Makers of History

 Genghis Khan

 BY

 JACOB ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 1901

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 

 * * * * *

 Copyright, 1888, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN ABBOTT, LYMAN ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT. 

[Illustration: INAUGURATION OF GENGHIS KHAN. ]

PREFACE. 

The word khan is not a name, but a title. It means chieftain or king. It is a word used in various forms by the different tribes and nationsthat from time immemorial have inhabited Central Asia, and has beenapplied to a great number of potentates and rulers that have from timeto time arisen among them. Genghis Khan was the greatest of theseprinces. He was, in fact, one of the most renowned conquerors whoseexploits history records. 

As in all other cases occurring in the series of histories to whichthis work belongs, where the events narrated took place at such aperiod or in such a part of the world that positively reliable andauthentic information in respect to them can now no longer beobtained, the author is not responsible for the actual truth of thenarrative which he offers, but only for the honesty and fidelity withwhich he has compiled it from the best sources of information nowwithin reach. 

CONTENTS. 

 Chapter Page

 I. PASTORAL LIFE IN ASIA 13

 II. THE MONGULS 23

 III. YEZONKAI KHAN 41

 IV. THE FIRST BATTLE 52

 V. VANG KHAN 68

 VI. TEMUJIN IN EXILE 76

 VII. RUPTURE WITH VANG KHAN 86

 VIII. PROGRESS OF THE QUARREL 100

 IX. THE DEATH OF VANG KHAN 114

 X. THE DEATH OF YEMUKA 123

 XI. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE 136

 XII. DOMINIONS OF GENGHIS KHAN 150

 XIII. THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE KUSHLUK 163

 XIV. IDIKUT 175

 XV. THE STORY OF HUJAKU 184

 XVI. CONQUESTS IN CHINA 198

 XVII. THE SULTAN MOHAMMED 213

 XVIII. THE WAR WITH THE SULTAN 236

 XIX. THE FALL OF BOKHARA 244

 XX. BATTLES AND SIEGES 264

 XXI. DEATH OF THE SULTAN 281

 XXII. VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGNS 297

 XXIII. GRAND CELEBRATIONS 318

 XXIV. CONCLUSION 330

ENGRAVINGS

 Page

 THE INAUGURATION OF GENGHIS KHAN _Frontispiece. _

 ENCAMPMENT OF A PATRIARCH 20

 SHOOTING AT PURSUERS 35

 MAP--EMPIRE OF GENGHIS KHAN 44

 PURTA IN THE TENT OF VANG KHAN 62

 DRINKING THE BITTER WATER 107

 PRESENTATION OF THE SHONGAR 173

 THE MERCHANTS OFFERING THEIR GOODS 222

 THE GOVERNOR ON THE TERRACE 261

 THE BATTLE OF THE BOATS 277

GENGHIS KHAN. 

CHAPTER I. 

PASTORAL LIFE IN ASIA. 

Four different modes of life enumerated. --Northern and southernclimes. --Animal food in arctic regions. --Tropical regions. --Appetitechanges with climate. --First steps toward civilization. --Interior ofAsia. --Pastoral habits of the people. --Picture of pastoral life. --Largefamilies accumulated. --Rise of patriarchal governments. --Origin of thetowns. --Great chieftains. --Genghis Khan. 

There are four several methods by which the various communities intowhich the human race is divided obtain their subsistence from theproductions of the earth, each of which leads to its own peculiarsystem of social organization, distinct in its leading characteristicsfrom those of all the rest. Each tends to its own peculiar form ofgovernment, gives rise to its own manners and customs, and forms, ina word, a distinctive and characteristic type of life. 

These methods are the following:

 1. By hunting wild animals in a state of nature. 

 2. By rearing tame animals in pasturages. 

 3. By gathering fruits and vegetables which grow spontaneously in a state of nature. 

 4. By rearing fruits and grains and other vegetables by artificial tillage in cultivated ground. 

By the two former methods man subsists on animal food. By the twolatter on vegetable food. 

As we go north, from the temperate regions toward the poles, man isfound to subsist more and more on animal food. This seems to be theintention of Providence. In the arctic regions scarcely any vegetablesgrow that are fit for human food, but animals whose flesh isnutritious and adapted to the use of man are abundant. 

As we go south, from temperate regions toward the equator, man isfound to subsist more and more on vegetable food. This, too, seems tobe the intention of nature. Within the tropics scarcely any animalslive that are fit for human food; while fruits, roots, and othervegetable productions which are nutritious and adapted to the use ofman are abundant. 

In accordance with this difference in the productions of the differentregions of the earth, there seems to be a difference in theconstitutions of the races of men formed to inhabit them. The tribesthat inhabit Greenland and Kamtschatka can not preserve theiraccustomed health and vigor on any other than animal food. If put upona diet of vegetables they soon begin to pine away. The reverse is trueof the vegetable-eaters of the tropics. They preserve their healthand strength well on a diet of rice, or bread-fruit, or bananas, andwould undoubtedly be made sick by being fed on the flesh of walruses, seals, and white bears. 

In the temperate regions the productions of the above-mentionedextremes are mingled. Here many animals whose flesh is fit for humanfood live and thrive, and here grows, too, a vast variety ofnutritious fruits, and roots, and seeds. The physical constitution ofthe various races of men that inhabit these regions is modifiedaccordingly. In the temperate climes men can live on vegetable food, or on animal food, or on both. The constitution differs, too, indifferent individuals, and it changes at different periods of theyear. Some persons require more of animal, and others more ofvegetable food, to preserve their bodily and mental powers in the bestcondition, and each one observes a change in himself in passing fromwinter to summer. In the summer the desire for a diet of fruits andvegetables seems to come northward with the sun, and in the winter theappetite for flesh comes southward from the arctic regions with thecold. 

When we consider the different conditions in which the differentregions of the earth are placed in respect to their capacity ofproduction for animal and vegetable food, we shall see that thisadjustment of the constitution of man, both to the differences ofclimate and to the changes of the seasons, is a very wise andbeneficent arrangement of Divine Providence. To confine man absolutelyeither to animal or vegetable food would be to depopulate a large partof the earth. 

It results from these general facts in respect to the distribution ofthe supplies of animal and vegetable food for man in differentlatitudes that, in all northern climes in our hemisphere, men livingin a savage state must be hunters, while those that live near theequator must depend for their subsistence on fruits and roots growingwild. When, moreover, any tribe or race of men in either of theselocalities take the first steps toward civilization, they begin, inthe one case, by taming animals, and rearing them in flocks and herds;and, in the other case, by saving the seeds of food-producing plants, and cultivating them by artificial tillage in inclosed and privatefields. This last is the condition of all the half-civilized tribes ofthe tropical regions of the earth, whereas the former prevails in allthe northern temperate and arctic regions, as far to the northward asdomesticated animals can live. 

From time immemorial, the whole interior of the continent of Asia hasbeen inhabited by tribes and nations that have taken this one step inthe advance toward civilization, but have gone no farther. They live, not, like the Indians in North America, by hunting wild beasts, but byrearing and pasturing flocks and herds of animals that they havetamed. These animals feed, of course, on grass and herbage; and, asgrass and herbage can only grow on open ground, the forests havegradually disappeared, and the country has for ages consisted of greatgrassy plains, or of smooth hill-sides covered with verdure. Overthese plains, or along the river valleys, wander the different tribesof which these pastoral nations are composed, living in tents, or infrail huts almost equally movable, and driving their flocks and herdsbefore them from one pasture-ground to another, according as thecondition of the grass, or that of the springs and streams of water, may require. 

We obtain a pretty distinct idea of the nature of this pastoral life, and of the manners and customs, and the domestic constitution to whichit gives rise, in the accounts given us in the Old Testament ofAbraham and Lot, and of their wanderings with their flocks and herdsover the country lying between the Euphrates and the MediterraneanSea. They lived in tents, in order that they might remove theirhabitations the more easily from place to place in following theirflocks and herds to different pasture-grounds. Their wealth consistedalmost wholly in these flocks and herds, the land being almost everywhere common. Sometimes, when two parties traveling together came to afertile and well-watered district, their herdsmen and followers weredisposed to contend for the privilege of feeding their flocks upon it, and the contention would often lead to a quarrel and combat, if it hadnot been settled by an amicable agreement on the part of thechieftains. 

[Illustration: ENCAMPMENT OF A PATRIARCH. ]

The father of a family was the legislator and ruler of it, and hissons, with their wives, and his son's sons, remained with him, sometimes for many years, sharing his means of subsistence, submittingto his authority, and going with him from place to place, with all hisflocks and herds. They employed, too, so many herdsmen, and otherservants and followers, as to form, in many cases, quite an extendedcommunity, and sometimes, in case of hostilities with any otherwandering tribe, a single patriarch could send forth from his owndomestic circle a force of several hundred armed men. Such a companyas this, when moving across the country on its way from one regionof pasturage to another, appeared like an immense caravan on itsmarch, and when settled at an encampment the tents formed quite alittle town. 

Whenever the head of one of these wandering families died, thetendency was not for the members of the community to separate, but tokeep together, and allow the oldest son to take the father's place aschieftain and ruler. This was necessary for defense, as, of course, such communities as these were in perpetual danger of coming intocollision with other communities roaming about like themselves overthe same regions. It would necessarily result, too, from thecircumstances of the case, that a strong and well-managed party, withan able and sagacious chieftain at the head of it, would attract otherand weaker parties to join it; or, on the arising of some pretext fora quarrel, would make war upon it and conquer it. Thus, in process oftime, small nations, as it were, would be formed, which would continueunited and strong as long as the able leadership continued; and thenthey would separate into their original elements, which elements wouldbe formed again into other combinations. 

Such, substantially, was pastoral life in the beginning. In process oftime, of course, the tribes banded together became larger and larger. Some few towns and cities were built as places for the manufacture ofimplements and arms, or as resting-places for the caravans ofmerchants in conveying from place to place such articles as werebought and sold. But these places were comparatively few andunimportant. A pastoral and roaming life continued to be the destinyof the great mass of the people. And this state of things, which wascommenced on the banks of the Euphrates before the time of Abraham, spread through the whole breadth of Asia, from the Mediterranean Seato the Pacific Ocean, and has continued with very little change fromthose early periods to the present time. 

Of the various chieftains that have from time to time risen to commandamong these shepherd nations but little is known, for very few andvery scanty records have been kept of the history of any of them. Someof them have been famous as conquerors, and have acquired veryextended dominions. The most celebrated of all is perhaps GenghisKhan, the hero of this history. He came upon the stage more than threethousand years after the time of the great prototype of his class, thePatriarch Abraham. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MONGULS. 

Monguls. --Origin of the name. --A Mongul family. --Theiroccupations. --Animals of the Monguls. --Their towns and villages. --Modeof building their tents. --Bad fuel. --Comfortless homes. --Movablehouses built at last. --The painting. --Account of a large movablehouse. --The traveling chests. --Necessity of such an arrangement. --Housesin the towns. --Roads over the plains. --Tribes and families. --Influenceof diversity of pursuits. --Tribes and clans. --Mode of makingwar. --Horsemen. --The bow and arrow. --The flying horseman. --Natureof the bow and arrow. --Superiority of fire-arms. --Sources ofinformation. --Gog and Magog. --Salam. --Adventures of Salam andhis party. --The wonderful mountain. --Great bolts and bars. --Theprisoners. --Travelers' tales. --Progress of intelligence. 

Three thousand years is a period of time long enough to produce greatchanges, and in the course of that time a great many different nationsand congeries of nations were formed in the regions of Central Asia. The term Tartars has been employed generically to denote almost thewhole race. The Monguls are a portion of this people, who are said toderive their name from Mongol Khan, one of their earliest and mostpowerful chieftains. The descendants of this khan called themselves byhis name, just as the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob calledthemselves Israelites, or children of Israel, from the name Israel, which was one of the designations of the great patriarch from whosetwelve sons the twelve tribes of the Jews descended. The countryinhabited by the Monguls was called Mongolia. 

To obtain a clear conception of a single Mongul family, you mustimagine, first, a rather small, short, thick-set man, with long blackhair, a flat face, and a dark olive complexion. His wife, if her facewere not so flat and her nose so broad, would be quite a brilliantlittle beauty, her eyes are so black and sparkling. The children havemuch the appearance of young Indians as they run shouting among thecattle on the hill-sides, or, if young, playing half-naked about thedoor of the hut, their long black hair streaming in the wind. 

Like all the rest of the inhabitants of Central Asia, these peopledepended almost entirely for their subsistence on the products oftheir flocks and herds. Of course, their great occupation consisted inwatching their animals while feeding by day, and in putting them inplaces of security by night, in taking care of and rearing the young, in making butter and cheese from the milk, and clothing from theskins, in driving the cattle to and fro in search of pasturage, and, finally, in making war on the people of other tribes to settledisputes arising out of conflicting claims to territory, or toreplenish their stock of sheep and oxen by seizing and driving off theflocks of their neighbors. 

The animals which the Monguls most prized were camels, oxen and cows, sheep, goats, and horses. They were very proud of their horses, andthey rode them with great courage and spirit. They always wentmounted in going to war. Their arms were bows and arrows, pikes orspears, and a sort of sword or sabre, which was manufactured in someof the towns toward the west, and supplied to them in the course oftrade by great traveling caravans. 

Although the mass of the people lived in the open country with theirflocks and herds, there were, notwithstanding, a great many towns andvillages, though such centres of population were much fewer and lessimportant among them than they are in countries the inhabitants ofwhich live by tilling the ground. Some of these towns were theresidences of the khans and of the heads of tribes. Others were placesof manufacture or centres of commerce, and many of them were fortifiedwith embankments of earth or walls of stone. 

The habitations of the common people, even those built in the towns, were rude huts made so as to be easily taken down and removed. Thetents were made by means of poles set in a circle in the ground, andbrought nearly together at the top, so as to form a frame similar tothat of an Indian wigwam. A hoop was placed near the top of thesepoles, so as to preserve a round opening there for the smoke to goout. The frame was then covered with sheets of a sort of thick grayfelt, so placed as to leave the opening within the hoop free. Thefelt, too, was arranged below in such a manner that the corner of oneof the sheets could be raised and let down again to form a sort ofdoor. The edges of the sheets in other places were fastened togethervery carefully, especially in winter, to keep out the cold air. 

Within the tent, on the ground in the centre, the family built theirfire, which was made of sticks, leaves, grass, and dried droppings ofall sorts, gathered from the ground, for the country produced scarcelyany wood. Countries roamed over by herds of animals that gain theirliving by pasturing on the grass and herbage are almost alwaysdestitute of trees. Trees in such a case have no opportunity to grow. 

The tents of the Monguls thus made were, of course, very comfortlesshomes. They could not be kept warm, there was so much cold air comingcontinually in through the crevices, notwithstanding all the people'scontrivances to make them tight. The smoke, too, did not all escapethrough the hoop-hole above. Much of it remained in the tent andmingled with the atmosphere. This evil was aggravated by the kind offuel which they used, which was of such a nature that it made only asort of smouldering fire instead of burning, like good dry wood, witha bright and clear flame. 

The discomforts of these huts and tents were increased by the customwhich prevailed among the people of allowing the animals to come intothem, especially those that were young and feeble, and to live therewith the family. 

In process of time, as the people increased in riches and inmechanical skill, some of the more wealthy chieftains began to buildhouses so large and so handsome that they could not be convenientlytaken down to be removed, and then they contrived a way of mountingthem upon trucks placed at the four corners, and moving them bodily inthis way across the plains, as a table is moved across a floor uponits castors. It was necessary, of course, that the houses should bemade very light in order to be managed in this way. They were, infact, still tents rather than houses, being made of the samematerials, only they were put together in a more substantial andornamental manner. The frame was made of very light poles, thoughthese poles were fitted together in permanent joinings. The coveringwas, like that of the tents, made of felt, but the sheets were joinedtogether by close and strong seams, and the whole was coated with aspecies of paint, which not only closed all the pores and intersticesand made the structure very tight, but also served to ornament it; forthey were accustomed, in painting these houses, to adorn the coveringwith pictures of birds, beasts, and trees, represented in such amanner as doubtless, in their eyes, produced a very beautiful effect. 

These movable houses were sometimes very large. A certain traveler whovisited the country not far from the time of Genghis Khan says that hesaw one of these structures in motion which was thirty feet indiameter. It was drawn by twenty-two oxen. It was so large that itextended five feet on each side beyond the wheels. The oxen, indrawing it, were not attached, as with us, to the centre of theforward axle-tree, but to the ends of the axle-trees, which projectedbeyond the wheels on each side. There were eleven oxen on each sidedrawing upon the axle-trees. There were, of course, many drivers. Theone who was chief in command stood in the door of the tent or housewhich looked forward, and there, with many loud shouts and flourishinggesticulations, issued his orders to the oxen and to the other men. 

The household goods of this traveling chieftain were packed in chestsmade for the purpose, the house itself, of course, in order to be madeas light as possible, having been emptied of all its contents. Thesechests were large, and were made of wicker or basket-work, covered, like the house, with felt. The covers were made of a rounded form, soas to throw off the rain, and the felt was painted over with a certaincomposition which made it impervious to the water. These chests werenot intended to be unpacked at the end of the journey, but to remainas they were, as permanent storehouses of utensils, clothing, andprovisions. They were placed in rows, each on its own cart, near thetent, where they could be resorted to conveniently from time to timeby the servants and attendants, as occasion might require. The tentplaced in the centre, with these great chests on their carts near it, formed, as it were, a house with one great room standing by itself, and all the little rooms and closets arranged in rows by the side ofit. 

Some such arrangement as this is obviously necessary in case of agreat deal of furniture or baggage belonging to a man who lives in atent, and who desires to be at liberty to remove his wholeestablishment from place to place at short notice; for a tent, fromthe very principle of its construction, is incapable of being dividedinto rooms, or of accommodating extensive stores of furniture orgoods. Of course, a special contrivance is required for theaccommodation of this species of property. This was especially thecase with the Monguls, among whom there were many rich and great menwho often accumulated a large amount of movable property. There wasone rich Mongul, it was said, who had two hundred such chest-carts, which were arranged in two rows around and behind his tent, so thathis establishment, when he was encamped, looked like quite a littlevillage. 

The style of building adopted among the Monguls for tents and movablehouses seemed to set the fashion for all their houses, even for thosethat were built in the towns, and were meant to stand permanentlywhere they were first set up. These permanent houses were littlebetter than tents. They consisted each of one single room without anysubdivisions whatever. They were made round, too, like the tents, onlythe top, instead of running up to a point, was rounded like a dome. There were no floors above that formed on the ground, and no windows. 

Such was the general character of the dwellings of the Monguls in thedays of Genghis Khan. They took their character evidently from thewandering and pastoral life that the people led. One would havethought that very excellent roads would have been necessary to haveenabled them to draw the ponderous carts containing their dwellingsand household goods. But this was less necessary than might have beensupposed on account of the nature of the country, which consistedchiefly of immense grassy plains and smooth river valleys, over which, in many places, wheels would travel tolerably well in any directionwithout much making of roadway. Then, again, in all such countries, the people who journey from place to place, and the herds of cattlethat move to and fro, naturally fall into the same lines of travel, and thus, in time, wear great trails, as cows make paths in a pasture. These, with a little artificial improvement at certain points, makevery good summer roads, and in the winter it is not necessary to usethem at all. 

The Monguls, like the ancient Jews, were divided into tribes, andthese were subdivided into families; a family meaning in thisconnection not one household, but a large congeries of households, including all those that were of known relationship to each other. These groups of relatives had each its head, and the tribe to whichthey pertained had also its general head. There were, it is said, three sets of these tribes, forming three grand divisions of theMongul people, each of which was ruled by its own khan; and then, tocomplete the system, there was the grand khan, who ruled over all. 

A constitution of society like this almost always prevails in pastoralcountries, and we shall see, on a little reflection, that it isnatural that it should do so. In a country like ours, where thepursuits of men are so infinitely diversified, the descendants ofdifferent families become mingled together in the most promiscuousmanner. The son of a farmer in one state goes off, as soon as he is ofage, to some other state, to find a place among merchants ormanufacturers, because he wishes to be a merchant or a manufacturerhimself, while his father supplies his place on the farm perhaps byhiring a man who likes farming, and has come hundreds of miles insearch of work. Thus the descendants of one American grandfather andgrandmother will be found, after a lapse of a few years, scattered inevery direction all over the land, and, indeed, sometimes all over theworld. 

It is the diversity of pursuits which prevails in such a country asours, taken in connection with the diversity of capacity and of tastein different individuals, that produces this dispersion. 

Among a people devoted wholly to pastoral pursuits, all this isdifferent. The young men, as they grow up, can have generally noinducement to leave their homes. They continue to live with theirparents and relatives, sharing the care of the flocks and herds, andmaking common cause with them in every thing that is of commoninterest. It is thus that those great family groups are formed whichexist in all pastoral countries under the name of tribes or clans, andform the constituent elements of the whole social and politicalorganization of the people. 

In case of general war, each tribe of the Monguls furnished, ofcourse, a certain quota of armed men, in proportion to its numbers andstrength. These men always went to war, as has already been said, onhorseback, and the spectacle which these troops presented in gallopingin squadrons over the plains was sometimes very imposing. The shock ofthe onset when they charged in this way upon the enemy was tremendous. They were armed with bows and arrows, and also with sabres. As theyapproached the enemy, they discharged first a shower of arrows uponhim, while they were in the act of advancing at the top of theirspeed. Then, dropping their bows by their side, they would draw theirsabres, and be ready, as soon as the horses fell upon the enemy, tocut down all opposed to them with the most furious and deadly blows. 

If they were repulsed, and compelled by a superior force to retreat, they would gallop at full speed over the plains, turning at the sametime in their saddles, and shooting at their pursuers with theirarrows as coolly, and with as correct an aim, almost, as if they werestill. While thus retreating the trooper would guide and control hishorse by his voice, and by the pressure of his heels upon his sides, so as to have both his arms free for fighting his pursuers. 

These arrows were very formidable weapons, it is said. One of thetravelers who visited the country in those days says that they couldbe shot with so much force as to pierce the body of a man entirelythrough. 

[Illustration: SHOOTING AT PURSUERS. ]

It must be remembered, however, in respect to all such statementsrelating to the efficiency of the bow and arrow, that the force withwhich an arrow can be thrown depends not upon any independent actionof the bow, but altogether upon the strength of the man who draws it. The bow, in straightening itself for the propulsion of the arrow, expends only the force which the man has imparted to it by bending it;so that the real power by which the arrow is propelled is, after all, the muscular strength of the archer. It is true, a great deal dependson the qualities of the bow, and also on the skill of the man in usingit, to make all this muscular strength effective. With a poor bow, orwith unskillful management, a great deal of it would be wasted. Butwith the best possible bow, and with the most consummate skill of thearcher, it is the strength of the archer's arm which throws the arrow, after all. 

It is very different in this respect with a bullet thrown by the forceof gunpowder from the barrel of a gun. The force in this case is theexplosive force of the powder, and the bullet is thrown to the samedistance whether it is a very weak man or a very strong man that pullsthe trigger. 

But to return to the Monguls. All the information which we can obtainin respect to the condition of the people before the time of GenghisKhan comes to us from the reports of travelers who, either asmerchants, or as embassadors from caliphs or kings, made long journeysinto these distant regions, and have left records, more or lesscomplete, of their adventures, and accounts of what they saw, inwritings which have been preserved by the learned men of the East. Itis very doubtful how far these accounts are to be believed. One ofthese travelers, a learned man named Salam, who made a journey farinto the interior of Asia by order of the Calif Mohammed AminBillah, some time before the reign of Genghis Khan, says that, amongother objects of research and investigation which occupied his mind, he was directed to ascertain the truth in respect to the two famousnations Gog and Magog, or, as they are designated in his account, Yagog and Magog. The story that had been told of these two nations bythe Arabian writers, and which was extensively believed, was, that thepeople of Yagog were of the ordinary size of men, but those of Magogwere only about two feet high. These people had made war upon theneighboring nations, and had destroyed many cities and towns, but hadat last been overpowered and shut up in prison. 

Salam, the traveler whom the calif sent to ascertain whether theiraccounts were true, traveled at the head of a caravan containing fiftymen, and with camels bearing stores and provisions for a year. He wasgone a long time. When he came back he gave an account of his travels;and in respect to Gog and Magog, he said that he had found that theaccounts which had been heard respecting them were true. He traveledon, he said, from the country of one chieftain to another till hereached the Caspian Sea, and then went on beyond that sea for thirtyor forty days more. In one place the party came to a tract of lowblack land, which exhaled an odor so offensive that they were obligedto use perfumes all the way to overpower the noxious smells. They wereten days in crossing this fetid territory. After this they went on amonth longer through a desert country, and at length came to a fertileland which was covered with the ruins of cities that the people of Gogand Magog had destroyed. 

In six days more they reached the country of the nation by which thepeople of Gog and Magog had been conquered and shut up in prison. Herethey found a great many strong castles. There was a large city heretoo, containing temples and academies of learning, and also theresidence of the king. 

The travelers took up their abode in this city for a time, and whilethey were there they made an excursion of two days' journey into thecountry to see the place where the people of Gog and Magog wereconfined. When they arrived at the place they found a lofty mountain. There was a great opening made in the face of this mountain two orthree hundred feet wide. The opening was protected on each side byenormous buttresses, between which was placed an immense double gate, the buttresses and the gate being all of iron. The buttresses weresurmounted with an iron bulwark, and with lofty towers also of iron, which were carried up as high as to the top of the mountain itself. The gates were of the width of the opening cut in the mountain, andwere seventy-five feet high; and the valves, lintels, and threshold, and also the bolts, the lock, and the key, were all of proportionalsize. 

Salam, on arriving at the place, saw all these wonderful structureswith his own eyes, and he was told by the people there that it was thecustom of the governor of the castles already mentioned to take horseevery Friday with ten others, and, coming to the gate, to strike thegreat bolt three times with a ponderous hammer weighing five pounds, when there would be heard a murmuring noise within, which were thegroans of the Yagog and Magog people confined in the mountain. Indeed, Salam was told that the poor captives often appeared on thebattlements above. Thus the real existence of this people was, in hisopinion, fully proved; and even the story in respect to the diminutivesize of the Magogs was substantiated, for Salam was told that once, ina high wind, three of them were blown off from the battlements to theground, and that, on being measured, they were found but three spanshigh. 

This is a specimen of the tales brought home from remote countries bythe most learned and accomplished travelers of those times. Incomparing these absurd and ridiculous tales with the reports which arebrought back from distant regions in our days by such travelers asHumboldt, Livingstone, and Kane, we shall perceive what an immenseprogress in intelligence and information the human mind has made sincethose days. 

CHAPTER III. 

YEZONKAI KHAN. 

1163-1175

Yezonkai Behadr. --Orthography of Mongul names. --Greatdiversities. --Yezonkai's power. --A successful warrior. --Katay. --TheKhan of Temujin. --Mongol custom. --Birth of Genghis Khan. --Predictions ofthe astrologer. --Explanation of the predictions. --Karasher. --Educationof Temujin. --His precocity. --His early marriage. --Plans of Temujin'sfather. --Karizu. --Tayian. --Death of Yezonkai. 

The name of the father of Genghis Khan is a word which can not bepronounced exactly in English. It sounded something like this, _Yezonkai Behadr_, with the accent on the last syllable, Behadr, andthe _a_ sounded like _a_ in _hark_. This is as near as we can come toit; but the name, as it was really pronounced by the Mongul people, can not be written in English letters nor spoken with English sounds. 

Indeed, in all languages so entirely distinct from each other as theMongul language was from ours, the sounds are different, and theletters by which the sounds are represented are different too. Some ofthe sounds are so utterly unlike any sounds that we have in Englishthat it is as impossible to write them in English characters as it isfor us to write in English letters the sound that a man makes when hechirps to his horse or his dog, or when he whistles. Sometimes writersattempt to represent the latter sound by the word _whew_; and when, in reading a dialogue, we come to the word whew, inserted to express apart of what one of the speakers uttered, we understand by it that hewhistled; but how different, after all, is the sound of the spokenword _whew_ from the whistling sound that it is intended to represent!

Now, in all the languages of Asia, there are many sounds as impossibleto be rendered by the European letters as this, and in making theattempt every different writer falls into a different mode. Thus thefirst name of Genghis Khan's father is spelled by different travelersand historians, Yezonkai, Yesukay, Yessuki, Yesughi, Bissukay, Bisukay, Pisukay, and in several other ways. The real sound wasundoubtedly as different from any of these as they were all differentfrom each other. In this narrative I shall adopt the first of thesemethods, and call him Yezonkai Behadr. 

[Illustration: Map of the Empire of Genghis Khan. ]

Yezonkai was a great khan, and he descended in a direct line throughten generations, so it was said, from a deity. Great sovereigns inthose countries and times were very fond of tracing back their descentto some divine origin, by way of establishing more fully in the mindsof the people their divine right to the throne. Yezonkai's residencewas at a great palace in the country, called by a name, the sound ofwhich, as nearly as it can be represented in English letters, was_Diloneldak_. From this, his capital, he used to make warlikeexcursions at the head of hordes of Monguls into the surroundingcountries, in the prosecution of quarrels which he made with themunder various pretexts; and as he was a skillful commander, and hadgreat influence in inducing all the inferior khans to bring largetroops of men from their various tribes to add to his army, he wasusually victorious, and in this way he extended his empire veryconsiderably while he lived, and thus made a very good preparation forthe subsequent exploits of his son. 

The northern part of China was at that time entirely separated fromthe southern part, and was under a different government. Itconstituted an entirely distinct country, and was called Katay. [A]This country was under the dominion of a chieftain called the Khan ofKatay. This khan was very jealous of the increasing power of Yezonkai, and took part against him in all his wars with the tribes around him, and assisted them in their attempts to resist him; but he did notsucceed. Yezonkai was too powerful for them, and went on extendinghis conquests far and wide. 

[Footnote A: Spelled variously Kathay, Katay, Kitay, and in otherways. ]

At last, under the pretense of some affront which he had received fromthem, Yezonkai made war upon a powerful tribe of Tartars that lived inhis neighborhood. He invaded their territories at the head of animmense horde of Mongul troops, and began seizing and driving offtheir cattle. 

The name of the khan who ruled over these people was Temujin. Temujinassembled his forces as soon as he could, and went to meet theinvaders. A great battle was fought, and Yezonkai was victorious. Temujin was defeated and put to flight. Yezonkai encamped after thebattle on the banks of the River Amoor, near a mountain. He had allhis family with him, for it was often the custom, in theseenterprises, for the chieftain to take with him not only all hishousehold, but a large portion of his household goods. Yezonkai hadseveral wives, and almost immediately after the battle, one of them, named Olan Ayka, gave birth to a son. Yezonkai, fresh from the battle, determined to commemorate his victory by giving his new-born son thename of his vanquished enemy. So he named him Temujin. [B] His birthtook place, as nearly as can now be ascertained, in the year of ourLord 1163. 

[Footnote B: The name is intended to be pronounced _Tim-oo-zhin_. ]

Such were the circumstances of our hero's birth, for it was thisTemujin who afterward became renowned throughout all Asia under thename of Genghis Khan. Through all the early part of his life, however, he was always known by the name which his father gave him in the tentby the river side where he was born. 

Among the other grand personages in Yezonkai's train at this time, there was a certain old astrologer named Sugujin. He was a relative ofYezonkai, and also his principal minister of state. This man, by hisskill in astrology, which he applied to the peculiar circumstances ofthe child, foretold for him at once a wonderful career. He would growup, the astrologer said, to be a great warrior. He would conquer allhis enemies, and extend his conquests so far that he would, in theend, become the Khan of all Tartary. Young Temujin's parents were, ofcourse, greatly pleased with these predictions, and when, not longafter this time, the astrologer died, they appointed his son, whosename was Karasher, to be the guardian and instructor of the boy. Theytrusted, it seems, to the son to give the young prince such atraining in early life as should prepare him to realize the granddestiny which the father had foretold for him. 

There would be something remarkable in the fact that these predictionswere uttered at the birth of Genghis Khan, since they were afterwardso completely fulfilled, were it not that similar prognostications ofgreatness and glory were almost always offered to the fathers andmothers of young princes in those days by the astrologers andsoothsayers of their courts. Such promises were, of course, veryflattering to these parents at the time, and brought those who madethem into great favor. Then, in the end, if the result verified them, they were remembered and recorded as something wonderful; if not, theywere forgotten. 

Karasher, the astrologer's son, who had been appointed young Temujin'stutor, took his pupil under his charge, and began to form plans foreducating him. Karasher was a man of great talents and of considerableattainments in learning, so far as there could be any thing likelearning in such a country and among such a people. He taught him thenames of the various tribes that lived in the countries around, andthe names of the principal chieftains that ruled over them. He alsogave him such information as he possessed in respect to the countriesthemselves, describing the situation of the mountains, the lakes, andthe rivers, and the great deserts which here and there intervenedbetween the fertile regions. He taught him, moreover, to ride, andtrained him in all such athletic exercises as were practiced by theyouth of those times. He instructed him also in the use of arms, teaching him how to shoot with a bow and arrow, and how to hold andhandle his sabre, both when on horseback and when on foot. Heparticularly instructed him in the art of shooting his arrow in anydirection when riding at a gallop upon his horse, behind as well asbefore, and to the right side as well as to the left. To do thiscoolly, skillfully, and with a true aim, required great practice aswell as much courage and presence of mind. 

Young Temujin entered into all these things with great spirit. Indeed, he very soon ceased to feel any interest in any thing else, so that bythe time that he was nine years of age it was said that he thought ofnothing but exercising himself in the use of arms. 

Nine years of age, however, with him was more than it would be with ayoung man among us, for the Asiatics arrive at maturity much earlierthan the nations of Western Europe and America. Indeed, by the timethat Temujin was thirteen years old, his father considered him aman--at least he considered him old enough to be married. He wasmarried, in fact, and had two children before he was fifteen, if theaccounts which the historians have given us respecting him are true. 

Just before Temujin was thirteen, his father, in one of his campaignsin Katay, was defeated in a battle, and, although a great many of hisfollowers escaped, he himself was surrounded and overpowered by thehorsemen of the enemy, and was made prisoner. He was put under thecare of a guard; for, of course, among people living almost altogetheron horseback and in tents, there could be very few prisons. Yezonkaifollowed the camp of his conqueror for some time under the custody ofhis guard; but at length he succeeded in bribing his keeper to let himescape, and so contrived, after encountering many difficulties andsuffering many hardships, to make his way back to his own country. 

He was determined now to make a new incursion into Katay, and thatwith a larger force than he had had before. So he made an alliancewith the chieftain of a neighboring tribe, called the Naymans; and, inorder to seal and establish this alliance, he contracted that his sonshould marry the daughter of his ally. This was the time when Temujinwas but thirteen years old. The name of this his first wife wasKarizu--at least that was one of her names. Her father's name wasTayian. 

Before Yezonkai had time to mature his plans for his new invasion ofKatay, he fell sick and died. He left five sons and a daughter, it issaid; but Temujin seems to have been the oldest of them all, for byhis will his father left his kingdom, if the command of the group oftribes which were under his sway can be called a kingdom, to him, notwithstanding that he was yet only thirteen years old. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE FIRST BATTLE. 

1175

Temujin's accession. --Discontent. --Taychot and Chamuka. --Arrangementsfor the battle. --Temujin's ardor. --Porgie. --Exaggeratedstatements. --The battle. --Bravery of Temujin and Porgie. --Influenceof Temujin's example. --Taychot slain. --The victory. --Rewards andhonors. --Temujin's rising fame. --His second wife. --Purta carriedaway captive. --Customary present. --Purta and Vang Khan. --Purta'sreturn. --Birth of her child. --Jughi. --Temujin's wonderfuldream. --Disaffection among his subjects. --A rebellion. --Temujindiscouraged. --Temujin plans a temporary abdication. --Arrangementof a regency. --Temujin's departure. 

In the language of the Monguls and of their neighbors the Tartars, acollection of tribes banded together under one chieftain wasdesignated by a name which sounded like the word _orda_. This is theorigin, it is said, of the English word _horde_. 

The orda over which Yezonkai had ruled, and the command of which, athis death, he left to his son, consisted of a great number of separatetribes, each of which had its own particular chieftain. All thesesubordinate chieftains were content to be under Yezonkai's rule andleadership while he lived. He was competent, they thought, to directtheir movements and to lead them into battle against their enemies. But when he died, leaving only a young man thirteen years of age tosucceed him, several of them were disposed to rebel. There were two ofthem, in particular, who thought that they were themselves betterqualified to reign over the nation than such a boy; so they formed analliance with each other, and with such other tribes as were disposedto join them, and advanced to make war upon Temujin at the head of agreat number of squadrons of troops, amounting in all to thirtythousand men. 

