Chinese-American actress Joan Chen mentioned that she had read the book to prepare for her role as Chabi in the TV series Marco Polo.

Only a small part of the text written by Genghis Khan in 1206 when he was proclaimed Qaghan of the Mongols, remains: "Let us reward our female offspring".

Weatherford further suggests that traces of the Mongol queens have indirectly appeared in the diplomatic reports of the Chinese court, letters to the Vatican, Muslim histories, royal Armenian chronicles, the memoirs of merchants such as Marco Polo, texts carved into the stones of Taoist temples,[3] and in the rhymes of Chaucer and the arias of Puccini.

These women included his daughter Altani, who was awarded the title of "Ba'atur"("Hero"), when she saved the life of his youngest son Tolui.

They married the leaders of the powerful tribes and nations surrounding the Mongols such as the Ongud, Uyghurs and Oirats, becoming diplomatic shields in all directions, cementing his alliances.

His son, Ögedei, purged his female relatives in order to consolidate his power over the Borjigin clan, including using a mass rape of four thousand Oirat girls in 1237 to cow Oirat into submission and take their lands after Ögedei's sister Checheyigen had died, and allegedly arranging the assassination of Genghis Khan's favorite daughter, Altalun, who was ruler of the Uyghur territory.

He killed his blood brother in order to marry his wife, Oljei the Beauty, and ignored the Mongol tradition that a man is forbidden to forcefully take a woman in marriage.

While Bayan-Möngke, who had been saved by Samur as an infant, quickly emerged as Manduul's preferred successor, Une-Bolad, an experienced and powerful warlord descended from Genghis Khan's brother Hasar, appeared as a contender of the throne.

Instead, Mandukhai elected to rule instead and recovered Batumöngke, the missing son of Bayan-Möngke, to ascend the throne at the royal shrine kept by the Chahar with the title Dayan Khan.

By the time Mandukhai died in 1509, the Mongol nation stretched from the Siberian tundra and Lake Baikal in the north, across the Gobi, beyond the Yellow River into the Ordos.