12. Genghis Khan’s Sons Gave Him No End of Trouble
Genghis Khan had numerous sons and daughters by multiple wives and concubines. Nomadic women were treated with greater equality than their sisters in settled lands, but the Mongols were still a patriarchy. As such few details are known of the great khan’s daughters except for one, Alakhai Bek, whom her father granted the title “Princess Who Runs the State” and left her to run parts of conquered China in 1215 when he returned to Mongolia. For the most part, Genghis treated his daughters as chips to marry off in order to cement alliances, or to show favor to some of his favorites.
Sons were the ones who truly mattered to Genghis, and of those, the ones who mattered the most and of whom there is any detail in the historic records are his sons by his first and official wife, Borte: Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedei, and Tului. All of them were capable enough in some areas in their own right, but none of them possessed their father’s complete repertoire of gifts as a great politician, strategist, and leader of men. Their frequent squabbling gave the Great Khan no end of grief.
