part of his reign reflects the difference
between the two rulers generally. As is implied by Rashīd al-Dīn’s introduc-
tion to his account of Ögedei’s seasonal residences, his construction of them
was part of a retreat from direct conquest and rule. By contrast, Möngke
Qa’an is seen by all sources as an unusually active and involved ruler, one
who reversed the laissez-faire attitude of the latter half of Ögedei’s rule and
that of the decade following his death. It can hardly be a coincidence that
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

strong rule corresponds to those periods when the monarch moved in a wide
and relatively unpredictable ambit that included not just the Qara-Qorum
peri-urban zone, but also the Onan-Kelüren. Pilgrimages to the former ordo
of Chinggis Khan undoubtedly added to the monarch’s prestige, while bring-
ing the imperial presence to the princes and commanders residing there
undoubtedly strengthened the monarch’s power. Calling assemblies at a wide
range of places, as Möngke demonstrably did, would also force these princes
to leave their personal strongholds and attend at places of the choosing of
the emperor.
During the latter part of his reign, Ögedei had dispatched essentially all of
these major contenders of power away from Mongolia to campaign in Europe.
Of the major contenders only his ageing brother Cha’adai did not participate
in that western campaign and remained in his ancestral nuntuq [homeland]
of Turkestan. It is not surprising, then, that Ögedei Qa’an no longer felt the
need to make his presence felt personally outside the core of the realm. Rashīd
al-Dīn states that his major aim in this period was merely pleasure, something
which Melville (2013: 312) has argued for in the case of Shāhrukh as well. Other
authors have found the same pattern of diminishing mobility late in the reigns
of Charlemagne (McKitterick 2011: 159, 167, 168), Shāhrukh (Melville 2013: 286,
308), and Shāh ‘Abbās (Melville 1993), which they have explained both by
the decreasing need to consolidate power and the effects of aging. Yet such a
laissez-faire approach risked a gradual loss of the emperor’s prestige. Möngke
Qa’an, by contrast, had just purged the empire, and presumably felt far less
secure on the throne, which he occupied for only eight years. Frequent move-
ment eastward allowed him both access to the sanctity associated with sacred
places like Kürelgü, Qorqonaq Yobur, and the ordo of Chinggis Khan, as well
as the opportunity to assess the reliability of those inhabiting those regions.
In conclusion, pastoralist concerns were only one, and not the most deci-
sive, of the concerns that governed the movement of the qa’ans of the Mongol
empire. These movements were shaped by a complex set of criteria, among
which the requirements of the hunt, supplies of goods imported from the
south, the needs of political control, access to sacred landscape and sites,
and personal convenience and preference all played a part. Yet whatever
the pattern, excessive adherence to a fixed round was evidently interpreted
by observers as a sign of indolence and even weakness. Whereas mobile
pastoralism demanded predictability, albeit with adaption to the environ-
ment and weather, imperial itinerance demanded the opposite—the willing-
ness to defy the weather and visit the major areas of the empire with one’s
unexpected presence.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

316 Atwood
Imperial Itinerance before the Mongol Empire
How far back can such ‘imperial itinerance’ be traced? Fortunately, Rashīd
al-Dīn preserved two schedules of nomadic movement (one of which can
be matched against known localities), which give a pre-Chinggisid version
of Ögedei Qa’an’s seasonal nomadic round. In this case, however, the round
includes both the personal court of Ong Qa’an and that of his Kereyid army. A
similar description of the round of the Naiman is found in the same source, but
unfortunately since almost none of the places have yet been reliably identified
it remains a closed book for now.
These two itineraries are only found in some manuscripts of Rashīd al-Dīn
and each itinerary is also associated with a text on the pre-Chinggisid history
found in the biography of the Kereyid and Naiman dynasties, also not found
in most manuscripts. These four texts—the Kereyid itinerary, the unique pre-
Chinggisid Kereyid history, the Naiman itinerary and the unique pre-Ching-
gisid Naiman history—share a set of distinctive indications of being freshly
translated from Mongolian.19 The two itineraries also share a unique tabular
format used nowhere else in Rashīd al-Dīn for such material. The narrative
materials, that is, the unique pre-Chinggisid Kereyid and Naiman histories, are
clearly intrusive in the case of the both the Kereyids and the Naiman, inter-
rupting the narrative flow. Moreover, although Rashīd al-Dīn is, as a rule, an
extremely repetitive writer who draws on his material in one section to flesh
out narratives in another, the narratives in this section are cited nowhere else.
For all these reasons, it is clear that all four of these texts were added into to
Rashīd al-Dīn’s Ghazanid History late in the composition process. These itiner-
aries are found only in those mss grouped by Akasaka Tsuneaki as recension 1
(Akasaka 2005: 9), and in the ms in the Tehran Museum dated to 1596. The mss
of recension 1, at least, have the full tabular format for the itineraries, while
that of the Tehran Museum ms is of unknown format.
Most importantly, the Kereyid narrative passage is introduced with the fol-
lowing comment: ‘It has been found in another book in Mongolian’ (kitāb-ī
dīgar mughūl-ī).20 This demonstrates that this additional narrative content
19 See, for example: qā’ān for pre-Chinggisid rulers (in contrast to Rashīd al-Dīn’s usual usage
for them of khān), qārā [black] (in contrast to usual qarā), Qūrjāqūs (for usual Qūrjāqūz),
use of the madde to represent Mongolian -iy- in tariyad and hamze with an undotted
‘tooth’ to represent –yin in Ūrūi’in.
20 Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 129; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 63; Rashīd ad-Dīn 1968: 263. This refer-
ence to an “other book” indicates that what immediately preceded it, about Ong Qa’an’s
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

was added not from oral tradition, but from a written Mongolian-language
source. Since, as I have shown, all four texts display clear parallels with each
other and evidently derive from a single source, it can thus be concluded that
all four are, in fact, derived from a single Mongolian-language book. This book
Rashīd al-Dīn must have accessed and had translated into Persian only later in
his composition, so he added the material in, without much attempt to inte-
grate it smoothly with the rest of his history.
This now-lost Mongolian language history of the Kereyid and Naiman shares
distinct features of language, interests and narrative style with what I have
reconstructed as ‘The Indictment of Ong Qa’an’ and two narratives derived
from it. These two narratives form the skeleton of the middle section of both
the Secret History of the Mongols and also the Veritable Record of Chinggis Khan,
a Mongolian-language narrative now extant only in a Persian version (as the
base text for Rashīd al-Dīn’s ‘History of Chinggis Khan’) and in two Chinese
citations (as the base text of the Yuan shi 1, and as the sections on Chinggis
Khan in the Shengwu qinzheng lu or ‘Record of the Campaigns of Chinggis
Khan’).21 The first narrative concerns the Kereyids and portrays Chinggis Khan
as the legitimate successor to the Kereyid realm, due to the Kereyid rulers’
feckless internal divisions and their queens’ fascination with witchcraft. The
second, rather shorter narrative, paints the same picture of the Naiman. Both
appear to have circulated in one manuscript, together with the ‘Indictment’
itself, which was the message of Chinggis Khan to Ong Qa’an, detailed how
Ong Qa’an repaid Chinggis Khan’s faithful service with treachery.
While these itineraries are not contemporary, they do predate the Secret
History of the Mongols and other sources, a fact that is evident since they were
used as sources by the Secret History of the Mongols and the Veritable Record.
But since this narrative uses the word qa’an for Chinggis Khan’s father Yisükei
and other pre-Chinggisid figures, it appears to date to after 1229, when Ögedei
took that title and thus made it requisite for others seeking to be of true impe-
rial status. While these histories, and the itineraries they contain, are thus
grandfather Marghuz (Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 129; Rashīd ad-Dīn 1968: 259–63; Rashiduddin
1998–99: 62–3), also came from a book on the Kereyid. I would guess that material in
Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 111–14 and 129, Rashiduddin 1998–99: 50–52 & 62–3, and Rashīd
ad-Dīn 1968: 194–204 may derive from this same book.
21 This narrative covers roughly the Kereyid- and Naiman-centric material from meeting of
Chinggis Khan and Ong Qa’an (SHM §150; SWQZL, pp. 34a–39a; YS 1.5) to Jebe’s destruction
of Küchülüg (SHM §237; SWQZL, pp. 200a–202b). See the source-critical commentary in
Atwood (forthcoming) for details.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

318 Atwood
r etrospective accounts, they do contain many place names found nowhere else
and to that degree appear to be derived from genuine source material.
The two itineraries are as follows: first the Kereyid (Rashid-ad-Din 1952a:
126–7; Rashīd ad-Dīn 1968: 251–2) (Table 3); and that of the Naiman (Rashid-
ad-Din 1952a: 136; Rashīd ad-Dīn 1968: 291) (Table 4). Unfortunately, the
Naiman toponyms are almost completely impenetrable to me, so only the
more detailed Kereyid record can be discussed at present.22
TABLE 3 Nomadic Itinerary of Kereyid Khan and Army. Particulars of the yūrts of the Kereyid
peoples (āqwām) by yaylaq [summer camps] and qishlaq [winter camps].
Yaylaq [summer camps]

Personal (khaṣṣeh) yurt of Ong Khan That of his army (cherig)
Dalan-Dabaz Küse’ür Na’ur Right Hand Left Hand
Tületen Jalsutan Abji’a-Köteger
Elet Tarāt Ūrūt Ūkūrūt
Elet Tarāt
Qishlaq [winter camps]
Onggin Müren Oroi-yin Körken Tūsh Burāwū
Shira Qulusun Ötegü Qulan Jala’u Qulan
TABLE 4 Nomadic Itinerary of Naiman Khan and Army.
Yaylagh [summer camp]

