In the Mongol system of succession, there is a saying that "young sons keep the stove". That is to say, in the process of passing on the throne, the king will generally pass it on to the young son of the family.
But curiously, if we clean up the succession of emperors throughout the Mongol Empire, we will find that almost no emperors passed on the throne to the younger sons. Genghis Khan passed the throne to the third son, Wo Kuotai, to the third son; Möngke did not make a will and did not know who he was going to pass the throne to; Kublai Khan passed the throne to his eldest son Zhenjin. Shuchi passed the throne to his second son, Battus. After Chagatai's death, it was his grandson Khazar Hulje who succeeded to the khan's throne. Even Genghis Khan was not his father's youngest son. In short, there is no case of passing the throne to the young son.
If this is not the case, why is it said that Mongolia has a tradition of passing on the throne as "young sons keeping the stove"? Where did this come from?
Many Mongolian cultural researchers believe that the practice of "young children keeping the stove" is not only a Mongolian tradition, but also inseparable from the development of Mongolian nomadic culture.
They believe that the Mongolian nomads need to obtain a lot of pasture in their lives, so after giving birth to children, the first few children will first leave their parents and expand to other places, and the farther away the better. Because the farther you go, the more pastures you will get, and the more space for development will be. However, Mongolians also have to consider the issue of their pension. "Raising children to prevent the elderly, Jigu to prevent hunger" is a way of providing for the elderly from ancient times to the present, and eventually it is necessary to have someone to support their parents at home. Therefore, the youngest son usually stays at home to do this and inherits the ancestral inheritance at the same time. This is the "young son keeping the stove".
However, I think such a statement seems whimsical. Most of the people who do this kind of research think from the standpoint of the Han nationality. The so-called "young son shou stove" is actually the tradition of the Han people. The Han people are farming peoples, and they have long formed a model of farming and reading from one family to another. In the process of children's growth, the children who grow up first naturally have to go out and set up another portal. Children who grow up after they grow up will naturally leave the old house later. Even stay in the old house to support the elderly, and inherit the ancestral business.
However, the situation in Mongolia is not the same. As a nomadic people, Mongolia has long been in a primitive tribal state, living a nomadic life, not a settled life. This kind of life requires that everyone must be tied together, live in concentration, concentrate on grazing, and migrate collectively with the pasture. Instead of who guards the stove and who leaves, in this case, they can't live. Why can't you live?
Because in the process of migrating with the pasture, it is inevitable that various tribes will form a competition for the pasture. If you want to win the pasture into your own hands, you must fight a war. If there is to be a war, the whole tribe must all unite and work together to fight the other tribes. At the same time, in the distribution system, it must be fair distribution in order to satisfy future generations. Otherwise, there will be contradictions.
It can be seen that the so-called "young son keeping the stove" is almost impossible.
Relatively speaking, the way to convene the Kuritai Council and elect the king is still more reliable. For in a tribe, the king must be a man of great ability, and only such a person can lead everyone to an invincible position in the cruel steppe competition. If a straw bale is the leader, the tribe will be wiped out. Therefore, it makes sense to convene a meeting of Kuritai to recommend the king. But it is impossible for the king to pass the throne directly in the form of "young son guarding the stove".
In short, the Mongolian researchers of later generations must have been deceived by the historical materials of that time, such as the "Secret History of Mongolia" and the "Historical Collection", and only then would they come to the conclusion that the so-called Mongolian tradition of "young sons guarding the stove" will be concluded.
Some people may say that since there is no such thing as "young son shou stove" (or this statement is not obvious), why are the historical materials such as the "Secret History of Mongolia" and the "History Collection" recorded in this way?
We have to see whose hands these historical materials were written. It was done in the hands of the descendants of the tow, the descendants of the tow, or more precisely, Kublai Khan and his allies, and their descendants, who completed the deepening of these concepts.
Why did they complete the deepening of this concept? This brings us to the question of the succession of the Khan's descendants to the Khan's throne.
The descendants of Tore are not actually eligible to inherit the throne of the Mongol Great Khan. Because Genghis Khan held a family meeting long before the Western Expedition, it was clearly stated that the position of Great Khan of the Mongol Empire could only be passed on among the descendants of Wokoutai and could never be passed on to the side branches.
However, later, due to the lack of ability of the descendants of Wokoutai themselves, they were ultimately unable to defend Jiangshan, and under the auspices of Battu and others, the position of Great Khan of the Mongol Empire passed to the hands of Möngke, the eldest son of Tuolei. However, although Möngke is said to be the eldest son of Tuolei, he is also the righteous son of Wokoutai. At a very young age, he passed on to the Second Empress of Wokoutai, Ang Ash. Since he is a righteous son, it is also reasonable for him to inherit the position of Great Khan.
But after Möngke's death, because his son was small and incompetent, several of Möngke's younger brothers began to compete for the position of Great Khan. In the end, Ali Buge and Kublai Khan used force to solve the problem, and Kublai Khan was even stronger and seized the position of Great Khan of the Mongols.