The names of the two leaders of this rebellion were Taychot andChamuka. 

Young Temujin depended chiefly on his mother for guidance anddirection in this emergency. He was himself very brave and spirited;but bravery and spirit, though they are of such vital importance in acommander on the field of battle, when the contest actually comes on, are by no means the principal qualities that are required in makingthe preliminary arrangements. 

Accordingly, Temujin left the forming of the plans to his mother, while he thought only of his horses, of his arms and equipments, andof the fury with which he would gallop in among the enemy when thetime should arrive for the battle to begin. His mother, in connectionwith the chief officers of the army and counselors of state who werearound her, and on whom her husband Yezonkai, during his lifetime, hadbeen most accustomed to rely, arranged all the plans. They sent offmessengers to the heads of all the tribes that they supposed would befriendly to Temujin, and appointed places of rendezvous for thetroops that they were to send. They made arrangements for the storesof provisions which would be required, settled questions of precedenceamong the different clans, regulated the order of march, and attendedto all other necessary details. 

In the mean time, Temujin thought only of the approaching battle. Hewas engaged continually in riding up and down upon spirited horses, and shooting in all directions, backward and forward, and both to theright side and to the left, with his bow and arrow. Nor was all thisexhibition of ardor on his part a mere useless display. It had greatinfluence in awakening a corresponding ardor among the chieftains ofthe troops, and among the troops themselves. They felt proud of thespirit and energy which their young prince displayed, and were moreand more resolved to exert themselves to the utmost in defending hiscause. 

There was another young prince, of the name of Porgie, of aboutTemujin's age, who was also full of ardor for the fight. He was thechieftain of one of the tribes that remained faithful to Temujin, andhe was equally earnest with Temujin for the battle to begin. 

At length the troops were ready, and, with Temujin and his mother atthe head of them, they went forth to attack the rebels. The rebelswere ready to receive them. They were thirty thousand strong, according to the statements of the historians. This number is probablyexaggerated, as all numbers were in those days, when there was noregular enrollment of troops and no strict system of enumeration. 

At any rate, there was a very great battle. Immense troops of horsemencoming at full speed in opposite directions shot showers of arrows ateach other when they arrived at the proper distance for the arrows totake effect, and then, throwing down their bows and drawing theirsabres, rushed madly on, until they came together with an awful shock, the dreadful confusion and terror of which no person can describe. Theair was filled with the most terrific outcries, in which yells offury, shrieks of agony, and shouts of triumph were equally mingled. Some of the troops maintained their position through the shock, androde on, bearing down all before them. Others were overthrown andtrampled in the dust; while all, both those who were up and those whowere down, were cutting in every direction with their sabres, killingmen and inciting the horses to redoubled fury by the wounds whichthey gave them. 

In the midst of such scenes as these Temujin and Porgie foughtfuriously with the rest. Temujin distinguished himself greatly. It isprobable that those who were immediately around him felt that he wasunder their charge, and that they must do all in their power toprotect him from danger. This they could do much more easily andeffectually under the mode of fighting which prevailed in those daysthan would be possible now, when gunpowder is the principal agent ofdestruction. Temujin's attendants and followers could gather aroundhim and defend him from assailants. They could prevent him fromcharging any squadron which was likely to be strong enough tooverpower him, and they could keep his enemies so much at bay thatthey could not reach him with their sabres. But upon a modern field ofbattle there is much less opportunity to protect a young prince orgeneral's son, or other personage whose life may be considered aspeculiarly valuable. No precautions of his attendants can prevent abomb's bursting at his feet, or shield him from the rifle balls thatcome whistling from such great distances through the air. 

At any rate, whether protected by his attendants or only by thefortune of war, Temujin passed through the battle without being hurt, and the courage and energy which he displayed were greatly commendedby all who witnessed them. His mother was in the battle too, though, perhaps, not personally involved in the actual conflicts of it. Shedirected the manoeuvres, however, and by her presence and heractivity greatly encouraged and animated the men. In consequence ofthe spirit and energy infused into the troops by her presence, and bythe extraordinary ardor and bravery of Temujin, the battle was gained. The army of the enemy was put to flight. One of the leaders, Taychot, was slain. The other made his escape, and Temujin and his mother wereleft in possession of the field. 

Of course, after having fought with so much energy and effect on sucha field, Temujin was now no longer considered as a boy, but took hisplace at once as a man among men, and was immediately recognized byall the army as their prince and sovereign, and as fully entitled, byhis capacity if not by his years, to rule in his own name. He assumedand exercised his powers with as much calmness and self-possession asif he had been accustomed to them for many years. He made addressesto his officers and soldiers, and distributed honors and rewards tothem with a combined majesty and grace which, in their opinion, denoted much grandeur of soul. The rewards and honors werecharacteristic of the customs of the country and the times. Theyconsisted of horses, arms, splendid articles of dress, and personalornaments. Of course, among a people who lived, as it were, always onhorseback, such objects as these were the ones most highly prized. 

The consequence of this victory was, that nearly the whole countryoccupied by the rebels submitted without any farther resistance toTemujin's sway. Other tribes, who lived on the borders of hisdominions, sent in to propose treaties of alliance. The khan of one ofthese tribes demanded of Temujin the hand of his sister in marriage toseal and confirm the alliance which he proposed to make. In a word, the fame of Temujin's prowess spread rapidly after the battle over allthe surrounding countries, and high anticipations began to be formedof the greatness and glory of his reign. 

In the course of the next year Temujin was married to his second wife, although he was at this time only fourteen years old. The name of hisbride was Purta Kugin. By this wife, who was probably of about his ownage, he had a daughter, who was born before the close of the yearafter the marriage. 

In his journeys about the country Temujin sometimes took his wiveswith him, and sometimes he left them temporarily in some place ofsupposed security. Toward the end of the second year Purta was againabout to become a mother, and Temujin, who at that time had occasionto go off on some military expedition, fearing that the fatigue andexposure would be more than she could well bear, left her at home. While he was gone a troop of horsemen, from a tribe of his enemies, came suddenly into the district on a marauding expedition. Theyoverpowered the troops Temujin had left to guard the place, and seizedand carried off every thing that they could find that was valuable. They made prisoner of Purta, too, and carried her away a captive. Theplunder they divided among themselves, but Purta they sent as apresent to a certain khan who reigned over a neighboring country, andwhose favor they wished to secure. The name of this chieftain was VangKhan. As this Vang Khan figures somewhat conspicuously in thesubsequent history of Temujin, a full account of him will be given inthe next chapter. All that is necessary to say here is, that theintention of the captors of Purta, in sending her to him as a present, was that he should make her his wife. It was the custom of these khansto have as many wives as they could obtain, so that when prisoners ofhigh rank were taken in war, if there were any young and beautifulwomen among them, they were considered as charming presents to send toany great prince or potentate near, whom the captors were desirous ofpleasing. It made no difference, in such cases, whether the person whowas to receive the present were young or old. Sometimes the older hewas the more highly he would prize such a gift. 

Vang Khan, it happened, was old. He was old enough to be Temujin'sfather. Indeed, he had been in the habit of calling Temujin his son. He had been in alliance with Yezonkai, Temujin's father, some yearsbefore, when Temujin was quite a boy, and it was at that time that hebegan to call him his son. 

[Illustration: PURTA IN THE TENT OF VANG KHAN. ]

Accordingly, when Purta was brought to him by the messengers who hadbeen sent in charge of her, and presented to him in his tent, he said, "She is very beautiful, but I can not take her for my wife, for she isthe wife of my son. I can not marry the wife of my son. "

Vang Khan, however, received Purta under his charge, gave her a placein his household, and took good care of her. 

When Temujin returned home from his expedition, and learned what hadhappened during his absence, he was greatly distressed at the loss ofhis wife. Not long afterward he ascertained where she was, and heimmediately sent a deputation to Vang Khan asking him to send herhome. With this request Vang Khan immediately complied, and Purta setout on her return. She was stopped on the way, however, by the birthof her child. It was a son. As soon as the child was born it wasdetermined to continue the journey, for there was danger, if theydelayed, that some new troop of enemies might come up, in which casePurta would perhaps be made captive again. So Purta, it is said, wrapped up the tender limbs of the infant in some sort of paste ordough, to save them from the effects of the jolting produced by therough sort of cart in which she was compelled to ride, and in thatcondition she held the babe in her lap all the way home. 

She arrived at her husband's residence in safety. Temujin wasoverjoyed at seeing her again; and he was particularly pleased withhis little son, who came out of his packing safe and sound. Incommemoration of his safe arrival after so strange and dangerous ajourney, his father named him Safe-arrived; that is, he gave him for aname the word in their language that means that. The word itself wasJughi. 

The commencement of Temujin's career was thus, on the whole, quiteprosperous, and every thing seemed to promise well. He was himselffull of ambition and of hope, and began to feel dissatisfied with theempire which his father had left him, and to form plans for extendingit. He dreamed one night that his arms grew out to an enormous length, and that he took a sword in each of them, and stretched them out tosee how far they would reach, pointing one to the eastward and theother to the westward. In the morning he related his dream to hismother. She interpreted it to him. She told him it meant undoubtedlythat he was destined to become a great conqueror, and that thedirections in which his kingdom would be extended were toward theeastward and toward the westward. 

Temujin continued for about two years after this in prosperity, andthen his good fortune began to wane. There came a reaction. Some ofthe tribes under his dominion began to grow discontented. Thesubordinate khans began to form plots and conspiracies. Even his owntribe turned against him. Rebellions broke out in various parts of hisdominions; and he was obliged to make many hurried expeditions hereand there, and to fight many desperate battles to suppress them. Inone of these contests he was taken prisoner. He, however, contrived tomake his escape. He then made proposals to the disaffected khans, which he hoped would satisfy them, and bring them once more to submitto him, since what he thus offered to do in these proposals was prettymuch all that they had professed to require. But the proposals did notsatisfy them. What they really intended to do was to depose Temujinaltogether, and then either divide his dominions among themselves, orselect some one of their number to reign in his stead. 

At last, Temujin, finding that he could not pacify his enemies, andthat they were, moreover, growing stronger every day, while those thatadhered to him were growing fewer in numbers and diminishing instrength, became discouraged. He began to think that perhaps he reallywas too young to rule over a kingdom composed of wandering hordes ofmen so warlike and wild, and he concluded for a time to give up theattempt, and wait until times should change, or, at least, until heshould be grown somewhat older. Accordingly, in conjunction with hismother, he formed a plan for retiring temporarily from the field;unless, indeed, as we might reasonably suspect, his mother formed theplan herself, and by her influence over him induced him to adopt it. 

The plan was this: that Temujin should send an embassador to the courtof Vang Khan to ask Vang Khan to receive him, and protect him for atime in his dominions, until the affairs of his own kingdom shouldbecome settled. Then, if Vang Khan should accede to this proposal, Temujin was to appoint his uncle to act as regent during his absence. His mother, too, was to be married to a certain emir, or prince, namedMenglik, who was to be made prime minister under the regent, and wasto take precedence of all the other princes or khans in the kingdom. The government was to be managed by the regent and the minister untilsuch time as it should be deemed expedient for Temujin to return. 

This plan was carried into effect. Vang Khan readily consented toreceive Temujin into his dominions, and to protect him there. He wasvery ready to do this, he said, on account of the friendship which hehad borne for Temujin's father. Temujin's mother was married to theemir, and the emir was made the first prince of the realm. Finally, Temujin's uncle was proclaimed regent, and duly invested with allnecessary authority for governing the country until Temujin's return. These things being all satisfactorily arranged, Temujin set out forthe country of Vang Khan at the head of an armed escort, to protecthim on the way, of six thousand men. He took with him all his family, and a considerable suite of servants and attendants. Among them washis old tutor and guardian Karasher, the person who had been appointedby his father to take charge of him, and to teach and train him whenhe was a boy. 

Being protected by so powerful an escort, Temujin's party were notmolested on their journey, and they all arrived safely at the court ofVang Khan. 

CHAPTER V. 

VANG KHAN. 

1175

Karakatay. --Vang Khan's dominions. --The cruel fate of Mergus. --Hiswife's stratagem. --Nawr. --He falls into the snare. --Armed men inambuscade. --Death of Nawr. --Credibility of these tales. --Early lifeof Vang Khan. --Reception of Temujin. --Prester John. --His letter tothe King of France. --Other letters. --The probable truth. --Temujinand Vang Khan. 

The country over which Vang Khan ruled was called Karakatay. Itbordered upon the country of Katay, which has already been mentionedas forming the northern part of what is now China. Indeed, as its nameimports, it was considered in some sense as a portion of the samegeneral district of country. It was that part of Katay which wasinhabited by Tartars. 

Vang Khan's name at first was Togrul. The name Vang Khan, which was, in fact, a title rather than a name, was given him long afterward, when he had attained to the height of his power. To avoid confusion, however, we shall drop the name Togrul, and call him Vang Khan fromthe beginning. 

Vang Khan was descended from a powerful line of khans who had reignedover Karakatay for many generations. These khans were a wild andlawless race of men, continually fighting with each other, both formastery, and also for the plunder of each other's flocks and herds. In this way most furious and cruel wars were often fought between nearrelatives. Vang Khan's grandfather, whose name was Mergus, was takenprisoner in one of these quarrels by another khan, who, though he wasa relative, was so much exasperated by something that Mergus had donethat he sent him away to a great distance to the king of a certaincountry which is called Kurga, to be disposed of there. The King ofKurga put him into a sack, sewed up the mouth of it, and then laid himacross the wooden image of an ass, and left him there to die of hungerand suffocation. 

The wife of Mergus was greatly enraged when she heard of the cruelfate of her husband. She determined to be revenged. It seems that therelative of her husband who had taken him prisoner, and had sent himto the King of Kurga, had been her lover in former times before hermarriage; so she sent him a message, in which she dissembled her grieffor the loss of her husband, and only blamed the King of Kurga for hiscruel death, and then said that she had long felt an affection forhim, and that, if he continued of the same mind as when he hadformally addressed her, she was now willing to become his wife, andoffered, if he would come to a certain place, which she specified, tomeet her, she would join him there. 

Nawr, for that was the chieftain's name, fell at once into the snarewhich the beautiful widow thus laid for him. He immediately acceptedher proposals, and proceeded to the place of rendezvous. He went, ofcourse, attended by a suitable guard, though his guard was small, andconsisted chiefly of friends and personal attendants. The princess wasattended also by a guard, not large enough, however, to excite anysuspicion. She also took with her in her train a large number ofcarts, which were to be drawn by bullocks, and which were laden withstores of provisions, clothing, and other such valuables, intended asa present for her new husband. Among these, however, there were alarge number of great barrels, or rounded receptacles of some sort, inwhich she had concealed a considerable force of armed men. Thesereceptacles were so arranged that the men concealed in them could openthem from within in an instant, at a given signal, and issue forthsuddenly all armed and ready for action. 

Among the other stores which the princess had provided, there was alarge supply of a certain intoxicating drink which the Monguls andTartars were accustomed to make in those days. As soon as the twoparties met at the place of rendezvous the princess gave Nawr a verycordial greeting, and invited him and all his party to a feast, to bepartaken on the spot. The invitation was accepted, the stores ofprovisions were opened, and many of the presents were unpacked anddisplayed. At the feast Nawr and his party were all suppliedabundantly with the intoxicating liquor, which, as is usual in suchcases, they were easily led to drink to excess; while, on the otherhand, the princess's party, who knew what was coming, took good careto keep themselves sober. At length, when the proper moment arrived, the princess made the signal. In an instant the men who had beenplaced in ambuscade in the barrels burst forth from their concealmentand rushed upon the guests at the feast. The princess herself, who wasall ready for action, drew a dagger from her girdle and stabbed Nawrto the heart. Her guards, assisted by the re-enforcement which had sosuddenly appeared, slew or secured all his attendants, who were sototally incapacitated, partly by the drink which they had taken, andpartly by their astonishment at the sudden appearance of sooverwhelming a force, that they were incapable of making anyresistance. 

The princess, having thus accomplished her revenge, marshaled her men, packed up her pretended presents, and returned in triumph home. 

Such stories as these, related by the Asiatic writers, though theywere probably often much embellished in the narration, had doubtlessall some foundation in fact, and they give us some faint idea of themodes of life and action which prevailed among these half-savagechieftains in those times. Vang Khan himself was the grandson ofMergus, who was sewed up in the sack. His father was the oldest son ofthe princess who contrived the above-narrated stratagem to revenge herhusband's death. It is said that he used to accompany his father tothe wars when he was only ten years old. The way in which he formedhis friendship for Yezonkai, and the alliance with him which led himto call Temujin his son and to refuse to take his wife away from him, as already related, was this: When his father died he succeeded to thecommand, being the oldest son; but the others were jealous of him, andafter many and long quarrels with them and with other relatives, especially with his uncle, who seemed to take the lead against him, hewas at last overpowered or outmanoeuvred, and was obliged to fly. He took refuge, in his distress, in the country of Yezonkai. Yezonkaireceived him in a very friendly manner, and gave him effectualprotection. After a time he furnished him with troops, and helped himto recover his kingdom, and to drive his uncle away into banishment inhis turn. It was while he was thus in Yezonkai's dominions that hebecame acquainted with Temujin, who was then very small, and it wasthere that he learned to call him his son. Of course, now that Temujinwas obliged to fly himself from his native country and abandon hishereditary dominions, as he had done before, he was glad of theopportunity of requiting to the son the favor which he had received, in precisely similar circumstances, from the father, and so he gaveTemujin a very kind reception. 

There is another circumstance which is somewhat curious in respect toVang Khan, and that is, that he is generally supposed to be the princewhose fame was about this period spread all over Europe, under thename of Prester John, by the Christian missionaries in Asia. Thesemissionaries sent to the Pope, and to various Christian kings inEurope, very exaggerated accounts of the success of their missionsamong the Persians, Turks, and Tartars; and at last they wrote wordthat the great Khan of the Tartars had become a convert, and had evenbecome a preacher of the Gospel, and had taken the name of PresterJohn. The word _prester_ was understood to be a corruption ofpresbyter. A great deal was accordingly written and said all throughChristendom about the great Tartar convert, Prester John. There wereseveral letters forwarded by the missionaries, professedly from him, and addressed to the Pope and to the different kings of Europe. Someof these letters, it is said, are still in existence. One of them wasto the King of France. In this letter the writer tells the King ofFrance of his great wealth and of the vastness of his dominions. Hesays he has seventy kings to serve and wait upon him. He invites theKing of France to come and see him, promising to bestow a greatkingdom upon him if he will, and also to make him his heir and leaveall his dominions to him when he dies; with a great deal more of thesame general character. 

The other letters were much the same, and the interest which theynaturally excited was increased by the accounts which the missionariesgave of the greatness and renown of this more than royal convert, andof the progress which Christianity had made and was still making inhis dominions through their instrumentality. 

It is supposed, in modern times, that these stories were pretty muchall inventions on the part of the missionaries, or, at least, that theaccounts which they sent were greatly exaggerated and embellished; andthere is but little doubt that they had much more to do with theauthorship of the letters than any khan. Still, however, it issupposed that there was a great prince who at least encouraged themissionaries in their work, and allowed them to preach Christianity inhis dominions, and, if so, there is little doubt that Vang Khan wasthe man. 

At all events, he was a very great and powerful prince, and he reignedover a wide extent of country. The name of his capital was Karakorom. The distance which Temujin had to travel to reach this city was aboutten days' journey. 

He was received by Vang Khan with great marks of kindness andconsideration. Vang Khan promised to protect him, and, in due time, toassist him in recovering his kingdom. In the mean while Temujinpromised to enter at once into Vang Khan's service, and to devotehimself faithfully to promoting the interests of his kind protector byevery means in his power. 

CHAPTER VI. 

TEMUJIN IN EXILE. 

1182

Temujin's popularity. --Rivals and enemiesappear. --Plots. --Yemuka--Wisulujine. --Yemuka's disappointment. --Hisrage. --Conspiracy formed. --Progress of the league. --Oath of theconspirators. --The oath. --Karakorom. --Plan formed by Temujin. --Thecampaign. --Unexpected arrival of Vang Khan. --His story. --Temujin'spromises. --Result of the battle. --Temujin victorious. --State of thingsat Karakorom. --Erkekara. --Preparations for the final conflict. --Erkekaravanquished. --Vang Khan restored. --Temujin's popularity. 

Vang Khan gave Temujin a very honorable position in his court. It wasnatural that he should do so, for Temujin was a prince in the prime ofhis youth, and of very attractive person and manners; and, though hewas for the present an exile, as it were, from his native land, he wasnot by any means in a destitute or hopeless condition. His family andfriends were still in the ascendency at home, and he himself, incoming to the kingdom of Vang Khan, had brought with him quite animportant body of troops. Being, at the same time, personallypossessed of great courage and of much military skill, he was preparedto render his protector good service in return for his protection. Ina word, the arrival of Temujin at the court of Vang Khan was an eventcalculated to make quite a sensation. 

At first every body was very much pleased with him, and he was verypopular; but before long the other young princes of the court, andthe chieftains of the neighboring tribes, began to be jealous of him. Vang Khan gave him precedence over them all, partly on account of hispersonal attachment to him, and partly on account of the rank which heheld in his own country, which, being that of a sovereign prince, naturally entitled him to the very highest position among thesubordinate chieftains in the retinue of Vang Khan. But thesesubordinate chieftains were not satisfied. They murmured, at firstsecretly, and afterward more openly, and soon began to formcombinations and plots against the new favorite, as they called him. 

An incident soon occurred which greatly increased this animosity, andgave to Temujin's enemies, all at once, a very powerful leader andhead. This leader was a very influential chieftain named Yemuka. ThisYemuka, it seems, was in love with the daughter of Vang Khan, thePrincess Wisulujine. He asked her in marriage of her father. Toprecisely what state of forwardness the negotiations had advanced doesnot appear, but, at any rate, when Temujin arrived, Wisulujine soonbegan to turn her thoughts toward him. He was undoubtedly younger, handsomer, and more accomplished than her old lover, and before longshe gave her father to understand that she would much rather have himfor her husband than Yemuka. It is true, Temujin had one or two wivesalready; but this made no difference, for it was the custom then, as, indeed, it is still, for the Asiatic princes and chieftains to take asmany wives as their wealth and position would enable them to maintain. Yemuka was accordingly refused, and Wisulujine was given in marriageto Temujin. 

Yemuka was, of course, dreadfully enraged. He vowed that he would berevenged. He immediately began to intrigue with all the discontentedpersons and parties in the kingdom, not only with those who wereenvious and jealous of Temujin, but also with all those who, for anyreason, were disposed to put themselves in opposition to Vang Khan'sgovernment. Thus a formidable conspiracy was formed for the purpose ofcompassing Temujin's ruin. 

The conspirators first tried the effect of private remonstrances withVang Khan, in which they made all sorts of evil representationsagainst Temujin, but to no effect. Temujin rallied about him so manyold friends, and made so many new friends by his courage and energy, that his party at court proved stronger than that of his enemies, and, for a time, they seemed likely to fail entirely of their design. 

At length the conspirators opened communication with the foreignenemies of Vang Khan, and formed a league with them to make waragainst and destroy both Vang Khan and Temujin together. The accountsof the progress of this league, and of the different nations andtribes which took part in it, is imperfect and confused; but atlength, after various preliminary contests and manoeuvres, arrangements were made for assembling a large army with a view ofinvading Vang Khan's dominions and deciding the question by a battle. The different chieftains and khans whose troops were united to formthis army bound themselves together by a solemn oath, according to thecustoms of those times, not to rest until both Vang Khan and Temujinshould be destroyed. 

The manner in which they took the oath was this: They brought out intoan open space on the plain where they had assembled to take the oath, a horse, a wild ox, and a dog. At a given signal they fell upon theseanimals with their swords, and cut them all to pieces in the mostfurious manner. When they had finished, they stood together and calledout aloud in the following words:

"Hear! O God! O heaven! O earth! the oath that we swear against VangKhan and Temujin. If any one of us spares them when we have them inour power, or if we fail to keep the promise that we have made todestroy them, may we meet with the same fate that has befallen thesebeasts that we have now cut to pieces. "

They uttered this imprecation in a very solemn manner, standing amongthe mangled and bloody remains of the beasts which lay strewed allabout the ground. 

These preparations had been made thus far very secretly; but tidingsof what was going on came, before a great while, to Karakorom, VangKhan's capital. Temujin was greatly excited when he heard the news. Heimmediately proposed that he should take his own troops, and join withthem as many of Vang Khan's soldiers as could be conveniently spared, and go forth to meet the enemy. To this Vang Khan consented. Temujintook one half of Vang Khan's troops to join his own, leaving the otherhalf to protect the capital, and so set forth on his expedition. Hewent off in the direction toward the frontier where he had understoodthe principal part of the hostile forces were assembling. After a longmarch, probably one of many days, he arrived there before the enemywas quite prepared for him. Then followed a series of manoeuvresand counter-manoeuvres, in which Temujin was all the timeendeavoring to bring the rebels to battle, while they were doing allin their power to avoid it. Their object in this delay was to gaintime for re-enforcements to come in, consisting of bodies of troopsbelonging to certain members of the league who had not yet arrived. 

At length, when these manoeuvres were brought to an end, and thebattle was about to be fought, Temujin and his whole army were one daygreatly surprised to see his father-in-law, Vang Khan himself, cominginto the camp at the head of a small and forlorn-looking band offollowers, who had all the appearance of fugitives escaped from abattle. They looked anxious, way-worn, and exhausted, and the horsesthat they rode seemed wholly spent with fatigue and privation. Onexplanation, Temujin learned that, as soon as it was known that he hadleft the capital, and taken with him a large part of the army, acertain tribe of Vang Khan's enemies, living in another direction, haddetermined to seize the opportunity to invade his dominions, and hadaccordingly come suddenly in, with an immense horde, to attack thecapital. Vang Khan had done all that he could to defend the city, buthe had been overpowered. The greater part of his soldiers had beenkilled or wounded. The city had been taken and pillaged. His son, withthose of the troops that had been able to save themselves, had escapedto the mountains. As to Vang Khan himself, he had thought it best tomake his way, as soon as possible, to the camp of Temujin, where hehad now arrived, after enduring great hardships and sufferings on theway. 

Temujin was at first much amazed at hearing this story. He, however, bade his father-in-law not to be cast down or discouraged, andpromised him full revenge, and a complete triumph over all his enemiesat the coming battle. So he proceeded at once to complete hisarrangements for the coming fight. He resigned to Vang Khan thecommand of the main body of the army, while he placed himself at thehead of one of the wings, assigning the other to the chieftain next inrank in his army. In this order he went into battle. 

The battle was a very obstinate and bloody one, but, in the end, Temujin's party was victorious. The troops opposed to him weredefeated and driven off the field. The victory appeared to be duealtogether to Temujin himself; for, after the struggle had continued along time, and the result still appeared doubtful, the troops ofTemujin's wing finally made a desperate charge, and forced their waywith such fury into the midst of the forces of the enemy that nothingcould withstand them. This encouraged and animated the other troops tosuch a degree that very soon the enemy were entirely routed and drivenfrom off the field. 

The effect of this victory was to raise the reputation of Temujin as amilitary commander higher than ever, and greatly to increase theconfidence which Vang Khan was inclined to repose in him. The victory, too, seemed at first to have well-nigh broken up the party of therebels. Still, the way was not yet open for Vang Khan to return andtake possession of his throne and of his capital, for he learned thatone of his brothers had assumed the government, and was reigning inKarakorom in his place. It would seem that this brother, whose namewas Erkekara, had been one of the leaders of the party opposed toTemujin. It was natural that he should be so; for, being the brotherof the king, he would, of course, occupy a very high position in thecourt, and would be one of the first to experience the ill effectsproduced by the coming in of any new favorite. He had accordinglyjoined in the plots that were formed against Temujin and Vang Khan. Indeed, he was considered, in some respects, as the head of theirparty, and when Vang Khan was driven away from his capital, thisbrother assumed the throne in his stead. The question was, how couldhe now be dispossessed and Vang Khan restored. 

Temujin began immediately to form his plans for the accomplishment ofthis purpose. He concentrated his forces after the battle, and soonafterward opened negotiations with other tribes, who had before beenuncertain which side to espouse, but were now assisted a great deal incoming to a decision by the victory which Temujin had obtained. In themean time the rebels were not idle. They banded themselves togetheranew, and made great exertions to procure re-enforcements. Erkekarafortified himself as strongly as possible in Karakorom, and collectedample supplies of ammunition and military stores. It was not until thefollowing year that the parties had completed their preparations andwere prepared for the final struggle. Then, however, another greatbattle was fought, and again Temujin was victorious. Erkekara waskilled or driven away in his turn. Karakorom was retaken, and VangKhan entered it in triumph at the head of his troops, and was oncemore established on his throne. 

Of course, the rank and influence of Temujin at his court was nowhigher than ever before. He was now about twenty-two or twenty-threeyears of age. He had already three wives, though it is not certainthat all of them were with him at Vang Khan's court. He was extremelypopular in the army, as young commanders of great courage and spiritalmost always are. Vang Khan placed great reliance upon him, andlavished upon him all possible honors. 

He does not seem, however, yet to have begun to form any plans forreturning to his native land. 

CHAPTER VII. 

RUPTURE WITH VANG KHAN. 

1182-1202

Erkekara. --State of the country. --Wanderinghabits. --Yemuka. --Sankum. --Yemuka's intrigues withSankum. --Deceit. --Temujin's situation. --His militaryexpeditions. --Popular commanders. --Stories of Temujin'scruelty. --Probably fictions. --Vang Khan's uneasiness. --Temujin. --VangKhan's suspicions. --A reconciliation. --Fresh suspicions. --Planslaid. --Treachery. --Menglik. --Menglik gives Temujin warning. --Thedouble marriage. --Plans frustrated. --Temujin's camp. --Karasher. --VangKhan's plans. --His plans betrayed by two slaves. --How the slavesoverheard. --A council called. --Temujin plans a stratagem. 

Temujin remained at the court, or in the dominions of Vang Khan, for agreat many years. During the greater portion of this time he continuedin the service of Vang Khan, and on good terms with him, though, inthe end, as we shall presently see, their friendship was turned into abitter enmity. 

Erkekara, Vang Khan's brother, who had usurped his throne during therebellion, was killed, it was said, at the time when Vang Khanrecovered his throne. Several of the other rebel chieftains were alsokilled, but some of them succeeded in saving themselves from utterruin, and in gradually recovering their former power over the hordeswhich they respectively commanded. It must be remembered that thecountry was not divided at this time into regular territorial statesand kingdoms, but was rather one vast undivided region, occupied byimmense hordes, each of which was more or less stationary, it is true, in its own district or range, but was nevertheless without anypermanent settlement. The various clans drifted slowly this way andthat among the plains and mountains, as the prospects of pasturage, the fortune of war, or the pressure of conterminous hordes mightincline them. In cases, too, where a number of hordes were unitedunder one general chieftain, as was the case with those over whom VangKhan claimed to have sway, the tie by which they were bound togetherwas very feeble, and the distinction between a state of submission andof rebellion, except in case of actual war, was very slightly defined. 

Yemuka, the chieftain who had been so exasperated against Temujin onaccount of his being supplanted by him in the affections of the youngprincess, Vang Khan's daughter, whom Temujin had married for his thirdwife, succeeded in making his escape at the time when Vang Khanconquered his enemies and recovered his throne. For a time heconcealed himself, or at least kept out of Vang Khan's reach, bydwelling with hordes whose range was at some distance from Karakorom. He soon, however, contrived to open secret negotiations with one ofVang Khan's sons, whose name was something that sounded like Sankum. Some authors, in attempting to represent his name in our letters, spelled it _Sunghim_. 

Yemuka easily persuaded this young Sankum to take sides with him inthe quarrel. It was natural that he should do so, for, being the sonof Vang Khan, he was in some measure displaced from his own legitimateand proper position at his father's court by the great and constantlyincreasing influence which Temujin exercised. 

"And besides, " said Yemuka, in the secret representations which hemade to Sankum, "this new-comer is not only interfering with andcurtailing your proper influence and consideration now, but his designis by-and-by to circumvent and supplant you altogether. He is formingplans for making himself your father's heir, and so robbing you ofyour rightful inheritance. "

Sankum listened very eagerly to these suggestions, and finally it wasagreed between him and Yemuka that Sankum should exert his influencewith his father to obtain permission for Yemuka to come back to court, and to be received again into his father's service, under pretense ofhaving repented of his rebellion, and of being now disposed to returnto his allegiance. Sankum did this, and, after a time, Vang Khan waspersuaded to allow Yemuka to return. 

Thus a sort of outward peace was made, but it was no real peace. Yemuka was as envious and jealous of Temujin as ever, and now, moreover, in addition to this envy and jealousy, he felt the stimulusof revenge. Things, however, seem to have gone on very quietly for atime, or at least without any open outbreak in the court. During thistime Vang Khan was, as usual with such princes, frequently engaged inwars with the neighboring hordes. In these wars he relied a great dealon Temujin. Temujin was in command of a large body of troops, whichconsisted in part of his own guard, the troops that had come with himfrom his own country, and in part of other bands of men whom Vang Khanhad placed under his orders, or who had joined him of their ownaccord. He was assisted in the command of this body by foursubordinate generals or khans, whom he called his four intrepids. Theywere all very brave and skillful commanders. At the head of this troopTemujin was accustomed to scour the country, hunting out Vang Khan'senemies, or making long expeditions over distant plains or among themountains, in the prosecution of Vang Khan's warlike projects, whether those of invasion and plunder, or of retaliation andvengeance. 

Temujin was extremely popular with the soldiers who served under him. Soldiers always love a dashing, fearless, and energetic leader, whohas the genius to devise brilliant schemes, and the spirit to executethem in a brilliant manner. They care very little how dangerous thesituations are into which he may lead them. Those that get killed inperforming the exploits which he undertakes can not speak to complain, and those who survive are only so much the better pleased that thedangers that they have been brought safely through were so desperate, and that the harvest of glory which they have thereby acquired is sogreat. 

Temujin, though a great favorite with his own men, was, like almostall half-savage warriors of his class, utterly merciless, when he wasangry, in his treatment of his enemies. It is said that after one ofhis battles, in which he had gained a complete victory over an immensehorde of rebels and other foes, and had taken great numbers of themprisoners, he ordered fires to be built and seventy large caldrons ofwater to be put over them, and then, when the water was boiling hot, he caused the principal leaders of the vanquished army to be thrownin headlong and thus scalded to death. Then he marched at once intothe country of the enemy, and there took all the women and children, and sent them off to be sold as slaves, and seized the cattle andother property which he found, and carried it off as plunder. In thustaking possession of the enemy's property and making it his own, andselling the poor captives into slavery, there was nothing remarkable. Such was the custom of the times. But the act of scalding hisprisoners to death seems to denote or reveal in his character a veinof peculiar and atrocious cruelty. It is possible, however, that thestory may not be true. It may have been invented by Yemuka and Sankum, or by some of his other enemies. 

For Yemuka and Sankum, and others who were combined with them, werecontinually endeavoring to undermine Temujin's influence with VangKhan, and thus deprive him of his power. But he was too strong forthem. His great success in all his military undertakings kept him upin spite of all that his rivals could do to pull him down. As for VangKhan himself, he was in part pleased with him and proud of him, and inpart he feared him. He was very unwilling to be so dependent upon asubordinate chieftain, and yet he could not do without him. A kingnever desires that any one of his subjects should become tooconspicuous or too great, and Vang Khan would have been very glad tohave diminished, in some way, the power and prestige which Temujin hadacquired, and which seemed to be increasing every day. He, however, found no means of effecting this in any quiet and peaceful manner. Temujin was at the head of his troops, generally away from Karakorom, where Vang Khan resided, and he was, in a great measure, independent. He raised his own recruits to keep the numbers of his army good, andit was always easy to subsist if there chanced to be any failure inthe ordinary and regular supplies. 

Besides, occasions were continually occurring in which Vang Khanwished for Temujin's aid, and could not dispense with it. At one time, while engaged in some important campaigns, far away among themountains, Yemuka contrived to awaken so much distrust of Temujin inVang Khan's mind, that Vang Khan secretly decamped in the night, andmarched away to a distant place to save himself from a plot whichYemuka had told him that Temujin was contriving. Here, however, he wasattacked by a large body of his enemies, and was reduced to suchstraits that he was obliged to send couriers off at once to Temujin tocome with his intrepids and save him. Temujin came. He rescued VangKhan from his danger, and drove his enemies away. Vang Khan was verygrateful for this service, so that the two friends became entirelyreconciled to each other, and were united more closely than ever, greatly to Yemuka's disappointment and chagrin. They made a new leagueof amity, and, to seal and confirm it, they agreed upon a doublemarriage between their two families. A son of Temujin was to bemarried to a daughter of Vang Khan, and a son of Vang Khan to adaughter of Temujin. 

