Gui You

Also known as Yuan Dingzong

Guyuk was the eldest son of Ogedei and his wife Toregene of the Naiman. From 1236 he took part in Batu's western campaign against the Kipchaks and the Rus, but quarrelled with Batu over precedence at a feast and was recalled and rebuked by his father. After Ogedei died in 1241 his mother ruled as regent for nearly five years, and in 1246 an assembly near Karakorum raised him to Great Khan. The papal envoy John of Plano Carpini witnessed the enthronement and carried back his reply to Pope Innocent IV, which demanded that the pope come in person to submit. As khan he executed his mother's favourite Abd al-Rahman and restored older ministers such as Chinqai. In 1248 he set out westward with an army, nominally to visit his old appanage on the Emil, though most historians read it as a move against Batu, and he died on the way at Qum-Sengir, aged forty-three by Chinese reckoning. The Yuan later gave him the temple name Dingzong.