Jochi (Mongolian: ᠵᠦᠴᠢ; c. 1182 – c. 1225), also known as Jüchi,[1] was a prince of the early Mongol Empire.
e. His life
was marked by controversy over the circumstances of his birth and culminated in his estrangement from his family. He
was nevertheless a prominent military commander and the progenitor of the family who ruled over the khanate of
the Golden Horde.
Jochi was the son of Börte, the first wife of the Mongol leader Temüjin. For many months before Jochi's birth, Börte had
been a captive of the Merkit tribe, one of whom forcibly married and raped her. Although there was thus considerable
doubt over Jochi's parentage, Temüjin considered him his son and treated him accordingly. Many Mongols, most
prominently Börte's next son Chagatai, disagreed; these tensions eventually led to both Chagatai and Jochi being
excluded from the line of succession to the Mongol throne.
After Temüjin founded the Mongol Empire in 1206 and took the name Genghis Khan, he entrusted Jochi with nine
thousand warriors and a large territory in the west of the Mongol heartland; Jochi commanded and participated in
numerous campaigns to secure and extend Mongol power in the region. He was also a prominent commander during
the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire (1219–1221), during which he subdued cities and tribes to the north. During the
1221 Siege of Gurganj, tensions arose between him, his brothers, and Genghis, which never healed. Jochi was still
estranged from his family when he died of ill health c. 1225. His son Batu was appointed to rule his territories in his
stead.
Birth and paternity
Jochi's mother, Börte, was born into the Onggirat tribe, who lived along the Greater Khingan mountain range south of
the Ergüne river, in modern-day Inner Mongolia.[2] At the age of ten, she was betrothed to a Mongol boy named Temüjin,
son of the Mongol chieftain Yesugei.[a] Seven years later (c. 1178), after he had survived a violent adolescence, they
married.[4] They had their first child, a daughter named Qojin, in 1179 or 1180. [5] By forming alliances with notable
steppe leaders, such as his friend Jamukha and his father's former ally Toghrul, and with the help of his charisma,
Temüjin began to attract followers and gain power.[6] Word of his rise spread and soon drew the attention of the Merkit
tribe to the northwest, from whom Yesugei had abducted Temüjin's mother Hö'elün, sparking a blood feud; they
resolved to take revenge on Yesugei's heir.[7]
Because of their consequences, the subsequent events were considered controversial: most contemporary authors
omitted any mention of the events, while the two that did include them (the Secret History of the Mongols, a mid-13th-
century epic poem, and the 14th-century Persian historian Rashid al-Din's Jami al-tawarikh) are contrad
le
