Early life

There is some question as to Jochi's true paternity. Shortly after Börte's marriage to Temüjin (later to become Genghis Khan), she was abducted by members of the Mergid confederation. She was given to a certain Chilger Bökh, who was the brother of the Yehe Chiledu, as a spoil of war. She remained in Chilger Bökh's captivity for a few months before she was recovered by Temüjin. Shortly afterwards she gave birth to Jochi. By all accounts, Temüjin treated Jochi as his first son, but a doubt always remained whether Temüjin or Chilger Bökh was his real father. Jochi's descendants, although they formed the oldest branch of Temüjin's family, were never considered for the succession in claiming their father's heritage and there were signs of estrangement between Jochi and Temüjin.

Wars of conquest

In 1207, Jochi conquered several of the forest peoples in Siberia, extending the northern border of the Mongol Empire for the first time. On behalf of his father, Jochi led two campaigns against the Kyrgyz, in 1210 and in 1218.

Jochi played a major role in the Khwarezm war of 1219–1221 in Central Asia – his forces captured the towns of Signak, Jand, and Yanikant in April, 1220, during this war. Subsequently, he was given the command of operation against the city of Urgench (Gurganj, in present-day Turkmenistan), the capital of the Khwarezmian Empire. Here the siege of the town suffered delays because Jochi engaged in extensive negotiation with the town to persuade it to surrender peacefully and to save it from destruction. Jochi's brother Chagatai regarded this action as militarily unsound: Chagatai wanted to destroy the city but Temüjin (now Genghis Khan) had promised the city to Jochi after his victory. This difference of opinion on military affairs deepened a rift between Jochi and Chagatai. Genghis Khan intervened in the campaign and appointed Ögedei as the commander of the operation. Ögedei resumed the operations vigorously – capturing, sacking and thoroughly destroying the town and massacring its inhabitants (1221).

The differences in tactics between Jochi and Chagatai in early 1221 added to their personal quarrel about the succession. To settle the matter, Genghis Khan called for a "kurultai", a political and military council - a formal meeting used both in familial matters and in matters of state. Genghis Khan had won election/appointment as Khan of his tribe during a kurultai, and he called them often during his early campaigns to garner public support for his wars – such meetings were key to Genghis Khan's legitimacy. Tribal tradition was also critical. As Genghis Khan's first-born son, Jochi was favored to rule the clan and the empire after his father died. At the familial kurultai called in 1222, Chagatai raised the issue of Jochi's legitimacy. At that meeting, Genghis Khan made it clear that Jochi was his legitimate first-born son. However, he worried that the quarrelsome nature of the two would split the empire. By early 1223 Genghis Khan had selected Ögedei, his third son, as his successor. For the sake of preserving the Empire, both Jochi and Chagatai agreed, but the rift between them never healed. Their rift would later politically divide the European part of the Mongol Empire from its Asian part permanently.

Succession controversy

During the autumn of 1223 Genghis Khan started for Mongolia after completing the Khwarezm campaign. Ögedei, Chagatai and Tolui went with him but Jochi withdrew to his territories north of Aral and Caspian Seas. There he remained until his death and would not see his father again in his lifetime.

Genghis Khan had divided his empire into khanates among his four surviving sons during his lifetime. Jochi was entrusted with the westernmost part of the empire, then lying between Ural (Jaiq, Djaik, Iaik, Jaiakh) and Irtysh rivers. In the Kurultai of 1229 following Genghis Khan's death, this partition was formalized and Jochi's family (Jochi himself had died six months before Genghis Khan) was allocated the lands in the west up to 'as far as the hooves of Mongol horses had trodden'. Following the Mongol custom, Genghis Khan bequeathed only four thousand 'original' Mongol troops to each of his three elder sons and 101,000 to Tolui, his youngest son. Consequently, Jochi's descendants extended their empire mostly with the help of auxiliary troops from the subjugated populations which happened to be Turkic. This was the chief reason why the Golden Horde acquired a Turkic identity. Jochi's inheritance was divided among his sons. His sons Orda and Batu founded the White Horde and the Blue Horde, respectively, and would later combine their territories into the Kipchak Khanate or Golden Horde. Another of Jochi's sons, Shiban, received territories that lay north of Batu and Orda's Ülüs.

Genghis Khan had made Jochi responsible for the supervision and conduct of the community hunt. Hunting was essentially a large scale military exercise designed specifically for the training of the army. It frequently encompassed thousands of square kilometers of area, required the participation of several tumens and lasted anywhere between one and three months. Rules and procedure of the conduct of the military exercise were encoded in the Yassa.

Certain incidents hint towards the fact that Jochi was of a kinder disposition than Genghis Khan, though the adjective 「kind」 must be interpreted by the standards of his times and milieu because Jochi had had his share of indulgence in massacres of civilians. On one occasion Jochi pleaded with his father to spare the life of a son of an enemy chief who had been taken captive and who happened to be a great archer. Jochi argued that such a great archer could be an asset to the Mongol army. Genghis Khan brushed aside this argument and had the captive executed.

