Life

Ragibagh was the eldest son of Yesün Temür. His mother Babukhan Khatun came from the Khunggirad clan, who had held power through marriage to the imperial family. He became Crown Prince at infancy in 1324. In August 1328 when Yesün Temür suddenly died in Shangdu, he was installed by the powerful Muslim officer Dawlat Shah there in the next month.

However, Yesün Temür's sudden death triggered an uprising of an anti-mainstream faction who had been dissatisfied with monopolization of power by Yesün Temür's aides including Dawlat Shah who had served him since he was stationed in Mongolia as Jinong. In the eighth month, the Mongolized Qipchaq commander El Temür, who was stationed in Dadu, launched a coup and called for installation of Khayishan's son. Tugh Temür was welcomed into Dadu in the same month in which Ragibagh ascended to the throne.

The civil war known as the War of the Two Capitals soon broke out. Ragibagh's army broke through the Great Wall at several points and advanced on Dadu; but was severely defeated by El Temür's troops. At the time, most of Ragibagh's army were involved on the Great Wall front, and the Shangdu court was compelled to surrender on the very next day. Dawlat Shah and most of the leading loyalists were taken prisoner and later executed by the Dadu faction after surrender; but Ragibagh is said to have disappeared after that, evidently murdered.

Note on his name

Due to scarcity of historical sources and their multilinguality, Ragibagh's name has a lot of variants. The Tibetan Red Annals (Hu lān deb ther) calls him "Ra khyi phag." The later Mongolian chronicles such as the Erdeni-yin tobchi and the Altan tobchi spell him Radzibaγ or Raǰibaγ. The History of the Yuan refers to him as A-su-ji-ba (阿速吉八), but it is apparently a misspelling of A-la-ji-ba (阿剌吉八). The initial "a" prevents the word from starting with "r" in Mongolian. It looks like a modern Mongolian painter Ts.Mandir interpreted his name as "Asidkebe" (Ашидхэв)https://web.archive.org/web/20050326131130/http://members.fortunecity.com/khan4/khan11ashithev.htm. According to some scholars, his name was from Sanskrit "rāja-pika", which means "king cuckoo". In Chinese he is also known as the Tianshun Emperor for era name.

生平

致和元年七月初十日（1328年8月15日），元泰定帝也孫鐵木兒在上都病逝，丞相倒剌沙專權自用，過了一個多月仍遲遲不立9歲的太子阿剌吉八即位。

致和元年九月十三日（1328年10月16日），知樞密院事燕帖木兒在大都（今北京）擁立元武宗之子圖帖睦爾即位，改元「天曆」，圖帖睦爾是為元文宗。

致和元年九月，丞相倒剌沙在上都擁立太子阿剌吉八為皇帝，改元「天順」。

上都的天順帝朝廷由丞相倒剌沙派兵進攻大都的文宗朝廷，元文宗派燕帖木兒率軍迎戰，雙方經過多次戰爭，一開始雙方互有勝負，後來大都朝廷逐漸占據軍事優勢。

天順元年十月十三日（1328年11月14日），大都朝廷的軍隊包圍上都，丞相倒剌沙等大臣奉皇帝寶出降，天順年號被元文宗廢除，倒剌沙在投降一個月後被殺。

倒剌沙投降後，漢文和蒙古文的史書沒有記載天順帝下落，而西藏《紅史》記載齊王月魯帖木兒殺死了皇帝，在位大約一個月；其後他沒被授與謚號和廟號，因此歷史上以其年號稱之為天順帝。

名字

《元史》中兩次出現天順帝的名字，《元史·泰定帝本紀》說「皇子阿速吉八為皇太子」，《元史·宗室世系表》作「皇太子阿里吉八」。藏語《紅史》作（威利轉寫：ra khyi phag），蒙古語《蒙古源流》作或（鮑培轉寫：）。因此「阿速吉八」可能是「阿剌吉八」的誤寫。

相關史料

• 《元史·文宗本紀》 ，明朝官修正史

• 《新元史·文宗本紀》 ，民國官修正史

• 《續資治通鑑》 ，清朝史學家畢沅撰寫。

• 《元史類編》，清朝史學家邵遠平撰寫。

• 《元史新編》，清朝史學家魏源撰寫。

• 《元書》，清朝史學家曾廉撰寫。

• 《蒙兀兒史記》，清末民初史學家屠寄撰寫。

評價

• 清朝史學家曾廉《元書》的評價是：「論曰：曾子以託孤寄命，臨大節而不可奪，斯為君子人也。故山有猛虎，樵採不入。前史稱泰定帝能守祖宗之法，故天下無事。嗚呼！徒法不能以自行也，向使漢武不委裘于霍光、金日磾，而倚上官桀、桑弘羊，則孝昭豈得晏然南面？況又弗如孝昭者乎？狙于近習而不知求天下之賢以佐佑之，貴為天子，富有天下，而不能庇其妻孥，若敖之鬼佞焉咎安在哉！君子是以不多子孟，而樂道孝武之善付託也。」