Tolui

Tolui was the youngest son of Genghis Khan, held the Mongol homeland by the custom that gave it to the last son, and is the father of Mongke, Kublai and Hulagu - so that the empire's later rulers all descend from him rather than from the son Genghis named as heir. He commanded in the Khwarezmian campaign and took Merv and Nishapur in 1221, where the killing was on a scale the sources put in the hundreds of thousands and modern historians reduce without making it small. He was regent for two years after his father's death in 1227, then handed the succession to his brother Ogedei as Genghis had directed. His own death in 1232 is the subject of the story that matters: Ogedei fell ill during the campaign against the Jin, the shamans said the illness could be transferred, and Tolui drank the water over which the incantation had been said and died shortly afterwards. Whether that is sacrifice, poison or alcoholism reported piously cannot be determined. His widow Sorghaghtani Beki held the family together for twenty years and manoeuvred her sons into power in 1251, which is the reason the line that ruled China and Persia was his. The Persian historian Juvayni, who worked for his son Hulagu, is a main source and had reason to present the death as a sacrifice. Sorghaghtani was a Nestorian Christian who had her sons taught several languages and religions, and Rashid al-Din records her as the ablest woman of the age. Toluid rule in China lasted until 1368 and in Persia until the 1330s. He is buried somewhere in the Khentii mountains with his father, in a grave nobody has found.

• Lived: 1191 CE – 1232 CE
• Nationality: Mongol
• Roles: military_leader