This new compact did not, however, last long. As soon as Vang Khanfound that the danger from which Temujin had rescued him was passed, he began again to listen to the representations of Yemuka and Sankum, who still insisted that Temujin was a very dangerous man, and was byno means to be trusted. They said that he was ambitious andunprincipled, and that he was only waiting for a favorable opportunityto rebel himself against Vang Khan and depose him from his throne. They made a great many statements to the khan in confirmation of theiropinion, some of which were true doubtless, but many wereexaggerated, and others probably false. They, however, succeeded atlast in making such an impression upon the khan's mind that he finallydetermined to take measures for putting Temujin out of the way. 

Accordingly, on some pretext or other, he contrived to send Temujinaway from Karakorom, his capital, for Temujin was so great a favoritewith the royal guards and with all the garrison of the town, that hedid not dare to undertake any thing openly against him there. VangKhan also sent a messenger to Temujin's own country to persuade thechief persons there to join him in his plot. It will be recollectedthat, at the time that Temujin left his own country, when he was aboutfourteen years old, his mother had married a great chieftain there, named Menglik, and that this Menglik, in conjunction doubtless withTemujin's mother, had been made regent during his absence. Vang Khannow sent to Menglik to propose that he should unite with him todestroy Temujin. 

"You have no interest, " said Vang Khan in the message that he sent toMenglik, "in taking his part. It is true that you have married hismother, but, personally, he is nothing to you. And, if he is once outof the way, you will be acknowledged as the Grand Khan of the Mongulsin your own right, whereas you now hold your place in subordination tohim, and he may at any time return and set you aside altogether. "

Vang Khan hoped by these arguments to induce Menglik to come andassist him in his plan of putting Temujin to death, or, at least, ifMenglik would not assist him in perpetrating the deed, he thoughtthat, by these arguments, he should induce him to be willing that itshould be committed, so that he should himself have nothing to fearafterward from his resentment. But Menglik received the proposal in avery different way from what Vang Khan had expected. He said nothing, but he determined immediately to let Temujin know of the danger thathe was in. He accordingly at once set out to go to Temujin's camp toinform him of Vang Khan's designs. 

In the mean time, Vang Khan, having matured his plans, made anappointment for Temujin to meet him at a certain place designated forthe purpose of consummating the double marriage between theirchildren, which had been before agreed upon. Temujin, not suspectingany treachery, received and entertained the messenger in a veryhonorable manner, and said that he would come. After making thenecessary preparations, he set out, in company with the messenger andwith a grand retinue of his own attendants, to go to the placeappointed. On his way he was met or overtaken by Menglik, who had cometo warn him of his danger. As soon as Temujin had heard what hisstepfather had to say, he made some excuse for postponing the journey, and, sending a civil answer to Vang Khan by the embassador, he orderedhim to go forward, and went back himself to his own camp. 

This camp was at some distance from Karakorom. Vang Khan, as hasalready been stated, had sent Temujin away from the capital on accountof his being so great a favorite that he was afraid of some tumult ifhe were to attempt any thing against him there. Temujin was, however, pretty strong in his camp. The troops that usually attended him werethere, with the four intrepids as commanders of the four principaldivisions of them. His old instructor and guardian, Karasher, was withhim too. Karasher, it seems, had continued in Temujin's service up tothis time, and was accustomed to accompany him in all his expeditionsas his counselor and friend. 

When Vang Khan learned, by the return of his messenger, that Temujindeclined to come to the place of rendezvous which he had appointed, heconcluded at once that he suspected treachery, and he immediatelydecided that he must now strike a decisive blow without any delay, otherwise Temujin would put himself more and more on his guard. He wasnot mistaken, it seems, however, in thinking how great a favoriteTemujin was at Karakorom, for his secret design was betrayed toTemujin by two of his servants, who overheard him speak of it to oneof his wives. Vang Khan's plan was to go out secretly to Temujin'scamp at the head of an armed force superior to his, and there comeupon him and his whole troop suddenly, by surprise, in the night, bywhich means, he thought, he should easily overpower the wholeencampment, and either kill Temujin and his generals, or else makethem prisoners. The two men who betrayed this plan were slaves, whowere employed to take care of the horses of some person connected withVang Khan's household, and to render various other services. Theirnames were Badu and Kishlik. It seems that these men were one daycarrying some milk to Vang Khan's house or tent, and there theyoverheard a conversation between Vang Khan and his wife, by whichthey learned the particulars of the plan formed for Temujin'sdestruction. The expedition was to set out, they heard, on thefollowing morning. 

It is not at all surprising that they overheard this conversation, fornot only the tents, but even the houses used by these Asiatic nationswere built of very frail and thin materials, and the partitions wereoften made of canvas and felt, and other such substances as could havevery little power to intercept sound. 

The two slaves determined to proceed at once to Temujin's camp andwarn him of his danger. So they stole away from their quarters atnightfall, and, after traveling diligently all night, in the morningthey reached the camp and told Temujin what they had learned. Temujinwas surprised; but he had been, in some measure, prepared for suchintelligence by the communication which his stepfather had made him inrespect to Vang Khan's treacherous designs a few days before. Heimmediately summoned Karasher and some of his other friends, in orderto consult in respect to what it was best to do. 

It was resolved to elude Vang Khan's design by means of a stratagem. He was to come upon them, according to the account of the slaves, that night. The preparations for receiving him were consequently to bemade at once. The plan was for Temujin and all his troops to withdrawfrom the camp and conceal themselves in a place of ambuscade near by. They were to leave a number of men behind, who, when night came on, were to set the lights and replenish the fires, and put every thing insuch a condition as to make it appear that the troops were all there. Their expectation was that, when Vang Khan should arrive, he wouldmake his assault according to his original design, and then, while hisforces were in the midst of the confusion incident to such an onset, Temujin was to come forth from his ambuscade and fall upon them. Inthis way he hoped to conquer them and put them to flight, although hehad every reason to suppose that the force which Vang Khan would bringout against him would be considerably stronger in numbers than hisown. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PROGRESS OF THE QUARREL. 

1202

The ambuscade. --The wood and the brook. --The guard leftbehind. --Arrival of Vang Khan's army. --False hopes. --Assaultupon the vacant camp. --Advance of the assailants. --Theambuscade. --Temujin's victory. --Preparations for openwar. --Temujin makes alliances. --Turkili. --Solemn league andcovenant. --Bitter water. --Recollection of the ceremony. --Temujin'sstrength. --His letter to Vang Khan. --Effect of the letter. --Sankum'sanger. --Great accessions to Temujin's army. --Mongolistan. --Finalattempt at negotiation. --Sankum's answer. --Skirmishes. 

Temujin's stratagem succeeded admirably. As soon as he had decidedupon it he began to put it into execution. He caused every thing ofvalue to be taken out of his tent and carried away to a place ofsafety. He sent away the women and children, too, to the same place. He then marshaled all his men, excepting the small guard that he wasgoing to leave behind until evening, and led them off to the ambuscadewhich he had chosen for them. The place was about two leagues distantfrom his camp. Temujin concealed himself here in a narrow dell amongthe mountains, not far from the road where Vang Khan would have topass along. The dell was narrow, and was protected by precipitousrocks on each side. There was a wood at the entrance to it also, whichconcealed those that were hidden in it from view, and a brook whichflowed by near the entrance, so that, in going in or coming out, itwas necessary to ford the brook. 

Temujin, on arriving at the spot, went with all his troops into thedell, and concealed himself there. 

In the mean time, the guard that had been left behind in the camp hadbeen instructed to kindle up the camp-fires as soon as the eveningcame on, according to the usual custom, and to set lights in thetents, so as to give the camp the appearance, when seen from a littledistance in the night, of being occupied, as usual, by the army. Theywere to wait, and watch the fires and lights until they perceivedsigns of the approach of the enemy to attack the camp, when they weresecretly to retire on the farther side, and so make their escape. 

These preparations, and the march of Temujin's troops to the place ofambuscade, occupied almost the whole of the day, and it was nearevening before the last of the troops had entered the dell. 

They had scarce accomplished this manoeuvre before Vang Khan's armyarrived. Vang Khan himself was not with them. He had intrusted theexpedition to the command of Sankum and Yemuka. Indeed, it is probablethat they were the real originators and contrivers of it, and thatVang Khan had only been induced to give his consent to it--and thatperhaps reluctantly--by their persuasions. Sankum and Yemuka advancedcautiously at the head of their columns, and when they saw theillumination of the camp produced by the lights and the camp-fires, they thought at once that all was right, and that their old enemy andrival was now, at last, within their reach and at their mercy. 

They brought up the men as near to the camp as they could come withoutbeing observed, and then, drawing their bows and making their arrowsready, they advanced furiously to the onset, and discharged an immenseshower of arrows in among the tents. They expected to see thousands ofmen come rushing out from the tents, or starting up from the ground atthis sudden assault, but, to their utter astonishment, all was assilent and motionless after the falling of the arrows as before. Theythen discharged more arrows, and, finding that they could not awakenany signs of life, they began to advance cautiously and enter thecamp. They found, of course, that it had been entirely evacuated. Theythen rode round and round the inclosure, examining the ground withflambeaux and torches to find the tracks which Temujin's army had madein going away. The tracks were soon discovered. Those who first sawthem immediately set off in pursuit of the fugitives, as they supposedthem, shouting, at the same time, for the rest to follow. Some didfollow immediately. Others, who had strayed away to greater or lessdistances on either side of the camp in search of the tracks, fell inby degrees as they received the order, while others still remainedamong the tents, where they were to be seen riding to and fro, endeavoring to make discoveries, or gathering together in groups toexpress to one another their astonishment, or to inquire what was nextto be done. They, however, all gradually fell into the ranks of thosewho were following the track which had been found, and the whole bodywent on as fast as they could go, and in great confusion. They allsupposed that Temujin and his troops were making a precipitateretreat, and were expecting every moment to come up to him in hisrear, in which case he would be taken at great disadvantage, and wouldbe easily overwhelmed. 

Instead of this, Temujin was just coming forward from hishiding-place, with his squadrons all in perfect order, and advancingin a firm, steady, and compact column, all being ready at the word ofcommand to charge in good order, but with terrible impetuosity, uponthe advancing enemy. In this way the two armies came together. Theshock of the encounter was terrific. Temujin, as might have beenexpected, was completely victorious. The confused masses of VangKhan's army were overborne, thrown into dreadful confusion, andtrampled under foot. Great numbers were killed. Those that escapedbeing killed at once turned and fled. Sankum was wounded in the faceby an arrow, but he still was able to keep his seat upon his horse, and so galloped away. Those that succeeded in saving themselves gotback as soon as they could into the road by which they came, and somade their way, in detached and open parties, home to Karakorom. 

Of course, after this, Vang Khan could no longer dissimulate hishostility to Temujin, and both parties prepared for open war. 

The different historians through whom we derive our information inrespect to the life and adventures of Genghis Khan have related thetransactions which occurred after this open outbreak between Temujinand Vang Khan somewhat differently. Combining their accounts, we learnthat both parties, after the battle, opened negotiations with suchneighboring tribes as they supposed likely to take sides in theconflict, each endeavoring to gain as many adherents as possible tohis own cause. Temujin obtained the alliance and co-operation of agreat number of Tartar princes who ruled over hordes that dwelt inthat part of the country, or among the mountains around. Some of thesechieftains were his relatives. Others were induced to join him bybeing convinced that he would, in the end, prove to be stronger thanVang Khan, and being, in some sense, politicians as well as warriors, they wished to be sure of coming out at the close of the contest onthe victorious side. 

There was a certain khan, named Turkili, who was a relative ofTemujin, and who commanded a very powerful tribe. On approaching theconfines of his territory, Temujin, not being certain of Turkili'sdisposition toward him, sent forward an embassador to announce hisapproach, and to ask if Turkili still retained the friendship whichhad long subsisted between them. Turkili might, perhaps, havehesitated which side to join, but the presence of Temujin with hiswhole troop upon his frontier seems to have determined him, so he senta favorable answer, and at once espoused Temujin's cause. 

Many other chieftains joined Temujin in much the same way, and thusthe forces under his command were constantly increased. At length, inhis progress across the country, he came with his troop of followersto a place where there was a stream of salt or bitter water which wasunfit to drink. Temujin encamped on the shores of this stream, andperformed a grand ceremony, in which he himself and his allies bandedthemselves together in the most solemn manner. In the course of theceremony a horse was sacrificed on the shores of the stream. Temujinalso took up some of the water from the brook and drank it, invokingheaven, at the same time, to witness a solemn vow which he made, that, as long as he lived, he would share with his officers and soldiers thebitter as well as the sweet, and imprecating curses upon himself if heshould ever violate his oath. All his allies and officers did the sameafter him. 

[Illustration: DRINKING THE BITTER WATERS. ]

This ceremony was long remembered in the army, all those who had beenpresent and had taken part in it cherishing the recollection of itwith pride and pleasure; and long afterward, when Temujin had attainedto the height of his power and glory, his generals considered theirhaving been present at this first solemn league and covenant asconferring upon them a sort of title of nobility, by which they andtheir descendants were to be distinguished forever above all thosewhose adhesion to the cause of the conqueror dated from a later time. 

By this time Temujin began to feel quite strong. He moved on with hisarmy till he came to the borders of a lake which was not a great wayfrom Vang Khan's dominions. Here he encamped, and, before proceedingany farther, he determined to try the effect, upon the mind of VangKhan, of a letter of expostulation and remonstrance; so he wrote tohim, substantially, as follows:

 "A great many years ago, in the time of my father, when you were driven from your throne by your enemies, my father came to your aid, defeated your enemies, and restored you. 

 "At a later time, after I had come into your dominions, your brother conspired against you with the Markats and the Naymans. I defeated them, and helped you to recover your power. When you were reduced to great distress, I shared with you my flocks and every thing that I had. 

 "At another time, when you were in circumstances of great danger and distress, you sent to me to ask that my four intrepids might go and rescue you. I sent them according to your request, and they delivered you from a most imminent danger. They helped you to conquer your enemies, and to recover an immense booty from them. 

 "In many other instances, when the khans have combined against you, I have given you most effectual aid in subduing them. 

 "How is it, then, after receiving all these benefits from me for a period of so many years, that you form plans to destroy me in so base and treacherous a manner?"

This letter seems to have produced some impression upon Vang Khan'smind; but he was now, it seems, so much under the influence of Sankumand Yemuka that he could decide nothing for himself. He sent theletter to Sankum to ask him what answer should be returned. ButSankum, in addition to his former feelings of envy and jealousyagainst Temujin, was now irritated and angry in consequence of thewound that he had received, and determined to have his revenge. Hewould not hear of any accommodation. 

In the mean time, the khans of all the Tartar and Mongul tribes thatlived in the countries bordering on Vang Khan's dominions, hearing ofthe rupture between Vang Khan and Temujin, and aware of the greatstruggle for the mastery between these two potentates that was aboutto take place, became more and more interested in the quarrel. Temujinwas very active in opening negotiations with them, and in endeavoringto induce them to take his side. He was a comparatively young andrising man, while Vang Khan was becoming advanced in years, and wasnow almost wholly under the influence of Sankum and Yemuka. Temujin, moreover, had already acquired great fame and great popularity as acommander, and his reputation was increasing every day, while VangKhan's glory was evidently on the wane. A great number of the khanswere, of course, predisposed to take Temujin's side. Others hecompelled to join him by force, and others he persuaded by promisingto release them from the exactions and the tyranny which Vang Khan hadexercised over them, and declaring that he was a messenger especiallysent from heaven to accomplish their deliverance. Those Asiatic tribeswere always ready to believe in military messengers sent from heavento make conquests for their benefit. 

Among other nations who joined Temujin at this time were the people ofhis own country of Mongolistan Proper. He was received very joyfullyby his stepfather, who was in command there, and by all his formersubjects, and they all promised to sustain him in the coming war. 

After a time, when Temujin had by these and similar means greatlyincreased the number of his adherents, and proportionatelystrengthened his position, he sent an embassador again to Vang Khan topropose some accommodation. Vang Khan called a council to consider theproposal. But Sankum and Yemuka persisted in refusing to allow anyaccommodation to be made. They declared that they would not listen toproposals of peace on any other condition than that of the absolutesurrender of Temujin, and of all who were confederate with him, toVang Khan as their lawful sovereign. Sankum himself delivered themessage to the embassador. 

"Tell the rebel Monguls, " said he, "that they are to expect no peacebut by submitting absolutely to the khan's will; and as for Temujin, Iwill never see him again till I come to him sword in hand to killhim. "

Immediately after this Sankum and Yemuka sent off some smallplundering expeditions into the Mongul country, but they were drivenback by Temujin's troops without effecting their purpose. The resultof these skirmishes was, however, greatly to exasperate both parties, and to lead them to prepare in earnest for open war. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE DEATH OF VANG KHAN. 

1202

A council called. --Mankerule. --Debates. --Temujin madegeneral-in-chief. --He distributes rewards. --Reward of the twoslaves. --His reasons. --Organization of the army. --Mode ofattack. --The two armies. --The baggage. --Meeting of the twoarmies. --The battle. --Vang Khan defeated. --His flight. --Hisrelations with the Naymans. --Debates among the Naymans. --Tayian. --Planof the chieftains. --Vang Khan beheaded. --Tayian's deceit. --Disposalmade of his head. --Sankum slain. 

A grand council was now called of all the confederates who wereleagued with Temujin, at a place called Mankerule, to makearrangements for a vigorous prosecution of the war. At this councilwere convened all the chieftains and khans that had been induced todeclare against Vang Khan. Each one came attended by a considerablebody of troops as his escort, and a grand deliberation was held. Somewere in favor of trying once more to come to some terms ofaccommodation with Vang Khan, but Temujin convinced them that therewas nothing to be hoped for except on condition of absolutesubmission, and that, in that case, Vang Khan would never be contentuntil he had effected the utter ruin of every one who had been engagedin the rebellion. So it was, at last, decided that every man shouldreturn to his own tribe, and there raise as large a force as he could, with a view to carrying on the war with the utmost vigor. 

Temujin was formally appointed general-in-chief of the army to beraised. There was a sort of truncheon or ornamented club, called thetopaz, which it was customary on such occasions to bestow, with greatsolemnity, on the general thus chosen, as his badge of command. Thetopaz was, in this instance, conferred upon Temujin with all the usualceremonies. He accepted it on the express condition that every manwould punctually and implicitly obey all his orders, and that heshould have absolute power to punish any one who should disobey him inthe way that he judged best, and that they should submit withoutquestion to all his decisions. To these conditions they all solemnlyagreed. 

Being thus regularly placed in command, Temujin began by giving placesof honor and authority to those who left Vang Khan's service to followhim. He took this occasion to remember and reward the two slaves whohad come to him in the night at his camp, some time before, to givehim warning of the design of Sankum and Yemuka to come and surprisehim there. He gave the slaves their freedom, and made provision fortheir maintenance as long as they should live. He also put them on thelist of _exempts_. The exempts were a class of persons upon whom, asa reward for great public services, were conferred certain exclusiverights and privileges. They had no taxes to pay. In case of plundertaken from the enemy, they received their full share without anydeduction, while all the others were obliged to contribute a portionof their shares for the khan. The exempts, too, were allowed variousother privileges. They had the right to go into the presence of thekhan at any time, without waiting, as others were obliged to do, tillthey obtained permission, and, what was more singular still, they wereentitled to _nine_ pardons for any offenses that they might commit, sothat it was only when they had committed ten misdemeanors or crimesthat they were in danger of punishment The privileges which Temujinthus bestowed upon the slaves were to be continued to theirdescendants to the seventh generation. 

Temujin rewarded the slaves in this bountiful manner, partly, nodoubt, out of sincere gratitude to them for having been the means, probably, of saving him and his army from destruction, and partly foreffect, in order to impress upon his followers a strong convictionthat any great services rendered to him or to his cause were certainto be well rewarded. 

Temujin now found himself at the head of a very large body of men, and his first care was to establish a settled system of disciplineamong them, so that they could act with regularity and order whencoming into battle. He divided his army into three separate bodies. The centre was composed of his own guards, and was commanded byhimself. The wings were formed of the squadrons of his confederatesand allies. His plan in coming into battle was to send forward the twowings, retaining the centre as a reserve, and hold them prepared torush in with irresistible power whenever the time should arrive atwhich their coming would produce the greatest effect. 

When every thing was thus arranged, Temujin set his army in motion, and began to advance toward the country of Vang Khan. The squadronswhich composed his immense horde were so numerous that they coveredall the plain. 

In the mean time Vang Khan had not been idle. He, or rather Sankum andYemuka, acting in his name, had assembled a great army, and he had setout on his march from Karakorom to meet his enemy. His forces, however, though more numerous, were by no means so well disciplinedand arranged as those of Temujin. They were greatly encumbered, too, with baggage, the army being followed in its march by endless trainsof wagons conveying provisions, arms, and military stores of allkinds. Its progress was, therefore, necessarily slow, for the troopsof horsemen were obliged to regulate their speed by the movement ofthe wagons, which, on account of the heavy burdens that theycontained, and the want of finished roads, was necessarily slow. 

The two armies met upon a plain between two rivers, and a mostdesperate and bloody battle ensued. Karasher, Temujin's former tutor, led one of the divisions of Temujin's army, and was opposed by Yemuka, who headed the wing of Vang Khan's army which confronted his division. The other wings attacked each other, too, in the most furious manner, and for three hours it was doubtful which party would be successful. At length Temujin, who had all this time remained in the backgroundwith his reserve, saw that the favorable moment had arrived for him tointervene, and he gave the order for his guards to charge, which theydid with such impetuosity as to carry all before them. One afteranother of Vang Khan's squadrons was overpowered, thrown intoconfusion, and driven from the field. It was not long before Vang Khansaw that all was lost. He gave up the contest and fled. A small troopof horsemen, consisting of his immediate attendants and guards, wentwith him. At first the fugitives took the road toward Karakorom. Theywere, however, so hotly pursued that they were obliged to turn off inanother direction, and, finally, Vang Khan resolved to fly from hisown country altogether, and appeal for protection to a certainchieftain, named Tayian Khan, who ruled over a great horde called theNaymans, one of the most powerful tribes in the country of Karakatay. This Tayian was the father of Temujin's first wife, the young princessto whom he was married during the lifetime of his father, when he wasonly about fourteen years old. 

It was thought strange that Vang Khan should thus seek refuge amongthe Naymans, for he had not, for some time past, been on friendlyterms either with Tayian, the khan, or with the tribe. There were, inparticular, a considerable number of the subordinate chieftains whocherished a deep-seated resentment against him for injuries which hehad inflicted upon them and upon their country in former wars. But allthese Tartar tribes entertained very high ideas of the obligations ofhospitality, and Vang Khan thought that when the Naymans saw himcoming among them, a fugitive and in distress, they would lay asidetheir animosity, and give him a kind reception. 

Indeed, Tayian himself, on whom, as the head of the tribe, the chiefdiscredit would attach of any evil befalling a visitor and a guest whohad come in his distress to seek hospitality, was inclined, at first, to receive his enemy kindly, and to offer him a refuge. He debated thematter with the other chieftains after Vang Khan had entered hisdominions and was approaching his camp; but they were extremelyunwilling that any mercy should be shown to their fallen enemy. Theyrepresented to Tayian how great an enemy he had always been to them. They exaggerated the injuries which he had done them, and representedthem in their worst light. They said, moreover, that, by harboringVang Khan, they should only involve themselves in a war with Temujin, who would undoubtedly follow his enemy into their country, and wouldgreatly resent any attempt on their part to protect him. 

These considerations had great effect on the mind of Tayian, but stillhe could not bring himself to give his formal consent to any act ofhostility against Vang Khan. So the other chieftains held a councilamong themselves to consider what they should do. They resolved totake upon themselves the responsibility of slaying Vang Khan. 

"We can not induce Tayian openly to authorize it, " they said, "but hesecretly desires it, and he will be glad when it is done. "

Tayian knew very well what course things were taking, though hepretended not to know, and so allowed the other chiefs to go on intheir own way. 

They accordingly fitted out a troop, and two of the chieftains--thetwo who felt the most bitter and determined hatred against VangKhan--placing themselves at the head of it, set off to intercept him. He had lingered on the way, it seems, after entering the Naymanterritory, in order to learn, before he advanced too far, whatreception he was likely to meet with. The troop of Naymans camesuddenly upon him in his encampment, slew all his attendants, and, seizing Vang Khan, they cut off his head. They left the body where itlay, and carried off the head to show it to Tayian. 

Tayian was secretly pleased, and he could not quite conceal thegratification which the death of his old enemy afforded him. He evenaddressed the head in words of scorn and spite, which revealed theexultation that he felt at the downfall of his rival. Then, however, checking himself, he blamed the chieftains for killing him. 

"Considering his venerable age, " said he, "and his past greatness andrenown as a prince and commander, you would have done much better tohave acted as his guards than as his executioners. "

Tayian ordered the head to be treated with the utmost respect. Afterproperly preparing it, by some process of drying and preserving, hecaused it to be inclosed in a case of silver, and set in a place ofhonor. 

While the preparations for this sort of entombment were making, thehead was an object of a very solemn and mysterious interest for allthe horde. They said that the tongue thrust itself several times outof the mouth, and the soothsayers, who watched the changes with greatattention, drew from them important presages in respect to the comingevents of the war. These presages were strongly in favor of theincreasing prosperity and power of Temujin. 

Sankum, the son of Vang Khan, was killed in the battle, but Yemukaescaped. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE DEATH OF YEMUKA. 

1202-1203

The victory complete. --Exaggeration. --The plunder. --Greataccession. --The khans submit. --Sankum and Yemuka. --Hakembu and hisdaughter. --Hakembu's fears. --Temujin's gratitude. --His reply. --Yemukamakes his escape. --Arrives in Tayian's dominions. --Tayian'sconversations with Yemuka. --Yemuka's representations of Temujin'scharacter. --Plots formed. --Alakus. --The plots revealed to Temujin. --Heis deceived. --The young Prince Jughi. --Council of war. --Yemuka andTayian. --Temujin crosses the frontier. --His advance. --Preparationsfor battle. --Kushluk and Jughi. --Great battle. --Temujin againvictorious. --Tayian killed. --Yemuka is beheaded. 

In the mean time, while these events had been occurring in the countryof the Naymans, whither Vang Khan had fled, Temujin was carrying allbefore him in the country of Vang Khan. His victory in the battle wascomplete; and it must have been a very great battle, if any relianceis to be placed on the accounts given of the number slain, which itwas said amounted to forty thousand. These numbers are, however, greatly exaggerated. And then, besides, the number slain in suchbarbarian conflicts was always much greater, in proportion to thenumbers engaged, than it is in the better-regulated warfare ofcivilized nations in modern times. 

At all events, Temujin gained a very grand and decisive victory. Hetook a great many prisoners and a great deal of plunder. All thosetrains of wagons fell into his hands, and the contents of many of themwere extremely valuable. He took also a great number of horses. Mostof these were horses that had belonged to the men who were killed orwho had been made prisoners. All the best troops that remained of VangKhan's army after the battle also went over to his side. Theyconsidered that Vang Khan's power was now entirely overthrown, andthat thenceforth Temujin would be the acknowledged ruler of the wholecountry. They were accordingly ready at once to transfer theirallegiance to him. 

Very soon Temujin received the news of Vang Khan's death from hisfather-in-law Tayian, and then proceeded with more vigor than beforeto take possession of all his dominions. The khans who had formerlyserved under Vang Khan sent in their adhesion to him one afteranother. They not only knew that all farther resistance would beuseless, but they were, in fact, well pleased to transfer theirallegiance to their old friend and favorite. Temujin made a sort oftriumphal march through the country, being received every where withrejoicings and acclamations of welcome. His old enemies, Sankum andYemuka, had disappeared. Yemuka, who had been, after all, the leadingspirit in the opposition to Temujin, still held a body of armed mentogether, consisting of all the troops that he had been able to rallyafter the battle, but it was not known exactly where he had gone. 

The other relatives and friends of Vang Khan went over to Temujin'sside without any delay. Indeed, they vied with each other to see whoshould most recommend themselves to his favor. A brother of Vang Khan, who was an influential and powerful chieftain, came among the rest totender his services, and, by way of a present to conciliate Temujin'sgood will, he brought him his daughter, whom he offered to Temujin asan addition to the number of his wives. 

Temujin received the brother very kindly. He accepted the presentwhich he brought him of his daughter, but, as he had already plenty ofwives, and as one of his principal officers, the captain of hisguards, seemed to take a special fancy to her, he very generously, aswas thought, passed over the young lady to him. Of course, the younglady herself had nothing to say in the case. She was obliged toacquiesce submissively in any arrangement which her father and theother khans thought proper to make in respect to the disposal of her. 

The name of the prince her father was Hakembu. He came into Temujin'scamp with many misgivings, fearing that, as he was a brother of VangKhan, Temujin might feel a special resentment against him, and, perhaps, refuse to accept his submission and his proffered presents. When, therefore, he found how kindly he was received, his mind wasgreatly relieved, and he asked Temujin to appoint him to some commandin his army. 

Temujin replied that he would do it with great pleasure, and the morereadily because it was the brother of Vang Khan who asked it. "Indeed, " said he to Hakembu, "I owe you all the kind treatment in mypower for your brother's sake, in return for the succor and protectionfor which I was indebted to him, in my misfortunes, in former times, when he received me, a fugitive and an exile, at his court, andbestowed upon me so many favors. I have never forgotten, and nevershall forget, the great obligations I am under to him; and although inlater years he turned against me, still I have never blamed either himor his son Sankum for this, but have constantly attributed it to thefalse representations and evil influence of Yemuka, who has alwaysbeen my implacable enemy. I do not, therefore, feel any resentmentagainst Vang Khan for having thus turned against me, nor do I any theless respect his memory on that account; and I am very glad that anopportunity now occurs for me to make, through you, his brother, somesmall acknowledgment of the debt of gratitude which I owe him. "

So Temujin gave Hakembu an honorable post in his army, and treated himin all respects with great consideration. If he acted usually in thisgenerous manner, it is not at all surprising that he acquired thatboundless influence over the minds of his followers which aided him soessentially in attaining his subsequent greatness and renown. 

In the mean time, although Sankum was killed, Yemuka had succeeded inmaking his escape, and, after meeting with various adventures, hefinally reached the country of Tayian. He led with him there all thatportion of Vang Khan's army that had saved themselves from beingkilled or made prisoners, and also a great number of officers. Thesebroken troops Yemuka had reorganized, as well as he could, bycollecting the scattered remnants and rearranging the brokensquadrons, and in this manner, accompanied by such of the sick andwounded as were able to ride, had arrived in Tayian's dominions. Hewas known to be a general of great abilities, and he was veryfavorably received in Tayian's court. Indeed, Tayian, having heardrumors of the rapid manner in which Temujin was extending hisconquests and his power, began to be somewhat jealous of him, and tothink that it was time for him to take measures to prevent thisaggrandizement of his son-in-law from going too far. 

Of course, Tayian held a great many conversations with Yemuka inrespect to Temujin's character and schemes. These Yemuka took care torepresent in the most unfavorable light, in order to increase as muchas possible Tayian's feelings of suspicion and jealousy. Herepresented Temujin as a very ambitious man, full of schemes for hisown aggrandizement, and without any sentiments of gratitude or ofhonor to restrain him in the execution of them. He threw wholly uponhim the responsibility of the war with Vang Khan. It grew, he said, out of plots which Temujin had formed to destroy both Vang Khan andhis son, notwithstanding the great obligations he had been under tothem for their kindness to him in his misfortunes. Yemuka urged Tayianalso to arouse himself, before it was too late, to guard himself fromthe danger. 

"He is your son, it is true, " said he, "and he professes to be yourfriend, but he is so treacherous and unprincipled that you can placeno reliance upon him whatever, and, notwithstanding all your pastkindness to him, and the tie of relationship which ought to bind himto you, he will as readily form plans to compass your destruction ashe would that of any other man the moment he imagines that you standin the way of the accomplishment of his ambitious schemes. "

These representations, acting upon Tayian's natural apprehensions andfears, produced a very sensible effect, and at length Tayian wasinduced to take some measures for defending himself from thethreatened danger. So he opened negotiations with the khans of varioustribes which he thought likely to join him, and soon formed quite apowerful league of the enemies of Temujin, and of all who were willingto join in an attempt to restrict his power. 

These steps were all taken with great secrecy, for Yemuka and Tayianwere very desirous that Temujin should know nothing of the leaguewhich they were forming against him until their arrangements werefully matured, and they were ready for action. They did not, however, succeed in keeping the secret as long as they intended. They weregenerally careful not to propose to any khan or chieftain to jointhem in their league until they had first fully ascertained that hewas favorable to the object of it. But, growing less cautious as theywent on, they at last made a mistake. Tayian sent proposals to acertain prince or khan, named Alakus, inviting him to join the league. These proposals were contained in a letter which was sent by a specialmessenger. The letter specified all the particulars of the league, with a statement of the plans which the allies were intending topursue, and an enumeration of the principal khans or tribes that werealready engaged. 

Now it happened that this Alakus, who reigned over a nation ofnumerous and powerful tribes on the confines of China, was, for somereason or other, inclined to take Temujin's side in the quarrel. So hedetained the messenger who brought the letter as a prisoner, and sentthe letter itself, containing all the particulars of the conspiracy, at once to Temujin. Temujin was greatly surprised at receiving theintelligence, for, up to that moment, he had considered hisfather-in-law Tayian as one of his best and most trustworthy friends. He immediately called a grand council of war to consider what was tobe done. 

Temujin had a son named Jughi, who had now grown up to be a young man. Jughi's father thought it was now time for his son to begin to takehis place and act his part among the other princes and chieftains ofhis court, and he accordingly gave him a seat at this council, andthus publicly recognized him, for the first time, as one of the chiefpersonages of the state. 

The council, after hearing a statement of the case in respect to theleague which Tayian and the others were forming, were stronglyinclined to combine their forces and march at once to attack the enemybefore their plans should be more fully matured. But there was adifficulty in respect to horses. The horses of the different hordesthat belonged to Temujin's army had become so much exhausted by thelong marches and other fatigues that they had undergone in the latecampaigns, that they would not be in a fit condition to commence a newexpedition until they had had some time to rest and recruit. But acertain khan, named Bulay, an uncle of Temujin's, at once removed thisobjection by offering to furnish a full supply of fresh horses for thewhole army from his own herds. This circumstance shows on what animmense scale the pastoral occupations of the great Asiaticchieftains were conducted in those days. 

Temujin accepted this offer on the part of his uncle, and preparationswere immediately made for the marching of the expedition. As soon asthe news of these preparations reached Yemuka, he urged Tayian toassemble the allied troops immediately, and go out to meet Temujin andhis army before they should cross the frontier. 

"It is better, " said he, addressing Tayian, "that you should meet andfight him on his own ground, rather than to wait until he has crossedthe frontier and commenced his ravages in yours. "

"No, " said Tayian, in reply, "it is better to wait. The farther headvances on his march, the more his horses and his men will be spentwith fatigue, the scantier will be their supplies, and the moredifficult will he find it to effect his retreat after we shall havegained a victory over him in battle. "

So Tayian, though he began to assemble his forces, did not advance;and when Temujin, at the head of his host, reached the Naymanfrontier--for the country over which Tayian reigned was called thecountry of the Naymans--he was surprised to find no enemy there todefend it. He was the more surprised at this from the circumstancethat the frontier, being formed by a river, might have been veryeasily defended. But when he arrived at the bank of the river the waywas clear. He immediately crossed the stream with all his forces, andthen marched on into the Nayman territory. 

Temujin took good care, as he advanced, to guard against the dangerinto which Tayian had predicted that he would fall--that of exhaustingthe strength of his men and of his animals, and also his stores offood. He took good care to provide and to take with him abundantsupplies, and also to advance so carefully and by such easy stages asto keep both the men and the horses fresh and in full strength all theway. In this order and condition he at last arrived at the spot whereTayian had formed his camp and assembled his armies. 

Both sides immediately marshaled their troops in order of battle. Yemuka was chief in command on Tayian's side. He was assisted by ayoung prince, the son of Tayian, whose name was Kushluk. On the otherhand, Jughi, the young son of Temujin, who had been brought forward atthe council, was appointed to a very prominent position on hisfather's side. Indeed, these two young princes, who were animated byan intense feeling of rivalry and emulation toward each other, wereappointed to lead the van on their respective sides in commencing thebattle; Jughi advancing first to the attack, and being met by Kushluk, to whom was committed the charge of repelling him. The two princesfought throughout the battle with the utmost bravery, and both of themacquired great renown. 