Tālāq Jājīr Nāwūr
the yūrt of their king place of his ūrdū
(pādishāh)
Qishlagh [winter camp]
Ādrī-Abqeh Baqras Ājīrīq Alā-Yatrīnk
a mountain Ūlūm Nāwūr a river
22 If one is willing to emend the text, then Tālāq may be read as *Tāldaq, which may be
identified with Taldagiin Ikh Uul in Bayan-Ölgii province, and Ādrī-Abqeh might be read
as *Ādrī-Anqeh and identified with the modern Edrenge Range in Gobi-Altai. This would
involve a reading of *Ādrī-Anqeh as two words, Edri-Anqa, subsequently contracted into
a single one, with the first one determining vowel harmony.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

R U S S I A N
Khövsgöl
3028
Nuur
Uvs Nuur 2682
F E D E R A T I O N
Qorqonaq Yobur
3351
Ulaangom
2298
4116
Ölgii Uvs Khövsgöl Sükhbaatar
Bay an- Mörön
Orkhon
4208
Khyargas Selenge
Ölgii Nuur Darkhan
Khar-Us
Nuur Erdenet Darkhan-
Zavkhan Uul
Khovd M O N G O L I A
Zhang Dehui's meeting See inset below Bulgan Khentii Choibalsan
3797 for more detail Baganuur
place with Qubilai SA
Arkhangai SA Ulaanbaatar Kürelgü Mountain
4021 Tamir Gol l
Go
a
’ul
Ikh Gün Dornod
4090
Tu
Nuur Awraga site on
SQ Töv the Kelüren River
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

SQ
Ködö’e Aral Baruun-
Tooroit Uul
2936 Choir Urt
3739
Bayankhongor Arvaikheer
Khovd
3772 Böön Ongqin Govisümber Sükhbaatar
Govi-Altai Tsagaan WQ Mandalgovi
On
Nuur Övörkhangai
gi G
3951
ol
3802 Dundgovi Sainshand
3590
Bayankhongor 0 300 km
Dzüünbayan
WA WA Khongoryn
Serüün Bulag
WQ Ötegü- Zamyn-Üüd
2702
Qulan Khongoryn
Shira Els sands
Dalanzadgad
Qulusun
Dornogovi
Naran- Ö m n ö g o v i
Imperial Itinerance and Mobile Pastoralism
Chila’un Oi-yin Körken

WA
Present day capital city Urt Bulag Bulgan

Kheregsuuri Abji a-Köteger,
Present day city Awzaga Khairkhan
Arkhangai Bor Dunes in
Places of interest (see text) Azarga Southwest
Qulan-Chikin Dashinchilen
Provinces (Aimags) Tamir Gol Ögii Nuur
Qarshi Sa’ urin Khetsüü Els-
Lake at Gegen Chaghan Mongol Els
River Suwraga-
C H I N A Khairkhan Uul Qarshi
3590 Summit height (metres)
Ürmegtü
Camps of Ong Qa’an Shira Ordu Usun
– Summer (SQ) & Winter (WQ)
Bayankhongor at Ürmegtü Qol
Küse(n) Küse’ ür Na’ur
Na'ur Tooroit Uul Ongi Süme
2936 O
Camps of Right Hand Army Bayankhongor ng
iG
– Summer (SA) & Winter (WA) Övörkhangai ol
0 50 km Arvaikheer
319
FIGURE 1 Map identifying the pre-Chinggisid Mongolia Atwood & MIASU 2015.
Atwood & MIASU 2015
R U S S I A N
Khövsgöl
3028
Nuur
Uvs Nuur 2682
F E D E R A T I O N
Qorqonaq Yobur
3351
Ulaangom
320
2298
4116
Ölgii Uvs Khövsgöl Sükhbaatar
Ba ya n- Mörön
Orkhon
4208
Khyargas Selenge
Ö lgii Nuur Darkhan
Khar-Us
Nuur Erdenet Darkhan-
Zavkhan Uul
Khovd M O N G O L I A
Zhang Dehui's meeting See inset below Bulgan Khentii Choibalsan
3797 for more detail Baganuur
place with Qubilai
Arkhangai Ulaanbaatar Kürelgü Mountain
4021 Tamir Gol2
• l
Go
a
’ul
3 Ikh Gün Dornod
4090 1, 4
Tu
5 •• Nuur Awraga site on
Töv the Kelüren River
6 6a
Ködö’e Aral Baruun-
Tooroit Uul
•• •
2936 Choir Urt
3739
Bayankhongor Arvaikheer
Khovd
3772 Böön 7a Ongqin Govisümber Sükhbaatar
Govi-Altai Tsagaan • Mandalgovi
On
Nuur Övörkhangai
gi G
3951
ol
3802 Dundgovi Sainshand
3590
Bayankhongor 0 300 km
7b Dzüünbayan
Khongoryn
• Serüün Bulag
Ötegü- Zamyn-Üüd
2702
Qulan Khongoryn
Shira Els sands
Dalanzadgad
Qulusun
Dornogovi
Naran- Ö m n ö g o v i
Chila’un Oi-yin Körken
Urt Bulag Bulgan

Kheregsuuri Abji a-Köteger,
Awzaga Khairkhan
Arkhangai Bor Dunes in
Azarga Southwest
Qulan-Chikin Dashinchilen
Present day capital city Tamir Gol Ögii Nuur
Present day city Qarshi Sa’ urin Khetsüü Els-

at Gegen Chaghan Mongol Els
Places of interest (see text) Suwraga-
C H I N A Khairkhan Uul Qarshi
Provinces (Aimags)
Lake Ürmegtü
Shira Ordu Usun
River Bayankhongor at Ürmegtü Qol
Küse(n) Küse’ ür Na’ur
Summit height (metres) Na'ur Tooroit Uul Ongi Süme
3590
O
2936
ng
Bayankhongor
iG
ol
• Pastures used by Ögedei Övörkhangai

Qa’an – see Table 2. 0 50 km Arvaikheer
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Atwood
FIGURE 2 Map identifying the approximate movements of Ögedei Qa’an in post-Chinggisid Mongolia
Atwood & MIASU 2015
The seasonal itinerary of the Kereyid was studied by John Andrew Boyle (1973)
and Chen (2012: 457–61). Building on their analysis, most of the names on
it can be read accurately, and the broad geographical outlines can be ascer-
tained. One of the major difficulties comes with the fact that the tabular for-
mat has undoubtedly suffered some displacement. While the summer camps
are divided between army and Ong Qa’an’s personal entourage (khāṣṣ), the
winter camps, placed to the left of the summer camps in the mss, are not so
divided. But if one assumes the winter and summer camp listings were origi-
nally placed vertically, one may assign the rightmost one to Ong Qa’an’s entou-
rage and those on the left to the two wings of his army, as I have done here. A
second difficulty is that in the summer camps of his army, the army is divided
into right and left hands, but in the original chart formatting, the division of
right and left does not correspond with the division of toponyms. Moreover,
the cīlāt tar’āt or eled tariyad ‘sands [and] farms’ are repeated twice but out
of association with their proper names and only in the ‘left hand’ column. By
assuming that the ‘right hand’ column was displaced leftward and that one
of the ‘sands and farms’ was attached to Tületen Jalsutan in the ‘right hand’
column but then bled over into the ‘left hand’ column, one may hypothetically
restore the original linkage as in the table presented. This gives both wings a
‘sands and farms’ site.
Compared to Ögedei’s later nomadic itinerary, this itinerary of Ong Qa’an
fits more closely to the pattern of mobile pastoralism. The bipolar summer–
winter focus and the absence of lengthy spring and autumn camps are closer
to attested varieties of movement in the area. Ong Qa’an’s upland summer
camp of Dalan-Dabās defines the northern extreme of a classic Gobi-Altai/
Öwörkhangai type of movement. However, Küse’ür Na’ur, which I identify with
Sangiin Dalai in Ölziit sum (Southern Khangai Province), would be a rather low-
lying site compared to the usual Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai movement, instead
being the northern extreme of a version of the Central Khalkha or Steppe Type.
Within the winter sites there appear to have been two stages, one along the
Ongi river, where Ögedei’s winter camp also was, and another, much further
south, at the oasis of Shar Khuls [Yellow Reeds], not far from the present-day
Mongolian-Chinese border. From the summer camps to the Ongi River winter
camp would mean a diameter of about 130 to 180 km, a quite reasonable length
for either type. But camping at Shira Qulusun would involve movements of
480 to 570 km as the crow flies, far longer than any attested ethnographically
in Mongolia, although not entirely out of line with those found in Kazakhstan.
The aim may have been not just mobile pastoralism and hunting, but also ara-
ble agriculture at the Shira Qulusun (modern Shar Khuls) oasis site.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

