Ordos Ten Thousand Household Study (1510-1649)

The Ordos Tumen played an important role in Mongolia of Ming Dynasty. In the fifth year of Zhengde (??) Period(1510), Dayan Khan began to rule the Right-wing of Mongolia after winning the Battle of Dalan Terigun. Subsequently, the third son of Dayan Khan, Barsubolod was conferred the title of Jinong by his father and was in charge of three tumens of Right-wing. After Barsubolad's death, Gun Bilig and his descendants had inherited the title of Jinong, and ruled the Ordos Tumen for generations. In the sixth year of Shunzhi(??) Period (1649), the Ordos Tumen was divided into six banners with explicit boundaries by the government of Ch'ing Dynasty, and abolished hereto from then on. This paper presents a historical description of the Ordos Tumen in terms of natural environment, socio-political structure, nomadic means of livelihood, and its relationship with Ming Empire.First, the paper preliminarily recovers the natural environment of the Ordos Tumen by combining the research of historical geography which is based on literature with quaternary research of extracting information from typical profile. It is revealed that Hetao(??) area and the west foothills of the Helan (??) Mountains were the main living area of the Ordos Tumen. Comparing with environment of modern times, the climate in this area was drier and colder between1450and1650(including the period of the Ordos Tumen). The mid-16th century approximately divided the whole period into two parts, the temperature and moisture slightly better in the former part and the climate especially dry and cold in the later section. Temperature then was1degree Celsius lower than average temperature of modern times and annual precipitation was also less than that of modern times.Second, by preliminary examination and narration of the socio-political organization and geographical distribution of the Ordos Tumen, I believe the definitions of aimak, otok, tumen and ulus are all ambiguous to a certain degree, and there is no strictly fixed pattern to generalize their relationships. Therefore, when analyzing the social structure of Mongolia of Ming Dynasty, we should mostly begin with its actual pattern rather than simply define the above terms and their relationship. After the Dayan Khan's division of the tiimen of Eastern Mongolia as fiefs for his sons, his descendants became rulers of different social structures in Mongolia successively. Then, it might be more effective to investigate the internal socio-political structure of the Ordos Tumen by analyzing the alternation and transition of genealogy of Gun Bilig and his descendants and the vassalage between their related tribes.Third, the paper surveys and expounds the daily lives of the Ordos Tumen from the viewing of Nomadic Anthropology. It mainly includes the species and structure of livestock, the process of nomadic production and its division of labor and cooperation, the basic necessities of life, and the ritual of wedding and funeral of nomadic people.Last, based on the rethink about the relationship between the Northern Chinese nomad society and the Central Chinese settled agricultural society from the perspective of historical anthropology, this paper surveys and expounds the relationship between the Ordos Tumen and Ming Empire. The Ordos Tumen had two alternatives, either that the Ordos Tumen could pillage the border areas or could pay tribute to Ming Empire and do trade at the border area. However, my opinion is different from the general view, the Ordos Tumen was not eager to establish a stable trade relation with Ming Empire and their trade was unstable and frequently been cancelled or closed due to their pillage. Ming Empire strived to derive the maximum benefit from the transform among the initiative building the defensing wall, attacking the stronghold and frontier trade.