Kublai Khan became the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and in fact violated Genghis Khan's will. Of course, everyone disagreed with him. It can be said that in addition to his brother Hulagu, the descendants of Shuchi, Wokoutai and Chagatai all collectively opposed him and constantly provoked him to fight with him. Among these voices of opposition, Haidu, a descendant of Wokoutai, was the loudest. After all, Haidu was the true seal descendant of Wokoutai, and he felt that it was only natural for him to inherit the position of Great Khan. Therefore, his voice against Kublai Khan was the loudest, and he once fought with Kublai Khan without winning or losing.
For Kublai Khan, of course, he could not lose the battle of public opinion, and he had to justify his accession to the position of Great Khan. It is also in this context that the concept of "young son shou stove" is reinforced.
To make a digression, if Kublai Khan knew the practices of the later Qing Dynasty to do public opinion propaganda, it would actually be more appropriate. The method adopted by the Qing Dynasty was to prove that they were the real "co-lords of the world", that is, to fully accept the experience of the Han people and make a fuss in the land of the Central Plains, regardless of the things of the ethnic minorities. As long as he proves that he is the "co-lord of the world", his dominance in the Central Plains will be stable. Kublai Khan did not do this at that time, and although he also had Chinese measures, it was not enough. Instead, he and his descendants divided the people of the Central Plains into four classes. This practice made their rule extremely unstable, so it became a short-lived dynasty in the Central Plains.
Kublai Khan did not make a fuss in the Central Plains, and his heart was longing to prove that he was the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Although it was practically impossible and the Mongol Empire had split, the stubborn Kublai Khan was still happy to do so.
So, how did Kublai Khan justify his accession to the position of Great Khan?
Kublai Khan wanted to do this article, in fact, it was very difficult, because Genghis Khan already had a will, and there was no way to change this. However, Kublai Khan found a breakthrough, and this breakthrough was that he wanted to prove that Genghis Khan was wrong to choose Wokoutai as his heir. As long as Genghis Khan is proved to be wrong, then his will will is automatically invalidated.
How can Genghis Khan be proven wrong? That is to say, Genghis Khan violated the Mongolian tradition of "young sons guarding the stove". After all, Tuolei is the youngest son of Genghis Khan, and according to tradition, Tuolei must inherit the position of Great Khan. In this way, It would be wrong for Genghis Khan to pass the throne to Wokoutai.
This is the starting point for Kublai Khan's emphasis on the concept of "young sons guarding the stove".
In addition to emphasizing the "young son guarding the stove", Kublai Khan also had a series of supporting public opinion offensives. He also stressed in particular the legitimacy of convening the Kuritai Conference to elect the Great Khan, which he considered to be a Mongol tradition. The Great Khan of Mongolia should be identified by the previous Great Khan and should be elected in a meeting.
At that time, Genghis Khan had already given the position of Great Khan to Wokoutai, so why did Tuolei supervise the country for two years when Genghis Khan was in charge? This is because Wokoutai has no prestige in Mongolia, and everyone supports Tuolei, not Wokoutai, so Tuokutai does this. And this also shows that the position of the Great Khan should have been dragged.
However, Tuolei was open-minded and humble, and two years later, he personally brought Wokoutai to power and handed over the authority of the Mongol Empire to him. It can be said that the position of the Great Khan was not given by Genghis Khan, but under the auspices of Tuolei, after Tuolei persuaded everyone, everyone pushed Wokoutai up.
In addition, Kublai Khan continued to emphasize an idea. The idea is that Tuolei was killed by Wokoutai. Although Tore passed the position of Great Khan to Wokoutai, he made great contributions in the process of helping Wokoutai to become the Great Khan. However, Wo Kuo Tai'en took revenge, and in the process of attacking the Jin Kingdom, he deliberately let Tuo Lei drink sick water, thus poisoning Tuo Lei to death.
After Wokoutai poisoned Tuolei, he even tried to seize the military power and land of the Tuolei family. Fortunately, Tuolei's widow instigated Lu Hetiani to be resourceful and brave, and only then did he keep the only ancestral inheritance of the Tuolei family.
Originally it was the sweat position of Tuolei, and Tuolei gave wokoutai. It was given to Wo Kuotai, but Wo Kuotai poisoned to death and attacked the descendants of Toura. In this way, the image of Tuolei became extremely tall, and likewise, the image of Kublai Khan became extremely tall, and it was only natural that he would be the Great Khan of mongolia. He wanted to use this to strike at those who were dissatisfied with him and to characterize them as rebels, and it was only natural that he would.
It should be said that Kublai Khan's approach was very successful. The public opinion packaging he carried out has always affected future generations. Even later generations of researchers have been deceived, only to drop the bag from the book, thinking that "young son shou stove" is really the old tradition of Mongolian succession, so they made such a joke.