322 Atwood
The seasonal encampments assigned to the two wings of Ong Qa’an’s cherig
or army cannot be so clearly identified. Yet the reference in both wings’ sum-
mer camps to sands and farms points to the area around the borders of Bulgan
and Northern Khangai, along the Orkhon (the right or west wing) and Khar-
Bukh (the left or east wing) Rivers. If this identification is accurate, however,
the northern summer camp is well to the north of the current limits today of
either Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai type or the Steppe type. In this sense, it has a
certain resemblance to the itinerary of Ögedei in extending lengthy north–
south movements well north of where they can be attested today. Note, how-
ever, the explicit anchoring of the army’s summer camps in tariyad ‘farms’. This
deviation from a more conventional pastoral mobility was thus connected,
like that in Ögedei’s round, with the availability of non-pastoral resources,
quite possibly inherited from Kitan sites in the area, such as Chintolgoi
(Kradin 2011).
This issue can be addressed with regard to the winter camps as well. One of
the intermediate winter camps (the Oroi-yin Körken) may be tentatively iden-
tified with the Khörkhiin Nuruu or Khörkh Range (Nomgon sum, South Gobi).
If these identifications are correct, then even this intermediate camp would
be something like 600 km south of the summer camps. The Ötegü Qulan and
Jala’u Qulan sites may be tentatively identified with the area of the Khongoryn
Els in the Gobi Gurwan Saikhan National Park, which would mean a move-
ment of roughly equal length, but directed southwest, not south. While found
in the Kazakh steppes, such large-scale movement is also not typical of any
pastoralism in Mongolia observed ethnographically. Here, as with the move-
ments of Ögedei and Möngke—in which Ötegü-Qulan at least was a common
hunting site—should we connect these far southern sites and their variability
explicitly with the needs, not of a pastoral economy, but of a hunting one? It is
also relevant that, later in 1293, the Kulan Valley site (which I identify with the
Ötegü-Qulan and Jala’u-Qulan) was settled with South Chinese grape growers
to make wine at Qongghor Bulaq (YS 125.3077; cf. YS 35.787, 136.3298). While
this attempt to establish viticulture was long after the fall of the Kereyid khan-
ate, the Khongoryn Serüün Oasis still exists and may have also been used for
some small-scale farming in the Kereyid period.
In sum, the path of Ong Qa’an’s itinerance presents a type of steppe or
Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai nomadism with north–south mobility exaggerated
beyond any current example in the area. While it does indeed conform in form
to types of mobile pastoralism used in the area, the scale of mobility appears
grossly in excess of what would seem reasonably required. Both agricultural
and hunting resources may have enabled and also required these deviations.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Yet, as in the case of Ögedei’s itinerary, this itinerary represented a mere ideal,
one never actually realized in the attested movements of Ong Qa’an and his
Kereyid army.
Along with this itinerary, the main body of the Indictment Narrative, as I
have reconstructed it, also contains a detailed accounting of Ong Qa’an’s actual
seasonal movements. The narrative dates all events by season, and for most
seasons states where Ong Qa’an actually camped, covering the period roughly
from 1199 to 1203 when he was overthrown. In this period we see Ong Qa’an at
the locations in Table 5.
TABLE 5 Camping Locations of the Kereyid Ong Qa’an, 1199–1203.
Time Location Comment Source
late autumn, c. 1199 Black Forest (Qara Along Tuul, near SWQZL 38b, cf. 90a;
Tün) modern Ulaanbaatar SHM §164; cf. §177
Autumn 1201 Assembly with Along Kherlen, near SWQZL 50b;
Chinggis Khan at Khentii Range SHM §§96–98, 107
Bürki Cliff
Winter 1201–02 Kelüren River to Probably in Khenti SWQZL 54a;
Quba Qaya Province SHM §148, §151
Autumn 1202 Ulghui-Silyü’eljid Eastern Üjümüchin, SWQZL 65b;
Rivers and Aral Wall Inner Mongolia SHM §153
Winter 1202–03 Jeje’er Ündür at Probably Tsagaan SWQZL 72a, 73b;
Berke Sands Öndör (Ikhkhet sum, SHM §166
East Gobi) north of
Chandmani Sands
(Darkhan sum,
Khentii)
Spring 1203 Qid-Gholughad SWQZL 118b
Autumn 1203 Jeje’er Ündür Probably Tsagaan SWQZL 125a;
Mountain Öndör (Ikhkhet sum, SHM §§183–185,
East Gobi) 187
One may also add another location dating from around autumn 1201 found in
the Veritable Record, but derived from what seems to be a biography of Deyi
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

324 Atwood
Sechen of the Qonggirad. In this source, Chinggis Khan and Ong Qa’an were
then camped in the area of Qutu Na’ur (SWQZL, 53b), a location which Rashīd
al-Dīn (Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 117; Rashiduddin 1998–1999: 180), based on an
unknown source, locates near the Onan River.23
Although many of the locations of these places are unknown or disputed,
all of them may be confidently placed in eastern Mongolia, entirely outside the
seasonal nomadic routes set out in table form at the beginning of the narrative.
Evidently, once Ong Qa’an acquired the services of Chinggis Khan and began
conquering the Tatar, Dörben, Salji’ud, Qatagin and Qonggirad, he moved east-
ward. Likewise, after the conquest of the Tatars, he appears to have moved
south and occupied areas of the eastern steppe and Gobi. (It is notable that
Chinggis Khan, both before and after his final battle with Ong Qa’an, occupied
Abji’a-Köteger, which Rashīd al-Dīn says was the Qonggirad winter camp.)
Evidently, Ong Qa’an was solidifying his conquest of new territory by mov-
ing to that area and occupying the major seasonal camp sites in that area. It is
unclear how much of his army accompanied him, although his actual capture
by Chinggis Khan is presented in the SHM as more of a raid on his main camp,
rather than the kind of massive climactic battle between two major armies, such
as is seen in the later battle with the Naiman at Naqu Qun. Research on Ong
Qa’an’s brother Ja’a Gambo also suggests that he and the bulk of the Kereyids
were not involved in the capture of Ong Qa’an and his son Ilqa Senggün (see
Atwood in press), which would again imply that, while Ong Qa’an’s personal
yurt moved eastwards after the conquest of the eastern frontier, his main
army did not, and remained in the old Kereyid heartland. Here again, imperial
movement was intended to serve political purposes, although in this case his
movement away from the area controlled by his old army proved disastrous.
Küre’en and Ayil Pastoralism Revisited
In discussing mobile pastoralism and imperial itinerance in the Mongol

empire, it deserves to be stressed that the sheer number of persons moving
with the palace tents of such rulers was orders of magnitude larger than any-
thing known in ethnographic reports. Boris Ya. Vladimirtsov had already pro-
posed the idea of dividing Mongolian pastoralism into two types, the küre’en
pastoralism and ayil pastoralism (Vladimirtsov 1948: 44–5). He diminished
23 My analysis of the textual sources and identifications for these locations will be presented
in the commentary to my forthcoming critical edition of the Shengwu qinzheng lu; see
Atwood (forthcoming).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

the impact of this distinction, however, by focusing purely on the idea of the
küre’en as nomadism in a circle, rather than on the contrast between agglom-
erated and dispersed grazing. Moreover, linking the distinction of küre’en and
ayil nomadism to one of ‘clan-tribal’ and ‘feudal’ stages of society and see-
ing the transition from one to the other taking place in the formation of the
empire, he was forced to deny evidence of which he was fully aware and claim
that the formation of the Mongol empire saw a transition from küre’en nomad-
ism to ayil nomadism (Vladimirtsov 1948: 55–6, 70, 81, 105, 109, 122, 132, 166). As
he acknowledged, imperial period visitors repeatedly observed enormous con-
gregations of felt tents, but this evidence he tried to discount by focusing on
the circular arrangement of the küre’en, used only in the presence of military
danger and which indeed fell out of use in the security of the empire.24
The evidence that vast agglomerations continued, whether we wish to call
them küre’ens or not, is indeed overwhelming. In 1221, on the first day of moon
IV (24 April), the Daoist master Changchun and his biographer Li Zhichang vis-
ited the encampment of Chinggis Khan’s youngers brother Temüke Odchigin
when a marriage was being celebrated. ‘The local officials from five hundred li
away brought fermented mare’s milk to enliven the occasion. The black wagons
and felt tents stood in rows, several thousands of them’ (Wang [1926] 1962: 265;
cf. Li Chih-ch’ang [1931] 1979: 65). Further west, beyond the Khangai, he vis-
ited an ordo of one of Chinggis Khan’s empresses, on VI, 28 (19 August). There
he saw ‘On the southern bank were hundreds and thousands of wagons and
tents. Every day our provisions were clarified butter and soured cream . . . Ordo
means temporary palace in Chinese; the carts and carriages, stalls and yurts,
presented a majestic sight, one that the great Chanyu of old could not have
equaled in grandeur’ (Wang [1926] 1962: 281–2; cf. Li Chih-ch’ang [1931] 1979:
71). As these passages highlight, such enormous agglomerations of persons
meant also enormous agglomerations of food, whether brought in or produced
in the camp itself.
William of Rubruck’s travelogue likewise substantiates the picture of enor-
mous mobile communities, mob grazing along a path north to south. As he
moved east from Crimea to the Volga, he found larger and larger camps. That
of ‘Scacatai’ (Shaghatai?) had a total of 500 men in his camp, divided into two
camps moving a day apart (x.1; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 100). His description
of Sartaq’s camp gave the number of ordo or palace tents, each governed by
a wife, as eight to nine (six for Sartaq and two to three for his sons) and the
number of attendant carts as about 200 per ordo. One can hardly imagine less
24 See Vainshtein (1980: 98–101) for a discussion that follows the lines of Vladimirtsov’s
analysis.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

326 Atwood
than one person per cart and so an absolute minimum population of up to

1600–1900 all travelling together is deduced (xv.1; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 114).
Batu’s residence was even larger, too large to estimate the number, and occu-
pying an area that Rubruck estimated as 3–4 leagues (or roughly 12–16 km) in
diameter. Most of that area was occupied, only the space directly in front of
Batu’s primary ordo being free (xix.4; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 131).
Much of the population of these ordos would undoubtedly be non-pastoral
in origin. In his encounters in the three camps he visited in the Qipchaq
Khanate, Rubruck personally met not just ‘Mo’als’ (i.e. Mongols), but also
Alans, Saracens (Muslims, of unspecified ethnicity), a Nestorian named Quyaq
(Coiac) and Hungarians (xi.1, xii.1, xv.1, xix.5, xx.3, xx.6; Jackson & Morgan 1990:
102, 104, 114, 131, 135, 136).25 Many were taken as prisoners in campaigns, which,
as is well known, specifically exempted artisans from massacre. This captive
population was amplified by hostage taking in the keshig or imperial body-
guard, as well as levies for special purposes. Möngke Qa’an, for example, levied
500 carpenters from sedentary lands to repair his palace tents (YS 3.46). The
küre’ens thus exemplified what James Scott has called, with regard to Southeast
Asian states, the ‘creole center’: the especially diverse and polyglot character of
the populations collected at the center of the kingdom by their courts’ relent-
less hunger for labour and experts (Scott 2009: 79–85).
Given such enormous concentrations and the fact that, as William of
Rubruck stated, ‘all of [the descendants of Chinggis Khan] currently own large
camps’ (xxii.2; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 142), it is an open question how much
actual ayil based mobile pastoralism there may actually have been during the
empire. William of Rubruck repeatedly encountered vast areas two or three
days’ journey wide in which literally no one was to be found (xiii.14, xviii.3,
xxi.6; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 110, 127–8, 140). In the Pontic Steppe, he implies
that this was result of the destruction and flight of the Qipchaq inhabitants,
but in Kazakhstan this seems less likely. In any case, the large scale of the ordos
must to some extent have depopulated the areas around them. There were, of
course, also satellite camps, herding livestock at a distance for the supply of the
main ordo. Rubruck again gives a concrete description of them:
Baatu has thirty men stationed around his encampment at a distance of

one day’s journey, each of whom furnishes him every day with milk like
this [i.e. clear or qara-qumiz] from a hundred mares (in other words, the
25 Ruthenians frequently, and Greeks once, are also mentioned, although Rubruck does not
describe a specific meeting with them (see x.5, xi.2, xiii.1, xviii.3; Jackson & Morgan 1990:
101, 102, 107, 127).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

milk of three thousand mares daily), not counting the other, white sort
[i.e. plain qumiz], which is brought in by others. For just as in Syria, the
peasants yield a third of the produce, so these men are required to bring
to their lords’ camps the mares’ milk for every third day. (iv.5; Jackson &
Morgan 1990: 82)
These herds seem to be Batu’s share of those horses levied to provide qumiz
and qara-qumiz for the imperial assemblies, a levy that also included cattle
and sheep (SHM §279; YS 2.29). But, in order to maintain the availability of
such herds, they too would have to move with the ordo, creating a kind of cloud
of satellite camps around the moving nucleus.
This pattern of enormous concentrations of people and herds mob graz-
ing through a denuded countryside can be seen as well in the ninth-century
travelogue of Tamīm ibn Baḥr, who went as envoy to the Uyghur khanate in
Mongolia. The Uyghur khanate also had a large capital city with farms and
caravans, not far from the later Qara-Qorum. Near it camped the king and
his men:
He found the king of the Toghuzghuz when he travelled to him encamped

in the neighborhood of his town and he estimated his army, around his
tents—to say nothing of the others—and it was some 12,000 strong. He
says: and besides these there are seventeen chieftains, each having 13,000,
and between each two chieftains there are offices, consisting of tents. The
chieftains jointly with those who are with them in the offices form a cir-
cle round the army. In this circle there were gaps to the size of four gates
opening towards the army. He says: and all the horses of the king and the
army pasture between the tents of the king and the places occupied by
the chieftains, and not one animal escapes outside the camp. (Adapted
from Minorsky 1948: 284)
Although the description is somewhat hard to understand, it certain describes

a vast camp or küre’en. Outside this region, which lay in the central Orkhon val-
ley, the envoy describes the lands as follows: ‘there were springs and grass but
no villages or towns: only the men of the relay service living in tents’ (adapted
from Minorsky 1948: 283). While the envoy’s emphasis is certainly on the con-
trast of nomadism versus sedentary life—as he approaches the centre of the
kingdom he describes passing ‘villages’ and ‘cultivated tracts’ (adapted from
Minorsky 1948: 283)—it is significant that he describes only those in service at
the relay stations as inhabiting the areas. Like Rubruck, he gives the impression
of a territory largely denuded except for those specifically designated to live
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

328 Atwood
there and service the imperial messengers. Whether this is the real situation
or an optical illusion produced by the limitations of a traveller’s account, or
perhaps a special feature of the areas he was passing through, is hard to say.
The image formed by these descriptions, of a vast agglomeration of peo-
ple and livestock moving, as David Sneath (oral comm.) has put it, like a vast
lawnmower over the steppe, recalls the technique of mob grazing which has
recently become fashionable in North American rangeland management.
While the type of stock (cattle only), environment (mixed cool and warm
weather tall grasses and fodder crops such as alfalfa and clover) and technol-
ogy (use of paddocks and mobile fencing) are too different from Mongolia
to be directly compared, the technique bears intriguing similarities to the
impression created by agglomerated mobile pastoralism. Mob grazing may be
defined as grazing at high (4500 or 5600 kg to 28,000 or 33,600 kg per tenth of a
hectare) to ultra-high (over 28,000 or 33,600 kg of cattle per tenth of a hectare)
stocking densities, with 55,000 kg being typical, and 224,000 kg being the nor-
mal upper limit. In terms of head of cattle, numbers used as examples include
variously 200 yearlings, 50 cow-calf pairs or 250 head per tenth of a hectare.26
The cattle are grazed in limited spaces, which are then moved several times a
day, up to eight times. After a bout of mob grazing, 50–60 per cent of the above
surface biomass has been eaten and the remainder trampled into the soil,
with manure deposited heavily over the ground. (The proper density has been
defined as no cow plop without a hoof print in it!) The area so grazed is then
not reused for several months at least and often only once or twice a year—
proponents argue that this treatment in the long run increases productivity
and eliminates weeds.
Mob grazing is labour intensive. Even with mobile fencing or paddocks
to take over the function of corralling the cattle, proponents admit that they
move less than the fully optimal number of times per day, for example two or
three times as opposed to the recommended four, ‘due to the labour require-
ment’. In American short grass country in the western plains, where conditions
are much closer to Mongolia’s, the labour requirements are even higher. Bruce
Anderson of the University of Nebraska noted that ‘if you do [mob grazing]
where grass is only 8–10” tall, you’ll be moving 12 times a day’ (Tietz 2011).
26 These numbers taken from Haag (2009); Holin (2013); How Mob Grazing Works (2010);
Lawrence et al. (1995); Lemus (2011). Except for Lawrence, the sources all used pounds
per acre, which I have converted to kg per tenth of a hectare. Lawrence et al., in a test-
ing of weed-suppression by mob grazing in humid conditions (it did not work), stocked
10 yearlings at 275 kg each on plots size 0.5 per cent of a hectare, or 200 head (55,000 kg)
per tenth of a hectare.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Critics such as Glenn Shewmaker point out that mob grazing is as much work
as milking; thus, given the labour cost, the danger is that animals will usually
not be moved often enough (Holin 2010).
These huge mob grazing concentrations may be also responsible for the ten-
dency of imperial itinerance in the Gobi to focus on a small number of rivers
and oases. Whether in the pre-Chinggisid itineraries of Ong Qa’an or the impe-
rial itineraries of Ögedei and Möngke Qa’an, the same sites (which I identify
with the modern-day oases of Shar Khuls, Khongoryn Serüün Bulag and Naran
Bulag) and the Ongi River appear repeatedly. If these identifications are indeed
valid, it would seem to relate to the need to keep the vast numbers of people
concentrated in the imperial camps watered in a dry environment. This may
also be the reason why the Gobi pattern of mobile pastoralism does not appear
in the current record; like the Khangai-Khentii type of low mobility pastoral-
ism, it may simply be unfeasible for large-scale küre’en-style nomadism, and
hence was relegated only to marginal populations, unlikely to appear in the
historical record.
Princely domination undoubtedly influenced the types of animals being
raised as well. In particular, the needs of war and the tastes of the Mongol elite
undoubtedly inflated the number of horses. One of the few pieces of medi-
eval data indicating the ratios of livestock indicate a herd heavy on horses and
sheep. The Jin dynasty’s imperial herd system, inherited from the Kitan Liao
dynasty and kept in eastern Inner Mongolia (roughly the traditional Juu Uda
and Chakhar areas), was counted in the year Dading 28 (1188), showing a herd
proportionately heavy on horses (see Table 6).
TABLE 6 Composition by animal of large private herds held by powerful lords in Mongolian
lands. 1188 = Imperial Herds of the Jin emperor; 1773 = private herd of the
Jibzundamba Khutugtu; 1835 = private herds of the 21 zasag [ruling] nobles and
2 khutugtus of Setsen Khan province.
Year Horses Camels Cattle Sheep & goats Total
1188 470,000 4000 130,000 870,000 1,474,000

31.9% 0.2% 8.8% 59.0%
1773 24,709 2015 3634 88,252 118,610
20.8% 1.7% 3.1% 74.4%
1835 18,253 1285 7355 52,634 79,527
23.0% 1.6% 9.2% 66.2%
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330 Atwood
While the virtual absence of camels would be typical of eastern Inner Mongolia,
the particular form of felt tents used in the empire—fixed on carts and unable
to be dismantled—made oxen in any case the preferred draft animal (Xu
2014: §8–9 [pp. 16–18]).27 The percentage of horses recorded is well over dou-
ble that recorded generally in Mongolia in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, and half again higher than that recorded even in aristocratic herds.28
These sparse quantitative indicators confirm the impression of observers that
fermented mares’ milk was the dominant food in the summer, which in turn
would indicate a horse-heavy herd structure. (Atwood 2004: 16, cf. 77, 224, 317,
498). One could argue that such imperial herds were not representative—and
indeed they certainly were not. But their sheer size gave them a disproportion-
ate influence on the types of animals that were herded, especially since such
animals were leased to herders, who had the right to a fixed percentage of their
herd. Thus, the disproportionate number of horses owned by elites undoubt-
edly also influenced the diet of commoners—the qumiz herders for Batu, for
example, were allowed to keep their product two out of three days (William of
Rubruck, iv.5; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 82).
Similarly, the different form of residence, that is chomchag gers placed on
carts, made mobility much easier, at least for the khans who were riding them.
The modern-style collapsible ger dates back at least to the Kitan period, but
in the Mongol empire was used only by soldiers on campaign in the Yanjing
(modern Beijing) area (Xu 2014: §9.1 [pp. 22–3]).29
Conclusion
The progress of historical geography in China and Mongolia means that much
more information on the movement of imperial courts, both before and after
the Mongol empire, may be expected in the future. For example, records from
the Kitan Liao dynasty have enabled the establishment of an itinerary with
27 Unfortunately the disappearance of fixed tent carts in the post-empire period means that
no contemporary parallels for their use can easily be drawn. We thus lack ethnographi-
cally verifiable information on what their advantages over the now dominant collapsible
felt tent or ger might have been.
28 Figures on livestock composition by animals are found in, for example, Natsagdorj (1972),
Ochir (1995) and Tsedew (1964). Those of the personal stock of the Jibzundamba Khutugtu
and of the zasag [ruling] nobles of Mongolia are most comparable and have been placed
in Table 6 for comparison.
29 On the history of the ger or yurt, see Atwood (2004: 615–16). Vainshtein’s contention (1980:
118) that the collapsible yurt was borrowed from the Turks does not fit the evidence well.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