The battle was commenced early in the morning and continued all day. In the end, Temujin was completely victorious. Tayian was mortallywounded early in the day. He was immediately taken off the field, andevery possible effort was made to save his life, but he soon ceased tobreathe. His son, the Prince Kushluk, fought valiantly during thewhole day, but toward night, finding that all was lost, he fled, taking with him as many of the troops as he could succeed in gettingtogether in the confusion, and at the head of this band made the bestof his way into the dominions of one of his uncles, his father'sbrother, where he hoped to find a temporary shelter until he shouldhave time to determine what was to be done. 

As for Yemuka, after fighting with desperate fury all day, he was atlast, toward night, surrounded and overpowered, and so made prisoner. Temujin ordered his head to be cut off immediately after the battlewas over. He considered him, not as an honorable and open foe, butrather as a rebel and traitor, and, consequently, undeserving of anymercy. 

CHAPTER XI. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE. 

1203

Plans for the formation of a government. --His court atKarakorom. --Embassadors. --Temujin forms a constitution. --Electionof khans. --Division of the country. --Organization of thearmy. --Arms and ammunition. --Hunting. --Slaves. --Polygamy andslavery. --Concubines. --Posthumous marriages. --Punishment fortheft. --Religion. --Freedom of choice. --Assembly of the khans. --DilonIldak. --Their encampment. --Tents and herds of cattle. --Temujin'saddress. --Temujin is elected grand khan. --He is enthroned andhonored. --The old prophet Kokza. --Probably insane. --Hispredictions. --The title Genghis Khan. --Homage of the khans. --Inauguraladdress. --Rejoicings. --Departure of the khans. 

There was now a vast extent of country, comprising a very largeportion of the interior of the Asiatic Continent, and, indeed, animmense number of wealthy, powerful hordes, under Temujin's dominion, and he at once resolved to consolidate his dominion by organizing aregular imperial government over the whole. There were a few morebattles to be fought in order to subdue certain khans who stillresisted, and some cities to be taken. But these victories were soonobtained, and, in a very short time after the great battle withTayian, Temujin found himself the undisputed master of what to him wasalmost the whole known world. All open opposition to his rule hadwholly disappeared, and nothing now remained for him to do but toperfect the organization of his army, to enact his code of laws, todetermine upon his capital, and to inaugurate generally a system ofcivil government such as is required for the management of theinternal affairs of a great empire. 

Temujin determined upon making Karakorom his capital. He accordinglyproceeded to that city at the head of his troops, and entered it ingreat state. Here he established a very brilliant court, and duringall the following winter, while he was occupied with the preliminaryarrangements for the organization and consolidation of his empire, there came to him there a continual succession of embassadors from thevarious nations and tribes of Central Asia to congratulate him on hisvictories, and to offer the allegiance or the alliance of the khanswhich they respectively represented. These embassadors all cameattended by troops of horsemen splendidly dressed and fully armed, andthe gayety and magnificence of the scenes which were witnessed inKarakorom during the winter surpassed all that had ever been seenthere before. 

In the mean time, while the attention of the masses of the people wasoccupied and amused by these parades, Temujin was revolving in hismind the form of constitution which he should establish for hisempire, and the system of laws by which his people should be governed. He conferred privately with some of his ablest counselors on thissubject, and caused a system of government and a code of laws to bedrawn up by secretaries. The details of these proposed enactmentswere discussed in the privy council, and, when the whole had been welldigested and matured, Temujin, early in the spring, sent out asummons, calling upon all the great princes and khans throughout hisdominions to assemble at an appointed day, in order that he might layhis proposed system before them. 

Temujin determined to make his government a sort of elective monarchy. The grand khan was to be chosen by the votes of all the other khans, who were to be assembled in a general convocation for this purposewhenever a new khan was to be installed. Any person who should causehimself to be proclaimed grand khan, or who should in any other wayattempt to assume the supreme authority without having been dulyelected by the other khans, was to suffer death. 

The country was divided into provinces, over each of which asubordinate khan ruled as governor. These governors were, however, tobe strictly responsible to the grand khan. Whenever summoned by thegrand khan they were required to repair at once to the capital, thereto render an account of their administration, and to answer anycharges which had been made against them. Whenever any serious caseof disobedience or maladministration was proved against them they wereto suffer death. 

Temujin remodeled and reorganized the army on the same or similarprinciples. The men were divided into companies of about one hundredmen each, and every ten of these companies was formed into a regiment, which, of course, contained about a thousand men. The regiments wereformed into larger bodies of about ten thousand each. Officers wereappointed, of all the various necessary grades, to command thesetroops, and arrangements were made for having supplies of arms andammunition provided and stored in magazines under the care of theofficers, ready to be distributed to the men whenever they shouldrequire. 

Temujin also made provision for the building of cities and palaces, the making of roads, and the construction of fortifications, byordaining that all the people should work one day in every week onthese public works whenever required. 

Although the country over which this new government was to beestablished was now at peace, Temujin was very desirous that thepeople should not lose the martial spirit which had thus farcharacterized them. He made laws to encourage and regulate hunting, especially the hunting of wild beasts among the mountains; andsubsequently he organized many hunting excursions himself, inconnection with the lords of his court and the other great chieftains, in order to awaken an interest in the dangers and excitements of thechase among all the khans. He also often employed bodies of troops inthese expeditions, which he considered as a sort of substitute forwar. 

He required that none of the natives of the country should be employedas servants, or allowed to perform any menial duties whatever. Forthese purposes the people were required to depend on captives taken inwar and enslaved. One reason why he made this rule was to stimulatethe people on the frontiers to make hostile excursions among theirneighbors, in order to supply themselves and the country generallywith slaves. 

The right of property in the slaves thus taken was very strictlyguarded, and very severe laws were made to enforce it. It wasforbidden, on pain of death, to harbor a slave, or give him meat ordrink, clothing or shelter, without permission from his master. Thepenalty was death, too, if a person meeting a fugitive slaveneglected to seize and secure him, and deliver him to his master. 

Every man could marry as many wives as he pleased, and his femaleslaves were all, by law, entirely at his disposal to be madeconcubines. 

There was one very curious arrangement, which grew out of the greatimportance which, as we have already seen, was attached to the ties ofrelationship and family connection among these pastoral nations. Twofamilies could bind themselves together and make themselves legallyone, in respect to their connection, by a fictitious marriage arrangedbetween children no longer living. In such a case the contracts wereregularly made, just as if the children were still alive, and theceremonies were all duly performed. After this the two families wereheld to be legally allied, and they were bound to each other by allthe obligations which would have arisen in the case of a realmarriage. This custom is said to be continued among some of the Tartarnations to the present day. The people think, it is said, that such awedding ceremony, duly solemnized by the parents of children who aredead, takes effect upon the subjects of it in the world of spirits, and that thus their union, though arranged and consecrated on earth, is confirmed and consummated in heaven. 

Besides these peculiar and special enactments, there were the ordinarylaws against robbery, theft, murder, adultery, and false witness. Thepenalties for these offenses were generally severe. The punishment forstealing cattle was death. For petty thefts the criminal was to bebeaten with a stick, the number of the blows being proportioned to thenature and aggravation of the offense. He could, however, if he hadthe means, buy himself off from this punishment by paying nine timesthe value of the thing stolen. 

In respect to religion, the constitution which Temujin made declaredthat there was but one God, the creator of heaven and earth, and itacknowledged him as the supreme ruler and governor of all mankind, thebeing "who alone gives life and death, riches and poverty, who grantsand denies whatever he pleases, and exercises over all things anabsolute power. " This one fundamental article of faith was all thatwas required. For the rest, Temujin left the various nations andtribes throughout his dominions to adopt such modes of worship and tocelebrate such religious rites as they severally preferred, andforbade that any one should be disturbed or molested in any way onaccount of his religion, whatever form it might assume. 

At length the time arrived for the grand assembly of the khans to beconvened. The meeting was called, not at Karakorom, the capital, butat a central spot in the interior of the country, called Dilon Ildak. Such a spot was much more convenient than any town or city would havebeen for the place of meeting, on account of the great troops ofhorses and the herds of animals by which the khans were alwaysaccompanied in all their expeditions, and which made it necessarythat, whenever any considerable number of them were to be convened, the place chosen should be suitable for a grand encampment, withextensive and fertile pasture-grounds extending all around. 

As the several khans came in, each at the head of his own troop ofretainers and followers, they severally chose their ground, pitchedtheir tents, and turned their herds of horses, sheep, and oxen out topasture on the plains. Thus, in the course of a few days, the wholecountry in every direction became dotted with villages of tents, amongwhich groups of horsemen were now and then to be seen galloping to andfro, and small herds of cattle, each under the care of herdsmen andslaves, moved slowly, cropping the grass as they advanced along thehill-sides and through the valleys. 

At length, when all had assembled, a spot was selected in the centreof the encampment for the performance of the ceremonies. A raised seatwas prepared for Temujin in a situation suitable to enable him toaddress the assembly from it. [C] Before and around this the variouskhans and their attendants and followers gathered, and Temujin madethem an oration, in which he explained the circumstances under whichthey had come together, and announced to them his plans and intentionsin respect to the future. He stated to them that, in consequence ofthe victories which he had gained through their co-operation andassistance, the foundation of a great empire had been laid, and thathe had now called them together in order that they might join with himin organizing the requisite government for such a dominion, and inelecting a prince or sovereign to rule over it. He called upon themfirst to proceed to the election of this ruler. 

[Footnote C: See Frontispiece. ]

The khans accordingly proceeded to the election. This was, in fact, only a form, for Temujin himself was, of course, to be chosen. Theelection was, however, made, and one of the oldest and most venerableof the khans was commissioned to announce the result. He came forwardwith great solemnity, and, in the presence of the whole assembly, declared that the choice had fallen upon Temujin. He then made anaddress to Temujin himself, who was seated during this part of theceremony upon a carpet of black felt spread upon the ground. In theaddress the khan reminded Temujin that the exalted authority withwhich he was now invested came from God, and that to God he wasresponsible for the right exercise of his power. If he governed hissubjects well, God, he said, would render his reign prosperous andhappy; but if, on the other hand, he abused his power, he would cometo a miserable end. 

After the conclusion of the address, seven of the khans, who had beendesignated for this purpose, came and lifted Temujin up and bore himaway to a throne which had been set up for him in the midst of theassembly, where all the khans, and their various bodies of attendants, came and offered him their homage. 

Among others there came a certain old prophet, named Kokza, who washeld in great veneration by all the people on account of his supposedinspiration and the austere life which he led. He used to go verythinly clad, and with his feet bare summer and winter, and it wassupposed that his power of enduring the exposures to which he was thussubject was something miraculous and divine. He had receivedaccordingly from the people a name which signified _the image of God_, and he was every where looked upon as inspired. He said, moreover, that a white horse came to him from time to time and carried him up toheaven, where he conversed face to face with God, and received therevelations which he was commissioned to make to men. All this thepeople fully believed. The man may have been an impostor, or he mayhave been insane. Oftentimes, in such cases, the inspiration which theperson supposes he is the subject of arises from a certain spiritualexaltation, which, though it does not wholly unfit him for theordinary avocations and duties of life, still verges upon insanity, and often finally lapses into it entirely. 

This old prophet advanced toward Temujin while he was seated on hiscarpet of felt, and made a solemn address to him in the hearing of allthe assembled khans. He was charged, he said, with a message fromheaven in respect to the kingdom and dominion of Temujin, which hadbeen, he declared, ordained of God, and had now been established infulfillment of the Divine will. He was commissioned, moreover, hesaid, to give to Temujin the style and title of Genghis Khan, [D] andto declare that his kingdom should not only endure while he lived, butshould descend to his posterity, from generation to generation, to theremotest times. 

[Footnote D: The signification of these words, in the language of theMonguls, was _great khan of khans_. ]

The people, on hearing this address, at once adopted the name whichthe prophet had given to their new ruler, and saluted Temujin with itin long and loud acclamations. It was thus that our hero received thename of Genghis Khan, which soon extended its fame through every partof Asia, and has since become so greatly renowned through all theworld. 

 * * * * *

Temujin, or Genghis Khan, as we must now henceforth call him, havingthus been proclaimed by the acclamations of the people under the newtitle with which the old prophet had invested him, sat upon his thronewhile his subjects came to render him their homage. First the khansthemselves came up, and kneeled nine times before him, in token oftheir absolute and complete submission to his authority. After theyhad retired the people themselves came, and made their obeisance inthe same manner. As they rose from their knees after the lastprostration, they made the air resound once more with their shouts, crying "Long live great Genghis Khan!" in repeated and prolongedacclamations. 

After this the new emperor made what might be called his inauguraladdress. The khans and their followers gathered once more before histhrone while he delivered an oration to them, in which he thanked themfor the honor which they had done him in raising him to the supremepower, and announced to them the principles by which he should beguided in the government of his empire. He promised to be just in hisdealings with his subjects, and also to be merciful. He would defendthem, he said, against all their enemies. He would do every thing inhis power to promote their comfort and happiness. He would lead themto honor and glory, and would make their names known throughout theearth. He would deal impartially, too, with all the different tribesand hordes, and would treat the Monguls and the Tartars, the two greatclasses of his subjects, with equal favor. 

When the speech was concluded Genghis Khan distributed presents toall the subordinate khans, both great and small. He also mademagnificent entertainments, which were continued for several days. After thus spending some time in feasting and rejoicings, the khansone after another took their leave of the emperor, the greatencampment was broken up, and the different tribes set out on theirreturn to their several homes. 

CHAPTER XII. 

DOMINIONS OF GENGHIS KHAN. 

1203

Karakorom. --Insignificance of cities and towns. --Account ofKarakorom. --The buildings. --The grand encampments. --Constructionof the tents. --Dwellings of the women. --Mountains and wildbeasts. --Hunting. --The danger of hunting in those days. --Modernweapons. --Carabines. --Fulminating balls. --Devisme's establishmentin Paris. --Specimens. --Great danger. --Wild beasts more formidablethan men. --Grand huntsman. --Timid animals. --Stratagems. --Mode oftaking deer. --Training of the horses. --Great desert. --Cold. --Noforests. --Pasturage. --Burning the grass on the plains. 

After the ceremonies of the inauguration were concluded, Genghis Khanreturned, with the officers of his court and his immediate followers, to Karakorom. This town, though nominally the capital of the empire, was, after all, quite an insignificant place. Indeed, but littleimportance was attached to any villages or towns in those days, andthere were very few fixed places of residence that were of anyconsiderable account. The reason is, that towns are the seats ofcommerce and manufactures, and they derive their chief importance fromthose pursuits; whereas the Monguls and Tartars led almost exclusivelya wandering and pastoral life, and all their ideas of wealth andgrandeur were associated with great flocks and herds of cattle, andhandsome tents, and long trains of wagons loaded with stores ofclothing, arms, and other movables, and vast encampments in theneighborhood of rich and extended pasture-grounds. Those who livedpermanently in fixed houses they looked down upon as an inferiorclass, confined to one spot by their poverty or their toil, while theythemselves could roam at liberty with their flocks and herds over theplains, riding fleet horses or dromedaries, and encamping where theypleased in the green valleys or on the banks of the meanderingstreams. 

Karakorom was accordingly by no means a great and splendid city. Itwas surrounded by what was called a mud wall--that is, a wall made ofblocks of clay dried in the sun. The houses of the inhabitants weremere hovels, and even the palace of the king, and all the other publicbuildings, were of very frail construction; for all the architectureof the Monguls in those days took its character from the tent, whichwas the type and model, so to speak, of all other buildings. 

The new emperor, however, did not spend a great deal of his time atKarakorom. He was occupied for some years in making excursions at thehead of his troops to various parts of his dominions, for the purposeof putting down insurrections, overawing discontented andinsubordinate khans, and settling disputes of various kinds arisingbetween the different hordes. In these expeditions he was accustomedto move by easy marches across the plains at the head of his army, and sometimes would establish himself in a sort of permanent camp, where he would remain, perhaps, as in a fixed residence, for weeks ormonths at a time. 

Not only Genghis Khan himself, but many of the other great chieftains, were accustomed to live in this manner, and one of their encampments, if we could have seen it, would have been regarded by us as a greatcuriosity. The ground was regularly laid out, like a town, intoquarters, squares, and streets, and the space which it covered wassometimes so large as to extend nearly a mile in each direction. Thetent of the khan himself was in the centre. A space was reserved forit there large enough not only for the grand tent itself, but also forthe rows of smaller tents near, for the wives and for other womenbelonging to the khan's family, and also for the rows of carts orwagons containing the stores of provisions, the supplies of clothingand arms, and the other valuables which these wandering chieftainsalways took with them in all their peregrinations. 

The tent of the khan in summer was made of a sort of calico, and inwinter of felt, which was much warmer. It was raised very high, so asto be seen above all the rest of the encampment, and it was paintedin gay colors, and adorned with other barbaric decorations. 

The dwellings in which the women were lodged, which were around ornear the great tent, were sometimes tents, and sometimes little hutsmade of wood. When they were of wood they were made very light, andwere constructed in such a manner that they could be taken to piecesat the shortest notice, and packed on carts or wagons, in order to betransported to the next place of encampment, whenever, for any reason, it became necessary for their lord and master to remove his domicil toa different ground. 

A large portion of the country which was included within the limits ofGenghis Khan's dominions was fertile ground, which produced abundanceof grass for the pasturage of the flocks and herds, and many springsand streams of water. There were, however, several districts ofmountainous country, which were the refuge of tigers, leopards, wolves, and other ferocious beasts of prey. It was among thesemountains that the great hunting parties which Genghis Khan organizedfrom time to time went in search of their game. There was a greatofficer of the kingdom, called the grand huntsman, who had thesuperintendence and charge of every thing relating to hunting and togame throughout the empire. The grand huntsman was an officer of thevery highest rank. He even took precedence of the first ministers ofstate. Genghis Khan appointed his son Jughi, who has already beenmentioned in connection with the great council of war called by hisfather, and with the battle which was subsequently fought, and inwhich he gained great renown, to the office of grand huntsman, and, atthe same time, made two of the older and more experienced khans hisministers of state. 

The hunting of wild beasts as ferocious as those that infested themountains of Asia is a very dangerous amusement even at the presentday, notwithstanding the advantage which the huntsman derives from theuse of gunpowder, and rifled barrels, and fulminating bullets. But inthose days, when the huntsman had no better weapons than bows andarrows, javelins, and spears, the undertaking was dangerous in theextreme. An African lion of full size used to be considered as a matchfor _forty_ men in the days when only ordinary weapons were usedagainst him, and it was considered almost hopeless to attack him withless than that number. And even with that number to waylay and assailhim he was not usually conquered until he had killed or disabled twoor three of his foes. 

Now, however, with the terrible artillery invented in modern times, asingle man, if he has the requisite courage, coolness, and steadinessof nerve, is a match for such a lion. The weapon used is adouble-barreled carabine, both barrels being _rifled_, that is, provided with spiral grooves within, that operate to give the bulletsa rotary motion as they issue from the muzzle, by which they boretheir way through the air, as it were, to their destination, with asurprising directness and precision. The bullets discharged by thesecarabines are not balls, but cylinders, pointed with a cone at theforward end. They are hollow, and are filled with a fulminatingcomposition which is capable of exploding with a force vastly greaterthan that of gunpowder. The conical point at the end is made separatefrom the body of the cylinder, and slides into it by a sort of shank, which, when the bullet strikes the body of the lion or other wildbeast, acts like a sort of percussion cap to explode the fulminatingpowder, and thus the instant that the missile enters the animal's bodyit bursts with a terrible explosion, and scatters the iron fragmentsof the cylinder among his vitals. Thus, while an ordinary musket ballmight lodge in his flesh, or even pass entirely through some parts ofhis body, without producing any other effect than to arouse him to aphrensy, and redouble the force with which he would spring upon hisfoe, the bursting of one of these fulminating bullets almost any wherewithin his body brings him down in an instant, and leaves him writhingand rolling upon the ground in the agonies of death. 

On the Boulevard des Italiens, in Paris, is the manufactory ofDevisme, who makes these carabines for the lion-hunters of Algiers. Promenaders, in passing by his windows, stop to look at specimens ofthese bullets exhibited there. They are of various sizes, adapted tobarrels of different bores. Some are entire; others are rent and tornin pieces, having been fired into a bank of earth, that they mightburst there as they would do in the body of a wild beast, and then berecovered and preserved to show the effect of the explosion. 

Even with such terrible weapons as these, it requires at the presentday great courage, great coolness, and very extraordinary steadinessof nerve to face a lion or a tiger in his mountain fastness, with anyhope of coming off victorious in the contest. But the danger was, ofcourse, infinitely greater in the days of Genghis Khan, when pikesand spears, and bows and arrows, were the only weapons with which thebody of huntsmen could arm themselves for the combat. Indeed, in thosedays wild beasts were even in some respects more formidable enemiesthan men. For men, however excited by angry passions, are, in somedegree, under the influence of fear. They will not rush headlong uponabsolute and certain destruction, but may be driven back by a meredisplay of force, if it is obvious that it is a force which they arewholly incapable of resisting. Thus a party of men, however desperate, may be attacked without much danger to the assailants, provided thatthe force which the assailants bring against them is overwhelming. 

But it is not so with wild beasts. A lion, a tiger, or a panther, oncearoused, is wholly insensible to fear. He will rush headlong upon hisfoes, however numerous they may be, and however formidably armed. Hemakes his own destruction sure, it is true, but, at the same time, herenders almost inevitable the destruction of some one or more of hisenemies, and, in going out to attack him, no one can be sure of notbecoming himself one of the victims of his fury. 

Thus the hunting of wild beasts in the mountains was very dangerouswork, and it is not surprising that the office of grand huntsman wasone of great consideration and honor. 

The hunting was, however, not all of the dangerous character abovedescribed. Some animals are timid and inoffensive by nature, andattempt to save themselves only by flight. Such animals as these wereto be pursued and overtaken by the superior speed of horses and dogs, or to be circumvented by stratagem. There was a species of deer, incertain parts of the Mongul country, that the huntsmen were accustomedto take in this way, namely:

The huntsmen, when they began to draw near to a place where a herd ofdeer were feeding, would divide themselves into two parties. One partywould provide themselves with the antlers of stags, which theyarranged in such a manner that they could hold them up over theirheads in the thickets, as if real stags were there. The others, armedwith bows and arrows, javelins, spears, and other such weapons, wouldplace themselves in ambush near by. Those who had the antlers wouldthen make a sort of cry, imitating that uttered by the hinds. Thestags of the herd, hearing the cry, would immediately come toward thespot. The men in the thicket then would raise the antlers and movethem about, so as to deceive the stags, and excite their feelings ofrivalry and ire, while those who were appointed to that officecontinued to counterfeit the cry of the hind. The stags immediatelywould begin to paw the ground and to prepare for a conflict, and then, while their attention was thus wholly taken up by the tossing of thefalse antlers in the thicket, the men in ambush would creep up as nearas they could, take good aim, and shoot their poor deluded victimsthrough the heart. 

Of course, it required a great deal of practice and much skill toperform successfully such feats as these; and there were many otherbranches of the huntsman's art, as practiced in those days, whichcould only be acquired by a systematic and special course of training. One of the most difficult things was to train the horses so that theywould advance to meet tigers and other wild beasts without fear. Horses have naturally a strong and instinctive terror for such beasts, and this terror it was very difficult to overcome. The Mongulhuntsmen, however, contrived means to inspire the horses with so muchcourage in this respect that they would advance to the encounter ofthese terrible foes with as much ardor as a trained charger shows inadvancing to meet other horses and horsemen on the field of battle. 

Besides the mountainous regions above described, there were severaldeserts in the country of the Monguls. The greatest of these desertsextends through the very heart of Asia, and is one of the mostextensive districts of barren land in the world. Unlike most othergreat deserts, however, the land is very elevated, and it is to thiselevation that its barrenness is, in a great measure, due. A largepart of this desert consists of rocks and barren sands, and, in thetime of which we are writing, was totally uninhabitable. It was socold, too, on account of the great elevation of the land, that it wasalmost impossible to traverse it except in the warmest season of theyear. 

Other parts of this district, which were not so elevated, and wherethe land was not quite so barren, produced grass and herbage on whichthe flocks and herds could feed, and thus, in certain seasons of theyear, people resorted to them for pasturage. 

Throughout the whole country there were no extensive forests. Therewere a few tangled thickets among the mountains, where the wild beastsconcealed themselves and made their lairs, but this was all. Onereason why forests did not spring up was, as is supposed, the customof the people to burn over the plains every spring, as the Indianswere accustomed to do on the American prairies. In the spring the deadgrass of the preceding year lay dry and withered, and sometimesclosely matted together, on the ground, thus hindering, as the peoplethought, the fresh grass from growing up. So the people wereaccustomed, on some spring morning when there was a good breezeblowing, to set it on fire. The fire would run rapidly over theplains, burning up every thing in its way that was above the ground. But the roots of the grass, being below, were safe from it. Very soonafterward the new grass would spring up with great luxuriance. Thepeople thought that the rich verdure which the new grass displayed, and its subsequent rapid growth, were owing simply to the fact thatthe old dead grass was out of the way. It is now known, however, thatthe burning of the old grass leaves an ash upon the ground which actspowerfully as a fertilizer, and that the richness of the freshvegetation is due, in a great measure, to this cause. 

Such was the country which was inhabited by the wandering pastoraltribes that were now under the sway of Genghis Khan. His dominion hadno settled boundaries, for it was a dominion over certain tribesrather than over a certain district of country. Nearly all the tribescomposing both the Mongul and the Tartar nations had now submitted tohim, though he still had some small wars to wage from time to timewith some of the more distant tribes before his authority was fullyand finally acknowledged. The history of some of these conflicts willbe narrated in the next chapter. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

ADVENTURES OF PRINCE KUSHLUK. 

1203-1208

Kushluk's escape. --Tukta Bey. --Kashin. --Temujin pursues Tukta Beyand Kushluk. --Retreat to Boyrak's country. ----The varioustribes submit. --Fall and destruction of Kashin. --Proclamation. --Temujinreturns to Karakorom. --Boyrak's precautions. --Great battle. --Boyrak istaken and slain. --Flight of Kushluk and Tukta Bey. --Ardish. --RiverIrtish. --Tukta Bey's adherents. --Genghis Khan pursues them inwinter. --Difficulties of the country. --Death of Tukta Bey. --Kushlukescapes again. --Turkestan. --He is received by Gurkhan. --Presentationof the _shongar_. --Urus Inal. 

Prince Kushluk, as the reader will perhaps recollect, was the son ofTayian, the khan of the Naymans, who organized the grand league ofkhans against Temujin at the instigation of Yemuka, as related in apreceding chapter. He was the young prince who was opposed to Jughi, the son of Temujin, in the great final battle. The reader willrecollect that in that battle Tayian himself was slain, as was alsoYemuka, but the young prince succeeded in making his escape. 

He was accompanied in his flight by a certain general or chieftainnamed Tukta Bey. This Tukta Bey was the khan of a powerful tribe. Thename of the town or village which he considered his capital wasKashin. It was situated toward the southwest, not far from the bordersof China. Tukta Bey, taking Kushluk with him, retreated to this place, and there began to make preparations to collect a new army to actagainst Temujin. I say Temujin, for these circumstances took placeimmediately after the battle, and before Temujin had received his newtitle of Genghis Khan. 

Temujin, having learned that Tukta Bey and the young prince had goneto Kashin, determined at once to follow them there. As soon as TuktaBey heard that he was coming, he began to strengthen thefortifications of his town and to increase the garrison. He also laidin supplies of food and military stores of all kinds. While he wasmaking these preparations, he received the news that Temujin wasadvancing into his country at the head of an immense force. The forcewas so large that he was convinced that his town could not long standout against it. He was greatly perplexed to know what to do. 

Now it happened that there was a brother of Tayian Khan's, namedBoyrak, the chief of a powerful horde that occupied a district ofcountry not very far distant from Tukta Bey's dominions. Tukta Beythought that this Boyrak would be easily induced to aid him in thewar, as it was a war waged against the mortal enemy of his brother. Hedetermined to leave his capital to be defended by the garrison whichhe had placed in it, and to proceed himself to Boyrak's country toobtain re-enforcements. He first sent off the Prince Kushluk, so thathe might be as soon as possible in a place of safety. Then, aftercompleting the necessary arrangements and dispositions for the defenseof his town, in case it should be attacked during his absence, he tookhis oldest son, for whose safety he was also greatly concerned, andset out at the head of a small troop of horsemen to go to Boyrak. 

Accordingly, when Temujin, at the head of his forces, arrived at thetown of Kashin, he found that the fugitives whom he was pursuing wereno longer there. However, he determined to take the town. Heaccordingly at once invested it, and commenced the siege. The garrisonmade a very determined resistance. But the forces under Temujin'scommand were too strong for them. The town was soon taken. Temujinordered his soldiers to slay without mercy all who were found in armsagainst him within the walls, and the walls themselves, and all theother defenses of the place, he caused to be leveled with the ground. 

He then issued his proclamation, offering peace and pardon to all therest of the tribe on condition that they would take the oath ofallegiance to him. This they readily agreed to do. There were a greatmany subordinate khans, both of this tribe and of some others thatwere near, who thus yielded to Temujin, and promised to obey him. 

All this took place, as has already been said, immediately after thegreat battle with Tayian, and before Temujin had been enthroned asemperor, or had received his new title of Genghis Khan. Indeed, Temujin, while making this expedition to Kashin in pursuit of Kushlukand Tukta Bey, had been somewhat uneasy at the loss of time which thecampaign occasioned him, as he was anxious to go as soon as possibleto Karakorom, in order to take the necessary measures there forarranging and consolidating his government. He accordingly nowdetermined not to pursue the fugitives any farther, but to proceed atonce to Karakorom, and postpone all farther operations against Kushlukand Tukta until the next season. So he went to Karakorom, and there, during the course of the winter, formed the constitution of his newempire, and made arrangements for convening a grand assembly of thekhans the next spring, as related in the last chapter. 

In the mean time, Tukta Bey and the Prince Kushluk were very kindlyreceived by Boyrak, Tayian's brother. For a time they all had reasonto expect that Temujin, after having taken and destroyed Kashin, wouldcontinue his pursuit of the prince, and Boyrak began accordingly tomake preparations for defense. But when, at length, they learned thatTemujin had given up the pursuit, and had returned to Karakorom, theirapprehensions were, for the moment, relieved. They were, however, wellaware that the danger was only postponed; and Boyrak, being determinedto defend the cause of his nephew, and to avenge, if possible, hisbrother's death, occupied himself diligently with increasing his army, strengthening his fortifications, and providing himself with allpossible means of defense against the attack which he expected wouldbe made upon him in the coming season. 

Boyrak's expectations of an attack were fully realized. Temujin, afterhaving settled the affairs of his government, and having now becomeGenghis Khan, took the first opportunity in the following season tofit out an expedition against Tukta Bey and Boyrak. He marched intoBoyrak's dominions at the head of a strong force. Boyrak came forth tomeet him. A great battle was fought. Boyrak was entirely defeated. When he found that the battle was lost he attempted to fly. He was, however, pursued and taken, and was then brought back to the camp ofGenghis Khan, where he was put to death. The conqueror undoubtedlyjustified this act of cruelty toward his helpless prisoner on the pleathat, like Yemuka, he was not an open and honorable foe, but a rebeland traitor, and, consequently, that the act of putting him to deathwas the execution of a criminal, and not the murder of a prisoner. 

But, although Boyrak himself was thus taken and slain, Kushluk andTukta Bey succeeded in making their escape. They fled to the northwardand westward, scarcely knowing, it would seem, where they were to go. They at last found a place of refuge on the banks of the River Irtish. This river rises not far from the centre of the Asiatic continent, andflows northward into the Northern Ocean. The country through which itflows lay to the northwestward of Genghis Khan's dominions, and beyondthe confines of it. Through this country Prince Kushluk and Tukta Beywandered on, accompanied by the small troop of followers that stilladhered to them, until they reached a certain fortress called Ardish, where they determined to make a stand. 

They were among friends here, for Ardish, it seems, was on theconfines of territory that belonged to Tukta Bey. The people of theneighborhood immediately flocked to Tukta's standard, and thus thefugitive khan soon found himself at the head of a considerable force. This force was farther increased by the coming in of broken bands thathad made their escape from the battle at which Boyrak had been slainat the same time with Tukta Bey, but had become separated from him intheir flight. 

It would seem that, at first, Genghis Khan did not know what wasbecome of the fugitives. At any rate, it was not until the next yearthat he attempted to pursue them. Then, hearing where they were andwhat they were doing, he prepared an expedition to penetrate into thecountry of the Irtish and attack them. It was in the dead of winterwhen he arrived in the country. He had hurried on at that season ofthe year in order to prevent Tukta Bey from having time to finish hisfortifications. Tukta Bey and those who were with him were amazed whenthey heard that their enemy was coming at that season of the year. Thedefenses which they were preparing for their fortress were not fullycompleted, but they were at once convinced that they could not holdtheir ground against the body of troops that Genghis Khan was bringingagainst them in the open field, and so they all took shelter in andnear the fortress, and awaited their enemy there. 

The winters in that latitude are very cold, and the country throughwhich Genghis Khan had to march was full of difficulty. The branchesof the river which he had to cross were obstructed with ice, and theroads were in many places rendered almost impassable by snow. Theemperor did not even know the way to the fortress where Tukta Bey andhis followers were concealed, and it would have been almost impossiblefor him to find it had it not been for certain tribes, through whoseterritories he passed on the way, who furnished him with guides. Thesetribes, perceiving how overwhelming was the force which Genghis Khancommanded, knew that it would be useless for them to resist him. Sothey yielded submission to him at once, and detached parties ofhorsemen to go with him down the river to show him the way. 

Under the conduct of these guides Genghis Khan passed on. In due timehe arrived at the fortress of Ardish, and immediately forced Tukta Beyand his allies to come to an engagement. Tukta's army was very soondefeated and put to flight. Tukta himself, and many other khans andchieftains who had joined him, were killed; but the Prince Kushluk wasonce more fortunate enough to make his escape. 

He fled with a small troop of followers, all mounted on fleet horses, and after various wanderings, in the course of which he and they whowere with him endured a great deal of privation and suffering, theunhappy fugitive at last reached the dominions of a powerful princenamed Gurkhan, who reigned over a country which is situated in thewestern part of Asia, toward the Caspian Sea, and is named Turkestan. This is the country from which the people called the Turks, whoafterward spread themselves so widely over the western part of Asiaand the eastern part of Europe, originally sprung. 

Gurkhan received Kushluk and his party in a very friendly manner, andGenghis Khan did not follow them. Whether he thought that the distancewas too great, or that the power of Gurkhan was too formidable to makeit prudent for him to advance into his dominions without a strongerforce, does not appear. At any rate, for the time being he gave up thepursuit, and after fully securing the fruits of the victory which hehad gained at Ardish, and receiving the submission of all the tribesand khans that inhabited that region of country, he set out on hisreturn home. 

It is related that one of the khans who gave in his submission toGenghis Khan at this time made him a present of a certain bird calleda _shongar_, according to a custom often observed among the people ofthat region. The shongar was a very large and fierce bird of prey, which, however, could be trained like the falcons which were so muchprized in the Middle Ages by the princes and nobles of Europe. Itseems it was customary for an inferior khan to present one of thesebirds to his superior on great occasions, as an emblem and token ofhis submission to his superior's authority. The bird in such a casewas very richly decorated with gold and precious stones, so that thepresent was sometimes of a very costly and magnificent character. 

Genghis Khan received such a present as this from a chieftain namedUrus Inal, who was among those that yielded to his sway in the countryof the Irtish, after the battle at which Tukta Bey was defeated andkilled. The bird was presented to Genghis Khan by Urus with greatceremony, as an act of submission and homage. 

What, in the end, was the fate of Prince Kushluk, will appear in thenext chapter. 

[Illustration: PRESENTATION OF THE SHONGAR. ]

CHAPTER XIV. 

IDIKUT. 

1208

Idikut. --The old system of farming revenues. --Evils of farming therevenue. --Modern system. --Disinterested collectors. --Independent andimpartial courts. --Waste of the public money. --Shuwakem. --Idikut'squarrel with Gurkhan's tax-gatherers. --Rebellion. --He sends toGenghis Khan. --His reception of the embassy. --Idikut's visit toGenghis Khan. --Gurkhan in a rage. --Jena. --Subsequent history ofKushluk. --Kushluk's final defeat and flight. --Hotly pursued byJena. --Kushluk's death. --Genghis Khan's triumph. 

