On his way back home after the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Genghis Khan performed a ceremony on his grandsons Möngke and Kublai after their first hunting in 1224 near the Ili River.

Batu sent Möngke under the protection of his brothers, Berke and Tuqa-temur, and his son Sartaq to assemble a formal kurultai at Kodoe Aral in Mongolia.

At the end of the investigation under his father's loyal servant Menggesar noyan, he found his relatives guilty but at first wanted to give them mercy as written in the Great Yassa.

After she was arrested and questioned by Sorghaghtani, Oghul Qaimish was sewn up into a sack and tossed into a river and drowned, the traditional Mongol punishment for using black magic.

Rumours spread that his brother Kublai founded a de facto independent ulus (district), and perhaps took for himself some of the tax receipts that should by rights be coming to Karakorum.

He prohibited them from using the imperial relay stations, yam (route), and paizas, tablets that gave the bearer authority to demand goods and services from civilian populations.

"[citation needed] The generals and princes (including his son) who allowed their troops to plunder civilians without authorization were repeatedly punished by Möngke Khan.

In 1253, Möngke established the Department of Monetary affairs to control the issuance of paper money in order to eliminate the over-issue of the currency by Mongol and non-Mongol nobles since the reign of Great Khan Ögedei.

[12] His authority established united measure based on sukhe or silver ingot, however, the Mongols allowed their foreign subjects to mint coins in the denominations and use weight they traditionally used.

[14] Between 1252 and 1259, Möngke conducted a census of the Mongol Empire, including Iran, Afghanistan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Central Asia, and North China.

In 1259, the Georgian king, David VI, revolted, unsuccessfully, against the Mongols and then fled to Kutaisi, whence he reigned over Imereti in western Georgia as de facto separate ruler.

Möngke and Batu's official, Arghun, harshly punished the Georgian and Armenian nobles, plundering their cities and executing their prominent leaders.

By that time the Kashmiris had revolted, and Möngke appointed his generals, Sali and Takudar, to replace the court and a Buddhist master, Otochi, as darughachi to Kashmir.

At the conference, the Taoist claim was officially declared refuted, and Kublai forcibly converted their 237 temples to Buddhism and destroyed all copies of the fraudulent texts.

Möngke offered Louis IX his cooperation but warned all Christians that "If, when you hear and understand the decree of the eternal God, you are unwilling to pay attention and believe it...and in this confidence you bring an army against us-we know what we can do".

[25] Hethum strongly encouraged other Crusaders to follow his example and submit to Mongol overlordship, but he persuaded only his son-in-law Bohemond VI, ruler of the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli, who offered his own submission sometime in the 1250s.

[31] Möngke concerned himself more with the war in China, outflanking the Song dynasty through the conquest of the Kingdom of Dali (in modern Yunnan) in 1254 and an invasion of Southeast Asia, which allowed the Mongols to invade from the north, west, and south.

Realizing that it was time to drive the Mongols out, the Vietnamese launched a counter-attack and won the decisive battle of Dong Bo Dau, and Uriyangkhadai withdrew.

In the winter of 1257–1258, Sali Noyan entered Sind in strength and dismantled the fortifications of Multan; his forces may also have invested the island fortress of Bakhkar on the Indus.

In 1252, Möngke entrusted the mission of conquering the rest of Western Asia to his brother Hülegü, with the highest priority being the conquest of the Nizari state and the Abbasid Caliphate.

[41][43][44][45] Möngke ordered the Jochid and Chagataid families to join Hulagu's expedition to Iran and strengthened the army with 1,000 siege engineers from China.

[citation needed] In 1241, Töregene Khatun had sent an envoy to make peace proposals and discuss with Zhao Yun (posthumously known as Emperor Lizong).

[48] In October 1257, Möngke set out for South China, leaving his administration to his brother, Ariq Böke, in Karakorum with Alamdar as assistant, and fixed his camps near the Liu-pan mountains in May of the following year.

[50] While Chinese source material incorrectly stated that Uriyangkhadai withdrew from Vietnam after nine days due to poor climate, his forces did not leave until 1259.

[53] At this feast his relative, Togan, a chief of the Jalairs, declared that South China was dangerous because of its climate, and that the Great Khagan should go northward for safety.

The account in the History of Yuan, which was written during the Ming dynasty, relates that Möngke was fatally wounded instead by a stone projectile from either a cannon or trebuchet.

[59] Persian accounts largely originating from Rashid al-Din claim that Möngke died of dysentery or cholera near the site of the siege on 11 August 1259[60][61][62] — the History of Yuan does not directly corroborate this, but it mentions a fatal disease outbreak in the Mongol camp during the campaign.

[64] Hayton's work is noted for including errors and amalgamating distinct events, so the account of Möngke's death could be a confused reference to the later Mongol invasions of Japan.

Möngke's son Asutai conducted the corpse to Burkhan Khaldun,[66] Mongolia, where the late Khagan was buried near the graves of Genghis and Tolui.

Möngke's death in 1259 led to the four-year Toluid Civil War between his two younger brothers, Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke.