Toluid Civil War
[3] The Ögedeid candidate for Great Khan, Shiremun, and his cousin Nakhu, were embittered by their loss and plotted a failed assassination of Möngke.
Hulagu of the Ilkhanate seized control of the Caucasus from the Golden Horde,[6] and his sacking of Baghdad in 1258 angered Berke, a convert to Islam.
[1] Kublai Khan was fighting against the southern Song in 1260 when he received news that Ariq Böke was challenging him for the succession of the throne.
[8] Ariq Böke formed alliances with powerful members of the Mongol nobility to endorse him as a candidate for Great Khan.
[12] Ariq Böke convened his own kurultai in Karakorum that proclaimed him Great Khan a month later, creating two rival claimants for the throne.
[13] Hulagu embarked for Mongolia to attend the kurultai, but the Mamluk defeat of the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in early September 1260 forced him to return to the Middle East.
[14] Kublai Khan had access to supplies from the fertile lands of China, while Ariq Böke had to import resources to Karakorum in the semi-arid steppes.
[15] Kublai Khan depended on these supplies from China and therefore needed Chinese popular support to win the civil war.
He presented himself as a sage emperor capable of uniting the Chinese, Korean and his fellow Mongols, while calling out Ariq Böke as a destructive usurper.
[14] Kublai promised to reduce taxes, modeled his government institutions to resemble those of the Chinese dynasties, and adopted the era name of Zhongtong, which means "moderate rule".
[17] Kublai dispatched a diplomat, Hao Jing, to discuss the prospects of a peaceful resolution to the war with the Southern Song.
Kadan, Kublai's Ögedeid ally, defended the territories of the former Western Xia from Ariq Böke and commanded the forces stationed in Gansu.
[19] Kadan defeated and executed Alandar, a general sent to secure the vital Central Asian trade routes for Ariq Böke.
He rewarded Kadan with 300 packs of silk and 300 taels of silver, and appointed Lian Xixian to the position of Prime Minister of the Right in the Secretariat.
[22] At this time, a rebellion in China distracted Kublai from the civil war, and he departed for Kaiping instead of further pursuing Ariq Böke.
[22] Ürüng Tash, son of Möngke, defected, taking his father's tamga seal from Ariq Böke and giving it to Kublai as a symbol of his loyalty.
Kublai accused Bolghai, an important Mongol official who served under Möngke, of treachery for conspiring with Ariq Böke.
Kaidu, from the Ögedei family, believed that a member of the Ögedeids deserved the title of Great Khan and started an insurrection in 1269 against Kublai that lasted for decades.