four seasonal nabo, or camps, for each reign of the Kitan emperors (Yang
2013).30 Similarly, evidence from the Northern Yuan period in the sixteenth
century indicates a pattern of extreme imperial itinerance during the reign
of the khans from Manduul to Dayan Khan (c. 1473–1517) that extended from
the Kherlen River in the summer, through the Shangdu area in autumn, past
Höhhot and over the frozen Yellow River to winter in Ordos (Baoyindeligen
2014). Itineraries of monasteries and monastic personalities such as the Zaya
Pandita of the Oirats and the Jibzundamba Khutugtus of Khalkha can also be
extracted from biographies and histories of mobile monasteries. Since these
centres were supported by pastoral production, they would also be relevant
data.31 Further analysis of these itineraries, as well as the less specific data pre-
sented on the mobile pastoralism of commoners, will undoubtedly clarify the
differences and similarities between imperial itinerance and mobile pastoral-
ism and their changes over time.
Although this review of imperial itinerance and mobile pastoralism in the
Mongol empire and the immediately preceding period is preliminary, it has
confirmed that indeed, as Humphrey and Sneath argued, high mobility, as
measured by diameter of nomadic movements, was particularly characteristic
of political leadership. In every case where mobility can be measured, whether
of non-sovereign princes or of supreme monarchs, it was at or beyond—often
well beyond—the upper limits of mobility found for the given environment in
ethnographic research on early modern nomads. In many cases, not only is the
total diameter of movement extreme, but the selection and timing of camp
sites seems to defy pastoral logic. In other cases, such as those of Möngke’s
movements or the movements early in Ögedei’s reign, the known outlines of
movement—from the Khentii to the Khangai and back again—evinced no
pastoral logic at all.
When other factors, such as the technology and types of population con-
centration, are factored in, it may be said that imperial-era itinerance was built
for mobility in a much more extreme way than current mobile pastoralism.
This demand for mobility existed in a positive feedback loop with a differ-
ent form of technology of mobility (carts and chomchag ger versus the col-
lapsible ger), the herd composition (high numbers of horses), a different form
of concentration (large clumps of mobile population surrounded by more or
30 Assessing the compatibility of this itinerary with a pastoralist-centred logic would be dif-
ficult, however, because much of the areas concerned has been farmed and settled.
31 See, for example, the lists of the various places where the Nom-un Khüriye of the
Jibzundamba Khutugtu was periodically fixed given in Pozdneyev ([1971–77] 1997: I, 45,
47–48), which he derives from the Erdeni-yin Erike.
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332 Atwood
less d epopulated areas) and different forms of movement. The long-distance

Steppe, Eastern, Altai/Western, and Gobi-Altai/Öwörkhangai types and sub-
types of pastoral mobility are attested in the record, but not the modern short-
distance Khangai-Khentii or (East) Gobi types.
In light of these data, I propose to distinguish as two conceptual alterna-
tives what I have called ‘imperial itinerance’ from ‘mobile pastoralism’. The
term ‘mobile pastoralism’ has already been introduced to replace ‘pastoral
nomadism’ with the aim of eliminating the tendency to fetishise ‘nomadism’
and to stress that mobility is not sought for its own sake, but solely as a means
to further pastoral requirements. Humphrey and Sneath have demonstrated
that, in recent and contemporary ethnographic contexts, mobility is indeed
precisely most practised among yield-focused, corporately owned pastoralism,
while subsistence pastoralism has relatively much lower mobility.
One might argue that what I call ‘imperial itinerance’ is in fact a medieval
version of ‘yield-focused,’ corporately owned pastoralism. Yet the evidence
indicates that imperial elites were among the least market-engaged of the pas-
toralists in Mongolia. As William of Rubruck wrote:
The great lords own villages to the south, from which millet and flour are
brought to them for the winter. The poor provide for themselves by deal-
ing in sheep and skins. The slaves fill their bellies with dirty water, and
with that rest content. (v.1; Jackson & Morgan 1990: 84)
The presence of traders on the steppe is also confirmed by Chinese observers,

who speak of Chinese and Uyghur merchants conducting trade in sheep and
horses with them (Xu 2014: §30.1 [pp. 84–5]). Given their protected access to
non-market sources for all sorts of non-pastoral goods, it seems hard to believe
that Mongol princes were pushing rapid mobility precisely to maximise yield
from the herds. Rather in this case, it is precisely the ‘poor’—probably to be
understood in terms less jaded than Rubruck’s as a stratum of fairly well-
off middle-class herders32—who would need to engage in market-oriented
production.
Moreover, the nineteenth-century corporately owned herds, at least of
the lay nobility, were, as Humphrey and Sneath note, involved in a context of
pervasive public and private debt to Chinese merchants. To this extent, they
32 In xxv.10 (Jackson & Morgan 1990: 156), Rubruck seems to define all those who are not
Chinggisids as ‘the poor’, which would certainly not fit any objective definition of that
category.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

were forced to increase yield and market their surplus. The monastic herds
appear to have been little in debt, but also had to purchase on the market a
vast array of essential products needed for their operations, from Buddhas
to tea. By contrast, the thirteenth-century Chinggisid princes function in the
sources not as debtors, but as net creditors, loaning out tax and war booty to
ortoq (‘partner’) merchants. In sum, the ‘yield-focused’ corporate herd man-
agement model advanced by Humphrey and Sneath, while effective at explain-
ing varieties of mobile pastoralism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
would appear to be inapplicable to herd management by Chinggisids in the
thirteenth century.
Imperial itinerance, as a form of movement practised by ruling elites in
steppe states, thus seems to be a separate phenomenon from known variet-
ies of mobile pastoralism. Mobility for the elite seems to have not one single
cause but rather, many causes, as Charles Melville originally intuited. At the
same time, however, it seems that projection of imperial authority was cer-
tainly a significant part of the purpose. To that extent, ‘nomadism’ (i.e. itiner-
ance) was not just a way of avoiding power; it was also a way of projecting
power. This form of imperial itinerance was as much an instrument of pro-
jecting state (and class) authority as it was a way of avoiding the authority of
hostile states.
Finally, one must raise the issue of whether imperial itinerance was not
just indifferent to pastoral production, but was actually harmful to it. I have
discussed the possibility that the agglomerated pastoralism of imperial itiner-
ance might be following a version of mob grazing. Even in North America, this
technique has many critics (Helzer 2011; Holin 2010; Lemus 2011). But the strik-
ing differences in herd composition (predominantly horses, sheep and goats,
as opposed to cattle), environment (relatively warm and humid, compared
to arid and extremely cold conditions) and technology (no fencing) make it
an open question as to whether mob grazing would be more productive that
dispersed grazing in Mongolian conditions. Indeed, in current conditions
(admittedly probably 5–10 times more heavily stocked than during the Mongol
empire), grass in Mongolia already resembles the stubble left over from
mob grazing.
In any case, even if mob grazing was an effective alternative, it was certainly
far more labour intensive than ordinary grazing. As both proponents and crit-
ics of mob grazing point out, the heavy labour demand it makes is its great-
est weak point (Holin 2010; How Mob Grazing Works 2010; Tietz 2011). Such
heavy labour demands could be met by impressing commoners and prison-
ers of war into pastoral work, but it would certainly seem like an unnecessary
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334 Atwood
inconvenience to the herders, given that in these rich, relatively stable

environments, long movements are by all accounts unnecessary with dispered
ayil herding (Humphrey & Sneath 1999: 221, 228). The costs may have been as
much human as ecological.
One may also raise the question of whether concentrations of thousands
within a space of 12–16 km or so did not raise problems of waste disposal and
the potential for the spread of childhood and other infectious diseases. As
Simukov noted, garbage build-up (let alone human waste) frequently sparked
moves even in the Khangai where they were not necessarily needed (Simukov
[1929] 2007: 362; Endicott 2012: 37–8). This problem, like the numbers camped
in one place, must have been orders of magnitude greater in the large ordo
camps. The result may well have been to make movement—and staying away
from areas once camped on, until they were no longer pathogenic—a valu-
able practice in itself. As noted by William of Rubruck, the Mongols strictly
observed a custom
never to go back by the same way they came. Moreover, when the camp
has been sited in some place, once it has moved on nobody will dare to
pass, either mounted or on foot, through the locality where it lay, as long
as there are still visible any traces of the fire lit there. (xxxii.10; Jackson &
Morgan 1990: 225)
To a degree this taboo may, like the taboo among the Monguors or some
Inner Mongolians on hunting marmots, for example (Jagchid & Hyer 1979:
99; Schram 1954: 117), be related to observations of the spread of disease in
unhealthy environments.
The point I am suggesting here has been shaped by the arguments in
James Scott’s The Art of Being Not Governed (2009), particularly in chapter 3,
‘Concentrating Manpower and Grain: Slavery and Irrigated Rice’. In it, he
describes the fragile kingdoms of pre-modern lowland Southeast Asia in reso-
lutely anti-functional, anti-ecological terms. These kingdoms were, he argues,
bad for the ecology, bad for the people who live in them (except the rulers),
and even bad for the overall production of a surplus. Instead of a diverse econ-
omy based on a wide variety of products, the state preferred to emphasise one
crop only, paddy rice, because it was ‘legible’ and involved sunk investment,
tying discontented peasants to the land. As a result, Southeast Asian states
were ‘self-liquidating’, prone to extract from the nearby available population
resources in excess of what they could bear, thus provoking flight of the most
desperate, which only increased the burdens on those remaining, and so on in
a vicious circle (Scott 2009: 64–97).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

