Guo Kan's Place in History As Example of The Mongol Meritocracy
More than any army in history until the 20th Century, and more so than many even in the Modern Era, the Mongols promoted strictly on the basis of military skill and ability. Like his brother "dogs of war", Jebe, son of an ordinary warrior in a tribe which had opposed Genghis Khan in his unification of the nomads, and Subutai, son of a blacksmith, Guo Kan, ethnically Han Chinese, represented the revolutionary concept of promoting the sons of the most humble, or foreign born, to command any of the Mongol nobility - including relatives of the Great Khan. Though Batu was nominally in charge of the invasion of Europe, it was Subutai who truly commanded. Equally, Guo Kan devised the strategy which reduced the powerful walls of Bagdad in mere days, after destroying her small, but brave and disciplined army in mere hours by drowning them. Merit, not birth, was one of Genghis Khan's most brilliant innovations, and Guo Kan, an ethnic of the Mongol's strongest rival, one of his prized dogs of war for five generations of Great Khans.
H. H. Howorth argues that Guo Kan is the corruption of the name of Mongolian commander Koke Ilge (ancestor of Chupan and descendent of Cila'un who saved Temujin when he was young) of the Jalayir. Both Nasir al-Din Tusi, Rashid and Bar Heabreus mentions a certain Ali/Asutu bahadur as Hulagu's governor in Baghdad. Peter Jackson and John Boyle also supported Howorth's hypothesis.
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