There was another great and powerful khan, named Idikut, whose tribehad hitherto been under the dominion of Gurkhan, the Prince ofTurkestan, where Kushluk had sought refuge, but who about this timerevolted from Gurkhan and went over to Genghis Khan, undercircumstances which illustrate, in some degree, the peculiar nature ofthe political ties by which these different tribes and nations werebound to each other. It seems that the tribe over which Idikut ruledwas tributary to Turkestan, and that Gurkhan had an officer stationedin Idikut's country whose business it was to collect and remit thetribute. The name of this collector was Shuwakem. He was accustomed, it seems, like almost all tax-gatherers in those days, to exact morethan was his due. The system generally adopted by governments in thatage of the world for collecting their revenues from tributary orconquered provinces was to _farm them_, as the phrase was. That is, they sold the whole revenue of a particular district in the gross tosome rich man, who paid for it a specific sum, considerably less, ofcourse, than the tax itself would really yield, and then he reimbursedhimself for his outlay and for his trouble by collecting the tax indetail from the people. Of course, it was for the interest of thetax-gatherer, in such a case, after having paid the round sum to thegovernment, to extort as much as possible from the people, since allthat he obtained over and above the sum that he had paid was hisprofit on the transaction. Then, if the people complained to thegovernment of his exactions, they could seldom obtain any redress, forthe government knew that if they rebuked or punished the farmer of therevenue, or interfered with him in any way, they would not be able tomake so favorable terms with him for the next year. 

The plan of farming the revenues thus led to a great deal of extortionand oppression, which the people were compelled patiently to endure, as there was generally no remedy. In modern times and among civilizednations this system has been almost universally abandoned. The taxesare now always collected for the government directly by officers whohave to pay over not a fixed sum, but simply what they collect. Thusthe tax-gatherers are, in some sense, impartial, since, if theycollect more than the law entitles them to demand, the benefit inuresalmost wholly to the government, they themselves gaining little or noadvantage by their extortion. Besides this, there are courtsestablished which are, in a great measure, independent of thegovernment, to which the tax-payer can appeal at once in a case wherehe thinks he is aggrieved. This, it is true, often puts him to a greatdeal of trouble and expense, but, in the end, he is pretty sure tohave justice done him, while under the old system there was ordinarilyno remedy at all. There was nothing to be done but to appeal to theking or chieftain himself, and these complaints seldom received anyattention. For, besides the natural unwillingness of the sovereign totrouble himself about such disputes, he had a direct interest in notrequiring the extorted money to be paid back, or, rather, in nothaving it proved that it was extorted. Thus the poor tax-payer foundthat the officer who collected the money, and the umpire who was todecide in case of disputes, were both directly interested against him, and he was continually wronged; whereas, at the present day, by meansof a system which provides disinterested officers to determine andcollect the tax, and independent judges to decide all cases ofdispute, the evils are almost wholly avoided. The only difficulty nowis the extravagance and waste with which the public money is expended, making it necessary to collect a much larger amount than wouldotherwise be required. Perhaps some future generation will discoversome plain and simple remedy for this evil too. 

 * * * * *

The name of the officer who had the general charge of the collectionof the taxes in Idikut's territory for Gurkhan, King of Turkestan, was, as has already been said, Shuwakem. He oppressed the people, exacting more from them than was really due. Whether he had farmed therevenue, and was thus enriching himself by his extortions, or whetherhe was acting directly in Gurkhan's name, and made the people pay morethan he ought from zeal in his master's service, and a desire torecommend himself to favor by sending home to Turkestan as large arevenue from the provinces as possible, does not appear. At allevents, the people complained bitterly. They had, however, no accessto Gurkhan, Shuwakem's master, and so they carried their complaintsto Idikut, their own khan. 

Idikut remonstrated with Shuwakem, but he, instead of taking theremonstrance in good part and relaxing the severity of hisproceedings, resented the interference of Idikut, and answered him ina haughty and threatening manner. This made Idikut very angry. Indeed, he was angry before, as it might naturally be supposed that he wouldhave been, at having a person owing allegiance to a foreign princeexercising authority in a proud and domineering manner within hisdominions, and the reply which Shuwakem made when he remonstrated withhim on account of his extortions exasperated him beyond all bounds. Heimmediately caused Shuwakem to be assassinated. He also slew all theother officers of Gurkhan within his country--those, probably, whowere employed to assist Shuwakem in collecting the taxes. 

The murder of these officers was, of course, an act of open rebellionagainst Gurkhan, and Idikut, in order to shield himself from theconsequences of it, determined to join himself and his tribe at onceto the empire of Genghis Khan; so he immediately dispatched twoembassadors to the Mongul emperor with his proposals. 

The envoys, accompanied by a suitable troop of guards and attendants, went into the Mongul country and presently came up with Genghis Khan, while he was on a march toward the country of some tribe or horde thathad revolted from him. They were very kindly received; for, althoughGenghis Khan was not prepared at present to make open war uponGurkhan, or to invade his dominions in pursuit of Prince Kushluk, hewas intending to do this at some future day, and, in the mean time, hewas very glad to weaken his enemy by drawing off from his empire anytributary tribes that were at all disposed to revolt from him. 

He accordingly received the embassadors of Idikut in a very cordialand friendly manner. He readily acceded to the proposals which Idikutmade through them, and, in order to give full proof to Idikut of thereadiness and sincerity with which he accepted his proposals, he sentback two embassadors of his own to accompany Idikut's embassadors ontheir return, and to join them in assuring that prince of thecordiality with which Genghis Khan accepted his offers of friendship, and to promise his protection. 

Idikut was very much pleased, when his messengers returned, to learnthat his mission had been so successful. He immediately determined togo himself and visit Genghis Khan in his camp, in order to confirm thenew alliance by making a personal tender to the emperor of his homageand his services. He accordingly prepared some splendid presents, and, placing himself at the head of his troop of guards, he proceeded tothe camp of Genghis Khan. The emperor received him in a very kind andfriendly manner. He accepted his presents, and, in the end, was somuch pleased with Idikut himself that he gave him one of his daughtersin marriage. 

As for Gurkhan, when he first heard of the murder of Shuwakem and theother officers, he was in a terrible rage. He declared that he wouldrevenge his servant by laying waste Idikut's territories with fire andsword. But when he heard that Idikut had placed himself under theprotection of Genghis Khan, and especially when he learned that he hadmarried the emperor's daughter, he thought it more prudent to postponehis vengeance, not being quite willing to draw upon himself thehostility of so great a power. 

Prince Kushluk remained for many years in Turkestan and in thecountries adjoining it. He married a daughter of Gurkhan, hisprotector. Partly in consequence of this connection and of the highrank which he had held in his own native land, and partly, perhaps, inconsequence of his personal courage and other military qualities, herapidly acquired great influence among the khans of Western Asia, andat last he organized a sort of rebellion against Gurkhan, made waragainst him, and deprived him of more than half his dominions. He thencollected a large army, and prepared to make war upon Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan sent one of his best generals, at the head of a small butvery compact and well-disciplined force, against him. The name of thisgeneral was Jena. Kushluk was not at all intimidated by the dangerwhich now threatened him. His own army was much larger than that ofJena, and he accordingly advanced to meet his enemy without fear. Hewas, however, beaten in the battle, and, when he saw that the day waslost, he fled, followed by a small party of horsemen, who succeeded insaving themselves with him. 

Jena set out immediately in pursuit of the fugitive, accompanied by asmall body of men mounted on the fleetest horses. The party who werewith Kushluk, being exhausted by the fatigue of the battle andbewildered by the excitement and terror of their flight, could notkeep together, but were overtaken one by one and slain by theirpursuers until only three were left. These three kept close toKushluk, and with him went on until Jena's party lost the track ofthem. 

At length, coming to a place where two roads met, Jena asked a peasantif he had seen any strange horsemen pass that way. The peasant saidthat four horsemen had passed a short time before, and he told Jenawhich road they had taken. 

Jena and his party rode on in the direction which the peasant hadindicated, and, pushing forward with redoubled speed, they soonovertook the unhappy fugitives. They fell upon Kushluk without mercy, and killed him on the spot. They then cut off his head, and turnedback to carry it to Genghis Khan. 

Genghis Khan rewarded Jena in the most magnificent manner for hissuccessful performance of this exploit, and then, putting Kushluk'shead upon a pole, he displayed it in all the camps and villagesthrough which he passed, where it served at once as a token and atrophy of his victory against an enemy, and, at the same time, as awarning to all other persons of the terrible danger which they wouldincur in attempting to resist his power. 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE STORY OF HUJAKU. 

1211

China. --The Chinese wall. --The frontier. --Outside the wall. --Originof the quarrel with the Chinese. --Yong-tsi. --Genghis Khan's contemptfor him. --Armies raised. --Hujaku. --Many of the khans come over onGenghis's side. --Victory over Hujaku. --Genghis Khan is wounded. --Hujakudisgraced. --Restored again. --Dissensions among the Chinese. --Advanceof the Monguls. --Hujaku's rebellion. --Death of Yong-tsi. --Hujakuadvances. --The battle. --Hujaku's victory. --Kan-ki's expedition. --Hujakuenraged. --Failure. --Kan-ki's second trial. --The sand-storm. --Kan-ki'sdesperate resolution. --The attack. --Hujaku's flight. --He is killed inthe gardens. --Kan-ki is pardoned and promoted. 

The accounts given us of the events and transactions of Genghis Khan'sreign after he acquired the supreme power over the Mongul and Tartarnations are imperfect, and, in many respects, confused. It appears, however, from them that in the year 1211, that is, about five yearsafter his election as grand khan, he became involved in a war with theChinese, which led, in the end, to very important consequences. Thekingdom of China lay to the southward of the Mongul territories, andthe frontier was defended by the famous Chinese wall, which extendedfrom east to west, over hills and valleys, from the great desert tothe sea, for many hundred miles. The wall was defended by towers, built here and there in commanding positions along the whole extent ofit, and at certain distances there were fortified towns where powerfulgarrisons were stationed, and reserves of troops were held ready to bemarched to different points along the wall, wherever there might beoccasion for their services. 

The wall was not strictly the Chinese frontier, for the territory onthe outside of it to a considerable distance was held by the Chinesegovernment, and there were many large towns and some very strongfortresses in this outlying region, all of which were held andgarrisoned by Chinese troops. 

The inhabitants, however, of the countries outside the wall weregenerally of the Tartar or Mongul race. They were of a nation or tribecalled _the Kitan_, and were somewhat inclined to rebel against theChinese rule. In order to assist in keeping them in subjection, one ofthe Chinese emperors issued a decree which ordained that the governorsof those provinces should place in all the large towns, and otherstrongholds outside the wall, twice as many families of the Chinese asthere were of the Kitan. This regulation greatly increased thediscontent of the Kitan, and made them more inclined to rebellion thanthey were before. 

Besides this, there had been for some time a growing difficultybetween the Chinese government and Genghis Khan. It seems that theMonguls had been for a long time accustomed to pay some sort oftribute to the Emperor of China, and many years before, while GenghisKhan, under the name of Temujin, was living at Karakorom, a subject ofVang Khan, the emperor sent a certain royal prince, named Yong-tsi, toreceive what was due. While Yong-tsi was in the Mongul territory heand Temujin met, but they did not agree together at all. The Chineseprince put some slight upon Temujin, which Temujin resented. Verylikely Temujin, whose character at that time, as well as afterward, was marked with a great deal of pride and spirit, opposed the paymentof the tribute. At any rate, Yong-tsi became very much incensedagainst him, and, on his return, made serious charges against him tothe emperor, and urged that he should be seized and put to death. Butthe emperor declined engaging in so dangerous an undertaking. Yong-tsi's proposal, however, became known to Temujin, and he secretlyresolved that he would one day have his revenge. 

At length, about three or four years after Temujin was raised to thethrone, the emperor of the Chinese died, and Yong-tsi succeeded him. The very next year he sent an officer to Genghis Khan to demand theusual tribute. When the officer came into the presence of Genghis Khanin his camp, and made his demand, Genghis Khan asked him who was theemperor that had sent him with such a message. 

The officer replied that Yong-tsi was at that time emperor of theChinese. 

"Yong-tsi!" repeated Genghis Khan, in a tone of great contempt. "TheChinese have a proverb, " he added, "that such a people as they oughtto have a god for their emperor; but it seems they do not know how tochoose even a decent man. "

It was true that they had such a proverb. They were as remarkable, itseems, in those days as they are now for their nationalself-importance and vanity. 

"Go and tell your emperor, " added Genghis Khan, "that I am a sovereignruler, and that I will never acknowledge him as my master. "

When the messenger returned with this defiant answer, Yong-tsi wasvery much enraged, and immediately began to prepare for war. GenghisKhan also at once commenced his preparations. He sent envoys to theleading khans who occupied the territories outside the wall invitingthem to join him. He raised a great army, and put the severaldivisions of it under the charge of his ablest generals. Yong-tsiraised a great army too. The historians say that it amounted to threehundred thousand men. He put this army under the command of a greatgeneral named Hujaku, and ordered him to advance with it to thenorthward, so as to intercept the army of Genghis Khan on its way, andto defend the wall and the fortresses on the outside of it from hisattacks. 

In the campaign which ensued Genghis Khan was most successful. TheMonguls took possession of a great many towns and fortresses beyondthe wall, and every victory that they gained made the tribes andnations that inhabited those provinces more and more disposed to jointhem. Many of them revolted against the Chinese authority, and turnedto their side. One of these was a chieftain so powerful that hecommanded an army of one hundred thousand men. In order to bindhimself solemnly to the covenant which he was to make with GenghisKhan, he ascended a mountain in company with the envoy and with otherswho were to witness the proceedings, and there performed the ceremonycustomary on such occasions. The ceremony consisted of sacrificing awhite horse and a black ox, and then breaking an arrow, at the sametime pronouncing an oath by which he bound himself under the mostsolemn sanctions to be faithful to Genghis Khan. 

To reward the prince for this act of adhesion to his cause, GenghisKhan made him king over all that portion of the country, and causedhim to be every where so proclaimed. This encouraged a great manyother khans and chieftains to come over to his side; and at length onewho had the command of one of the gates of the great wall, and of thefortress which defended it, joined him. By this means Genghis Khanobtained access to the interior of the Chinese dominions, and Yong-tsiand his great general Hujaku became seriously alarmed. 

At length, after various marchings and counter-marchings, Genghis Khanlearned that Hujaku was encamped with the whole of his army in a verystrong position at the foot of a mountain, and he determined toproceed thither and attack him. He did so; and the result of thebattle was that Hujaku was beaten and was forced to retreat. Heretired to a great fortified town, and Genghis Khan followed him andlaid siege to the town. Hujaku, finding himself in imminent danger, fled; and Genghis Khan was on the point of taking the town, when hewas suddenly stopped in his career by being one day wounded severelyby an arrow which was shot at him from the wall. 

The wound was so severe that, while suffering under it, Genghis Khanfound that he could not successfully direct the operations of hisarmy, and so he withdrew his troops and retired into his own country, to wait there until his wound should be healed. In a few months he wasentirely recovered, and the next year he fitted out a new expedition, and advanced again into China. 

In the mean time, Hujaku, who had been repeatedly defeated and drivenback the year before by Genghis Khan, had fallen into disgrace. Hisrivals and enemies among the other generals of the army, and among theofficers of the court, conspired against him, and represented to theemperor that he was unfit to command, and that his having failed todefend the towns and the country that had been committed to him wasowing to his cowardice and incapacity. In consequence of theserepresentations Hujaku was cashiered, that is, dismissed from hiscommand in disgrace. 

This made him very angry, and he determined that he would have hisrevenge. There was a large party in his favor at court, as well as aparty against him; and after a long and bitter contention, the formeronce more prevailed, and induced the emperor to restore Hujaku to hiscommand again. 

The quarrel, however, was not ended, and so, when Genghis Khan camethe next year to renew the invasion, the councils of the Chinese wereso distracted, and their operations so paralyzed by this feud, that hegained very easy victories over them. The Chinese generals, instead ofacting together in a harmonious manner against the common enemy, wereintent only on the quarrel which they were waging against each other. 

At length the animosity proceeded to such an extreme that Hujakuresolved to depose the emperor, who seemed inclined rather to takepart against him, assassinate all the chiefs of the opposite party, and then finally to put the emperor to death, and cause himself to beproclaimed in his stead. 

In order to prepare the way for the execution of this scheme, heforbore to act vigorously against Genghis Khan and the Monguls, butallowed them to advance farther and farther into the country. This, ofcourse, increased the general discontent and excitement, and preparedthe way for the revolt which Hujaku was plotting. 

At length the time for action arrived. Hujaku suddenly appeared at thehead of a large force at the gates of the capital, and gave the alarmthat the Monguls were coming. He pressed forward into the city to thepalace, and gave the alarm there. At the same time, files of soldiers, whom he had ordered to this service, went to all parts of the city, arresting and putting to death all the leaders of the party opposed tohim, under pretense that he had discovered a plot or conspiracy inwhich they were engaged to betray the city to the enemy. Theexcitement and confusion which was produced by this charge, and by thealarm occasioned by the supposed coming of the Monguls, so paralyzedthe authorities of the town that nobody resisted Hujaku, or attemptedto save the persons whom he arrested. Some of them he caused to bekilled on the spot. Others he shut up in prison. Finding himself thusundisputed master of the city, he next took possession of the palace, seized the emperor, deposed him from his office, and shut him up in adungeon. Soon afterward he put him to death. 

This was the end of Yong-tsi; but Hujaku did not succeed, after all, in his design of causing himself to be proclaimed emperor in hisstead. He found that there would be very great opposition to this, andso he gave up this part of his plan, and finally raised a certainprince of the royal family to the throne, while he retained hisoffice of commander-in-chief of the forces. Having thus, as hethought, effectually destroyed the influence and power of his enemiesat the capital, he put himself once more at the head of his troops, and went forth to meet Genghis Khan. 

Some accident happened to him about this time by which his foot washurt, so that he was, in some degree, disabled, but still he went on. At length he met the vanguard of Genghis Khan's army at a place wherethey were attempting to cross a river by a bridge. Hujaku determinedimmediately to attack them. The state of his foot was such that hecould not walk nor even mount a horse, but he caused himself to be putupon a sort of car, and was by this means carried into the battle. 

The Monguls were completely defeated and driven back. Perhaps this wasbecause Genghis Khan was not there to command them. He was at somedistance in the rear with the main body of the army. 

Hujaku was very desirous of following up his victory by pursuing andattacking the Mongul vanguard the next day. He could not, however, dothis personally, for, on account of the excitement and exposure whichhe had endured in the battle, and the rough movements and joltingswhich, notwithstanding all his care, he had to bear in being conveyedto and fro about the field, his foot grew much worse. Inflammation setin during the night, and the next day the wound opened afresh; so hewas obliged to give up the idea of going out himself against theenemy, and to send one of his generals instead. The general to whom hegave the command was named Kan-ki. 

Kan-ki went out against the enemy, but, after a time, returnedunsuccessful. Hujaku was very angry with him when he came to hear hisreport. Perhaps the wound in his foot made him impatient andunreasonable. At any rate, he declared that the cause of Kan-ki'sfailure was his dilatoriness in pursuing the enemy, which wascowardice or treachery, and, in either case, he deserved to sufferdeath for it. He immediately sent to the emperor a report of the case, asking that the sentence of death which he had pronounced againstKan-ki might be confirmed, and that he might be authorized to put itinto execution. 

But the emperor, knowing that Kan-ki was a courageous and faithfulofficer, would not consent. 

In the mean while, before the emperor's answer came back, the wrathof Hujaku had had time to cool a little. Accordingly, when he receivedthe answer, he said to Kan-ki that he would, after all, try him oncemore. 

"Take the command of the troops again, " said he, "and go out againstthe enemy. If you beat them, I will overlook your first offense andspare your life; but if you are beaten yourself a second time, youshall die. "

So Kan-ki placed himself at the head of his detachment, and went outagain to attack the Monguls. They were to the northward, and wereposted, it seems, upon or near a sandy plain. At any rate, a strongnorth wind began to blow at the time when the attack commenced, andblew the sand and dust into the eyes of his soldiers so that theycould not see, while their enemies the Monguls, having their backs tothe wind, were very little incommoded. The result was that Kan-ki wasrepulsed with considerable loss, and was obliged to make the best ofhis way back to Hujaku's quarters to save the remainder of his men. 

He was now desperate. Hujaku had declared that if he came back withouthaving gained a victory he should die, and he had no doubt that theman was violent and reckless enough to keep his word. He determinednot to submit. He might as well die fighting, he thought, at the headof his troops, as to be ignobly put to death by Hujaku's executioner. So he arranged it with his troops, who probably hated Hujaku as muchas he did, that, on returning to the town, they should march in underarms, take possession of the place, surround the palace, and seize thegeneral and make him prisoner, or kill him if he should attempt anyresistance. 

The troops accordingly, when they arrived at the gates of the town, seized and disarmed the guards, and then marched in, brandishing theirweapons, and uttering loud shouts and outcries, which excited first afeeling of astonishment and then of terror among the inhabitants. Thealarm soon spread to the palace. Indeed, the troops themselves soonreached and surrounded the palace, and began thundering at the gatesto gain admission. They soon forced their way in. Hujaku, in the meantime, terrified and panic-stricken, had fled from the palace into thegardens, in hopes to make his escape by the garden walls. The soldierspursued him. In his excitement and agitation he leaped down from awall too high for such a descent, and, in his fall, broke his leg. Helay writhing helplessly on the ground when the soldiers came up. Theywere wild and furious with the excitement of pursuit, and they killedhim with their spears where he lay. 

Kan-ki took the head of his old enemy and carried it to the capital, with the intention of offering it to the emperor, and also ofsurrendering himself to the officers of justice, in order, as he said, that he might be put to death for the crime of which he had beenguilty in heading a military revolt and killing his superior officer. By all the laws of war this was a most heinous and a whollyunpardonable offense. 

But the emperor was heartily glad that the turbulent and unmanageableold general was put out of the way, for a man so unprincipled, soambitious, and so reckless as Hujaku was is always an object ofaversion and terror to all who have any thing to do with him. Theemperor accordingly issued a proclamation, in which he declared thatHujaku had been justly put to death in punishment for many crimeswhich he had committed, and soon afterward he appointed Kan-kicommander-in-chief of the forces in his stead. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

CONQUESTS IN CHINA. 

1211-1216

War continued. --Rich and fertile country. --Grand invasion. --Simultaneousattack by four armies. --Enthusiasm of the troops. --Captives. --Immenseplunder. --Dreadful ravages. --Base use made of the captives. --Extentof Mongul conquests. --The siege of Yen-king. --Proposed terms ofarrangement. --Difference of opinion. --Consultation on the subject. --Theconditions accepted. --Terms of peace agreed upon. --Consultations. --Theemperor's uneasiness. --Abandonment of the capital. --Revolt of theguards. --The siege of the capital renewed. --Wan-yen and Mon-yen. --Theirperplexity. --Suicide proposed. --Wan-yen in despair. --Hissuicide. --Mon-yen's plan. --Petition of the wives. --Sacking of the cityby Mingan. --Massacres. --Fate of Mon-yen. --Treasures. --Conquestsextended. --Governors appointed. 

After the death of Hujaku, the Emperor of China endeavored to defendhis dominions against Genghis Khan by means of his other generals, andthe war was continued for several years, during which time GenghisKhan made himself master of all the northern part of China, andravaged the whole country in the most reckless and cruel manner. Thecountry was very populous and very rich. The people, unlike theMonguls and Tartars, lived by tilling the ground, and they practiced, in great perfection, many manufacturing and mechanic arts. The countrywas very fertile, and, in the place of the boundless pasturages of theMongul territories, it was covered in all directions with cultivatedfields, gardens, orchards, and mulberry-groves, while thrivingvillages and busy towns were scattered over the whole face of it. Itwas to protect this busy hive of wealth and industry that the greatwall had been built ages before; for the Chinese had always beenstationary, industrious, and peaceful, while the territories ofCentral Asia, lying to the north of them, had been filled from timeimmemorial with wild, roaming, and unscrupulous troops of marauders, like those who were now united under the banner of Genghis Khan. Thewall had afforded for some hundreds of years an adequate protection, for no commander had appeared of sufficient power to organize andcombine the various hordes on a scale great enough to enable them toforce so strong a barrier. But, now that Genghis Khan had come uponthe stage, the barrier was broken through, and the terrible andreckless hordes poured in with all the force and fury of aninundation. In the year 1214, which was the year following that inwhich Hujaku was killed, Genghis Khan organized a force so large, forthe invasion of China, that he divided it into four differentbattalions, which were to enter by different roads, and ravagedifferent portions of the country. Each of these divisions was byitself a great and powerful army, and the simultaneous invasion offour such masses of reckless and merciless enemies filled the wholeland with terror and dismay. 

The Chinese emperor sent the best bodies of troops under his commandto guard the passes in the mountains, and the bridges andfording-places on the rivers, hoping in this way to do somethingtoward stemming the tide of these torrents of invasion. But it was allin vain. Genghis Khan had raised and equipped his forces by means, ina great measure, of the plunder which he had obtained in China theyear before, and he had made great promises and glowingrepresentations to his men in respect to the booty to be obtained inthis new campaign. The troops were consequently full of ardor andenthusiasm, and they pressed on with such impetuosity as to carry allbefore them. 

The Emperor of China, in pursuing his measures of defense, had orderedall the men capable of bearing arms in the villages and in the opencountry to repair to the nearest large city or fortress, there to beenrolled and equipped for service. The consequence was that theMonguls found in many places, as they advanced through the country, nobody but infirm old men, and women and children in the hamlets andvillages. A great many of these, especially such as seemed to be ofmost consequence, the handsomest and best of the women, and the oldestchildren, they seized and took with them in continuing their march, intending to make slaves of them. They also took possession of allthe gold and silver, and also of all the silks and other rich andvaluable merchandise which they found, and distributed it as plunder. The spoil which they obtained, too, in sheep and cattle, was enormous. From it they made up immense flocks and herds, which were driven offinto the Mongul country. The rest were slaughtered, and used to supplythe army with food. 

It was the custom of the invaders, after having pillaged a town andits environs, and taken away all which they could convert to anyuseful purpose for themselves, to burn the town itself, and then tomarch on, leaving in the place only a smoking heap of ruins, with themiserable remnant of the population which they had spared wanderingabout the scene of desolation in misery and despair. 

They made a most cowardly and atrocious use, too, of the prisonerswhom they conveyed away. When they arrived at a fortified town wherethere was a garrison or any other armed force prepared to resist them, they would bring forward these helpless captives, and put them in thefore-front of the battle in such a manner that the men on the wallscould not shoot their arrows at their savage assailants withoutkilling their own wives and children. The officers commanded the mento fire notwithstanding. But they were so moved by the piteous crieswhich the women and children made that they could not bear to do it, and so they refused to obey, and in the excitement and confusion thusproduced the Monguls easily obtained possession of the town. 

There are two great rivers in China, both of which flow from westto east, and they are at such a distance from each other and fromthe frontiers that they divide the territory into three nearly equalparts. The northernmost of these rivers is the Hoang Ho. The Mongulsin the course of two years overran and made themselves masters ofalmost the whole country lying north of this river, that is, ofabout one third of China proper. There were, however, somestrongly-fortified towns which they found it very difficult toconquer. 

Among other places, there was the imperial city of Yen-king, where theemperor himself resided, which was so strongly defended that for sometime the Monguls did not venture to attack it. At length, however, Genghis Khan came himself to the place, and concentrated there a verylarge force. The emperor and his court were very much alarmed, expecting an immediate assault. Still Genghis Khan hesitated. Some ofhis generals urged him to scale the walls, and so force his way intothe city. But he thought it more politic to adopt a different plan. 

So he sent an officer into the town with proposals of peace to becommunicated to the emperor. In these proposals Genghis Khan said thathe himself was inclined to spare the town, but that to appease hissoldiers, who were furious to attack and pillage the city, it would benecessary to make them considerable presents, and that, if the emperorwould agree to such terms with him as should enable him to satisfy hismen in this respect, he would spare the city and would retire. 

The emperor and his advisers were much perplexed at the receipt ofthis proposal. There was great difference of opinion among thecounselors in respect to the reply which was to be made to it. Somewere in favor of rejecting it at once. One general, not content with asimple rejection of it, proposed that, to show the indignation andresentment which they felt in receiving it, the garrison should marchout of the gates and attack the Monguls in their camp. 

There were other ministers, however, who urged the emperor to submitto the necessity of the case, and make peace with the conqueror. Theysaid that the idea of going out to attack the enemy in their camp wastoo desperate to be entertained for a moment, and if they waitedwithin the walls and attempted to defend themselves there, theyexposed themselves to a terrible danger, without any countervailinghope of advantage at all commensurate with it; for if they failed tosave the city they were all utterly and irretrievably ruined; and if, on the other hand, they succeeded in repelling the assault, it wasonly a brief respite that they could hope to gain, for the Mongulswould soon return in greater numbers and in a higher state ofexcitement and fury than ever. Besides, they said, the garrison wasdiscontented and depressed in spirit, and would make but a feebleresistance. It was composed mainly of troops brought in from thecountry, away from their families and homes, and all that they desiredwas to be released from duty, in order that they might go and see whathad become of their wives and children. 

The emperor, in the end, adopted this counsel, and he sent acommissioner to the camp of Genghis Khan to ask on what terms peacecould be made. Genghis Khan stated the conditions. They were veryhard, but the emperor was compelled to submit to them. One of thestipulations was that Genghis Khan was to receive one of the Chineseprincesses, a daughter of the late emperor Yong-tsi, to add to thenumber of his wives. There were also to be delivered to him for slavesfive hundred young boys and as many girls, three thousand horses, alarge quantity of silk, and an immense sum of money. As soon as theseconditions were fulfilled, after dividing the slaves and the bootyamong the officers and soldiers of his army, Genghis Khan raised thesiege and moved off to the northward. 

In respect to the captives that his soldiers had taken in the townsand villages--the women and children spoken of above--the army carriedoff with them all that were old enough to be of any value as slaves. The little children, who would only, they thought, be in the way, theymassacred. 

The emperor was by no means easy after the Mongul army had gone. Amarauding enemy like that, bought off by the payment of a ransom, isexceedingly apt to find some pretext for returning, and the emperordid not feel that he was safe. Very soon after the Monguls hadwithdrawn, he proposed to his council the plan of removing his courtsouthward to the other side of the Hoang Ho, to a large city in theprovince of Henan. Some of his counselors made great objections tothis proposal. They said that if the emperor withdrew in that mannerfrom the northern provinces that portion of his empire would beirretrievably lost. Genghis Khan would soon obtain complete andundisputed possession of the whole of it. The proper course to beadopted, they said, was to remain and make a firm stand in defense ofthe capital and of the country. They must levy new troops, repair thefortifications, recruit the garrison, and lay in supplies of food andof other military stores, and thus prepare themselves for a vigorousand efficient resistance in case the enemy should return. 

But the emperor could not be persuaded. He said that the treasury wasexhausted, the troops were discouraged, the cities around the capitalwere destroyed, and the whole country was so depopulated by thedevastations of the Monguls that no considerable number of freshlevies could be obtained; and that, consequently, the only safe coursefor the government to pursue was to retire to the southward, beyondthe river. He would, however, he added, leave his son, with a stronggarrison, to defend the capital. 

He accordingly took with him a few favorites of his immediate familyand a small body of troops, and commenced his journey--a journeywhich was considered by all the people as a base and ignoble flight. He involved himself in endless troubles by this step. A revolt brokeout on the way among the guards who accompanied him. One of thegenerals who headed the revolt sent a messenger to Genghis Khaninforming him of the emperor's abandonment of his capital, andoffering to go over, with all the troops under his command, to theservice of Genghis Khan if Genghis Khan would receive him. 

When Genghis Khan heard thus of the retreat of the emperor from hiscapital, he was, or pretended to be, much incensed. He considered theproceeding as in some sense an act of hostility against himself, and, as such, an infraction of the treaty and a renewal of the war. So heimmediately ordered one of his leading generals--a certain chieftainnamed Mingan--to proceed southward at the head of a large army and laysiege to Yen-king again. 

The old emperor, who seems now to have lost all spirit, and to havegiven himself up entirely to despondency and fear, was greatly alarmedfor the safety of his son the prince, whom he had left in command atYen-king. He immediately sent orders to his son to leave the city andcome to him. The departure of the prince, in obedience to theseorders, of course threw an additional gloom over the city, and excitedstill more the general discontent which the emperor's conduct hadawakened. 

The prince, on his departure, left two generals in command of thegarrison. Their names were Wan-yen and Mon-yen. They were left todefend the city as well as they could from the army of Monguls underMingan, which was now rapidly drawing near. The generals were greatlyembarrassed and perplexed with the difficulties of their situation. The means of defense at their disposal were wholly inadequate, andthey knew not what to do. 

At length one of them, Wan-yen, proposed to the other that they shouldkill themselves. This Mon-yen refused to do. Mon-yen was the commanderon whom the troops chiefly relied, and he considered suicide a mode ofdeserting one's post scarcely less dishonorable than any other. Hesaid that his duty was to stand by his troops, and, if he could notdefend them where they were, to endeavor to draw them away, whilethere was an opportunity, to a place of safety. 

So Wan-yen, finding his proposal rejected, went away in a rage. Heretired to his apartment, and wrote a dispatch to the emperor, inwhich he explained the desperate condition of affairs, and theimpossibility of saving the city, and in the end declared himselfdeserving of death for not being able to accomplish the work which hismajesty had assigned to him. 

He enveloped and sealed this dispatch, and then, calling his domesticstogether, he divided among them, in a very calm and composed manner, all his personal effects, and then took leave of them and dismissedthem. 

A single officer only now remained with him. In the presence of thisofficer he wrote a few words, and then sent him away. As soon as theofficer had gone, he drank a cup of poison which he had previouslyordered to be prepared for him, and in a few minutes was a lifelesscorpse. 

In the mean time, the other general, Mon-yen, had been makingpreparations to leave the city. His plan was to take with him suchtroops as might be serviceable to the emperor, but to leave all theinmates of the palace, as well as the inhabitants of the city, totheir fate. Among the people of the palace were, it seems, a number ofthe emperor's wives, whom he had left behind at the time of his ownflight, he having taken with him at that time only a few of the morefavored ones. These women who were left, when they heard that Mon-yenwas intending to abandon the city with a view of joining the emperorin the south, came to him in a body, and begged him to take them withhim. 

In order to relieve himself of their solicitations, he said that hewould do so, but he added that he must leave the city himself with theguards to prepare the way, and that he would return immediately forthem. They were satisfied with this promise, and returned to thepalace to prepare for the journey. Mon-yen at once left the city, andvery soon after he had gone, Mingan, the Mongul general, arrived atthe gates, and, meeting with no effectual resistance, he easily forcedhis way in, and a scene of universal terror and confusion ensued. Thesoldiers spread themselves over the city in search of plunder, andkilled all who came in their way. They plundered the palace and thenset it on fire. So extensive was the edifice, and so vast were thestores of clothing and other valuables which it contained, even afterall the treasures which could be made available to the conquerors hadbeen taken away, that the fire continued to burn among the ruins for amonth or more. 

What became of the unhappy women who were so cruelly deceived byMon-yen in respect to their hopes of escape does not directly appear. They doubtless perished with the other inhabitants of the city in thegeneral massacre. Soldiers at such a time, while engaged in the sackand plunder of a city, are always excited to a species of insane fury, and take a savage delight in thrusting their pikes into all that comein their way. 

Mon-yen excused himself, when he arrived at the quarters of theemperor, for having thus abandoned the women to their fate by thealleged impossibility of saving them. He could not have succeeded, hesaid, in effecting his own retreat and that of the troops who wentwith him if he had been encumbered in his movements by such a companyof women. The emperor accepted this excuse, and seemed to be satisfiedwith it, though, not long afterward, Mon-yen was accused of conspiracyagainst the emperor and was put to death. 

Mingan took possession of the imperial treasury, where he found greatstores of silk, and also of gold and silver plate. All these things hesent to Genghis Khan, who remained still at the north at a grandencampment which he had made in Tartary. 

After this, other campaigns were fought by Genghis Khan in China, inthe course of which he extended his conquests still farther to thesouthward, and made himself master of a very great extent of country. After confirming these conquests, he selected from among such Chineseofficers as were disposed to enter into his service suitable personsto be appointed governors of the provinces, and in this way annexedthem to his dominions; these officers thus transferring theirallegiance from the emperor to him, and covenanting to send to him thetribute which they should annually collect from their respectivedominions. Every thing being thus settled in this quarter, GenghisKhan next turned his attention to the western frontiers of his empire, where the Tartar and Mongul territory bordered on Turkestan and thedominions of the Mohammedans. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE SULTAN MOHAMMED. 