While much of Scott’s argument is specific to Southeast Asia, and may be

over-drawn,33 it opens our eyes to the possibility that the vast küre’en system
and its attendant features might not be justifiable in terms of pastoral effi-
ciency. Given the far higher productivities of sheep and cattle, for example, the
relatively heavy concentration on horses would appear to be less effective, in
terms of production of useful products—whether dairy, wool, or meat—per
acre of pasture or unit of herder labour, than would the more modern, post-
küre’en herds, with larger numbers of sheep and cattle.
While unable to present data directly addressing pastoral productivity
and health conditions in the great küre’ens, I would suggest that the evidence
strongly supports non-functionalist explanations of Mongol imperial itiner-
ance. While it is common to assume that mobile pastoralism is such a fragile
and unproductive enterprise that it somehow must be conducted with maxi-
mum efficiency just to survive, such a grim view of the pastoralist economy
seems unwarranted. Pastoralism can generate a fairly large surplus, which
also means, however, that rulers are certainly free to focus not on maximis-
ing absolute yield, but accepting a certain amount of loss and inefficiency as
the price of maintaining control over the population. While imperial itiner-
ance certainly made use of pastoral resources, along with those of hunting and
farming, it cannot be seen as simply a ramped-up version of mobile pastoral-
ism. The needs it fulfilled do not appear to have included maximising pastoral
yield and it may be plausible argumed that it was actually bad both for the
herds and for the herders. But it enabled control of pastoral territory and of
pastoral populations, just as the royal progresses in Europe and the Middle
East enabled control of agricultural territory and populations. To that extent it
fitted the same logic of extraction in conditions of relatively low productivity.
References
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Aung-Thwin (2011: 95–9).
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Appendix: Notes on Disputed Location of Camps
Average Distance between Post Road Stations in Mongolia
The following post road stations existed in Mongolia under the Yuan dynasty (Dang
2006: 287–8):
1 The Tergen Post, which went from Shangdu to ‘Fish Lake’ (modern Khüül-
Chagaan Nuur in Abaga Banner; see Shiraishi 2012) to the Kelüren to Qara-
Qorum: 57 stations.
a The total length can be approximated by the following modern roads:
Habirgatu to Sönid Left (via Shiliin Hot): 272 km; Sönid Left to border: 108 km;
across border c. 20 km; Bayan to Baruun-Urt (via Ongon): 205 km; Baruun-Urt
to Chinggis Khaan (Öndörkhaan): 229 km; Chinggis Khaan to Ulaanbaatar
(via Bayanmönkh): 386 km; Ulaanbaatar to Kharkhorin: 365. Total 1585 km or
28 km between stations.34
2 The Müren Post, which went from Lilingtai to Fengzhou to Jingzhou to the Ongi
River to Qorum: 38 stations.
b The total length can be approximated by the following modern roads:
Zhenglan Qi to Bayan’oboo (via Höhhot) to Sangiin Dalai: 835 km; Sangiin
Dalai to Gantsmod: c. 150 km; from Gantsmod to Dalanzadgad: 333 km; from
Dalanzadgad to Kharkhorim (via Mandal-Owoo and Kharkhorin): 499 km.
Total: 1817 km or average 48 km between stations.
3 The Narin Post, whose route cannot be delineated
It may be noted that 25–30 km per day has been frequently estimated as the average
daily movement under Charlemagne (McKitterick 2011: 148). The actual figures pre-
sented in the table in McKitterick (2011: 149) yield an average of 28 km per day.
Zhang Dehui’s Itinerary
The most securely locatable place appears before Zhang Dehui meets Qubilai. On his
way there, he passed a ‘Great Lake’ (Da ze 大澤), which in Mongolian was called (in his
idiosyncratic transcription) Wuwujie Nao’r 吾悮竭, which he described as 60–70 li 里
34 Distances here and throughout calculated using 1) for Inner Mongolia: Zhongguo qiche
siji dituce and Nei Menggu Zizhiqu junmin liangyong jiaotong dituce; and 2) for Mongolia:
Mongol uls: Awto zamyn atlas, and Awto zamyn süljeenii atlas/Road Network Atlas of
Mongolia, and Mongol ulsyn awto zamyn atlas.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

around. This can only be the modern Ögii Nuur (Ögüi Na’ur in the Uyghur-Mongolian
script of Simukov’s 1934 atlas) lake; to judge from Zhang Dehui’s transcription, the
Middle Mongolian name was Ö’ögei, which is a plausible precursor of the modern
hydronym.
From there his trip to meet Qubilai involved one post-station northwest, one
northeast and three southwest. The stage northwest involved passing the ‘Horse-
Head Mountain’ and ends at Qulan-Chikin [Kulan’s-Ear]. Chinese historical geog-
raphers have identified ‘Horse-Head Mountain’ with Belkhiin Üzüüriin Tolgoi and
place Qulan-Chikin, stated by Zhang Dehui to be on the Tamir River, around modern
Builant Bag in Tsenkher sum, on the Urd Tamir. But these two places are southwest,
not northwest of Ögii Nuur. I prefer to identify ‘Horse Head Mountain’ with the Bor
Azarga [Brown Stallion] or Ukhaa Azarga [Light red Stallion] peaks north of the Tamir,
and place Qulan-Chikin west of present-day Battsengel sum on the main Tamir River
(called Ghurban-Tamir in Middle Mongolian). (This is admittedly west, not northwest,
of Ögii Nuur, but at least it is not southwest of it!)
The next identifiable landmark is the ‘Stone Beacon-Tower’, which I take to be a
large khirigsuuri. The most identifiable one is in the Khanui valley, at the Urt Bulag
site (48°05'08"N 10°03'28"E),35 which would mean that the movement northeast took
Zhang Dehui well into the Khanui River valley. The movement southwest, to avoid
simply retracing his steps, would then involve crossing westward into the Terkh River
valley and moving southwest, against the current, along that. This would then be the
Tanggu[t] river, which he found flowing northeast.
Zhang Dehui would thus have met Qubilai in the upper reaches of the Terkh River
in the area of present-day Khangai or Tsakhir sum, North Khangai province.
Ögedei’s Camps
Tuzghu Balaghasun, Qarshi, Qarshi Sa’urin, Gegēn-Chaghān, Shira Ordu: for these
places I follow Shiraishi 2004.
Ürmegtü: This is the site in the upper Orkhon valley where the Shira Ordo or Yellow
Palace was located (see Chen 2012: 448–9; Shiraishi 2004: 107–8, 114). While Shiraishi
(2004: 114) is undoubtedly correct in the general location, his linkage of the name
Ürmegtü with Uuragt Mountain is philologically impossible and too far to the east.
Ürmegtü appears in Chinese and Persian transcription in the following forms:
Yue’rmieqietu 月兒滅怯土 (YS 3.47, 48, 50) and Yu’rmaigedu 欲兒陌哥都 (YS 3.49),
and AWRMKTW (Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 41; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 63; Rashiduddin
1998–99: 329). It also appears in Mongolian in Lubsang-Danzin’s Altan tobchi in
35 My thanks to Jean-Luc Houle for his assistance.
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344 Atwood
132a, line 15 (Choimaa 2011: 123, 235), as Örmögetü. Moreover, the root is attested in
modern Mongolian as ürmeg, modern irmeg, meaning edge of a ravine or steep
river bank (see Lessing 1982, s.v. irmeg; Mostaert [1941–44] 2009: s.v. īrmek). There
appear to be two variant pronunciations of the name: Örmegetü (>Örmögetü) and
Ürmegetü (>Ürmegtü>Ürmegt>Irmegt). The latter form is attested in present-day
toponyms in Mongolia as, for example, Irmeg Tolgoi [Ravine Hill] (Khentii Province)
or Irmegtein Dawaa [Pass with Ravines] (Bayan-Ölgii). It is likely that the medieval
Örmegetü~Ürmegetü is also a pass with a ravine, probably along the Bitüütiin or
Örkhtiin Gol rivers. In any case, it was on the route that led from these headwaters
of the Orkhon to the headwaters of the Ongi River at Khüisiin Naiman Nuur
National Park.
Dalan-Dabās: This toponym, meaning ‘Seventy Passes’, may be identified as the area
high in the Khangai Range where Northern Khangai, Southern Khangai and
Bayankhongor provinces meet. It was used as a summer pasture by Ong Qa’an of the
Kereyids in sequence with the Ongqï as a winter pasture. As a pass, it could also be
used to cross the Khangai, as recorded in a story of the Kereyids: ‘And [the Kereyid
Sariq Qa’an] had the Mongols set out along the edge of a mountain called *Dālān
Tābāz, setting out himself via the same road and turning back at a place called Tūy-
Tāghājū’ (Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 114; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 52, with ‘Turi’ for ‘Tuy’).
As Chen Dezhi pointed out (2012: 448–9), Tūy-Tāghājū is the same as the Ming-era
‘Tui-Ta’achu Valleys’ (Tui-Ta’achu qongqurtan 推·塔出·晃忽爾壇). Tui and
Ta’achu are the modern Tui and Taats rivers in Bayankhongor and Southern Khangai
provinces, respectively, which flow south from the Khangai range, cross the Great
Lakes Valley and then end in salt lakes abutting the northern slopes of the Gobi-
Altay. As a broad area giving access to the Tui, Taats, Orkhon and Ongi river valleys,
Dalan-Dabās should include all the mountain pastures between between Tooroit
Uul (2936 m) and Suwraga-Khairkhan Uul (3179 m) where the highest tributaries of
the Orkhon, Tamir (modern Urd Tamir) and Tui almost meet. The name appears in
Chinese sources as Dalan-Dabasi 荅闌荅八思∼答闌答八思∼答蘭答八思
(SWQZL, III, 245b; YS 2.34, 2.38),36 Dalan-Daba 答蘭答八 (YS 120.2956) or Dalan-
Daba 達蘭達葩 (YS 2.33). In Rashīd al-Dīn it appears three times: *Dālān-Tābāz
(Rashid-ad-Din 1952a: 114; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 52), *Ṭālān Dabāz (Rashid-ad-Din
1952a: 126; omitted in Rashiduddin 1998–99), *Ṭālān Dabas (Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 35;
Rashiduddin 1998–99: 324).
36 The passage in YS 2.34, which describes an assembly in Dalan-Dabās, at which the con-
quest of the Song was assigned to Chila’un (i.e. Tas, the grandson of Muqali) appears to
be excerpted from Yuan Yongzhen’s Dongping wang shijia 東平王世家 (1317). A fuller
quotation, but without the toponym, is found in YS 119.2939, sub anno jia/wu 甲午, VII.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

