Meng Ge

Also known as Yuan Xianzong

Mongke, grandson of Chinggis Khan and eldest son of Tolui, was born in January 1209. He fought in Batu's great western campaign against the Qipchaqs and the Rus. With Batu's backing he was elected great khan at a kurultai in 1251, purged the princes of the Ogedei and Chaghatai lines who opposed him, and the next year ordered a new census of the north China population. He put his brother Kublai in charge of the lands south of the Gobi, sending him against the kingdom of Dali in 1253, and sent another brother, Hulagu, west, where he destroyed the Assassins in 1256 and sacked Baghdad in 1258. In 1258 Mongke himself invaded Song Sichuan and the next year besieged the fortress of Diaoyu at Hezhou, held by Wang Jian; he died in camp there in the summer of 1259, of illness by one account and of a wound by another. The Yuan gave him the temple name Xianzong. His death set Kublai and Ariq Boke fighting over the throne.