1217

Mohammedan countries on the west. --Sultan Mohammed. --Karazm. --Proposedembassy. --Makinut and his suite. --Speech of the embassador. --Fatherand son. --The sultan not pleased. --Private interview. --Anger of thesultan. --Conversation. --Makinut returns a soft answer. --The sultanis appeased. --Treaty made. --Genghis Khan is pleased. --Opening ofthe trade. --The exorbitant merchants. --Their punishment. --The nextcompany. --Their artful management. --Genghis Khan fits out acompany. --Embassadors. --Mohammedans. --Messengers from the court. --Largeparty. --Roads doubly guarded. --The Calif of Bagdad. --Mohammed's demandand the calif's reply. --The sultan calls a council. --Mohammed'splan for revenge. --March of the army. --Failure. --The calif'splans. --Objections to them. --Arguments of the calif. --Message toGenghis Khan. --Artful device. --The answer of Genghis Khan. --Thecaravan arrives at Otrar. --The governor's treachery. --The partymassacred. --Genghis Khan hears the tidings. --He declareswar. --Preparations. 

The portion of China which Genghis Khan had added to his dominions bythe conquests described in the last chapter was called Katay, and thepossession of it, added to the extensive territories which werepreviously under his sway, made his empire very vast. The countrywhich he now held, either under his direct government, or as tributaryprovinces and kingdoms, extended north and south through the wholeinterior of Asia, and from the shores of the Japan and China Seas onthe east, nearly to the Caspian Sea on the west, a distance of nearlythree thousand miles. 

Beyond his western limits lay Turkestan and other countries governedby the Mohammedans. Among the other Mohammedan princes there was acertain Sultan Mohammed, a great and very powerful sovereign, whoreigned over an extensive region in the neighborhood of the CaspianSea, though the principal seat of his power was a country calledKarazm. He was, in consequence, sometimes styled Mohammed Karazm. 

It might perhaps have been expected that Genghis Khan, having subduedall the rivals within his reach in the eastern part of Asia, and beingstrong and secure in the possession of his power, would have foundsome pretext for making war upon the sultan, with a view of conqueringhis territories too, and adding the countries bordering on the Caspianto his dominions. But, for some reason or other, he concluded, in thisinstance, to adopt a different policy. Whether it was that he wastired of war and wished for repose, or whether the sultan's dominionswere too remote, or his power too great to make it prudent to attackhim, he determined on sending an embassy instead of an army, with aview of proposing to the sultan a treaty of friendship and alliance. 

The time when this embassy was sent was in the year 1217, and the nameof the principal embassador was Makinut. 

Makinut set out on his mission accompanied by a large retinue ofattendants and guards. The journey occupied several weeks, but atlength he arrived in the sultan's dominions. Soon after his arrival hewas admitted to an audience of the sultan, and there, accompanied byhis own secretaries, and in the presence of all the chief officers ofthe sultan's court, he delivered his message. 

He gave an account in his speech of the recent victories which hissovereign, Genghis Khan, had won, and of the great extension which hisempire had in consequence attained. He was now become master, he said, of all the countries of Central Asia, from the eastern extremity ofthe continent up to the frontiers of the sultan's dominions, andhaving thus become the sultan's neighbor, he was desirous of enteringinto a treaty of amity and alliance with him, which would be obviouslyfor the mutual interest of both. He had accordingly been sent anembassador to the sultan's court to propose such an alliance. Inoffering it, the emperor, he said, was actuated by a feeling of thesincerest good-will. He wished the sultan to consider him as a father, and he would look upon the sultan as a son. 

According to the patriarchal ideas of government which prevailed inthose days, the relation of father to son involved not merely the ideaof a tie of affection connecting an older with a younger person, butit implied something of pre-eminence and authority on the one part, and dependence and subjection on the other. Perhaps Genghis Khan didnot mean his proposition to be understood in this sense, but made itsolely in reference to the disparity between his own and the sultan'syears, for he was himself now becoming considerably advanced in life. However this may be, the sultan was at first not at all pleased withthe proposition in the form in which the embassador made it. 

He, however, listened quietly to Makinut's words, and said nothinguntil the public audience was ended. He then took Makinut alone intoanother apartment in order to have some quiet conversation with him. He first asked him to tell him the exact state of the case in respectto all the pretended victories which Genghis Khan had gained, and, inorder to propitiate him and induce him to reveal the honest truth, hemade him a present of a rich scarf, splendidly adorned with jewels. 

"How is it?" said he; "has the emperor really made all thoseconquests, and is his empire as extensive and powerful as he pretends?Tell me the honest truth about it. "

"What I have told your majesty is the honest truth about it, " repliedMakinut. "My master the emperor is as powerful as I have representedhim, and this your majesty will soon find out in case you come tohave any difficulty with him. "

This bold and defiant language on the part of the embassador greatlyincreased the irritation which the sultan felt before. He seemed muchincensed, and replied in a very angry manner. 

"I know not what your master means, " said he, "by sending suchmessages to me, telling me of the provinces that he has conquered, andboasting of his power, or upon what ground he pretends to be greaterthan I, and expects that I shall honor him as my father, and becontent to be treated by him only as his son. Is he so very great apersonage as this?"

Makinut now found that perhaps he had spoken a little too plainly, andhe began immediately to soften and modify what he had said, and tocompliment the sultan himself, who, as he was well aware, was reallysuperior in power and glory to Genghis Khan, notwithstanding the greatextension to which the empire of the latter had recently attained. Healso begged that the sultan would not be angry with him for deliveringthe message with which he had been intrusted. He was only a servant, he said, and he was bound to obey the orders of his master. He assuredthe sultan, moreover, that if any unfavorable construction could bypossibility be put upon the language which the emperor had used, nosuch meaning was designed on his part, but that in sending theembassage, and in every thing connected with it, the emperor had actedwith the most friendly and honorable intentions. 

By means of conciliating language like this the sultan was at lengthappeased, and he finally was induced to agree to every thing which theembassador proposed. A treaty of peace and commerce was drawn up andsigned, and, after every thing was concluded, Makinut returned to theMongul country loaded with presents, some of which were for himselfand his attendants, and others were for Genghis Khan. 

He was accompanied, too, by a caravan of merchants, who, inconsequence of the new treaty, were going into the country of GenghisKhan with their goods, to see what they could do in the new marketthus opened to them. This caravan traveled in company with Makinut onhis return, in order to avail themselves of the protection which theguard that attended him could afford in passing through theintervening countries. These countries being filled with hordes ofTartars, who were very little under the dominion of law, it would havebeen unsafe for a caravan of rich merchandise to pass through themwithout an escort. 

Genghis Khan was greatly pleased with the result of his embassy. Hewas also much gratified with the presents that the sultan had senthim, which consisted of costly stuffs for garments, beautiful andhighly-wrought arms, precious stones, and other similar articles. Hewelcomed the merchants too, and opened facilities for them to travelfreely throughout his dominions and dispose of their goods. 

In order that future caravans might go and come at all times insafety, he established guards along the roads between his country andthat of the sultan. These guards occupied fortresses built atconvenient places along the way, and especially at the crossing-placeson the rivers, and in the passes of the mountains; and there orderswere given to these guards to scour the country in every directionaround their respective posts, in order to keep it clear of robbers. Whenever a band of robbers was formed, the soldiers hunted them fromone lurking-place to another until they were exterminated. In thisway, after a short time, the country became perfectly safe, and thecaravans of merchants could go and come with the richest goods, andeven with treasures of gold and silver, without any fear. 

At first, it would seem, some of the merchants from the countries ofMohammed asked too much for their goods. At least a story is told of acompany who came very soon after the opening of the treaty, and whooffered their goods first to Genghis Khan himself, but they asked suchhigh prices for them that he was astonished. 

"I suppose, " said he, "by your asking such prices as these, youimagine that I have never bought any goods before. "

He then took them to see his treasures, and showed them over athousand large chests filled with valuables of every description; goldand silver utensils, rich silks, arms and accoutrements splendidlyadorned with precious stones, and other such commodities. He told themthat he showed them these things in order that they might see that hehad had some experience in respect to dealings in merchandise of thatsort before, and knew something of its just value. And that, sincethey had been so exorbitant in their demands, presuming probably uponthe ignorance of those whom they came to deal with, he should sendthem back with all their goods, and not allow them to sell them anywhere in his dominions, at any price. 

[Illustration: MERCHANTS OFFERING THEIR GOODS. ]

This threat he put in execution. The merchants were obliged to goback without selling any of their goods at all. 

The next company of merchants that came, having heard of the adventureof the others, determined to act on a different principle. Accordingly, when they came into the presence of the khan with theirgoods, and he asked them the prices of some of them, they replied thathis majesty might himself fix the price of the articles, as he was afar better judge of the value of such things than they were. Indeed, they added that if his majesty chose to take them without paying anything at all he was welcome to do so. 

This answer pleased the emperor very much. He paid them double pricefor the articles which he selected from their stores, and he grantedthem peculiar privileges in respect to trading with his subjects whilethey remained in his dominions. 

The trade which was thus opened between the dominions of the sultanand those of Genghis Khan was not, however, wholly in the hands ofmerchants coming from the former country. Soon after the coming of thecaravan last mentioned, Genghis Khan fitted out a company of merchantsfrom his own country, who were to go into the country of the sultan, taking with them such articles, the products of the country of theMonguls, as they might hope to find a market for there. There werefour principal merchants, but they were attended by a great number ofassistants, servants, camel-drivers, etc. , so that the whole companyformed quite a large caravan. Genghis Khan sent with them threeembassadors, who were to present to the sultan renewed assurances ofthe friendly feelings which he entertained for him, and of his desireto encourage and promote as much as possible the commercialintercourse between the two countries which had been so happily begun. 

The three embassadors whom Genghis Khan selected for this service werethemselves Mohammedans. He had several persons of this faith among theofficers of his court, although the Monguls had a national religion oftheir own, which was very different from that of the Mohammedans;still, all forms of worship were tolerated in Genghis Khan'sdominions, and the emperor was accustomed to take good officers intohis service wherever he could find them, without paying any regard tothe nature of their religious belief so far as their general dutieswere concerned. But now, in sending this deputation to the sultan, heselected the embassadors from among the Mohammedans at his court, thinking that it would please the sultan better to receive his messagethrough persons of his own religious faith. Besides, the three personswhom he appointed were natives of Turkestan, and they were, of course, well acquainted with the language of the country and with the countryitself. 

Besides the merchants and the embassadors, Genghis Khan gavepermission to each of his wives, and also to each of the great lordsof his court, to send a servant or messenger with the caravan, toselect and purchase for their masters and mistresses whatever theymight find most curious or useful in the Mohammedan cities which thecaravan might visit. The lords and ladies were all very glad to availthemselves of the opportunity thus afforded them. 

All these persons, the embassadors and their suite, the merchants andtheir servants, and the special messengers sent by the lords andladies of the court, formed, as may well be supposed, a very numerouscompany. It is said that the caravan, when ready to commence itsmarch, contained no less than four hundred and fifty persons. 

Every thing being at last made ready, the caravan set out on its longjourney. It was accompanied by a suitable escort, and, in order toprovide still more effectually for the safety of the rich merchandiseand the valuable lives committed to it, Genghis Khan sent on ordersbeforehand to all the military stations on the way, directing thecaptains to double the guard on their respective sections of the roadwhile the caravan was passing. 

By means of these and other similar precautions the expeditionaccomplished the journey in safety, and arrived without any misfortunein the Mohammedan country. Very serious misfortunes, however, awaitedthem there immediately after their arrival, arising out of a train ofevents which had been for some time in progress, and which I must nowgo back a little to describe. 

It seems that some difference had arisen some time before this betweenthe Sultan Mohammed and the Calif of Bagdad, who was the great head ofthe Mohammedan power. Mohammed applied to the calif to grant himcertain privileges and powers which had occasionally been bestowed onother sultans who had rendered great services to the Mohammedanempire. He claimed that he had merited these rewards by the serviceswhich he had rendered. He had conquered, he said, more than onehundred princes and chieftains, and had cut off their heads andannexed their territories to his dominions, thus greatly enlarging andextending the Mohammedan power. 

Mohammed made this demand of the calif through the medium of anembassador whom he sent to Bagdad. The calif, after hearing what theembassador had to say, refused to comply. He said that the serviceswhich Mohammed had rendered were not of sufficient importance andvalue to merit the honors and privileges which Mohammed demanded. But, although he thus declined complying with Mohammed's request, he showeda disposition to treat the sultan himself with all proper deference bysending an embassador of his own to accompany Mohammed's embassador onhis return, with instructions to communicate the reply which the califfelt bound to make in a respectful and courteous manner. 

Mohammed received the calif's embassador very honorably, and in hispresence concealed the anger which the answer of the calif excited inhis mind. As soon as the embassador was gone, however, he convened agrand council of all the great chieftains, and generals, and ministersof state in his dominions, and announced to them his determination toraise an army and march to Bagdad, with a view of deposing the califand reigning in his stead. The great personages assembled at thecouncil were very ready to enter into this scheme, for they knew thatif it was successful there would be a great many honors and a greatdeal of booty that would fall to their share in the final distributionof the spoil. So they all engaged with great zeal in aiding the sultanto form and equip his army. In due time the expedition was ready, andthe sultan commenced his march. But, as often happens in such cases, the preparations had been hindered by various causes of delay, and itwas too late in the season when the army began to move. The forcesmoved slowly, too, after they commenced their march, so that thewinter came on while they were among the passes of the mountains. Thewinter was unusually severe, and the troops suffered so much from thefrosts and the rains, and from the various hardships to which theywere in consequence exposed, that the sultan found it impossible to goon. He was consequently obliged to return, and begin his work overagain. And the worst of it was, that the calif was now aware of hisdesigns, and would be able, he knew, before the next season, to takeeffectual measures to defend himself. 

When the calif heard of the misfortunes which had befallen thesultan's army, and his narrow escape from the dangers of a formidableinvasion, he was at first overjoyed, and he resolved at once on makingwar upon the rebellious sultan. In forming his plans for the campaign, the idea occurred to him of endeavoring to incite Genghis Khan toinvade the sultan's dominions from the east while he himself attackedhim from the west; for Bagdad, the capital of the calif, was to thewestward of the sultan's country, as the empire of the Monguls was tothe eastward of it. 

But when the calif proposed his plan to his counselors, some of themobjected to it very strenuously. The sultan and the people of hiscountry were, like the calif himself, Mohammedans, while the Mongulswere of another religion altogether, or, as the Mohammedans calledthem, unbelievers or infidels; and the counselors who objected to thecalif's proposal said that it would be very wrong to bring the enemiesof God into the country of the faithful to guard against a present andtemporary danger, and thereby, perhaps, in the end occasion the ruinboth of their religion and their empire. It would be an impious deed, they thought, thus to bring in a horde of barbarian infidels to wagewar with them against their brethren. 

To this the calif replied that the emergency was so critical that theywere justified in availing themselves of any means that offered tosave themselves from the ruin with which they were threatened. And asto the possibility that Genghis Khan, if admitted to the country astheir ally, would in the end turn his arms against them, he said thatthey must watch, and take measures to guard against such a danger. Besides, he would rather have an open unbeliever like Genghis Khan fora foe, than a Mohammedan traitor and rebel like the sultan. He added, moreover, that he did not believe that the Mongul emperor felt anyanimosity or ill will against the Mohammedans or against their faith. It was evident, indeed, that he did not, for he had a great manyMohammedans in his dominions, and he allowed them to live therewithout molestation. He even had Mohammedan officers of very high rankin his court. 

So it was finally decided to send a message and invite him to join thecalif in making war on the sultan. 

The difficulty was now to contrive some means by which this messagecould be conveyed through the sultan's territories, which, of course, lay between the dominions of the calif and those of Genghis Khan. Toaccomplish this purpose the calif resorted to a very singular device. Instead of writing his communication in a letter, he caused it to bepricked with a needle and some indigo, by a sort of tattooing process, upon the messenger's head, in such a manner that it was concealed byhis hair. The messenger was then disguised as a countryman and sentforth. He succeeded in accomplishing the journey in safety, and whenhe arrived Genghis Khan had only to cause his head to be shaved, whenthe inscription containing the calif's proposal to him at once becamelegible. 

This method of making the communication was considered very safe, foreven if, from any accident, the man had been intercepted on the way, on suspicion of his being a messenger, the sultan's men would havefound nothing, in searching him, to confirm their suspicions, for itis not at all probable that they would have thought of looking for aletter among his hair. 

Genghis Khan was well pleased to receive the proposals of the calif, but he sent back word in reply that he could not at present engage inany hostile movement against the sultan on account of the treaty ofpeace and commerce which he had recently established with him. Solong as the sultan observed the stipulations of the treaty, he feltbound in honor, he said, not to break it. He knew, however, he added, that the restless spirit of the sultan would not long allow things toremain in the posture they were then in, and that on the firstoccasion given he would not fail to declare war against him. 

Things were in this state when the grand caravan of merchants andembassadors which Genghis Khan had sent arrived at the frontiers ofthe sultan's dominions. 

After passing the frontier, the first important place which theyreached was a city called Otrar. They were received very courteouslyby the governor of this place, and were much pleased with theopportunity afforded them to rest from the fatigues of their longjourney. It seems, however, after all, that the governor's friendshipfor his guests was only pretended, for he immediately wrote to thesultan, informing him that a party of persons had arrived at his cityfrom the Mongul country who pretended to be merchants and embassadors, but that he believed that they were spies, for they were extremelyinquisitive about the strength of the garrisons and the state of thedefenses of the country generally. He had no doubt, he added, thatthey were emissaries sent by Genghis Khan to find out the best way ofinvading his dominions. 

One account states that the motive which induced the governor to makethese representations to the sultan was some offense which he took atthe familiar manner in which he was addressed by one of theembassadors, who was a native of Otrar, and had known the governor informer times when he was a private person. Another says that hisobject was to have the expedition broken up, in order that he mightseize for himself the rich merchandise and the valuable presents whichthe merchants and embassadors had in their possession. 

At any rate, he wrote to the sultan denouncing the whole party asforeign emissaries and spies, and in a short time he received a replyfrom the sultan directing him to put them all to death, or otherwiseto deal with them as he thought proper. So he invited the whole partyto a grand entertainment in his palace, and then, at a given signal, probably after most of them had become in some measure helpless fromthe influence of the wine, a body of his guards rushed in andmassacred them all. 

Or, rather, they attempted to massacre them all, but one of themerchants' men contrived in the confusion to make his escape. Hesucceeded in getting back into the Mongul country, where he reportedwhat had happened to Genghis Khan. 

Genghis Khan was greatly exasperated when he heard these tidings. Heimmediately called together his sons, and all the great lords andchieftains of his court, and recited to them the story of the massacreof the merchants in such a manner as to fill their hearts withindignation and rage, and to inspire them all with a burning thirstfor revenge. 

He also immediately sent word to the sultan that, since by so infamousan action he had violated all the engagements which had subsistedbetween them, he, from that instant, declared himself his mortalenemy, and would take vengeance upon him for his treacherousness andcruelty by ravaging his country with fire and sword. 

This message was sent, it was said, by three embassadors, whosepersons ought to have been considered sacred, according to everyprinciple of international law. But the sultan, as soon as they haddelivered their message, ordered their heads to be cut off. 

This new massacre excited the rage and fury of Genghis Khan to ahigher pitch than ever. For three days, it is said, he neither atenor slept, and seemed almost beside himself with mingled vexation, grief, and anger. And afterward he busied himself night and day withthe arrangements for assembling his army and preparing to march, andhe allowed himself no rest until every thing was ready. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE WAR WITH THE SULTAN. 

1217-1218

Marshaling of the army. --Arms and armor. --Provision forcontingencies. --The army commences its march. --Jughi'sdivision. --Preparations of the sultan. --His army. --His plan. --Thesultan meets Jughi. --Opinion of the generals. --Jughi's decision. --Thebattle commenced. --Neither party victorious. --Jughi withdraws. --Hisreception by his father. --The Monguls victorious. --The sultan'splans. --Flying squadron. --Genghis Khan. 

Genghis Khan made his preparations for a war on an immense scale. Hesent messengers in every direction to all the princes, khans, governors, and other chieftains throughout his empire, with lettersexplaining to them the cause of the war, and ordering them to repairto the places of rendezvous which he appointed, with all the troopsthat they could raise. 

He gave particular directions in respect to the manner in which themen were to be armed and equipped. The arms required were the sabre, the bow, with a quiver full of arrows, and the battle-axe. Eachsoldier was also to carry a rope, ropes and cordage being continuallyin demand among people living on horseback and in tents. 

The officers were to wear armor as well as to carry arms. Those whocould afford it were to provide themselves with a complete coat ofmail. The rest were to wear helmets and breast-plates only. Thehorses were also to be protected as far as possible by breast-plates, either of iron, or of leather thick and tough enough to prevent anarrow from penetrating. 

When the troops thus called for appeared at the place of rendezvousappointed for them, Genghis Khan found, as is said, that he had anarmy of seven hundred thousand men!

The army being thus assembled, Genghis Khan caused certain rules andregulations, or articles of war, as they might be called, to be drawnup and promulgated to the troops. One of the rules was that no body oftroops were ever to retreat without first fighting, whatever theimminence of the danger might be. He also ordered that where a body ofmen were engaged, if any subordinate division of them, as one companyin a regiment, or one regiment in a battalion, should break ranks andfly before the order for a retreat should have been given by theproper authority, the rest were to leave fighting the enemy, andattack the portion flying, and kill them all upon the spot. 

The emperor also made formal provision for the event of his dying inthe course of the campaign. In this case a grand assembly of all thekhans and chieftains of the empire was to be convened, and then, inthe presence of these khans and of his sons, the constitution andlaws of the empire, as he had established them, were to be read, andafter the reading the assembly were to proceed to the election of anew khan, according to the forms which the constitution had provided. 

After all these affairs had been arranged, Genghis Khan put his armyin motion. He was obliged, of course, to separate it into severalgrand divisions, and to send the several divisions forward bydifferent roads, and through different sections of the country. Solarge a body can never be kept together on a long march, on account ofthe immense quantity of food that is required, both for the horses andthe men, and which must be supplied in the main by the country itselfwhich they traverse, since neither horses nor men can carry food withthem for more than a very few days. 

Genghis Khan put one of the largest divisions under the command of hisson Jughi, the prince who distinguished himself so much in theconflicts by which his father raised himself to the supreme power. 

Jughi was ordered to advance with his division through Turkestan, thecountry where the Prince Kushluk had sought refuge, and which stillremained, in some degree, disaffected toward Genghis Khan. GenghisKhan himself, with the main body of the army, took a more southerlyroute directly toward the dominions of the sultan. 

In the mean time the sultan himself had not been idle. He collectedtogether all the forces that he could command. When they weremustered, the number of men was found to be four hundred thousand. This was a large army, though much smaller than that of Genghis Khan. 

The sultan set out upon his march with his troops to meet theinvaders. After advancing for some distance, he learned that the armyof Jughi, which had passed through Turkestan, was at the northward ofhis position, and he found that by turning in that direction he mighthope to meet and conquer that part of the Mongul force before it couldhave time to join the main body. He determined at once to adopt thisplan. 

He accordingly turned his course, and marched forward into the part ofthe country where he supposed Jughi to be. At length he came to aplace where his scouts found, near a river, a great many dead bodieslying on the ground. Among the others who had fallen there was one manwho was wounded, but was not dead. This wounded man told the scoutsthat the bodies were those of persons who had been slain by the armyof Jughi, which had just passed that way. The sultan accordinglypressed forward and soon overtook them. Jughi was hastening on inorder to join his father. 

Jughi consulted his generals in respect to what it was best to do. They advised him to avoid a battle. 

"We are not strong enough, " said they, "to encounter alone the wholeof the sultan's army. It is better that we should retreat, which wecan do in an orderly manner, and thus join the main body before wegive the enemy battle. Or, if the sultan should attempt to pursue us, he can not keep his army together in doing so. They will necessarilybecome divided into detachments on the road, and then we can turn anddestroy them in detail, which will be a much surer mode of proceedingthan for us to attack them in the mass. "

Jughi was not willing to follow this advice. 

"What will my father and my brothers think, " said he, "when they seeus coming to them, flying from the enemy, without having fought them, contrary to his express commands? No. We must stand our ground, trusting to our valor, and do our best. If we are to die at all, wehad better be slain in battle than in flight. You have done your dutyin admonishing me of the danger we are in, and now it remains for meto do mine in trying to bring you out of it with honor. "

So he ordered the army to halt, and to be drawn up in order of battle. 

The battle was soon commenced, and it was continued throughout theday. The Monguls, though fewer in numbers, were superior to theirenemies in discipline and in courage, and the advantage was obviouslyon their side, though they did not gain a decisive victory. Towardnight, however, the sultan's troops evinced every where a dispositionto give way, and it was with great difficulty that the officers couldinduce them to maintain their ground until the darkness came on andput an end to the conflict. When at length the combatants could nolonger see to distinguish friend from foe, the two armies withdrew totheir respective camps, and built their fires for the night. 

Jughi thought that by fighting during this day he had done all thathis father required of him to vindicate the honor of the army, andthat now it would be most prudent to retreat, without risking anotherbattle on the morrow. So he caused fresh supplies of fuel to be putupon the camp-fires in order to deceive the enemy, and then marchedout of his camp in the night with all his men. The next morning, bythe time that the sultan's troops were again under arms, he hadadvanced far on his march to join his father, and was beyond theirreach. 

He soon rejoined his father, and was received by him with great joy. Genghis Khan was extremely pleased with the course which his son hadpursued, and bestowed upon him many public honors and rewards. 

After this other great battles were fought between the two armies. Atone of them, a great trumpet fifteen feet long is mentioned among theother martial instruments that were used to excite the men to ardor inmaking the charge. 

In these battles the Monguls were victorious. The sultan, however, still continued to make head as well as he could against the invaders, until at length he found that he had lost one hundred and sixtythousand of his men. This was almost half of his army, and the lossenfeebled him so much that he was convinced that it was useless forhim any longer to resist the Monguls in the open field; so he sent offhis army in detachments to the different towns and fortresses of hiskingdom, ordering the several divisions to shut themselves up anddefend themselves as well as they could, in the places assigned tothem, until better times should return. 

The sultan, however, did not seek shelter in this way for himself. Heselected from his troops a certain portion of those who were mostactive and alert and were best mounted, and formed of them a sort offlying squadron with which he could move rapidly from place to placethrough the country, wherever his aid might be most required. 

Genghis Khan, of course, now prepared to attack the cities where theseveral divisions of the sultan's army had intrenched themselves. Hewished first to get possession of Otrar, which was the place where theembassadors and the merchants had been massacred. But the city was notvery large, and so, instead of marching toward it himself, he gave thecharge of capturing it to two of his younger sons, whom he sent offfor the purpose at the head of a suitable detachment. 

He himself, with the main body, set off upon a march toward the citiesof Samarcand and Bokhara, which were the great central cities of thesultan's dominions. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE FALL OF BOKHARA. 

1218-1219

Description of the town Bokhara. --Zarnuk. --An immediatesurrender. --Nur. --Fate of Nur. --The siege of Bokhara commenced. --Thesultan's anxiety. --Intercepted letters. --The deserter. --The outerwall taken. --Grand sortie made by the garrison. --Evacuation of thetown. --Pursuit. --The fugitives overtaken. --Surrender. --Conditionsmade. --The governor of the citadel. --Genghis Khan enters thecity. --Valuables surrendered. --The emperor in the mosque. --Desecrationof the mosque. --Genghis Khan makes a speech. --The inhabitants give upevery thing. --Conflagration. --Surrender of the citadel. --The townutterly destroyed. --News of the fall of Otrar. --Plans for the defenseof Otrar. --Sorties. --The proposal made to Genghis Khan. --The siegerenewed. --The outer walls taken. --Desperate conflicts. --Kariakas andthe governor. --Treason. --Punishment of treason. --The Monguls enterthe town. --Citadel stormed. --Desperation of the governor. --Courageand devotion of his wife. --The governor's fate. 

Bokhara was a great and beautiful city. It was situated in the midstof a very fine and fertile country, in a position very favorable forthe trade and commerce of those days. It was also a great seat oflearning and of the arts and sciences. It contained many institutionsin which were taught such arts and sciences as were then cultivated, and students resorted to it from all the portions of Western Asia. 

The city proper was inclosed with a strong wall. Besides this therewas an outer wall, thirty miles in circumference, which inclosed thesuburbs of the town, and also a beautiful region of parks and gardens, which contained the public places of amusement and the villas of thewealthy inhabitants. It was this peaceful seat of industry and wealththat Genghis Khan, with his hordes of ruthless barbarians, was comingnow to sack and plunder. 

The first city which the Monguls reached on their march towardBokhara was one named Zarnuk. In approaching it a large troop rode uptoward the walls, uttering terrific shouts and outcries. The peopleshut the gates in great terror. Genghis Khan, however, sent an officerto them to say that it was useless for them to attempt to resist him, and to advise them to surrender at once. They must demolish theircitadel, he said, and send out all the young and able-bodied men toGenghis Khan. The officer advised them, too, to send out presents toGenghis Khan as an additional means of propitiating him and inducinghim to spare the town. 

The inhabitants yielded to this advice. The gates were thrown open. All the young men who were capable of bearing arms were marshaled andmarched out to the Mongul camp. They were accompanied by the older menamong the inhabitants, who took with them the best that the towncontained, for presents. Genghis Khan accepted the presents, orderedthe young men to be enrolled in his army, and then, dismissing theolder ones in peace, he resumed his march and went on his way. 

He next came to a town named Nur. One of the men from Zarnuk served asa guide to show the detachment which was sent to summon the city anear way to reach it. Nur was a sort of sacred town, having many holyplaces in it which were resorted to by many pilgrims and otherdevotees. 

The people of Nur shut the gates and for some time refused tosurrender. But at last, finding that it was useless to attempt toresist, they opened the gates and allowed the Monguls to come in. Genghis Khan, to punish the inhabitants, as he said, for even thinkingof resisting him, set aside a supply of cattle and other provisions tokeep them from starving, and then gave up all the rest of the propertyfound in the town to be divided among his soldiers as plunder. 

At length the army reached the great plain in which Bokhara wassituated, and encamped before the town. Bokhara was very large andvery populous, as may well be supposed from its outer wall of thirtymiles in circuit, and Genghis Khan did not expect to make himselfmaster of it without considerable difficulty and delay. He was, however, very intent on besieging and taking it, not only on accountof the general wealth and importance of the place, but also because hesupposed that the sultan himself was at this time within the walls. Hehad heard that the sultan had retreated there with his flyingsquadron, taking with him all his treasure. 

This was, however, a mistake. The sultan was not there. He had gonethere, it is true, at first, and had taken with him the most valuableof his treasures, but before Genghis Khan arrived he had secretlywithdrawn to Samarcand, thinking that he might be safer there. 

In truth, the sultan was beginning to be very much disheartened anddiscouraged. Among other things which occurred to disturb his mind, certain letters were found and brought to him, as if they had beenintercepted, which letters gave accounts of a conspiracy among hisofficers to desert him and go over to the side of Genghis Khan. Theseletters were not signed, and the sultan could not discover who hadwritten them, but the pretended conspiracy which they revealed filledhis soul with anxiety and distress. 

It was only a pretended conspiracy after all, for the letters werewritten by a man in Genghis Khan's camp, and with Genghis Khan'spermission or connivance. This man was a Mohammedan, and had been inthe sultan's service; but the sultan had put to death his father andhis brothers on account of some alleged offense, and he had become soincensed at the act that he had deserted to Genghis Khan, and now hewas determined to do his former sovereign all the mischief in hispower. His intimate knowledge of persons and things connected with thesultan's court and army enabled him to write these letters in such away as to deceive the sultan completely. 

It was past midsummer when the army of Genghis Khan laid siege toBokhara, and it was not until the spring of the following year thatthey succeeded in carrying the outer wall, so strongly was the cityfortified and so well was it defended. After having forced the outerwall, the Monguls destroyed the suburbs of the town, devastated thecultivated gardens and grounds, and pillaged the villas. They thentook up their position around the inner wall, and commenced the siegeof the city itself in due form. 

The sultan had left three of his greatest generals in command of thetown. These men determined not to wait the operations of Genghis Khanin attacking the walls, but to make a sudden sally from the gates, with the whole force that could be spared, and attack the besiegers intheir intrenchments. They made this sally in the night, at a time whenthe Monguls were least expecting it. They were, however, whollyunsuccessful. They were driven back into the city with great loss. The generals, it seems, had determined to risk all on this desperateattempt, and, in case it failed, at once to abandon the city to itsfate. Accordingly, when driven into the city through the gates on oneside, they marched directly through it and passed out through thegates on the other side, hoping to save themselves and the garrison bythis retreat, with a view of ultimately rejoining the sultan. They, however, went first in a southerly direction from the city toward theRiver Amoor. The generals took their families and those of theprincipal officers of the garrison with them. 

The night was dark, and they succeeded in leaving the city withoutbeing observed. In the morning, however, all was discovered, andGenghis Khan sent off a strong detachment of well-mounted troops inpursuit. These troops, after about a day's chase, overtook the flyinggarrison near the river. There was no escape for the poor fugitives, and the merciless Monguls destroyed them almost every one by ridingover them, trampling them down with their horses' hoofs, and cuttingthem to pieces with their sabres. 

In the mean time, while this detachment had been pursuing thegarrison, Genghis Khan, knowing that there were no longer any troopswithin the city to defend it, and that every thing there was in utterconfusion, determined on a grand final assault; but, while his menwere getting the engines ready to batter down the walls, a procession, consisting of all the magistrates and clergy, and a great mass of theprincipal citizens, came forth from one of the gates, bearing withthem the keys of the city. These keys they offered to Genghis Khan intoken of surrender, and begged him to spare their lives. 

The emperor received the keys, and said to the citizens that he wouldspare their lives on condition that, if there were any of the sultan'ssoldiers concealed in the city, they would give them up, and that theywould also seize and deliver to him any of the citizens that weresuspected of being in the sultan's interest. This they took a solemnoath that they would do. 

The soldiers, however--that is, those that remained in the town--werenot delivered up. Most of them retired to the castle, which was a sortof citadel, and put themselves under the command of the governor ofthe castle, who, being a very energetic and resolute man, declaredthat he never would surrender. 

There were a great many of the young men of the town, sons of theleading citizens, who also retired to the castle, determined not toyield to the conqueror. 

Genghis Khan, having thus obtained the keys of the city itself, causedthe gates to be opened, and his troops marched in and took possession. He had promised the citizens that his soldiers should spare the livesof the people and should not pillage the houses on condition that themagistrates delivered up peaceably the public magazines of grain andother food to supply his army; also that all the people who had buriedor otherwise concealed gold and silver, or other treasures, shouldbring them forth again and give them up, or else make known where theywere concealed. This the people promised that they would do. 

After having entered the town, Genghis Khan was riding about thestreets on horseback at the head of his troop of guards when he cameto a large and very beautiful edifice. The doors were wide, and hedrove his horse directly in. His troops, and the other soldiers whowere there, followed him in. There were also with him some of themagistrates of the town, who were accompanying him in his progressabout the city. 

After the whole party had entered the edifice, Genghis Khan lookedaround, and then asked them, in a jeering manner, if that was thesultan's palace. 

"No, " said they, "it is the house of God. "

The building was a mosque. 

On hearing this, Genghis Khan alighted from his horse, and, giving thebridle to one of the principal magistrates to hold, he went up, in avery irreverent manner, to a sacred place where the priests wereaccustomed to sit. He seized the copy of the Koran which he foundthere, and threw it down under the feet of the horses. After amusinghimself for a time in desecrating the temple by these and othersimilar performances, he caused his soldiers to bring in theirprovisions, and allowed them to eat and drink in the temple, in ariotous manner, without any regard to the sacredness of the place, orto the feelings of the people of the town which he outraged by thisconduct. 

A few days after this Genghis Khan assembled all the magistrates andprincipal citizens of the town, and made a speech to them from anelevated stand or pulpit which was erected for the purpose. He beganhis speech by praising God, and claiming to be an object of hisspecial favor, in proof of which he recounted the victories which hehad obtained, as he said, through the Divine aid. He then went on todenounce the perfidious conduct of the sultan toward him in making asolemn treaty of peace with him and then treacherously murdering hismerchants and embassadors. He said that the sultan was a detestabletyrant, and that God had commissioned him to rid the earth of all suchmonsters. He said, in conclusion, that he would protect their lives, and would not allow his soldiers to take away their household goods, provided they surrendered to him fairly and honestly all their moneyand other treasures; and if any of them refused to do this, or to tellwhere their treasures were hid, he would put them to the torture, andcompel them to tell. 

