uccession is always an important issue in history.

The legacy of a mighty ruler

and/or founder of an empire might quickly unravel if the issue of succession is
left unresolved. In Hindu history the Gupta-s were marked with glory because
following Candragupta-I they managed to maintain a line of highly successful rulers
with relatively smooth succession: Samudragupta-> Candragupta-II Vikramāditya->
Kumāragupta-> Skandagupta->Budhagupta. Before them, the Maurya-s had several
succession problems but managed to put out a line three mighty rulers. However,
sometime during the reign of Aśoka things started going bad and they never able to
produce one within their own line who could restore their power. In the case of the
house of Śivajī, many of the troubles for the fledgling neo-Hindu empire came as a
result of problems with succession. Among the Hindus, primogeniture meant that
Śivajī’s eldest son Śambhu would ascend the throne. However, he had shown bad
behavior and betrayed the cause of svarājya about a couple of years before the
great rajan’s death. Hence, he had been kept under detention at the Panhala fort
and some of Śivajī’s veteran ministers Moro Piṇgaḷe and Aṇṇāji Datto had turned
against him. His stepmother was trying to place her young son Rājārāma on the
throne. The ensuing conflict seriously damaged svarājya at a critical juncture in
the struggle of the Hindus against the Mohammedans. Chingiz Khan faced a parallel
situation of indiscipline and possible disloyalty from this eldest son. His eldest
son Jochi was born shortly after he recovered his wife Börte who in captivity of
his enemies for few months. A conflict broke out between Jochi and his brother
Chagadai and given the timing of his birth his legitimacy as the son of Chingiz was
called into question. A council was called and Chingiz and his generals like
Chormagun Noyan worked on patching up the issue between his sons. While his father
declared him to be a legitimate son to the rest of his sons, the tensions persisted
and towards the end of his life he remained away in own ulus disobeying his
father’s orders when called to meet him. It appears that the great Khan might have
sent his sons Chagadai and Ögödei to bring Jochi to him to be disciplined. The
tensions ensuing from this could have affected the succession issue but two factors
played a role in resolving it. First, among Altaic peoples ultimogeniture was the
generally accepted rule unless it was overruled by some clause of the previous
Khan. Second, Jochi died shortly before Chagadai and Ögödei set out to bring him to
the Khan, thus taking him out of the contention for succession. But that aside, the
success of the Mongol empire was in part how the succession to Chingiz Khan was
handled.

In 1223 CE, shortly after Jebe and Sübe’edei had crushed the combined army of the
Russians and Qipchak Khanate on the Kalka River, Chingiz Khan in a council of
senior Mongol commanders and officials declared that Ögödei would succeed him as
the great Khan. In making his choice he considered the following: His first son
Jochi was a competent general who had distinguished himself early in his career in
the Siberian conquests, in the annexation of the Kirghiz horde, and later during
the attack on the Mohammedans while seizing the fortified settlements of Signakhi,
Yanikand (the capital of Oghuz Turks) and Jand. However, during the siege of
Urgench, his strategy and pace of the campaign were criticized by his brothers
Chagadai and Ögödei. Finally, it was Ögödei who stormed the city though it was
promised already by the great Khan to Jochi. This was followed by his conflict with
Chagadai during which his legitimacy as the son of the Khan was doubted. He
restored his military credentials by aiding Sübe’edei after the death of Jebe.
However, after this, he disobeyed his father and retired to his ulus and never met
him again. Thus, he was ruled out. Chagadai, the next son, was also a competent
warrior; however, his quarrels with Jochi, his temper, and recklessness in the
quriltai-s did not please the Khan. Hence, he too was passed over for being the
great Khan.

The next son Ögödei was seen as a man of balanced temper but at the same time a
fierce warrior who proved himself in the thick of battle. When in his early years
Chingiz fought the alliance of Jamuqa and Toghrul Wang Khan of the Kerait Turks,
Ögödei, still in his teens, was seriously injured by an arrow that hit his neck. He
was then saved by Chingiz’s foster-brother Boroqul. Surviving this injury, he led
the Mongol forces again the Jin (Jürchen) to conquer the city of Ordos in Inner
Mongolia. In the campaign against the Mohammedans of Khwarizm, he along with
Chagadai seized the fortified city of Utrar and then took Urgench. In Afghanistan,
he smashed the Mohammedans of Ghazni and massacred them (truly their karma was
being paid). Thus, Chingiz Khan chose Ögödei as his preferred successor to the post
of the great Khan of the unified empire. At the same time, the other sons were to
get their own ulus-es. They were to hold a quriltai to confirm if Ögödei was
competent and if members from each of the lines elected him then he could ascend as
the great Khan, with all of them pledging their solidarity to him. In the interim,
the default state of Altaic ultimogeniture was to come into play with Chingiz’s
last son Tolui serving as acting Khan until the quriltai could be called. This
tradition of ultimogeniture appears to have been adopted by the Altaic peoples from
the steppe Iranians who were the lords of the land before them. Keeping with the
old tradition of ultimogeniture the Khan’s youngest son Tolui was awarded the
biggest share in the Khan’s personal inheritance. This also included the largest
share of the military which eventually allowed the ascendancy of his lineage.