As the name of a broad area, Dalan-Dabās was often prefixed with more specific
names. For example, in YS 2.34, it is prefixed with Balili 八里里 (Baril ‘building,
construction’ referring to the construction of a fixed palace there). This Baril can be
identified with the site of the Shira Ordo [Yellow Palace], where the coronation
ceremonies in the reign of Güyüg began before the move to the Altan Ordo [Golden
Palace] placed at the site of the old Turkic funerary monument on the upper Ongi.37
This Baril is thus at the place elsewhere called Ürmegetü. The biography of Chaghan,
Chinggis Khan’s Tangut commander of his personal thousand, places the qurilta of
1234 at Qingshui 清水 [Clear Water] within Dalan-Dabās. Unfortunately this top-
onym in Chinese translation is unidentifiable, although it does confirm the place-
ment of the Shira Orda next to a river.
Küse(n) Na’ur: This site, which Shiraishi could not identify, should be present-day
Khüis Nuur [Navel Lake] in Uyanga sum’s Khüisiin Naiman Nuur National Park.
Today’s ‘Navel Lake’ is thus a Mongolised folk etymology of an originally non-Mon-
golian hydronym, küse(n). At 110 km from Kharkhorin, this lake (near the larger lake
Shireet Nuur) exactly fits Rashīd al-Dīn’s description of it as four days journey from
Qara-Qorum (Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 41; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 63; Rashiduddin 1989–99:
329). This name appears both with and without the unstable –n. In Chinese tran-
scription, the name appears as Quxian-Nao’r 曲先腦而∼曲先惱兒, i.e. Küsen
Na’ur (YS 4.58; Su Tianjue 1996: 8.159). In Persian it appears as Kūseh Nāwūr, i.e.
Küse Na’ur (Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 41; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 63–4; Rashiduddin 1989–99:
329). Proper identification of this site has been impeded by unnecessary textual
emendations. Thus in his 1972 article on the seasonal camps of Öködei (p. 129),
Boyle identified this Kūseh Nāwūr with *Kūsākūr or Kūsāwūr Nāwūr, that is, Küse’ür
Na’ur. In his earlier 1971 translation, he emended the text from Kūseh to *Kūkeh, i.e.
Mongolian Köke Na’ur [Blue Lake]. Both emendations must be rejected, however.
Onggi Süme: The site where Güyüg was enthroned in bing/wu, VII (July–August, 1246)
is named in YS 2.39 as Wangji-Xumie-tu‘r 汪吉·宿滅·禿里, that is, Onggi Süme-
tür [at Onggi Süme or at Onggi Temple]. The tür preserves in the Chinese transcrip-
tion a fossilised Mongolian dative-locative. According to Plano Carpini, Güyüg
discussed his coronation first at one point, and then moved ‘three or four leagues’
(which could be anywhere from 10 to 20 km, depending on the length of the ‘league’
involved) to be actually enthroned at a ‘pleasant plain near a river among the moun-
tains’ (Dawson [1955] chapter 9, p. 62). Plano Carpini identifies the two sites by the
37 See John of Plano Carpini (chapter 9, Dawson, p. 62), and YS 2.38–39, which designates
the two places as Dalan-Dabās [Seventy Passes] and then Onggi Süme-tür (Wangji Xumie
tu’r 汪吉宿滅禿里) or ‘at Onggi Temple’. The latter I identify with the ruins of the Turkic
necropolis located on the upper Ongi, not far from the Naiman Nuur [Eight Lakes] area
near the upper Orkhon.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

346 Atwood
tents camped there (first the Shira Orda and then the Golden or Altan Orda). Of
these two sites, the first can be confidently identified with the Küse Na’ur which
Rashīd al-Dīn identifies as Güyüg’s coronation spot; this is present-day Khüis Nuur
in the Naiman Nuur [Eight Lakes] National Park in Uyanga sum, Öwörkhangai. Less
than 40 km east from that site carries one into the headwaters of the Ongi River, and
past the remains of the old Turkic funerary temple on the upper Ongi River, 17 km
west of the Uyanga sum seat, that held the Ongi Inscription (Ōsawa 2011). This must
be the Onggi Süme site—the old Turkic funerary complex would then be the ‘tem-
ple’ (süme).
Usun Qol (? AWSN BWL): An unidentified and hence hitherto unreadable name. For
BWL, all the mss have a tooth, either unpunctuated or punctuated as b, but since
Blochet, an emendation to AWSN QWL, i.e. Usun Qol, has been advocated (Rashid-
ad-Din 1960: 41; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 64; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 329). If Usun Qol is the
correct meaning, it should be noted that in Middle Mongolian, qol does not have
the meaning of ghool/gol [small river] that it has in modern Mongolian. Rather it
would be Turkic qol [arm; river valley]. The name Usun Qol would thus mean
‘watery valley’. Rashīd al-Dīn’s statement that it was one day’s journey (30–40 km)
from Qara-Qorum would indicate a location perhaps around modern Khujirt. But
this would represent a major backtracking from Küse(n) Na’ur. If the reading qol
[river valley] is accepted, then a solution easily presents itself. The Khujirtyn Gol
and the Kharzny Gol rivers run approximately 45 km from north to south, starting
on the northern slope of the mountain ridge that defines the northern edge of the
Ongi River valley, and then flowing north into the Orkhon or Khögshin Orkhon riv-
ers, at places one day’s journey from Qara-Qorum. The autumn camp sites would be
at the southern end of the valley, while the estimation of the distance quoted by
Rashīd al-Dīn would have been applicable only to the northern end.
Ongqin: I follow the identification of Shiraishi (2004) as Shaazan Khot by the Ongi
River. It should be noted that in Middle Mongolian the name ‘Ongi’ had two forms:
Ongqi(n), in which the spelling was influenced by Uyghur, and Onggi(n), with the
Mongolian g- before i. Both forms have an unstable final –n.
Tülenggü and Jalinggü Mts: These are two mountains located to the south of the Ongi
River area, but not currently identifiable. That gü is not a suffix, but a separate word
appears from the violation of vowel harmony in Jalinggü; it appears be a non-Mon-
golian word for ‘mountain’ attested in many empire-era Mongolian oronyms, e.g.
Kürelgü and Tegelgü 鐵堅古.38 The pair of Tülenggü and Jalinggü appear in SWQZL,
II, 88a together with another pair, Tületen and Jalsutan, which appear also in the list
of summer camps of Ong Qa’an’s right flank army (see below). It is hard to avoid the
38 YS 128.3136; Rashid-ad-Din (1960: 16) (‘Taklaku’); Rashīd al-Dīn (1971: 27n) (‘TKLKH’);
Rashiduddin (1998–99: 309n) (‘Täkälkü’). See Pelliot (1959: §95, p. 128).
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

impression that the four names form a set with two paired Gü (mountains) in the
south as the winter camp and two paired –tAn (unknown m eaning) in the north as
the summer camp. If so, then Tüle- and Jal- should also have some meaning in the
same language, currently unknown.
Ji’ig:39 This wall is said to be two days’ journey, or roughly 60 km, long (Rashid-ad-Din
1960: 42; Rashīd al-Dīn 1971: 64; Rashiduddin 1998–99: 329). It is referred to in
SHM §281 as one of Ögedei’s four faults. Juwaynī and Rashīd al-Dīn’s accounts of it
are entirely positive, however, without any sense that building it was a fault.
According to Juwaynī, it was south of his winter camp grounds, closer to China
(Juvaini 1958: 29). It would seem to be the same as Ataghatai Kermen (Atahatie
Qi’rman 阿塔哈帖乞兒蠻) or ‘Envious Wall’ in YS 3.49. This name would seem to
express the point of view of Möngke Qa’an’s reign, when much of the Ögedeid leg-
acy was being challenged.
Ötegü-Qulan [Old Kulan] and Kulan Valley (Yema chuan 野馬川): It is not entirely
certain whether Kulan Steppe is to be identified with the area of Ötegü-Qulan, but
the preponderance of evidence suggests so. Ötegü-Qulan is found as Ötege-Qulan
(Yuetiege-Hulan 月忒哥忽闌) in SWQZL, III, 254a, and as Ötegü-Qulan (Etiegu-
Hulan 鈋鐵[金+辜]胡蘭 or Yuetiegu-Hulan 月帖古·忽闌) in YS2.37 and 3.46.
Kulan Valley is found in YS 2.35 and 2.39. All references are to winter sites associated
with hunting. The name appears in Rashīd al-Dīn as Ūtkū-Qūlān for a winter camp
in his table of the camping grounds of the Kereyid army (Rashid-ad-Din 1960: 127).
As a mountain (YS 2.37), Ötegü-Qulan should be the western end of the Gurwan
Saikhan mountains, while Kulan Valley would be the Khongoryn Els sands. Kulan
Valley also contained an oasis, called Qongghor Bulag, where in Zhiyuan 至元 29
(AD 1293) households from the newly-conquered Song dynasty were deported to
grow grapes; see YS 125.3077. Sites where grapes can be grown are not common in
the Gobi and Qongghor Bulaq is likely to be the present-day Khongoryn Serüün
Bulag, in the Gobi Gurwan Saikhan National Park (Sewrei sum, South Gobi
Province). This site remained important until well into the fourteenth century; see
YS 136.3298 and 35.787.
Ong Qa’an’s Camps
Dalan-Dabāz: the same as Dalan-Dabās in the camps of Ögedei Qa’an above. The form
in -z is a Turkicised variant of the Mongolian plural in -s, indicating the Turkic
orthographic features of this Kereyid-derived source.
39 The name is a deverbal noun in –g (see Poppe 1974: §146) from the verb ji’i- “to stretch, to
extend.” It was read by Verkhovskii as chikhik, by Boyle as jihik, and by Thackston as chihik.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