The wretched inhabitants of the town, feeling that they were entirelyat the mercy of the terrible hordes that were in possession of thecity, did not attempt to conceal any thing. They brought forward theirhidden treasures, and even offered their household goods to theconqueror if he was disposed to take them. They were only anxious tosave, if possible, their dwellings and their lives. Genghis Khanappeared at first to be pleased with the submissive spirit which theymanifested, but at last, under pretense that he heard of some soldiersbeing concealed somewhere, and perhaps irritated at the citadel'sholding out so long against him, he ordered the town to be set onfire. The buildings were almost all of wood, and the fire raged amongthem with great fury. Multitudes of the inhabitants perished in theflames, and great numbers died miserably afterward from want andexposure. The citadel immediately afterward surrendered, and it wouldseem that Genghis Khan began to feel satisfied with the amount ofmisery which he had caused, for it is said that he spared the lives ofthe governor and of the soldiers, although we might have expected thathe would have massacred them all. 

The citadel was, however, demolished, and thus the town itself, andall that pertained to it, became a mass of smoking ruins. The propertypillaged from the inhabitants was divided among the Mongul troops, while the people themselves went away, to roam as vagabonds andbeggars over the surrounding country, and to die of want and despair. 

What difference is there between such a conqueror as this and thecaptain of a band of pirates or of robbers, except in the immensemagnitude of the scale on which he perpetrates his crimes?

The satisfaction which Genghis Khan felt at the capture of Bokhara wasgreatly increased by the intelligence which he received soon afterwardfrom the two princes whom he had sent to lay siege to Otrar, informinghim that that city had fallen into their hands, and that the governorof it, the officer who had so treacherously put to death theembassadors and the merchants, had been taken and slain. The name ofthis governor was Gayer Khan. The sultan, knowing that Genghis Khanwould doubtless make this city one of his first objects of attack, left the governor a force of fifty thousand men to defend it. Heafterward sent him an additional force of ten thousand men, under thecommand of a general named Kariakas. 

With these soldiers the governor shut himself up in the city. He knewvery well that if he surrendered or was taken he could expect nomercy, and he went to work accordingly strengthening thefortifications, and laying in stores of provisions, determined tofight to the last extremity. The captain of the guard who came toassist him had not the same reason for being so very obstinate in thedefense of the town, and this difference in the situation of the twocommanders led to difficulty in the end, as we shall presently see. 

The Mongul princes began the siege of Otrar by filling up the ditchesthat encircled the outer wall of the town in the places where theywished to plant their battering-rams to make breaches in the walls. They were hindered a great deal in their work, as is usual in suchcases, by the sallies of the besieged, who rushed upon them in thenight in great numbers, and with such desperate fury that they oftensucceeded in destroying some of the engines, or setting them on firebefore they could be driven back into the town. This continued forsome time, until at last the Mongul princes began to be discouraged, and they sent word to their father, who was then engaged in the siegeof Bokhara, informing him of the desperate defense which was made bythe garrison of Otrar, and asking his permission to turn the siegeinto a blockade--that is, to withdraw from the immediate vicinity ofthe walls, and to content themselves with investing the city closelyon every side, so as to prevent any one from going out or coming in, until the provisions of the town should be exhausted, and the garrisonbe starved into a surrender. In this way, they said, the lives of vastnumbers of the troops would be saved. 

But their father sent back word to them that they must do no suchthing, but must go on and _fight their way_ into the town, no matterhow many of the men were killed. 

So the princes began again with fresh ardor, and they pushed forwardtheir operations with such desperate energy that in less than a monththe outer wall, and the works of the besieged to defend it, were allin ruins. The towers were beaten down, the ramparts were broken, andmany breaches were made through which the besiegers might be expectedat any moment to force their way into the town. The besieged wereaccordingly obliged to abandon the outer walls and retire within theinner lines. 

The Monguls now had possession of the suburbs, and, after pillagingthem of all that they could convert to their own use, and burning anddestroying every thing else, they advanced to attack the inner works;and here the contest between the besiegers and the garrison wasrenewed more fiercely than ever. The besieged continued theirresistance for five months, defending themselves by every possiblemeans from the walls, and making desperate sallies from time to timein order to destroy the Monguls' engines and kill the men. 

At length Kariakas, the captain of the guard, who had been sent toassist the governor in the defense of the town, began to think it wastime that the carnage should cease and that the town should besurrendered. But the governor, who knew that he would most assuredlybe beheaded if in any way he fell into the hands of the enemy, wouldnot listen to any proposal of the kind. He succeeded, also, inexciting among the people of the town, and among the soldiers of thegarrison, such a hatred of the Monguls, whom he represented asinfidels of the very worst character, the enemies alike of God andman, that they joined him in the determination not to surrender. 

Kariakas now found himself an object of suspicion and distrust in thetown and in the garrison on account of his having made the proposal tosurrender, and feeling that he was not safe, he determined to make aseparate peace for himself and his ten thousand by going out secretlyin the night and giving himself up to the princes. He thought that bydoing this, and by putting the Monguls in possession of the gatethrough which his troops were to march out, so as to enable them togain admission to the city, his life would be spared, and that hemight perhaps be admitted into the service of Genghis Khan. 

But he was mistaken in this idea. The princes said that a man whowould betray his own countrymen would betray _them_ if he ever had agood opportunity. So they ordered him and all his officers to beslain, and the men to be divided among the soldiers as slaves. 

They nevertheless took possession of the gate by which the desertershad come out, and by this means gained admission to the city. Thegovernor fled to the citadel with all the men whom he could assemble, and shut himself up in it. Here he fought desperately for a month, making continual sallies at the head of his men, and doing every thingthat the most resolute and reckless bravery could do to harass andbeat off the besiegers. But all was in vain. In the end the walls ofthe citadel were so broken down by the engines brought to bear uponthem, that one day the Monguls, by a determined and desperate assaultmade on all sides simultaneously, forced their way in, through themost dreadful scenes of carnage and destruction, and began killingwithout mercy every soldier that they could find. 

The soldiers defended themselves to the last. Some took refuge innarrow courts and lanes, and on the roofs of the houses--for thecitadel was so large that it formed of itself quite a little town--andfought desperately till they were brought down by the arrows of theMonguls. The governor took his position, in company with two men whowere with him, on a terrace of his palace, and refused to surrender, but fought on furiously, determined to kill any one who attempted tocome near him. His wife was near, doing all in her power to encourageand sustain him. 

Genghis Khan had given orders to the princes not to kill the governor, but to take him alive. He wished to have the satisfaction of disposingof him himself. For this reason the soldiers who attempted to take himon the terrace were very careful not to shoot their arrows at him, butonly at the men who were with him, and while they did so a great manyof them were killed by the arrows which the governor and his twofriends discharged at those who attempted to climb up to the placewhere they were standing. 

[Illustration: THE GOVERNOR ON THE TERRACE. ]

After a while the two men were killed, but the governor remainedalive. Yet nobody could come near him. Those that attempted it wereshot, and fell back again among their companions below. The governor'swife supplied him with arrows as fast as he could use them. At lengthall the arrows were spent, and then she brought him stones, which hehurled down upon his assailants when they tried to climb up to him. But at last so many ascended together that the governor could not beatthem all back, and he was at length surrounded and secured, andimmediately put in irons. 

The princes wrote word at once to their father that the town wastaken, and that the governor was in their hands a prisoner. Theyreceived orders in return to bring him with them to Bokhara. While onthe way, however, another order came requiring them to put theprisoner to death, and this order was immediately executed. 

What was the fate of his courageous and devoted wife has never beenknown. 

CHAPTER XX. 

BATTLES AND SIEGES. 

1219-1220

Continuation of the war. --Saganak. --Hassan. --The murderedembassador. --Jughi's revenge. --Jughi's general policy. --Account ofa stratagem. --The town taken. --A beautiful city. --Toukat. --Toukattaken. --Arrangements for plundering it. --Kojend. --Timur Melek. --Hispreparations for defense. --Engines and battering-rams. --The floatingbatteries. --The morass. --Obstinate conflict. --The pretendeddeserters. --No more stones. --Building of the jetty. --The horsemen inthe water. --Timur's boats. --The fire-proof awnings. --The fire-boatsand the bridge. --The bridge burned. --Pursuit. --Battle in theriver. --The boats aground. --Timur's adventures. --He finallyescapes. --The governor's family. --Kojend surrendered. 

After the fall of Bokhara and Otrar, the war was continued for twoyears with great vigor by Genghis Khan and the Monguls, and the poorsultan was driven from place to place by his merciless enemies, untilat last his cause was wholly lost, and he himself, as will appear inthe next chapter, came to a miserable end. 

During the two years while Genghis Khan continued the war against him, a great many incidents occurred illustrating the modes of warfarepracticed in those days, and the sufferings which were endured by themass of the people in consequence of these terrible struggles betweenrival despots contending for the privilege of governing them. 

At one time Genghis Khan sent his son Jughi with a large detachment tobesiege and take a certain town named Saganak. As soon as Jughiarrived before the place, he sent in a flag of truce to call upon thepeople of the town to surrender, promising, at the same time, totreat them kindly if they would do so. 

The bearer of the flag was a Mohammedan named Hassan. Jughi probablythought that the message would be better received by the people of thetown if brought to them by one of their own countrymen, but he made agreat mistake in this. The people, instead of being pleased with themessenger because he was a Mohammedan, were very much exasperatedagainst him. They considered him a renegade and a traitor; and, although the governor had solemnly promised that he should be allowedto go and come in safety, so great a tumult arose that the governorfound it impossible to protect him, and the poor man was torn topieces by the mob. 

Jughi immediately assaulted the town with all his force, and as soonas he got possession of it he slaughtered without mercy all theofficers and soldiers of the garrison, and killed also about one halfof the inhabitants, in order to avenge the death of his murderedmessenger. He also caused a handsome monument to be erected to hismemory in the principal square of the town. 

Jughi treated the inhabitants of every town that dared to resist withextreme severity, while those that yielded at once were, in somedegree, spared and protected. The consequence of this policy was thatthe people of many of the towns surrendered without attempting todefend themselves at all. In one case the magistrates and otherprincipal inhabitants of a town came out to meet him a distance of twodays' journey from them, bringing with them the keys of the town, anda great quantity of magnificent presents, all of which they laid atthe conqueror's feet, and implored his mercy. 

There was one town which Jughi's force took by a kind of stratagem. Acertain engineer, whom he employed to make a reconnoissance of thefortifications, reported that there was a place on one side of thetown where there was a ditch full of water outside of the wall, whichmade the access to the wall there so difficult that the garrison wouldnot be at all likely to expect an attack on that side. The engineerproposed a plan for building some light bridges, which the soldierswere to throw over the ditch in the night, after having drawn off theattention of the garrison to some other quarter, and then, mountingupon the walls by means of ladders, to get into the town. This planwas adopted. The bridges and the ladders were prepared, and then, whenthe appointed night came, a feigned attack was made in the oppositepart of the town. The garrison were then all called off to repel thispretended attack, and in this way the wall opposite to the ditch wasleft undefended. The soldiers then threw the bridges over the ditch, and planted the ladders against the wall, and before the garrisoncould get intelligence of what they were doing they had made their wayinto the town, and had opened one of the gates, and by this means thewhole army got in. The engineer himself, who had proposed the plan, went up first on the first ladder that was planted against the wall. To take the lead in such an escalade required great coolness andcourage, for it was dark, and no one knew, in going up the ladder, howmany enemies he might have to encounter at the top of it. 

The next place which the army of Jughi approached was a quiet andbeautiful town, the seat of several institutions of learning, and theresidence of learned men and men of leisure. It was a very pleasantplace, full of fountains, gardens, and delightful pleasure-grounds, with many charming public and private promenades. The name of thisplace was Toukat, and the beauty and attractiveness of it wereproverbial through all the country. 

Toukat was a place rather of pleasure than of strength, and yet itwas surrounded by a wall, and the governor of it determined to make aneffort to defend it. The garrison fought bravely, and they kept thebesiegers off for three days. At the end of that time the engines ofthe Monguls had made so many breaches in the walls that the governorwas convinced that they would soon get in, and so he sent to Jughi toask for the terms on which he would allow them to surrender. Jughireplied that he would not now make any terms with him at all. It wastoo late. He ought to have surrendered at the beginning. 

So the Mongul army forced its way into the town, and slaughtered thewhole garrison without mercy. Jughi then ordered all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, to repair to a certain place on the plainoutside the walls. In obedience to this command, all the people wentto the appointed place. They went with fear and trembling, expectingthat they were all to be killed. But they found, in the end, that theobject of Jughi in bringing them thus out of the town was not to killthem, but only to call them away from the houses, so that the soldierscould plunder them more conveniently while the owners were away. Afterbeing kept out of the town for a time they were allowed to return, and when they went back to their houses they found that they had beenpillaged and stripped of every thing that the soldiers could carryaway. 

There was another large and important town named Kojend. It wassituated two or three hundred miles to the northward of Samarcand, onthe River Sir, which flows into Aral Lake. The governor of this citywas Timur Melek. He was a very powerful chieftain, and a man of greatmilitary renown, having often been in active service under the sultanas one of the principal generals of his army. When Timur heard of thefall of Toukat, he presumed that his city of Kojend would be nextattacked, as it seemed to come next in the way of the Mongul army; sohe began to make vigorous preparations for defense. He broke up allthe roads leading toward the town, and destroyed the bridges. He alsolaid in great supplies of food to maintain the inhabitants in case ofa protracted siege, and he ordered all the corn, fruits, and cattle ofthe surrounding country, which he did not require for this purpose, tobe taken away and stowed in secret places at a distance, to preventtheir falling into the hands of the enemy. 

Jughi did not himself attack this town, but sent a large detachmentunder the orders of a general named Elak Nevian. Elak advanced towardthe city and commenced his operations. The first thing that was to bedone was to rebuild a bridge over the river, so as to enable him togain access to the town, which was on the opposite bank. Then he setup immense engines at different points along the line, some of whichwere employed to batter down the walls, and others, at the same time, to throw stones, darts, and arrows over the parapets, in order todrive the garrison back from them. These engines did great execution. Those built to batter down the walls were of great size and power. Some of them, it was said, threw stones over the wall as big asmillstones. 

Timur Melek was equally active in the defense of the town. He built anumber of flat-bottomed boats, which might be called floatingbatteries, since they were constructed for throwing missiles of allsorts into the camp of the enemy. These batteries, it is said, werecovered over on the top to protect the men, and they had port-holes inthe sides, like a modern man-of-war, out of which, not cannon ballsand bomb-shells indeed, but arrows, darts, javelins, and stones wereprojected. The boats were sent out, some on the upper side of thetown and some on the lower, and were placed in stations where theycould most effectually reach the Mongul works. They were the means ofkilling and wounding great multitudes of men, and they greatlydisturbed and hindered the besiegers' operations. 

Still Elak persevered. He endeavored to shut up the city on every sideas closely as possible; but there was on one side a large morass orjungle which he could not guard, and Timur received a great manyre-enforcements, to take the place of the men who were killed on thewalls, by that way. In the mean time, however, Elak was continuallyreceiving re-enforcements too from Prince Jughi, who was not at agreat distance, and thus the struggle was continued with great fury. 

At last Timur contrived an ingenious stratagem, by which he hoped tocause his enemy to fall into a snare. It seems that there was a smallisland in the river, not far from the walls of the city, on which, before the siege commenced, Timur had built a fortress, to be held asa sort of advanced post, and had garrisoned the fortress with aboutone thousand men. Timur now, in order to divert the attention of theMonguls from the city itself, sent a number of men out from the city, who pretended to be deserters, and went immediately to the Mongulcamp. Of course, Elak questioned them about the defenses of the city, in order to learn where the weak points were for him to attack. Thepretended deserters advised him to attack this fortress on the island, saying that it could very easily be taken, and that its situation wassuch that, when it was taken, the city itself must surrender, for itcompletely commanded the place. 

So Elak caused his principal engines to be removed to the bank of theriver, opposite the island, and employed all his energies and spentall his ammunition in shooting at the fortress; but the river was sowide, and the walls of the fortress wore so thick and so high, that hemade very little impression. At last his whole supply of stones--forstones served in those days instead of cannon balls--was exhausted, and as the town was situated in an alluvial district, in which nostones were to be found, he was obliged to send ten or twelve miles tothe upland to procure a fresh supply of ammunition. All this consumedmuch time, and enabled the garrison to recruit themselves a great dealand to strengthen their defenses. 

The operations of the siege were in a great measure suspended whilethe men were obtaining a new supply of stones, and the wholedisposable force of the army was employed in going back and forth tobring them. At length an immense quantity were collected; but then theMongul general changed his plan. Instead of throwing the stones fromhis engines toward the fortress on the island, which it had beenproved was beyond his reach, he determined to build out a jetty intothe river toward it, so as to get a stand-point for his engines nearerthe walls, where they could have some chance of doing execution. So heset his men at work to prepare fascines, and bundles, and rafts oftimber, which were to be loaded with the stones and sunk in the riverto form the foundation for the proposed bank. The men would bring thestones down to the bank in their hands, and then horsemen, who wereready on the brink, would take them, and, resting them on the saddle, would drive their horses in until they came near the place where thestones were to go, when they would throw them down and then return forothers. In this way they could work upon the jetty in many parts atonce, some being employed in building at the end where it abutted onthe shore, while the horsemen were laying the foundations at the sametime out in the middle of the stream. The work of the horsemen wasvery difficult and dangerous, on account of holes in the sandy bottomof the river, into which they were continually sinking. Besides this, the garrison on the walls were doing their utmost all the time toimpede the work by shooting arrows, javelins, stones, and fiery dartsamong the workmen, by which means vast numbers, both of men andhorses, were killed. 

The Monguls, however, persevered, and, notwithstanding all theopposition which the garrison made, they succeeded in advancing themole which they were building so far that Timur was convinced thatthey would soon gain so advantageous a position that it would beimpossible for him to hold out against them. So he determined toattempt to make his escape. His plan was to embark on board his boats, with all his men, and go down the river in the night. 

In order to prepare for this undertaking, he employed his men secretlyin building more boats, until he had in all more than seventy. Theseboats were kept out of sight, in hidden places in the river, until allwere ready. Each of them was covered with a sort of heavy awning orroof, made of wet felt, which was plastered over with a coating ofclay and vinegar. This covering was intended both to defend the menfrom missiles and the boats themselves from being set on fire. 

There was one obstacle to the escape of the boats which it wasnecessary to remove beforehand, and that was the bridge which theMonguls had built across the river, just below the town, when theyfirst came to besiege it. To destroy this bridge, Timur one night madea sally from one of the gates, and attacked the men who were stationedto guard the bridge. At the same time he sent down the current of theriver a number of great flat-bottomed boats, filled with combustiblesof various kinds, mixed with tar and naphtha. These combustibles wereset on fire before they were launched, and, as the current of theriver bore them down one after another against the bridge, they setthe wooden piers and posts that supported it on fire, while the guard, being engaged with the party which had sallied from the town, couldnot go to extinguish the flames, and thus the bridge was consumed. 

The way being thus opened, Timur Melek very soon afterward embarkedhis family and the greater part of his army on board the boats in thenight; and, while the Monguls had no suspicion of what was going on, the boats were launched, and sent off one after another swiftly downthe stream. Before morning came all traces of the party had passedaway. 

Very soon, however, the Mongul general heard how his intended prey hadescaped him, and he immediately sent off a strong detachment to followthe southern bank of the river and pursue the fugitives. Thedetachment soon overtook them, and then a furious battle ensuedbetween the Mongul horsemen on the banks and in the margin of thewater and the men in the boats, who kept the boats all the time asnear as possible to the northern shore. 

Sometimes, however, when the stream was narrow, or when a rocky pointprojected from the northern shore, so as to drive the boats nearer tothe Mongul side, the battle became very fierce and bloody. The Mongulsdrove their horses far into the water, so as to be as near as possibleto the boats, and threw arrows, javelins, and fiery darts at them, while the Mohammedans defended themselves as well as they could fromtheir windows or port-holes. 

[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE BOATS. ]

Things went on in this way for some time, until, at length, the boatsarrived at a part of the river where the water was so shallow--beingobstructed by sand-bars and shoals--that the boats fell aground. Therewas nothing now for Timur to do but to abandon the boats and escapewith his men to the land. This he succeeded in doing; and, afterreaching the shore, he was able to form his men in array, on anelevated piece of ground, before Elak could bring up a sufficientnumber of men to attack him. 

When the Monguls at length came to attack him, he beat them off in thefirst instance, but he was obliged soon afterward to leave the fieldand continue his retreat. Of course, he was hotly pursued by theMonguls. His men became rapidly thinned in number, some being killed, and others getting separated from the main body in the confusion ofthe flight, until, at last, Timur was left almost alone. At last hewas himself on the very point of being taken. There were three Mongulsclosely pursuing him. He turned round and shot an arrow at theforemost of the pursuers. The arrow struck the Mongul in the eye. Theagony which the wounded man felt was so great that the two othersstopped to assist him, and in the mean time Timur got out of the way. In due time, and after meeting with some other hairbreadth escapes, hereached the camp of the sultan, who received him very joyfully, loadedhim with praises for the indomitable spirit which he had evinced, andimmediately made him governor of another city. 

In the mean time, some of the boats which had been abandoned by thesoldiers were got off by the men who had been left in charge ofthem--one especially, which contained the family of Timur. This boatwent quietly down the river, and conveyed the family to a place ofsafety. 

The city of Kojend, from which Timur and his men had fled, was, ofcourse, now without any means of defense, and it surrendered the verynext day to the Monguls. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

DEATH OF THE SULTAN. 

1220

Pursuit of the sultan. --The two ladies. --Character of thequeen-mother. --Khatun. --Her retirement. --Samarcand. --Fortificationsof the place. --Water-works. --Gates and towers. --Crowds of peopleseeking refuge. --Encampment. --Arrival of the Monguls. --Dissensionswithin the city. --A deputation. --Massacre. --Escape of thegovernor. --Forlorn condition of the sultan. --The sultan sends awayhis treasures. --His flight and his despondency. --Narrow escape. --Rageof his pursuers. --Visit from his son Jalaloddin. --His dyingwords. --Death and burial. --Khatun at Karazm. --Her cruelty to hercaptives. --Dissension. --Khatun's escape. --Her obstinacy. --Cause ofher hatred of Jalaloddin. --The siege of the fortress. --The governor'shopes. --Want of rain. --Great suffering. --The queen made captive. --Crueltreatment of the queen-mother. 

In the mean time, while Jughi and the other generals were ravaging thecountry with their detachments, and besieging and capturing all thesecondary towns and fortresses that came in their way, as related inthe last chapter, Genghis Khan himself, with the main body of thearmy, had advanced to Samarcand in pursuit of the sultan, who had, ashe supposed, taken shelter there. Samarcand was the capital of thecountry, and was then, as it has been since, a great and renownedcity. 

Besides the sultan himself, whom Genghis Khan was pursuing, there werethe ladies of his family whom he wished also to capture. The twoprincipal ladies were the sultana and the queen-mother. Thequeen-mother was a lady of very great distinction. She had beengreatly renowned during the lifetime of her husband, the formersultan, for her learning, her piety, the kindness of her heart, andthe general excellence of her character, so far as her dealings withher subjects and friends were concerned, and her influence throughoutthe realm had been unbounded. At some periods of her life she hadexercised a great deal of political power, and at one time she borethe very grand title of _Protectress of the faith of the world_. Sheexercised the power which she then possessed, in the main, in a verywise and beneficial manner. She administered justice impartially. Sheprotected the weak, and restrained the oppressions of the strong. Shelistened to all the cases which were brought before her with greatattention and patience, and arrived almost always at just conclusionsrespecting them. With all this, however, she was very strict andsevere, and, as has almost always been the case with women raised tothe possession of irresponsible power, she was unrelenting and cruelin the extreme whenever, as she judged, any political necessityrequired her to act with decision. Her name was Khatun. [E]

[Footnote E: Pronounced _Cah-toon_. ]

Khatun was not now at Samarcand. She was at Karazm, a city which wasthe chief residence of the court. She had been living there inretirement ever since the death of her husband, the present sultan'sfather. 

Samarcand itself, as has already been said, was a great and splendidcity. Like most of the other cities, it was inclosed in a double wall, though, in this case, the outer wall surrounded the whole city, whilethe inner one inclosed the mosque, the palace of the sultan, and someother public buildings. These walls were much better built and morestrongly fortified than those of Bokhara. There were twelve irongates, it is said, in the outer wall. These gates were a league apartfrom each other. At every two leagues along the wall was a fortcapable of containing a large body of men. The walls were likewisestrengthened with battlements and towers, in which the men could fightunder shelter, and they were surrounded by a broad and deep ditch, toprevent an enemy from approaching too near to them, in order toundermine them or batter them down. 

The city was abundantly supplied with water by means of hydraulicconstructions as perfect and complete as could be made in those days. The water was brought by leaden pipes from a stream which came downfrom the mountains at some distance from the town. It was conveyed bythese pipes to every part of the town, and was distributed freely, sothat every great street had a little current of water running throughit, and every house a fountain in the court or garden. Besides this, in a public square or park there was a mound where the water was madeto spout up in the centre, and then flow down in little rivulets andcascades on every side. 

The gates and towers which have been described were in the outer wall, and beyond them, in the environs, were a great many fields, gardens, orchards, and beautifully-cultivated grounds, which produced fruits ofall sorts, that were sent by the merchants into all the neighboringcountries. At a little distance the town was almost entirely concealedfrom view by these gardens and orchards, there being nothing to beseen but minarets, and some of the loftier roofs of the houses, risingabove the tops of the trees. 

There were so many people who flocked into Samarcand from thesurrounding country for shelter and protection, when they learned thatGenghis Khan was coming, that the place would hardly contain them. Inaddition to these, the sultan sent over one hundred thousand troops todefend the town, with thirty generals to command them. There weretwenty large elephants, too, that were brought with the army, to beemployed in any service which might be required of them during thesiege. This army, however, instead of entering the city at once, encamped about it. They strengthened the position of the camp by adeep ditch which they dug, throwing up the earth from the ditch on theside toward the camp so as to form a redoubt with which to defend theground from the Monguls. But as soon as Genghis Khan arrived they werespeedily driven from this post, and forced to take shelter within thewalls of the city. Here they defended themselves with so much vigorand resolution that Genghis Khan would probably have found it verydifficult to take the town had it not been for dissensions within thewalls. It seems that the rich merchants and other wealthy men of thecity, being convinced that the place would sooner or later fall intothe hands of the Monguls, thought it would be better to surrender itat once, while they were in a condition to make some terms by whichthey might hope to save their lives, and perhaps their property. 

But the generals would not listen to any proposition of this kind. They had been sent by the sultan to defend the town, and they feltbound in honor, in obedience to their orders, to fight in defense ofit to the last extremity. 

The dissension within the city grew more and more violent every day, until at length the party of the inhabitants grew so strong anddecided that they finally took possession of one of the gates, andsent a large deputation, consisting of priests, magistrates, and someof the principal citizens, to Genghis Khan, bearing with them the keysof the town, and proposing to deliver them up to him if he would sparethe garrison and the inhabitants. But he said he would make no termsexcept with those who were of their party and were willing tosurrender. In respect to the generals and the soldiers of the garrisonhe would make no promises. 

The deputation gave up the keys and Genghis Khan entered the city. Theinhabitants were spared, but the soldiers were massacred wherever theycould be found. A great many perished in the streets. A considerablebody of them, however, with the governor at their head, retreatedwithin the inner wall, and there defended themselves desperately forfour days. At the end of that time, finding that their case washopeless, and knowing that they could expect no quarter from theMonguls in any event, they resolved to make a sally and cut their waythrough the ranks of their enemies at all hazards. The governor, accordingly, put himself at the head of a troop of one thousand horse, and, coming out suddenly from his retreat, he dashed through the campat a time when the Monguls were off their guard, and so gained theopen country and made his escape. All the soldiers that remainedbehind in the city were immediately put to the sword. 

In the mean time, the sultan himself, finding that his affairs weregoing to ruin, retreated from province to province, accompanied by aslarge a force as he could keep together, and vainly seeking to findsome place of safety. He had several sons, and among them two whosetitles were Jalaloddin and Kothboddin. Jalaloddin was the oldest, andwas therefore naturally entitled to be his father's successor; but, for some reason or other, the queen-mother, Khatun, had taken adislike to him, and had persuaded her son, the sultan, to execute asort of act or deed by which Jalaloddin was displaced, and Kothboddin, who was a great favorite of hers, was made heir to the throne in hisplace. 

The sultan had other sons who were governors of different provinces, and he fled from one to another of these, seeking in vain for somesafe retreat. But he could find none. He was hunted from place toplace by detachments of the Monguls, and the number of his attendantsand followers was continually diminishing, until at last he began tobe completely discouraged. 

At length, at one of the cities where he made a short stay, hedelivered to an officer named Omar, who was the steward of hishousehold, ten coffers sealed with the royal signet, with instructionsto take them secretly to a certain distant fortress and lock them upcarefully there, without allowing any one to know that he did it. 

These coffers contained the royal jewels, and they were of inestimablevalue. 

After this, one of his sons joined him with quite a large force, butvery soon a large body of Monguls came up, and, after a furiousbattle, the sultan's troops were defeated and scattered in alldirections; and he was again obliged to fly, accompanied by a verysmall body of officers, who still contrived to keep near him. Withthese he succeeded, at last, in reaching a very retired town near theCaspian Sea, where he hoped to remain concealed. His strength was nowspent, and all his courage gone. He sank down into a condition of thegreatest despondency and distress, and spent his time in going to themosque and offering up prayers to God to save him from total ruin. Hemade confession of his sins, and promised an entire amendment of lifeif the Almighty would deliver him from his enemies and restore him tohis throne. 

At last the Mongul detachment that was in pursuit of him in that partof the country were informed by a peasant where he was; and one day, while he was at his prayers in the mosque, word was brought to himthat the Monguls were coming. He rushed out of the mosque, and, guidedby some friends, ran down to the shore and got into a boat, with aview of escaping by sea, all retreat by land being now cut off. 

He had scarce got on board the boat when the Monguls appeared on theshore. The men in the boat immediately pushed off. The Monguls, fullof disappointment and rage, shot at them with their arrows; but thesultan was not struck by any of them, and was soon out of the reach ofhis pursuers. 

The sultan lay in the boat almost helpless, being perfectly exhaustedby the terror and distress which he had endured. He soon began tosuffer, too, from an intense pain in the chest and side, whichgradually became so severe that he could scarcely breathe. The menwith him in the boat, finding that he was seriously sick, made thebest of their way to a small island named Abiskun, which is situatednear the southeastern corner of the sea. Here they pitched a tent, andmade up a bed in it, as well as they could, for the sufferer. Theyalso sent a messenger to the shore to bring off a physician secretly. The physician did all that was in his power, but it was too late. Theinflammation and the pain subsided after a time, but it was evidentthat the patient was sinking, and that he was about to die. 

It happened that the sultan's son, Jalaloddin, the one who had beenset aside in favor of his brother Kothboddin, was at this time on themain land not far from the island, and intelligence was communicatedto him of his father's situation. He immediately went to the island tosee him, taking with him two of his brothers. They were obliged tomanage the business very secretly, to prevent the Monguls from findingout what was going on. 

On the arrival of Jalaloddin, the sultan expressed great satisfactionin seeing him, and he revoked the decree by which he had beensuperseded in the succession. 

"You, my son, " said he, "are, after all, the one among all my childrenwho is best able to revenge me on the Monguls; therefore I revoke theact which I formerly executed at the request of the queen, my mother, in favor of Kothboddin. "

He then solemnly appointed Jalaloddin to be his successor, andenjoined upon the other princes to be obedient and faithful to him astheir sovereign. He also formally delivered to him his sword as theemblem and badge of the supreme power which he thus conferred uponhim. 

Soon after this the sultan expired. The attendants buried the bodysecretly on the island for fear of the Monguls. They washed itcarefully before the interment, according to custom, and then put onagain a portion of the same dress which the sultan had worn whenliving, having no means of procuring or making any other shroud. 

As for Khatun, the queen-mother, when she heard the tidings of herson's death, and was informed, at the same time, that her favoriteKothboddin had been set aside, and Jalaloddin, whom she hated, andwho, she presumed, hated her, had been made his successor, she was ina great rage. She was at that time at Karazm, which was the capital, and she attempted to persuade the officers and soldiers near her notto submit to the sultan's decree, but to make Kothboddin theirsovereign after all. 

While she was engaged in forming this conspiracy, the news reached thecity that the Monguls were coming. Khatun immediately determined toflee to save her life. She had, it seems, in her custody at Karazmtwelve children, the sons of various princes that reigned in differentparts of the empire or in the environs of it. These children wereeither held as hostages, or had been made captive in insurrections andwars, and were retained in prison as a punishment to their fathers. The queen-mother found that she could not take these children withher, and so she ordered them all to be slain. She was afraid that theMonguls, when they came, might set them free. 

As soon as she was gone the city fell into great confusion on accountof the struggles for power between the two parties of Jalaloddin andKothboddin. But the sultana, who had made the mischief, did nottrouble herself to know how it would end. Her only anxiety was to saveher own life. After various wanderings and adventures, she at lastfound her way into a very retired district of country lying on thesouthern shore of the Caspian, between the mountains and the sea, andhere she sought refuge in a castle or fortress named Ilan, where shethought she was secure from all pursuit. She brought with her to thecastle her jewels and all her most valuable treasures. 

But Genghis Khan had spies in every part of the country, and he wassoon informed where Khatun was concealed. So he sent a messenger to acertain Mongul general named Hubbe Nevian, who was commanding adetachment in that part of the country, informing him that Khatun wasin the castle of Ilan, and commanding him to go and lay siege to it, and to take it at all hazards, and to bring Khatun to him either deador alive. 

Hubbe immediately set off for the castle. The queen-mother, however, had notice of his approach, and the lords who were with her urged herto fly. If she would go with them, they said, they would take her toJalaloddin, and he would protect her. But she would not listen to anysuch proposal. She hated Jalaloddin so intensely that she would not, even to save her life, put herself under his power. The very worstpossible treatment, she said, that she could receive from the Mongulswould be more agreeable to her than the greatest favors from the handof Jalaloddin. 

The ground of this extreme animosity which she felt toward Jalaloddinwas not any personal animosity to _him_; it arose simply from anancient and long-continued dislike and hatred which she had borneagainst his mother!

So Khatun refused to retire from the danger, and soon afterward thehorde of Monguls arrived, and pitched their camp before the castlewalls. 

For three months Hubbe and his Monguls continued to ply the walls ofthe fortress with battering-rams and other engines, in order to forcetheir way in, but in vain. The place was too strong for them. Atlength Genghis Khan, hearing how the case stood, sent word to them togive up the attempt to make a breach, and to invest the place closelyon all sides, so as to allow no person to go out or to come in; inthat way, he said, the garrison would soon be starved into asurrender. 

When the governor of the castle saw, by the arrangements which Hubbemade in obedience to this order, that this was the course that was tobe pursued, he said he was not uneasy, for his magazines were full ofprovisions, and as to water, the rain which fell very copiously thereamong the mountains always afforded an abundant supply. 

But the governor was mistaken in his calculations in respect to therain. It usually fell very frequently in that region, but after theblockade of the fortress commenced, for three weeks there was not thesmallest shower. The people of the country around thought this failureof the rain was a special judgment of heaven against the queen for themurder of the children, and for her various other crimes. It was, indeed, remarkable, for in ordinary times the rain was so frequentthat the people of all that region depended upon it entirely for theirsupply of water, and never found it necessary to search for springs orto dig wells. 

The sufferings of the people within the fortress for want of waterwere very great. Many of them died in great misery, and at length theprovisions began to fail too, and Khatun was compelled to allow thegovernor to surrender. 

The Monguls immediately seized the queen, and took possession of allher treasures. They also took captive all the lords and ladies who hadattended her, and the women of her household, and two or three of hergreat-grandchildren, whom she had brought with her in her flight. Allthese persons were sent under a strong guard to Genghis Khan. 

Genghis Khan retained the queen as a captive for some time, andtreated her in a very cruel and barbarous manner. He would sometimesorder her to be brought into his tent, at the end of his dinner, thathe might enjoy his triumph by insulting and deriding her. On theseoccasions he would throw her scraps of food from the table as if shehad been a dog. 

He took away the children from her too, all but one, whom he left withher a while to comfort her, as he said; but one day an officer cameand seized this one from her very arms, while she was dressing him andcombing his hair. This last blow caused her a severer pang than anythat she had before endured, and left her utterly disconsolate andheart-broken. 

Some accounts say that soon after this she was put to death, butothers state that Genghis Khan retained her several years as acaptive, and carried her to and fro in triumph in his train throughthe countries over which she had formerly reigned with so much powerand splendor. She deserved her sufferings, it is true; but GenghisKhan was none the less guilty, on that account, for treating her socruelly. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGNS. 