To take a look at the succession as it happened we shall briefly revisit the final
years of Chingiz Khan. When Chingiz Khan left to campaign against the Mohammedans,
his Chinese campaign had to proceed at a slow pace as most of his forces were
deployed in the west. He had left his friend from youth and able general Muqali to
conduct this campaign against the Jin. Muqali with his limited forces managed to
preserve to Mongol conquests in China and also keep the Jin on their feet with
regular raids into their territory. Then he conducted an audacious campaign with
his small Mongol forces by launching an invasion of the Wei River valley at the
southern bend of the Yellow River. Thus, he kept the pressure on the Jin till his
death in 1223 CE. Then his son Boro and grandson Tash continued the campaign
against the Jin. They expanded the campaigns to attack the Han Chinese empire of
the Song who came to aid the Jin. However, with their limited army, they could in
no way conquer these vast domains completely. In 1225 CE, having smashed the
Mohammedans of Khwarizm, Chingiz Khan returned to Mongolia to review the Chinese
situation.

Around the time of Muqali’s death, the Tangut of Xixia empire got a new aggressive
emperor Li Dewang. He decided to launch a massive attack on his old enemies, the
Mongols. For this, he formed an alliance with the Jin and also mobilized the Yellow
Uighurs against the Mongols. The Mongol generals Boro and Tash staved off the
immediate attacks till Chingiz Khan returned. The Khan strategized that to conquer
the vast realm of China he had to first outflank the two Eastern Chinese empires
from the west by destroying the smaller western empire of the Xixia. The Tangut
expected him to stiffen Muqali’s successors by marching from the east but the Khan
surprised them by assembling a large Mongol force to the west and attacking them
from Gansu corridor in 1225 CE. The great Khan marched with close to 120000 men
with the largest division of several tümen-s (~80000) personally led by him, with
the rest led by his brother Qasar whose health was declining due to gout, the ace
general Sübe’edei baghatur, and the general Chaga’an. Sübe’edei first crushed the
Yellow Uighurs and took them out of their way. Chingiz Khan directed him to
systematically conquer the western towns of the empire and facilitate the
penetration by Chingiz and Qasar deep into the Xixia territory. Taking their old
capital, Qara-Qoto, the Khan steadily advanced eastwards and by August of 1226 CE
despite fierce resistance from the Tangut aided by the Jin from the East the Khan
forced their second largest city, Wuwei to surrender.

At this point, Li Dewang died and Li Xian ascended the throne as the emperor. Li
Xian claimed he was the Buddha of the Age but that did not seem to help much.
Advancing further Chingiz Khan then besieged the fort of Lingwu which was just a
short distance from the capital Yinchuan. Li Xian sent a massive army of 300000
Tanguts hoping that he could comprehensively overwhelm the Mongol army. But in the
battle fought on the banks of the Yellow River the outnumbered Mongol forces under
the inspired leadership of the great Khan nearly completely annihilated this Tangut
army in November of 1226 CE. In 1227 CE the Mongol army besieged Yinchuan the
capital of the Tangut. The Jin tried to help the Xixia empire survive by sending
aid from the east. But Chingiz Khan sent his mobile squadrons to punish them. One
rapidly moving Mongol force launched an audacious assault deep into Jin territory
to strike their capital Kaifeng and return. Shaken by this attack, the Jin asked
for peace but Chingiz turned down the offer and already prepared an invasionary
force to next deal with the Jin. However, as the siege of Yinchuan was drawing to a
close the Khan fell from his horse evidently during a hunt and probably sustained
an injury that resulted in an infection. Others believe that he might have
contracted some infection independently of a fall. He was taken in a closed bullock
cart to a secret hideout the Mongols set up in the forests of the Liupan mountains.
He realized he was on his deathbed and called his clansmen and generals around him.
He gave them a final lecture in which he laid out the lines of action to expand the
Mongol empire he had founded both to the east and west. He then stressed the issue
of unity between the different lines of his clansmen with the famous example of the
single arrow and bundle of arrows. He asked his people to follow his plan regard
his successor and told them: “Let not my end disarm you, and on no account weep or
long for me.” Before dying he also seems to have made his long-term succession
plans clear. The status of the great Khan was not to remain with the house of
Ögödei forever. He said that his grandson through Tolui, the wise Qubilai, would
someday adorn his throne. Then he died aged something between 65 to 70 on either on
18th or 25th August 1227 CE as per different reckonings.