348 Atwood
Küse’ür Na’ur: I identify this lake with present-day Sangiin Dalai Nuur (Ölziit sum,
Southern Khangai Province. This lake is mentioned in three contexts: 1) here as one
of the summer pastures of Ong Qa’an; 2) as one of the places passed by Yisükei
Ba’atur while hunting for Gür-Qa’an, Ong Qa’an’s uncle and rival (SWQZL, II, 88b);
and 3) as the place where Chinggis Khan met Ong Qa’an when Ong Qa’an was
returning from to his homeland via the Tangut kingdom (SHM §155, 171; SWQZL, I,
38a). In Tan Qixiang (1982: plates 11–12), the lake is identified with Lake Mandal
(Mandalyn Nuur) southeast of Mandalgowi city in Middle Gobi province, evidently
as the midway point between the Tangut city of Isina and Chinggis Khan’s camp at
Bürki Escarpment. But Lake Mandal does not accord with the other two data points
known about Lake Küse’ür. As one of the summer pastures of Ong Qa’an, it must be
north of the Onggi River location that served as his winter camp, later inherited by
Öködei and Möngke (Boyle 1972; Shiraishi 2004). And in SWQZL, II, 88b, which
describes Yisükei’s hunt for Ong Qa’an’s rival uncle, Gür-Qa’an, the start of the hunt
is Qara-Buqa Valley, today’s Khar-Uukh or Khar-Bukh river, a left-bank tributary of
the Tuul. From there two different paths were chosen to scour the countryside con-
verging at Tülenggü and Jalinggü mountains, known to be south of the middle
reaches of the Ongi River. Within the region thus defined, the lake Sangiin Dalai
Nuur is the only significant lake (BNMAUÜA, map 102) and thus I identify it with
Küse’ür Lake.
Shira Qulusun: Shira Qulusu(n) [Yellow Reeds] is a mountain and oasis (bayan bürd)
near Mongolia’s Chinese border in Erdene sum, Gobi-Altai Province.
Onggin Müren: The Ongi River, also used as a winter camp in the imperial period.
Tületen, Jalsutan, Abji’a-Köteger, and AWRW’T AWKWRWT: Of these sites, Tületen and
Jalsutan appear in SWQZL, II, 88a–b, as Tulietan 秃烈壇 and Zhansutan 盞速壇.
There they mark the starting points, near the Qara-Buqa (Khar-Bukh or Khar-Uukh)
river, of a dragnet through the Kereyid kingdom. Abji’a-Köteger, or Abji’a Upland, is
likely to be connected with the mountain Abji’a-Buqa-Ge’ü (Abuzha-Buhua-Gewu
阿不札·不花·哥兀) in SWQZL, II, 88a, and should be located at present-day
Awzaga Khairkhan Mountain in Gurwanbulag sum, Bulgan.40 These four sites were
the summer sites of Ong Qa’an’s Kereyid army. Of them, two are described as ‘sands’
(eled) and two are described as ‘farms’ (tariyad). Although the arrangement in the
two manuscripts of Rashīd al-Dīn that preserve the tabular format, the Tashkent ms
40 Since Abji’a-Köteger is here described as a summer camp of the Kereyid, it cannot be
the same as the Abji’a-Köteger far to the east which RD describes as the Qonggirad win-
ter camp, only usable by melting snow for water (Rashid-ad-Din 1952b: 122; Rashiduddin
1998–99: 183–4; cf. Pelliot & Hambis 1951: 409). Modern awzaga is in fact a common oro-
nymic element, and probably represents a pre-Mongolic common noun or adjective in
some way applicable to mountains.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

and the Istanbul ms, is clearly corrupt, a plausible emendation (see Tables) yields a
picture according to which both wings, right and left, each summered at a spot with
‘sands and farms’. Assuming a summer location roughly at the latitude of Qara-
Qorum or north, there are only two areas of sand-dunes, the large Khetsüü Els-
Mongol Els dunes in Gurwanbulag sum and the smaller, more scattered dunes in
Dashinchilen sum, along its border with Bayannuur sum. Associated with each area
of dunes would then be a farm—and indeed not far north of the Dashinchilen
dunes area is the site of the Chin Tolgoi Kitan era city, around which farming took
place in the eleventh century (Kradin 2011). Tületen and Jalsutan I identify with the
Khetsüü Els-Mongol Els dunes and nearby farms, while Abji’a-Köteger and AWRW’T
AWKWRWT I tentatively identify with the dunes in southwest Dashinchilen and the
farms along the Khar-Bukh up to Awzaga Khairkhan.
Oroi-yin Körken (? AWRWY’ N KWRKYN): Oroi-yin Körken may be tentatively linked to
Khörkhiin Nuruu (Körke Aghula in Simükow 1934, map 60, Na10) in Nomgon sum in
South Gobi Province.
Tushi Bura’u (? TWŠ BRAWW): I cannot identify this place. It appears to mean ‘facing
calves’41 (on tushï as a Turkic deverbal noun from tush- ‘to meet (face to face)’, see
Golden 2002).
Ötegü-Qulan and Jala’u Qulan: As discussed above, these are probably mountains in
the western part of the Gurwan Saikhan Range (or perhaps one in the Gurwan
Saikhan Range and the other in the Zöölön Range south of it) near the valley of
Khongoryn Els in Sewrei sum, South Gobi.
41 Boyle (1973) and Chen (2012) take BRAWW to be bara’u ‘right’ (without the -n). It is, how-
ever, in the wrong position to be an adjective and should be a noun. I tentatively identify
it as bura’u (modern byaruu) ‘two-year-old calf’.
INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Imperial Itinerance and Mobile Pastorali

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INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349 Inner

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi 10.1163/22105018-12340046

Batu – ger – itinerance – Kereyid – mob grazing – mobile pastoralism – Möngke –

From the first picture of mobile pastoralism given by an outsider, that of

Thus the subsistence requirements of mobile pastoralism (‘derive their sus-

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

and ­over-grazing near the imperial court. Political tensions, by restricting

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

nomadism in Iran as some unique force standing in the way of centralisation

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Mobile Pastoralism in the Mongol Empire

Any discussion of mobile pastoralism in the Mongolian plateau must begin

1 Mountain-area Vertical Alternation of Pasture

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

2 Steppe-area Horizontal Alternation of Pasture

The description here is of a horizontal type of movement, in which the tem-

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

This description evidently pertains to the vertical type of movement in which

Imperial Itinerance in the Mongol Empire

If movement in medieval Mongolia had a major political component, one

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

­ ovements governed by pastoralist criteria, an examination of movements

And speaking of the delta of the Volga, he writes:

In that neighborhood around Christmas Baatu is to be found on one side

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

north–south movements recorded for traditional Kazakh pastoralism, where

TABLE 1 Itinerary of Prince Qubilai, 1247–48.

Date Place (name) Terrain Comments

Late August or early West of Tanggu River Southern slope of

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

TABLE 1 Itinerary of Prince Qubilai (cont.)

Date Place (name) Terrain Comments

3 May Began to ‘return’,

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

the autumn-to-winter migration (assuming that the repeated movements

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

TABLE 2 Yearly itinerary of Ögedei Qa’an

Date Medieval name Modern identification Location and terrain

21 March– Tusghu Balaghasu Unidentified site over Similar to Qorum,

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

As measured by Shiraishi Noriyuki (2004: 117), these movements added up to

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

From the beginning of the qonin yil [Year of the Sheep] . . . when he

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

From that autumn to summer 1232, he was on campaign in North China.

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

or northwest of the Tuul (Pelliot & Hambis 1951: 262–3); summer–autumn:

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

in the tenth moon (roughly November) to Ögedei’s Ötegü-Qulan (YS 3.45–6).

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

ing back to Qara-Qorum briefly, before travelling on, probably to Ürmegtü on

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

purely pastoral resources. He institutionalised this round, at least in some

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Imperial Itinerance before the Mongol Empire

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

INNER ASIA 17 (2015) 293–349

Yaylaq [summer camps]

TABLE 4 Nomadic Itinerary of Naiman Khan and Army.

Yaylagh [summer camp]

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi 10.1163/22105018-12340046

and over-grazing near the imperial court. Political tensions, by restricting

ovements governed by pastoralist criteria, an examination of movements

less d epopulated areas) and different forms of movement. The long-distance

inconvenience to the herders, given that in these rich, relatively stable

35 My thanks to Jean-Luc Houle for his assistance.