Part 2

After the death of Chingis Khan, the Mongol Empire went into a state of some shock,

and its wars of conquest were largely put on hold.

But the immense respect he had won during his life carried over into his death, and the plan he had put in place for his

succession was carried out. For the next two years, the empire was held in a kind of regency by his

youngest son, Tolui, and at the end of that period, once the time of mourning had passed, Ogaday took his position as Great Khan, on the 13th of September 1229,

as the secret history records.

In accordance with the decree of Chingis Khan, they installed Ogadai as Khan.

The night guards, the quiver-bearers, and the 8,000 day guards who had been protecting the precious life of their father, Chingiz Khan, the personal slaves

and the 10,000 guards, who had been in close attendance on the person of his father, the Khan,

were all handed over.

In fitting with his character, one of Ogaday's first acts as Khan was to hold a grand celebration.

At this festival, feasts were held, songs were sung and games played, wrestling and hunting,

archery and riding, and of course, enormous quantities of alcohol would have been consumed.

The Iraq and black kumis, the Chinese rice wines and fine Persian grape wines would have flowed from silver

goblets, and the revelry would have lasted for days. Orga Day loved to be liked, and he had

always had a generous streak. To celebrate his coming to power, he opened his father's treasuries and distributed gifts and wealth to all the influential families of the Mongol steppe.

This generosity gained him many friends, but the Persian scholar Atamalik Chuvaini recounts his profligate behaviour with a note of disapproval.

He was ever spreading the carpet of merry-making and treading the path of excess,

in constant application to wine and the company of angelic women.

Being by nature extravagantly bountiful,

he gave away everything that came in from the farthest and nearest parts of the empire

...