Western Mongolia - Mongolia - page 462

conquered, in some distant corners of the empire, from Afghanistan to Poland, small
vestiges of the Mongolian empire still survive.
The English word 'horde' derives from the Mongol ordu , meaning 'royal court'.
In 1368, the Ming army captured Bĕijīng, but the Mongol royal family refused to sur-
render and fled back to Mongolia with the imperial seals and their bodyguards. Much to
the frustration of the Ming emperors in China, the Mongols continued to claim to be the
legitimate rulers of China and still styled themselves as the Yuan dynasty, also known as
the Northern Yuan. However, even within Mongolia, the imperial court exerted little
power. Unaccustomed to the hardships of the herding life, and demanding vast amounts
of food, fuel and other precious resources for their large court and retainers, the Mongol
rulers devastated their own country, alienated the increasingly impoverished herders and
eventually became the captive pawns of the imperial guards.
In the 15th century, the Mongols united with the Manchus, a Tungusic people related
to Siberian tribes, for a new conquest of China and the creation of the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911). Initially, the ruling Manchus treated the Mongols with favour, gave them
an exalted place in their empire and intermarried with them. Gradually, however, the
Manchus became ever more Sinicised by their Chinese subjects and less like their Mon-
gol cousins. The Mongols were reduced to little more than a colonised people under the
increasingly oppressive and exploitative rule of the Manchus.
WARRIOR QUEENS OF MONGOLIA
Chinggis Khaan's greatest disappointment in life was the quality of his sons, but his
greatest pride was in his daughters. He left large sections of his empire under the
control of his daughters, although they did gradually lose power to his sons.
Mongol women presented a strange sight to the civilisations they helped con-
quer - they rode horses, shot arrows from their bows and commanded the men
and women around them. In China, the Mongol women rejected foot-binding; in the
Muslim world, they refused to wear the veil.
At the death of Ögedei (Chinggis Khaan's second son) in 1241, probably in an al-
coholic stupor, his widow Töregene assumed complete power. She replaced his
ministers with her own, the most important of whom was another woman, Fatima,
a Tajik or Persian captive from the Middle Eastern campaign. In addition to the rule
of Töregene and Fatima from Karakorum in Mongolia, two of the other three divi-
sions of the empire also had female governors - only the Golden Horde of Russia