Genetic Evidence for Paternity

In 2019, researchers uncovered genetic evidence supporting the claim that Jochi was Genghis Khan's first true-born son. Scientists found that the Lu clan of Northwestern China, which claimed descent from the sixth son of Genghis Khan Toghan, largely belonged to a Y-chromosomal haplogroup (C2b1a1b1-F1756) closely related to one frequently found in the Tore clan from Kazakhstan which claimed descent from Jochi with the time of divergence ~1000 years ago. This result could however, also arise by different avenues of shared paternity or by Y-chromosomal sharing between Chilger Bökh and Genghis Khan.

Legacy

Jochi's son Berke was among the earliest Mongols to convert to Islam. Among his other descendants were Öz Beg Khan, Tokhtamysh and Hacı I Giray.

Under Jochi's son Batu, Mongol rule expanded to its westernmost limit, and the Golden Horde (Kipchak Khanate) was established to consolidate the Jochid ulus. Öz Beg Khan would later oversee the economic, military and political golden age of the Horde and presided over its Islamisation.

The first mention about his mausoleum is found in 16th century Sharaf-name-yi shahi, describing the 1582 the campaign of the Abdullah Khan II:

Wives, concubines, and children

Like his father, Jochi had a large number of wives and concubines, however the exact details of these women are scarce.

Jochi had at least 14 sons and two daughters:

• Orda (c. 1206–1251)

• Batu (c. 1207–1255)

• Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde from 1257–1267

• Berkhechir

• Shiban

• Tangad

• Teval (Buval). He was the grandfather of Nogai Khan.

• Chilagun

• Sinqur

• Chimbay

• Muhammed

• Udur

• Tuqa-Timur, the ancestor of late khans of the Great Horde.

• Shingum

• Qoluyiqan. She married Törelchi, eldest son of Quduqa-beki of the Oirats.

• Daughter who married the Qarluq chief of Almaliq.

• Begtütmish, sister of Sorghaghtani and Ibaqa

Ancestry

In fiction

Jochi appeared as a supporting character in the 2007 Japanese-Mongolian film Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, played by Kenichi Matsuyama and in the 1978 Pakistani drama Aakhri Chattan played by Wakeel Farooqui.

生平

鐵木真與孛兒帖結婚時，三姓蔑兒乞部的首領脫黑脫阿，為報其弟赤列都的未婚妻訶額侖當年被鐵木真的父親也速該搶親之辱，突襲了鐵木真的營帳。在混戰中，鐵木真逃進了不兒罕山（今肯特山），他的妻子和異母卻當了脫黑脫阿的俘虜。等救回時孛兒帖已有身孕，因此朮赤可能是蔑兒乞人的孩子，而「朮赤」二字是「客人」的意思。因此，從他的出生開始就不斷有人懷疑朮赤的血統，尤其是二弟察合台常因此與其衝突。

究「朮赤」（拙赤）在蒙古語的意思，為「不速之客」或「聰慧」，在當時的蒙古部落常有此名，如成吉思汗的二弟「拙赤·合撒兒」，在《蒙古秘史》當中就有很多人叫朮赤。

朮赤多次隨他父親或奉他父親的命令出征，1207年奉命出征森林部落，1211年和1213年兩次攻金，1217年伐吉利吉思，1219年征訛答剌和花剌子模，戰果豐碩。惟中途進攻玉龍傑赤時，因故與察合台有糾紛，影響到攻城的進度，引起成吉思汗的憤怒。爾後因西征有功，成吉思汗將他封到距離蒙古草原本土最遠的欽察做欽察汗（欽察位于今日俄羅斯鹹海和裏海之北），負責守衛蒙古軍征服所及之處的西部邊防。

1223年成吉思汗召他覲見，朮赤因病未能遠行，有人誣告說他並沒有生病，而且還能打獵，成吉思汗聞訊大怒，懷疑朮赤謀反，決定派兵攻打朮赤，卻在出征前獲知朮赤因病辭世的消息，成吉思汗知道自己誤會朮赤後十分內疚自責，獨自一人待在營帳裡數日不出，亦不讓任何人入內。

朮赤的汗位由次子拔都繼承。拔都西征後于1242年建立了金帳汗國。他與另外十三兄弟生活在金帳汗國。

家庭

朮赤有最少14個兒子和2個女兒，詳列如下：

• 長子斡兒答（Orda，1204年-1280年），後裔統領白帳汗國。

• 次子拔都（Batu，1205年-1255年），蒙古欽察汗國的開創者。蒙古人因他對部下寬大，稱他撒因汗（即「慈善可汗」之意）。

• 三子別兒哥：金帳汗國可汗，1257年-1267年在位。

• 四子伯克迭兒（Berkhechir）

• 五子昔班（Shiban）：後裔統領藍帳汗國，亦是布哈拉汗國創立人的始祖。

• 六子唐古特

• 七子土斡耳（Teval 或 Buval）：後裔那海、恰卡。

• 八子赤老溫（Chilagun）

• 九子升庫爾（Sinqur）

• 十子沉白（Chimbay）

• 十一子伯剌·摩訶末（Muhammed）

• 十二子兀都兒（Udur）

• 十三子禿花帖木兒（Tuq-timur）：克里米亞汗國、喀山汗國、哈薩克汗國創立人始祖。

• 十四子真古木（Shingum）

• 一女火雷嫁斡亦剌惕部首領忽都合別乞之子合歹。

• 一女嫁葛邏祿酋長斡匝兒。