Tchila'un

Tchila'un

Contents

Tchila’un (simplified: 赤老温, traditional: 赤老溫, pinyin: Chìlǎowēn, jyutping: cik3 lou5 wan1) was a Mongol general, one of Temüjin’s Four Heroes and the man who had once saved his life.

Biography

Saving Temüjin

When Temüjin was young he was captured by the Tayichiud, who put a wooden cangue on his neck. During a feast on the banks of the Onon River, Temüjin knocked out his guard and escaped into the woods. Tchila’un, then a young man, took him in at great risk, smashed and burned the cangue and hid him in a cart loaded with wool. When the searchers began pulling wool from the cart, Tchila’un’s father turned them away by laughing that no one could hide in wool in such heat.

Temüjin’s general

Tchila’un rose to become one of Temüjin’s Four Heroes, with Muqali, Bo’orchu and Boroqul. In a battle on the steppe, Temüjin ordered him and Bo’orchu to fall back to the north as part of a feigned retreat. When the Jin princes Wanyan Honglie and Wanyan Hongxi visited the steppe, Tchila’un, whose face and hands were covered in arrow and blade scars, offered to fight one of Senggum’s leopards to save Temüjin’s face, but Muqali held him back.

When Wang Khan turned on Temüjin, Tchila’un and Chagatai rode back to scout and were chased in by Wang Khan’s cavalry, then helped hold the hilltop with Jebe, Guo Jing and the others. After the victory, when Temüjin took the title Genghis Khan, Tchila’un and the rest of the Four Heroes were made commanders of a thousand.

The western campaign

Tchila’un served throughout Genghis Khan’s later conquests. During the western campaign, when Guo Jing secretly prepared to flee south rather than obey the Khan’s order to conquer the Song, Tchila’un came with soldiers to summon him to the Khan’s tent and had him bound by the Khan’s order. After Li Ping took her own life and Guo Jing broke out of the tent carrying her body, Tchila’un, red-faced and white-bearded, led a body of cavalry against him; Guo Jing dodged his dao, cut through his ranks and seized a horse, and Tchila’un gave chase.

Personality & traits

Tchila’un was fiery-tempered and quick to stake himself on the Khan’s honour, as when he volunteered to fight the leopard.

Relationships

Behind the scenes

Tchila’un was a historical figure, one of the four great companions of Genghis Khan. Jin Yong’s appendix on Genghis Khan’s family notes that Empress Qada’an (合答安) of the Khan’s fourth ordo was Tchila’un’s sister, and recounts how the young Temüjin, escaping the Tayichiud, hid in the wool cart at Tchila’un’s home.

See also

Related articles