The strongest rival was clearly Une-Bolod, an accomplished warrior and a member of the Borijin clan, albeit through descent from Genghis Khan’s brother Khasar rather than directly from Genghis Khan himself. Such men, however, had held the office in the past. His genealogy may not have been ideal, but it clearly qualified him for the position. Regarding his heritage, he was quoted as saying that what mattered most was that all the members of the family descended from Hoelun’s womb, thereby making his ancestor Khasar and Genghis Khan equal. His most compelling advantage as a potential heir derived from his record of military accomplishments in a time when the Mongols seemed woefully lacking in the skills for which they had once been so renowned. During the time of Esen’s rule, Une-Bolod had taken refuge on the Onon River out of loyalty to his Borijin clan.
The other rival was still more an unproven boy than a man. He had no record of accomplishing anything, but he was almost precisely Manduhai’s age and came from a similar background to hers. He was the young boy Bayan Mongke, whom Samur Gunj had rescued from Esen’s murderous rampage.
In the years after Esen’s death, when there were long stretches without a khan, Une-Bolod served as the head of the family from the traditional homeland of Genghis Khan on the Onon River. When Samur sent the infant Bayan Mongke to safety among the Mongols, it was to Une-Bolod’s territory in eastern Mongolia that he fled. Despite Une-Bolod’s seniority by a decade or more, he recognized the infant as his “elder brother,” meaning from the lineage of the elder brother Genghis Khan, and therefore having priority in the line of succession to become Great Khan. Une-Bolod placed the infant with a herding family, possibly with the expectation that he might be lost or forgotten over time. The family lived in a remote and isolated section of the South Gobi, where a very sparse but mixed population of Mongols and former Tangut eked out a meager subsistence.
Because of the way that they grew up, Bayan Mongke and Manduhai had more in common with each other than they had with either Manduul or Une-Bolod. Although reared on opposite sides of the Gobi, both Manduhai and Bayan Mongke experienced a similar life in nomadic gers and subsisted from the same kind of traditional steppe herding. They resided far from the bizarre combination of stifling constriction and wanton privilege that marked court life. Although Genghis Khan had lived nearly three hundred years earlier, in many ways the childhoods of Manduhai and Bayan Mongke, possibly more than any other descendants’, resembled his. Like him, they had been raised on the margins rather in the center of the territory.
As herders, rather, they learned to wrestle animals into control, to always keep camels separated from horses because of their natural antipathy for one another, and to recognize where the cows could graze undisturbed by goats and sheep. They learned how to disassemble the ger, load the entire household onto only five camels in a precisely ordered fashion, move to a new camp, and rebuild the home. They knew when to bring the animals to shelter before a storm or how to track them afterward.
A child of the steppe was trained for survival and for constantly making vital decisions. Every morning, the herder steps out of the ger, looks around, and chooses today’s path according to the results of last week’s rain, yesterday’s wind, today’s temperature, or where the animals need to be next week. The quest for pasture is the same each day, but the way to find it varies. If the rains do not come, the herder must find them; if the grass does not grow here, the herder must find where it does. The herder cannot remain in one place, be still, and do nothing. The herder is forced to choose a path every day, time and time again.
While the farmer follows the same path to the same fields every day, the herder looks across a landscape of perpetual possibility. No fences or walls bar the way, but neither are there roads to guide or bridges to cross. The steppe is infinite opportunity. The options depend on the ability of the person who sees them and can find how to utilize them to meet today’s needs. The mountain becomes what the herder makes of it: a barrier to the herd’s migration or a refuge from the harsh blizzards and fierce sandstorms of spring and fall. A stone can be a hammer or something to throw at a lurking wolf, or it may mark the place to make a new hearth for today’s camp.
In such a world, children such as Manduhai and Bayan Mongke had to learn to think to survive. The child should learn from the parents but always be able to act alone and not merely follow orders. Wrong choices inflict terrific pain. A movement in the wrong direction can lead the animals on a death march of slow starvation and thirst. A box canyon may serve as a protected winter camp, but if the grass is insufficient for the animals, they will weaken and the wolves will slowly pick them off one by one. The child of the steppe learns to correct these wrong choices quickly or else die. The rigors of the nomadic life make a child into a self-reliant, hardy, and independent adult.
Both Manduhai and Bayan Mongke also knew the experience of being suddenly plucked from this pastoral life and taken to the royal court of an elderly relative. The new life not only freed them from the unending chores of daily herding life but also offered enticing opportunities for adventure.
After surviving the repeated attempts to kill him in infancy, Bayan Mongke reached sexual maturity, if not adulthood, early. At age fourteen he became a father and at fifteen became an unwilling contender for the title of Great Khan, an office that he did not yet want and was destined never to achieve.
He fathered a baby boy with Siker, the daughter of the Uriyanghai commoner family with whom he found refuge near the modern border of Mongolia and China. Her father seemed anxious to raise the family status by acquiring a Borijin son-in-law and grandchild, and rather than adopting Bayan Mongke as a son, he treated him as resident son-in-law performing bride service. Siker was probably a few years older than he, since girls of that era normally did not become reproductive before age sixteen and were rarely allowed to marry before that age. The chronicles describe their relationship as a marriage, but the evidence suggests that neither Siker nor Bayan Mongke developed a liking for the other, nor for the baby they shared.
Bayan Mongke was the grandson of Esen on his mother’s side and of Manduul Khan’s elder half brother on his father’s side. In addition to this bone bond, both the elder and the younger man had Oirat mothers. Manduul saw in the young boy a much less threatening heir than the warrior Une-Bolod. As a rival to Une-Bolod’s hope to become khan, Bayan Mongke helped to insulate the old khan from possible assassination or overthrow.
About the same time that Manduhai came to live as the wife of Manduul Khan, the old khan brought Bayan Mongke to court. Manduul apparently saw in Bayan Mongke the son he never had, plus the prospect of revitalizing the long-moribund court life. Whether for political or emotional reasons, the old uncle and his young nephew formed an unusual partnership. Each seemed to energize the other, and both perceived a benefit from the novel union.
At the court, Bayan Mongke made a dashing appearance, which he knew how to use to his advantage. He was young and handsome, with a flair of his own. He wore a brocade deel embroidered with gold and lined with squirrel fur, and he had a strong preference for riding chestnut horses. As a sign of his rank, he wore a golden belt, an object of majestic symbolism to the Mongols of that era. The Idiqut of the Uighurs had referred to the golden belt when he said to Genghis Khan: “If I receive but a ring from your golden belt, I will become your fifth son and will serve you.”
Manduul Khan bestowed on Bayan Mongke the title of jinong, meaning “Golden Prince” but signifying that he was now the heir and therefore the crown prince of the Mongols. After khan, the title of jinong had the highest prestige in the country. The importance of the office was evident in a Mongol saying: “In the blue sky above, there are the sun and the moon. And on the earth below, there are the Khan and the Jinong.”