Kaidu

Kaidu (Middle Mongol: , Qayidu, Modern Mongol: Haidu, ; ; c. 1230 – 1301) was a grandson of the Mongol khagan Ögedei (1185–1241) and thus leader of the House of Ögedei and the de facto khan of the Chagatai Khanate, a division of the Mongol Empire. He ruled parts of modern-day Xinjiang and Central Asia during the 13th century, and actively opposed his uncle, Kublai, who established the Yuan dynasty. Medieval chroniclers often mistranslated Kadan as Kaidu, mistakenly placing Kaidu at the Battle of Legnica. Kadan was the brother of Güyük, and Kaidu's uncle. Early life Kaidu was born in c. 1235–1236 as the posthumous son of Kashin (Qashi) and therefore a grandson of Ögedei Khan and Töregene Khatun, and a great-grandson of Genghis Khan and Börte. His mother was Sebkine Khatun from the Bekrin (Mekrin) tribe of mountaineers, who were "neither Mongols, nor Uighurs". Following the Toluid accession to the throne of the great khans, Kaidu was among the few favored Ögedeid princes, and was invested with Qayaliq (now Qoylık southeast of Lake Balkhash in southeastern Kazakhstan) by Möngke Khan in 1252. Although not a particularly great appanage, Qayaliq is described as a prosperous city with busy markets, churches, and temples by William of Rubruck, who passed through in 1253. In 1260, Marco Polo described Yarkand, part of the area under Kaidu as "five days' journey in extent"; that its inhabitants were mostly Muslim although there were also some Nestorian and Jacobite Assyrians; and that it had plenty of food and other necessities, "especially cotton." Nevertheless, despite benefiting from the favor of Möngke, Kaidu arrested the khan's envoy, the judge Shi Tianlin, in 1256, and held him prisoner for twenty years. In the Toluid Civil War between 1260 and 1264, when Möngke's brothers Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke, who was proclaimed Great Khan at Karakorum, disputed the throne, Kaidu is said to have supported Ariq Böke. This is not entirely certain, as Kublai still apportioned a share of the profits of new conquests in China to Kaidu as late as 1265. At any rate, excluded from Kublai's partition of the Mongol territories among the princes, Kaidu would enter into protracted conflict with Kublai and his Ilkhanid allies.