Yesugei

Giovanni di Plano Carpini would describe it as the equivalent of a European knight, but perhaps in our modern parlance, something more like a paladin captures that sort of semi-mythic hero nature of the title.

Notable bearers of the title, Baatur, include Modu Chanyu, founder of the Xiongnu Empire, Baatur Khagan of the Khazars in the mid-8th century, Baatur Baghinasevar, commander of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century, and Genghis' own father, Yesugei Borjigin, albeit that was posthumous and given by his son.

Looking forward in time from this point, the title would spread across Eurasia and have such bearers as Mughal and Timurid Khans, Hungarian and Romanian Voivod, and even one of the founding members of Mongolia's National People's Party and father of Mongolia's revolution in 1921, Damdin Sükhbaatar.

Even the modern name for Mongolia's capital city, Ulaanbaatar, incorporates the honorific, meaning Red Hero.

Once arrived from this 13th century warp speed rush across Asia, Subutai likely wasted little time in conferring with his master.

It was likewise from the Venetians that the Mongols of Subutai would learn of the less than ideal political situation afflicting the princes of Rus.

Sadly, it seemed that they just could not get along, and in spite of their relatively high level of civil progress and urbanization, McFlynn states, for instance, that as much as 13 to 15 percent of the Russian principalities' populations were urban across more than 300 cities by the early 13th century, which far outstripped the rest of Europe at the time.

Politically, it was a region constantly in chaos, forever plagued by, quote, internecine wars of faint-hearted princes who, oblivious to the glory of good for the fatherland, slaughtered each other and ravaged the people, end quote.

because it's too many mouths to feed or something.

But what we actually see in the sources, such as the secret history of the Mongols, is there's a period of time in between these two events where some of these other widows who are within the kind of broader community that Yesugei's group was operating in, they're excluding Ugolun, Temujin's mother, Yesugei's widow, from some of these sacrifices and events.

And it looks like it's not so much that they're abandoned because it's too many mouths to feed, but they're basically politically maneuvered out of the community.

Usually what happens in the Mongolian society when a man dies, his brother actually will inherit his widows, or his sons from another wife will inherit the brother's wives.