1220-1221

Continued conquests. --Efforts of Jalaloddin. --Jalaloddinbecomes discouraged. --The governor's advice. --Renewedexertions. --Stratagem. --Fictitious soldiers. --Quarrel about ahorse. --Disaffection. --Jalaloddin's forces divided. --Great battlein the defile. --Orders to take Jalaloddin alive. --He takes leaveof his family. --His escape across the river. --His defiance ofhis pursuers. --Struggles of the horse. --Night spent in atree. --Jalaloddin meets with friends. --Large body of menescaped. --Pressing wants. --Timely aid from Jamalarrazad. --Fateof the sultan's family. --Sunken treasures. --Jalaloddin'send. --Sieges. --Logs instead of stones for ammunition. --Modernbombs. --Bringing stones. --Occupation of slaves. --Shields. --Protectionagainst fire. --Precautions. --Attempts at resistance. --Account ofKubru. --His noble spirit. --Kubru slain. --Pusillanimity. --Sorties bythe garrisons. --Desperation of the people. --Mode of disposing ofprisoners. --Prodigious slaughter. --Atrocities. --The pearl. --GenghisKhan's grandson killed. --His mother's revenge. --Principles of theMohammedan faith. --Genghis Khan's opinion. --The spirit of religiousbigotry. 

After this Genghis Khan went on successfully for several years, extending his conquests over all the western part of Central Asia, while the generals whom he had left at home were extending hisdominions in the same manner in the eastern portion. He overran nearlyall of Persia, went entirely around the Caspian Sea, and evenapproached the confines of India. 

In this expedition toward India he was in pursuit of Jalaloddin. Immediately after the death of his father, Jalaloddin had done all inhis power to raise an army and carry on the war against Genghis Khan. He met with a great deal of embarrassment and difficulty at first, onaccount of the plots and conspiracies which his grandmother hadorganized in favor of his brother Kothboddin, and the dissensionsamong his people to which they gave rise. At last, in the course of ayear, he succeeded, in some measure, in healing this breach and inraising an army; and, though he was not strong enough to fight theMonguls in a general battle, he hung about them in their march andharassed them in various ways, so as to impede their operations veryessentially. Genghis Khan from time to time sent off detachments fromhis army to take him. He was often defeated in the engagements whichensued, but he always succeeded in saving himself and in keepingtogether a portion of his men, and thus he maintained himself in thefield, though he was growing weaker and weaker all the time. 

At last he became completely discouraged, and, after signal defeatwhich he met with from a detachment which had been sent against him byGenghis Khan, he went, with the few troops that remained together, toa strong fortress among the mountains, and told the governor that itseemed to him useless to continue the struggle any longer, and that hehad come to shut himself up in the fortress, and abandon the contestin despair. 

The governor, however, told him that it was not right for a prince, the descendant of ancestors so illustrious as his, and the inheritorof so resplendent a crown, to yield to discouragement and despondencyon account of the reverses of fortune. He advised him again to takethe field, and to raise a new army, and continue the contest to theend. 

Jalaloddin determined to follow this advice, and, after a brief periodof repose at the castle, he again took the field. 

He made great exertions, and finally succeeded in getting togetherabout twenty thousand men. This was a small force, it is true, compared with the numbers of the enemy; but it was sufficient, if wellmanaged, to enable the prince to undertake operations of considerableimportance, and Jalaloddin began to feel somewhat encouraged again. With his twenty thousand men he gained one or two victories too, whichencouraged him still more. In one of these cases he defeated rather asingular stratagem which the Mongul general contrived. It seems thatthe Mongul detachment which was sent out in this instance againstJalaloddin was not strong enough, and the general, in order to makeJalaloddin believe that his force was greater than it really was, ordered all the felt caps and cloaks that there were in the army to bestuffed with straw, and placed on the horses and camels of thebaggage, in order to give the appearance of a second line of reservein the rear of the line of real soldiers. This was to induceJalaloddin to surrender without fighting. 

But in some way or other Jalaloddin detected the deceit, and, insteadof surrendering, fought the Monguls with great vigor, and defeatedthem. He gained a very decided victory, and perhaps this might havebeen the beginning of a change of fortune for him if, unfortunately, his generals had not quarreled about the division of the spoil. Therewas a beautiful Arabian horse which two of his leading generalsdesired to possess, and each claimed it. The dispute became, at last, so violent that one of the generals struck the other in his face withthe lash of his whip. Upon this the feud became a deadly one. Bothparties appealed to Jalaloddin. He did not wish to make either generalan enemy by deciding in favor of the other, and so he tried tocompromise the matter. He did not succeed in doing this; and one ofthe generals, mortally offended, went off in the night, taking withhim all that portion of the troops which was under his command. 

Jalaloddin did every thing in his power to bring the disaffectedgeneral back again; but, before he could accomplish this purpose, Genghis Khan came up with a large force between the two parties, andprevented their effecting a junction. 

Jalaloddin had now no alternative but to retreat. Genghis Khanfollowed him, and it was in this way that, after a time, both thearmies reached the banks of the Indus, on the borders of India. 

Jalaloddin, being closely pursued, took his position in a narrowdefile near the bank of the river, and here a great battle was foughtamong the rocks and precipices. Jalaloddin, it is said, had onlythirty thousand men at his command, while Genghis Khan was at the headof an army of three hundred thousand. The numbers in both cases areprobably greatly exaggerated, but the proportion may perhaps be true. 

It was only a small portion of the Mongul army that could get into thedefile where the sultan's troops had posted themselves; and sodesperately did the latter fight, that it is said they killed twentythousand of the Monguls before they gave in. In fact, they fought likewild beasts, with desperate and unremitting fury, all day long. Towardnight it became evident to Jalaloddin that it was all over with him. Alarge portion of his followers were killed. Some had made their escapeacross the river, though many of those who sought to do so weredrowned in the attempt. The rest of his men were completely exhaustedand discouraged, and wholly unable to renew the contest on thefollowing day. 

Jalaloddin had exposed himself very freely in the fight, in hopes, perhaps, that he should be killed. But Genghis Khan had given positiveorders that he should be taken alive. He had even appointed two of hisgenerals to watch carefully, and to see that no person should, underany circumstances, kill him. He wished to take him alive, in order tolead him through the country a prisoner, and exhibit him to his formersubjects as a trophy of his victory, just as he had done and was stilldoing with the old queen Khatun, his grandmother. 

But Jalaloddin was determined that his conqueror should not enjoy thispleasure. He resolved to attempt to save himself by swimming theriver. He accordingly went first, breathless, and covered with dustand blood from the fight, to take a hurried leave of his mother, hiswives, and his children, who, as was customary in those countries andtimes, had accompanied him in his campaign. He found them in his tent, full of anxiety and terror. He took leave of them with much sorrow andmany tears, trying to comfort them with the hope that they shouldmeet again in happier times. Then he took off his armor and his arms, in order that he might not be impeded in crossing the river, reserving, however, his sword and bow, and a quiver full of arrows. Hethen mounted a fresh horse and rode toward the river. 

When he reached the bank of the river, the horse found the current sorapid and the agitation of the water so great that he was veryunwilling to advance; but Jalaloddin spurred him in. Indeed, there wasno time to be lost; for scarcely had he reached the shore when GenghisKhan himself, and a party of Monguls, appeared in view, advancing toseize him. They stopped on the bank when they saw Jalaloddin ride intothe water among the rocks and whirlpools. They did not dare to followhim, but they remained at the water-side to see how his perilousadventure would end. 

As soon as Jalaloddin found that he was out of their reach, he stoppedat a place where his horse found a foothold, and turned round towardhis pursuers with looks of hatred and defiance. He then drew his bow, and began to shoot at them with his arrows, and he continued to shootuntil all the arrows in his quiver were exhausted. Some of the moredaring of the Monguls proposed to Genghis Khan that they should swimout and try to take him. But Genghis Khan would not allow them to go. He said the attempt would be useless. 

"You can do nothing at all with him, " said he. "A man of such cool anddetermined bravery as that will defy and defeat all your attempts. Anyfather might be proud to have such a son, and any son proud to bedescended from such a father. "

When his arrows were all expended, Jalaloddin took to the river again;and his horse, after a series of most desperate struggles among thewhirlpools and eddies, and the boiling surges which swept around therocks, succeeded at length in carrying his master over. The progressof the horse was watched with great interest by Genghis Khan and hisparty from the shore as long as they could see him. 

As soon as Jalaloddin landed, and had recovered a little from thefatigue and excitement of the passage, he began to look around him, and to consider what was next to be done. He found himself entirelyalone, in a wild and solitary place, which he had reason to fear wasinfested with tigers and other ferocious beasts of prey, such as hauntthe jungles in India. Night was coming on too, and there were no signsof any habitations or of any shelter. So he fastened his horse at thefoot of a tree, and climbed up himself among the branches, and in thisway passed the night. 

The next morning he came down and began to walk along the bank of theriver to see what he could find. He was in a state of great anxietyand distress. Suddenly, to his great relief and joy, he came upon asmall troop of soldiers, accompanied by some officers, who had escapedacross the river from the battle as he had done. Three of theseofficers were his particular friends, and he was overjoyed to seethem. They had made their way across the river in a boat which theyhad found upon the bank at the beginning of the defeat of the army. They had spent the whole night in the boat, being in great danger fromthe shoals and shelving rocks, and from the impetuosity of thecurrent. Finally, toward morning, they had landed, not far from theplace where Jalaloddin found them. 

Not long after this he came upon a troop of three hundred horsemen, who had escaped by swimming the river at a place where the water wasmore smooth, at some distance below. These men told him that about sixmiles farther down the stream there was a body of about four thousandmen who had made their escape in a similar manner. On assemblingthese men, Jalaloddin found himself once more at the head of aconsiderable force. 

The immediate wants of the men were, however, extremely pressing, forthey were all wholly destitute of food and of every other necessary, and Jalaloddin would have been greatly embarrassed to provide for themhad it not been for the thoughtfulness and fidelity of one of theofficers of his household on the other side of the river. Thisofficer's name was Jamalarrazad. As soon as he found that his masterhad crossed the river, knowing, too, that a great number of the troopshad attempted to cross besides, and that, in all probability, many ofthem had succeeded in reaching the other bank, who would all begreatly in want of provisions and stores the next morning, he went towork at once, during the night, and loaded a very large boat withprovisions, arms, money, and stuff to make clothing for the soldiers. He succeeded in getting off in this boat before his plan wasdiscovered by the Monguls, and in the course of the next morning hereached the opposite bank with it, and thus furnished to Jalaloddin anabundant provision for his immediate necessities. 

Jalaloddin was so much pleased with the conduct of Jamalarrazad inthis affair that he appointed him at once to a very high andresponsible office in his service, and gave him a new title of honor. 

In the mean time, Genghis Khan, on the other side of the river, tookpossession the next morning of Jalaloddin's camp. Of course, thefamily of the sultan fell into his hands. The emperor ordered all themales to be killed, but he reserved the women for a different fate. Among the persons killed was a boy about eight years old, Jalaloddin'soldest son. 

Jalaloddin had ordered his treasure to be sunk in the river, intending, probably, to come back and recover it at some future time. But Genghis Khan found out in some way where it was sunk, and he sentdivers down for it, and thus obtained possession of it as a part ofhis booty. 

After this, Jalaloddin remained five or six years in India, where hejoined himself and his army with some of the princes of that country, and fought many campaigns there. At length, when a favorableopportunity occurred, he came back to his own country, and fought sometime longer against the Monguls there, but he never succeeded ingaining possession of any substantial power. 

Genghis Khan continued after this for two or three years in theMohammedan countries of the western part of Asia, and extended hisconquests there in every direction. It is not necessary to follow hismovements in detail. It would only be a repetition of the same tale ofrapine, plunder, murder, and devastation. Sometimes a city wouldsurrender at once, when the conqueror approached the gates, by sendingout a deputation of the magistrates and other principal inhabitantswith the keys of the city, and with magnificent presents, in hopes toappease him. And they usually so far succeeded in this as to put theMongul soldiery in good-humor, so that they would content themselveswith ransacking and plundering the place, leaving the inhabitantsalive. At other times the town would attempt to resist. The Mongulswould then build engines to batter down the walls, and to hurl greatstones over among the besieged. In many instances there was greatdifficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of stones, on account ofthe alluvial character of the ground on which the city stood. In suchcases, after the stones found near were exhausted, the besiegers wouldcut down great trees from the avenues leading to the town, or from theforests near, and, sawing the trunk up into short lengths, would usethe immense blocks thus formed as ammunition for the engines. Thesegreat logs of heavy wood, when thrown over the walls, were capable ofdoing almost as much execution as the stones, though, compared with amodern bomb-shell--a monstrous ball of iron, which, after flying fouror five miles from the battery, leaving on its way a fiery trainthrough the air, descends into a town and bursts into a thousandfragments, which fly like iron hail in every direction around--theywere very harmless missiles. 

In sawing up the trunks of the trees into logs, and in bringing stonesfor the engines, the Monguls employed the prisoners whom they hadtaken in war and made slaves of. The amount of work of this kind whichwas to be done at some of the sieges was very great. It is said thatat the siege of Nishabur--a town whose inhabitants greatly offendedGenghis Khan by secretly sending arms, provisions, and money toJalaloddin, after they had once surrendered to the Monguls andpretended to be friendly to them--the army of the Monguls employedtwelve hundred of these engines, all of which were made at a town atsome distance from the place besieged, and were then transported, inparts, by the slaves, and put together by them under the walls. Whilethe slaves were employed in works of this kind, they were sometimesprotected by wooden shields covered with raw hides, which were carriedbefore them by other slaves, to keep off and extinguish the fierydarts and arrows which were shot at them from the wall. 

Sometimes, too, the places where the engines were set up wereprotected by wooden bulwarks, which, together with the frame-workitself of the engines, were covered with raw hides, to prevent theirbeing set on fire by the enemy. The number of raw hides required forthis purpose was immense, and to obtain them the Monguls slaughteredvast herds of horses and cattle which they plundered from the enemy. 

In order to embarrass the enemy in respect to ammunition for theirengines, the people of a town, when they heard that the Monguls werecoming, used to turn out sometimes in mass, several days before, andgather up all the stones they could find, and throw them into theriver, or otherwise put them out of the way. 

In some cases, the towns that were threatened, as has already beensaid, did not attempt to resist, but submitted at once, and castthemselves on the mercy of the conqueror. In such cases the Mongulgenerals usually spared the lives of the inhabitants, though theyplundered their property. It sometimes happened, too, that afterattempting to defend themselves for some time, the garrison wouldbecome discouraged, and then would attempt to make some terms orconditions with the conqueror before they surrendered. In these cases, however, the terms which the Monguls insisted upon were often so hardthat, rather than yield to them, the garrison would go on fighting tothe end. 

In one instance there lived in a town that was to be assailed acertain sheikh, or prince, named Kubru, who was a man of very exaltedcharacter, as well as of high distinction. The Mongul general whomGenghis Khan had commissioned to take the town was his third son, Oktay. Oktay had heard of the fame of the sheikh, and had conceived avery high respect for him. So he sent a herald to the wall with apassport for the sheikh, and for ten other persons such as he shouldchoose, giving him free permission to leave the town and go whereverhe pleased. But the sheikh declined the offer. Then Oktay sent inanother passport, with permission to the sheikh to take a thousand menwith him. But he still refused. He could not accept Oktay's bounty, he said, unless it were extended to all the Mohammedans in the town. He was obliged to take his lot with the rest, for he was bound to hispeople by ties too strong to be easily sundered. 

So the siege went on, and at the end of it, when the town was carried, the sheikh was slain with the rest in the streets, where he stood hisground to the last, fighting like a lion. 

All the Mohammedan chieftains, however, did not possess so noble aspirit as this. One chieftain, when he found that the Monguls werecoming, caused himself to be let down with ropes from the wall in thenight, and so made his escape, leaving the town and the garrison totheir fate. 

The garrisons of the towns, knowing that they had little mercy toexpect from their terrible enemies, fought often very desperately tothe last, as they would have done against beasts of prey. They wouldsuddenly open the gates and rush out in large bands, provided withcombustibles of all kinds and torches, with which they would set fireto the engines of the besiegers, and then get back again within thewalls before the Monguls could recover sufficiently from the alarm andconfusion to intercept them. In this manner they destroyed a greatmany of the engines, and killed vast numbers of men. 

Still the Monguls would persevere, and, sooner or later, the place wassure to fall. Then, when the inhabitants found that all hope was over, they had become so desperate in their hatred of their foes that theywould sometimes set the town on fire with their own hands, and throwthemselves and their wives and children into the flames, rather thanfall into the hands of their infuriated enemies. 

The cruelties which the Monguls perpetrated upon their unhappy victimswhen, after a long resistance, they finally gained possession of atown, were indeed dreadful. They usually ordered all the people tocome out to an open space on the plain, and there, after taking outall the young and able-bodied men, who could be made useful inbringing stones and setting up engines, and other such labors, andalso all the young and beautiful women, to be divided among the armyor sold as slaves, they would put the rest together in a mass, andkill them all by shooting at them with arrows, just as if they hadbeen beasts surrounded in a chase, excepting that the excitement andpleasure of shooting into such a mass of human victims, and of hearingthe shrieks and cries of their terror, was probably infinitelygreater to their brutal murderers than if it had been a herd of lions, tigers, and wolves that they were destroying. 

It is said by the historians that in one case the number of peopleordered out upon the plain was so great that it took four days forthem to pass out and assemble at the appointed place, and that, afterthose who were to be spared had been separated from the rest, thenumber that were left to be slain was over one hundred thousand, asrecorded by the secretaries who made an enumeration of them. 

In another case the slaughter was so great that it took twelve days tocount the number of the dead. 

Some of the atrocities which were perpetrated upon the prisoners werealmost too horrible to be described. In one case a woman, quiteadvanced in years, begged the Monguls to spare her life, and promisedthat, if they would do so, she would give them a pearl of great value. 

They asked her where the pearl was, and she said she had swallowed it. The Monguls then immediately cut her down, and ripped her body openwith their swords to find the pearl. They found it, and then, encouraged by this success, and thinking it probable that other womenmight have attempted to hide their jewels in the same way, theyproceeded to kill and cut open a great number of women to search forpearls in their bodies, but they found no more. 

At the siege of a certain city, called Bamiyan, a young grandson ofGenghis Khan, wishing to please his grandfather by his daring, approached so near the wall that he was reached by an arrow shot byone of the archers, and killed. Genghis Khan was deeply affected bythis event, and he showed by the bitterness of his grief that, thoughhe was so utterly heartless and cruel in inflicting these woes uponothers, he could feel for himself very acutely when it came to histurn to suffer. As for the mother of the child, she was renderedperfectly furious by his death. She thought of nothing but revenge, and she only waited for the town to be taken in order that she mightenjoy it. When, at last, a practicable breach was made, and thesoldiers began to pour into the city, she went in with the rest, andinsisted that every man, woman, and child should be put to death. Herspecial rage was directed against the children, whom she seemed totake special pleasure in destroying, in vengeance for the death of herown child. The hatred and rage which she manifested against childrenextended even to babes unborn, and these feelings she evinced byatrocities too shocking to be described. 

The opinions which Genghis Khan entertained on religious subjectsappear from a conversation which he held at one time during the courseof his campaigns in Western Asia with some learned Mohammedan doctorsat Bokhara, which was the great seat at that time of science andphilosophy. He asked the doctors what were the principles of theirreligion. They replied that these principles consisted of fivefundamental points:

 1. In believing in one God, the creator of all things, and the supreme ruler and governor of the universe. 

 2. In giving one fortieth part of their yearly income or gains to the poor. 

 3. In praying to God five times every day. 

 4. In setting apart one month in each year for fasting. 

 5. In making a pilgrimage to the temple in Mecca, there to worship God. 

Genghis Khan told them that he believed himself in the first of thesearticles, and he approved of the three succeeding ones. It was verywell, he said, to give one fortieth of one's income to the poor, andto pray to God five times a day, and to set apart a month in the yearfor a fast. But as to the last article, he could not but dissent fromit entirely, for the whole world was God's house, and it wasridiculous, he said, to imagine that one place could really be anymore fitting than another as a place for worshiping him. 

The learned doctors were much dissatisfied with this answer. Theywere, in fact, more displeased with the dissent which the emperorexpressed from this last article, the only one that was purely andwholly ritual in its character, than they were gratified with theconcurrence which he expressed in all the other four. This is not atall surprising, for, from the times of the Pharisees down to thepresent day, the spirit of sectarianism and bigotry in religion alwaysplants itself most strongly on the platform of externals. It is alwayscontending strenuously for rites, while it places comparatively in thebackground all that bears directly on the vital and spiritualinterests of the soul. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

GRAND CELEBRATIONS. 

1221-1224

The great hunting party. --Object of the hunt. --The general plan. --Thetime arrives. --Orders. --Progress of the operations. --Terror of theanimals. --The inner circle. --Condition of the beasts. --The princesenter the ring. --Intimidation of the wild beasts. --They recover theirferocity when attacked. --The slaughter. --Petition of the youngmen. --End of the hunt. --The assembly at Toukat. --Return of GenghisKhan's sons. --Present of horses. --The khans arrive. --Grandentertainment. --Drinks. --Great extent of the encampment. --Layingout the encampment. --The state tent. --The throne. --Businesstransacted. --Leave-taking. --The assembly is dismissed. 

When Genghis Khan found that his conquests in Western Asia were insome good degree established and confirmed, he illustrated his victoryand the consequent extension of his empire by two very imposingcelebrations. The first was a grand hunt. The second was a solemnconvocation of all the estates of his immense realm in a sort of dietor deliberative assembly. 

The accounts given by the historians of both these celebrations aredoubtless greatly exaggerated. Their description of the hunt is asfollows:

It was after the close of the campaign in 1221 that it took place, while the army were in winter quarters. The object of the hunt was tokeep the soldiers occupied, so as to avoid the relaxation ofdiscipline, and the vices and disorder which generally creep into acamp where there are no active occupations to engage the minds of themen. The hunt took place in a vast region of uninhabited country, which was infested with wild beasts of every kind. The soldiers weremarched out on this expedition in order of war, as if it were acountry occupied by armed men that they were going to attack. Thedifferent detachments were conducted to the different points in theoutskirts of the country, from which they severally extendedthemselves to the right and left, so as completely to inclose theground. And the space was so large, it is said, which was thusinclosed, that it took them several weeks to march in to the centre. 

It is true that in such a case the men would advance very slowly, perhaps only a few miles each day, in order that they might examinethe ground thoroughly, and leave no ravine, or thicket, or otherlurking-place, where beasts might conceal themselves, unexplored. Still, the circle was doubtless immensely large. 

When the appointed morning at length arrived, the men at the severalstations were arrayed, and they commenced their advance toward thecentre, moving to the sound of trumpets, drums, timbrels, and othersuch instruments of martial music as were in use in those days. 

The men were strictly forbidden to kill any animal. They were only tostart them out from their lurking-places and lairs, and drive them intoward the centre of the field. 

Great numbers of the men were provided with picks, spades, and othersimilar tools, with which they were to dig out the burrows and holesof such animals as should seek refuge under ground. 

They went on in this way for some weeks. The animals ran before them, thinking, when they were disturbed by the men, that it was only amomentary danger, which they could easily escape from, as usual, byrunning forward into the next thicket; but soon the advancing line ofthe soldiers reached them there, and drove them out again, and if theyattempted to turn to the right or the left they soon found themselvesintercepted. Thus, as the circle grew narrower, and the space incloseddiminished, the animals began to find themselves mixing with oneanother in great numbers, and being now irritated and angry, theyattacked one another in many instances, the strong falling upon andkilling the weak. Thus a great many were killed, though not by thehands of the soldiers. 

At last the numbers became so great, and the excitement and terror ofthe animals so intense, that the soldiers had great difficulty indriving them forward. The poor beasts ran this way and that, halfdistracted, while the soldiers pressed steadily on behind them, andcut them off from every chance of escape by raising terrific shoutsand outcries, and by brandishing weapons before them wherever theyattempted to turn. 

At length the animals were all driven in to the inner circle, acomparatively small space, which had been previously marked out. Around this space double and triple lines of troops were drawn up, armed with pikes and spears, which they pointed in toward the centre, thus forming a sort of wall by which the beasts were closely shut in. The plan was now for the officers and khans, and all the greatpersonages of the court and the army, to go into the circle, and showtheir courage and their prowess by attacking the beasts and slayingthem. 

But the courage required for such an exploit was not so great as itmight seem, for it was always found on these occasions that thebeasts, though they had been very wild and ferocious when firstaroused from their lairs, and had appeared excessively irritated whenthey found the circle beginning to narrow around them, ended at lastin losing all their spirit, and in becoming discouraged, dejected, and tame. This was owing partly, perhaps, to their having become, insome degree, familiar with the sight of men, but more probably to theexhaustion produced by long-continued fatigue and excitement, and totheir having been for so many days deprived in a great degree of theiraccustomed food and rest. 

Thus in this, as in a great many other similar instances, the poorsoldiers and common people incurred the danger and the toil, and thenthe great men came in at the end to reap the glory. 

Genghis Khan himself was the first to enter the circle for the purposeof attacking the beasts. He was followed by the princes of his family, and by other great chieftains and khans. As they went in, the wholearmy surrounded the inclosure, and completely filled the air with thesound of drums, timbrels, trumpets, and other such instruments, andwith the noise of the most terrific shouts and outcries which theycould make, in order to terrify and overawe the beasts as much aspossible, and to destroy in them all thought and hope of resistance. 

And, indeed, so much effect was produced by these means ofintimidation, that the beasts, it is said, became completelystupefied. "They were so affrighted that they lost all theirfierceness. The lions and tigers became as tame as lambs, and thebears and wild boars, like the most timorous creatures, becamedejected and amazed. "

Still, the going in of Genghis Khan and the princes to attack them wasnot wholly without danger; for, of course, it was a point of honorwith them to select the most ferocious and fierce of the animals, andsome of these, when they found themselves actually assailed, werearoused again, and, recovering in some degree their native ferocity, seemed impelled to make a last desperate effort to defend themselves. After killing a few of the lions, tigers, and bears, Genghis Khan andhis immediate suite retired to a place at one side of the inclosure, where a throne had been set up for the emperor on an eminence whichafforded a good view of the field. Here Genghis Khan took his seat inorder to enjoy the spectacle of the slaughter, and then an immensenumber of men were allowed to go in and amuse themselves with killingand destroying the poor beasts till they were perfectly satiated withthe sight of blood and of suffering. 

At last some of the khan's grandsons, attended by several other youngprinces, approached the throne where the emperor was seated, andpetitioned him to order the carnage to cease, and to allow the rest ofthe animals to go free. This petition the emperor granted. The lineswere broken up, the animals that had escaped being massacred madetheir way back into the wilds again, and the hunt was over. 

The several detachments of the army then set out on their march backto the camp again. But so great was the scale on which this grandhunting expedition was conducted, that four months elapsed between thetime of their setting out upon it till the time of their return. 

 * * * * *

The grand diet or general assembly of the states of Genghis Khan'sempire took place two or three years later, when the conquest ofWestern Asia was complete, and the sons of the emperor and all thegreat generals could be called together at the emperor's head-quarterswithout much danger. The place chosen for this assembly was a vastplain in the vicinity of the city of Toukat, which has already beenmentioned as one of the great cities conquered by Genghis Khan. Toukatlay in a central and convenient position for the purpose of thisassembly. It was, moreover, a rich and beautiful city, and couldfurnish all that would be necessary for the wants of the assembly. The meeting, however, was not to be held in the city itself, but upona great plain in the environs of it, where there was space for all thekhans, with their numerous retinues, to pitch their tents. 

When the khans and chieftains began to assemble, there came first thesons of the king, returning from the various expeditions on whichtheir father had sent them, and bringing with them magnificentpresents. These presents, of course, consisted of the treasures andother valuables which they had taken in plunder from the variouscities which had fallen into their hands. The presents which Jughibrought exceeded in value those of all the others. Among the rest, there was a herd of horses one hundred thousand in number. Thesehorses had, of course, been seized in the pastures of the conqueredcountries, and were now brought to the emperor to be used by him inmounting his troops. They were arrayed in bands according to thecolor, white, dappled gray, bay, black, and spotted, of each kind anequal number. 

The emperor received and welcomed his sons with great joy, and readilyaccepted their presents. In return, he made presents to them from hisown treasuries. 

After this, as other princes and khans came in, and encamped withtheir troops and followers on the plain, the emperor entertained themall with a series of grand banquets and public diversions of allsorts. Among other things a grand hunting party was organized, somewhat similar in the general plan to the one already described, only on a much smaller scale, of course, in respect to the number ofpersons engaged and the time occupied, while yet it greatly surpassedthat one in magnificence and splendor. Several thousand beasts wereslain, it is said, and a great number and variety of birds, which weretaken by the falcons. 

At the end of the hunt a great banquet was given, which surpassed allthe other feasts in munificence. They had on the tables of thisbanquet a great variety of drinks--not only rich wines from thesouthern countries, but beer, and metheglin, and also sherbet, whichthe army had learned to make in Persia. 

In the mean time, the great space on the plain, which had been setapart for the encampment, had been gradually becoming filled up by thearrival of the khans, until at length, in every direction, as far asthe eye could reach, the whole plain was covered with groups of tentsand long lines of movable houses, brought on wheels. The ground whichthe encampment covered was said by the historians to have been sevenleagues in extent. If the space occupied was any thing at allapproaching this magnitude, it could only be that the outer portionsof it were occupied by the herdsmen and other servants of the khans, who had to take care of the cattle and horses of the troops, and toprovide them with suitable pasture. Indeed, the great number ofanimals which these wandering tribes always took with them on theirjourneys rendered it necessary to appropriate a much larger space totheir encampments than would have been otherwise required. 

It is surprising to us, who are accustomed to look upon living intents as so exclusively an irregular and temporary expedient, to learnhow completely this mode of life was reduced to a system in thosedays, and how perfect and complete all the arrangements relating to itwere made. In this case, in the centre of the encampment, a space oftwo leagues in length was regularly laid out in streets, squares, andmarket-places, like a town. Here were the emperor's quarters, withmagnificent tents for himself and his immediate household, andmultitudes of others of a plainer character for his servants andretainers. The tents of the other grand khans were near. They weremade of rich materials, and ornamented in a sumptuous manner, andsilken streamers of various colors floated in the wind from thesummits of them. 

Besides these there was an immense tent, built for the assembly itselfto hold its sessions in. This tent was so large, it is said, that itwould contain two thousand persons. It was covered with white, whichmade it very conspicuous. There were two entrance-gates leading to theinterior. One of them was called the imperial gate, and was for theuse of Genghis Khan alone. The other was the public gate, and was usedin general for the members of the assembly and for spectators. 

Within the tent was erected a magnificent throne, intended for the useof the emperor during the sessions of the assembly. 

A great amount of important business was transacted by the assemblywhile it continued in session, and many important edicts were made bythe emperor. The constitution and laws of the empire were promulgatedanew, and all necessary arrangements made for the government of thevarious provinces both near and remote. 

At length, when these various objects had been accomplished, and thebusiness was concluded, the emperor gave audience individually to allthe princes, khans, generals, governors of provinces, and other granddignitaries who were present on the occasion, in order that they mighttake their leave preparatory to returning to their several countries. When this ceremony was concluded the encampment was broken up, and thevarious khans set off, each at the head of his own caravan, on theroad leading to his own home. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

1227

Death of the khan's oldest son. --Effects of this calamity. --Plan forthe invasion of China. --The khan's sons. --His sickness. --Change forthe worse. --Farewell address. --He claims the right to name hissuccessor. --Other arrangements. --Death of the emperor. --His grave andmonument. --Visits of condolence to the new emperor. --Fate of the empire. 

After the grand convocation described in the last chapter, GenghisKhan lived only three years. During this time he went on extending hisconquests with the same triumphant success that had attended hisprevious operations. Having at length established his dominion inWestern Asia on a permanent basis, he returned to the original seat ofhis empire in the East, after seven years' absence, where he wasreceived with great honor by the Mongul nation. He began again toextend his conquests in China. He was very successful. Indeed, withthe exception of one great calamity which befell him, his career wasone of continued and unexampled prosperity. 

This calamity was the death of his son Jughi, his oldest, mostdistinguished, and best-beloved son. The news of this event threw thekhan into a deep melancholy, so that for a time he lost all hisinterest in public affairs, and even the news of victories obtained indistant countries by his armies ceased to awaken any joyful emotionsin his mind. 

The khan was now, too, becoming quite advanced in life, being aboutsixty-four years old, which is an age at which the mind is slow torecover its lost elasticity. He did, however, slowly recover from theeffects of his grief, and he then went on with his warlikepreparations. He had conquered all the northern portion of China, andwas now making arrangements for a grand invasion of the southern part, when at length, in the spring of the year 1227, he fell sick. Hestruggled against the disease during the summer, but at length, inAugust, he found himself growing worse, and felt that his end wasdrawing nigh. 

His mind was occupied mainly, during all this interval, by arrangingthe details of the coming campaign, and making known to the officersaround him all the particulars of his plans, in order that they mightcarry them out successfully after his decease. He was chieflyconcerned, as well he might be, lest the generals should quarrel amongeach other after he should be gone, and he continually exhorted themto be united, and on no account to allow discord or dissensions tocreep in and divide them. 

His oldest son, next to Jughi, was Jagatay, but he was of a mild andamiable temper, and not so well qualified to govern so widely-extendedan empire as the next son, whose name was Oktay. The next son toOktay, whose name was Toley, was with his father at the time when hissickness at last assumed an immediately alarming character. 

This change for the worse, which convinced the emperor that his deathwas drawing nigh, took place one day when he was traveling with aportion of his army, being borne on a litter on account of his infirmand feeble condition. A halt was ordered, a camp was formed, and thegreat conqueror was borne to a tent which was pitched for him on thespot near the borders of the forest. The physicians and theastrologers came around him, and tried to comfort him with encouragingpredictions, but he knew by the pains that he felt, and by otherinward sensations, that his hour had come. 

He accordingly ordered that all of his sons who were in the camp, andall the princes of his family, should be called in to his bedside. When they had all assembled, he caused himself to be raised up in hisbed, and then made a short but very solemn address to them. 

"I leave you, " said he, "the greatest empire in the world, but yourpreserving it depends upon your remaining always united. If discordsteals in among you all will most assuredly be lost. "

Then, turning to the great chieftains and khans who were standingby--the great nobles of his court--he appealed to them, as well as tothe princes of his family, whether it was not just and reasonable thathe, who had established the empire, and built it up wholly from thevery foundations, should have the right to name a successor to inheritit after he was gone. 

They all expressed a full assent to this proposition. His sons and theother princes of his family fell on their knees and said, "You are ourfather and our emperor, and we are your slaves. It is for us to bow insubmission to all the commands with which you honor us, and to renderthe most implicit obedience to them. "

The khan then proceeded to announce to the assembly that he had madechoice of his son Oktay as his successor, and he declared him the khanof khans, which was the imperial title, according to the constitution. 

The whole assembly then kneeled again, and solemnly declared that theyaccepted the choice which the emperor had made, and promisedallegiance and fidelity to the new sovereign so soon as he should beinvested with power. 

The aged emperor then gave to his second son, Jagatay, a large countryfor his kingdom, which, however, he was, of course, to hold under thegeneral sovereignty of his brother. He also appointed his son Toley, who was then present, to act as regent until Oktay should return. 

The assembly was then dismissed, and very soon afterward the greatconqueror died. 

Toley, of course, immediately entered upon his office as regent, andunder his direction the body of his father was interred, with greatmagnificence, under a venerable tree, where the khan had restedhimself with great satisfaction a few days before he was taken sick. 

The spot was a very beautiful one, and in due time a magnificentmonument was erected over the grave. Trees were afterward plantedaround the spot, and other improvements were made in the grounds, bywhich it became, at length, it was said, one of the finest sepulchresin the world. 

As soon as Oktay, whom the emperor had designated as his successor, returned home, he was at once proclaimed emperor, and establishedhimself at his father's court. The news of the old emperor's deathrapidly spread throughout Asia, and a succession of embassadors weresent from all the provinces, principalities, and kingdoms throughoutthe empire, and also from such contiguous states as desired tomaintain friendly relations with the new monarch, to bring addressesand messages of condolence from their respective rulers. And so greatwas the extent of country from which these embassadors came that aperiod of six months was consumed before these melancholy ceremonieswere ended. 

 * * * * *

The fate of the grand empire which Genghis Khan established was thesame with that of all others that have arisen in the world, from timeto time, by the extension of the power of great military commandersover widely-separated and heterogeneous nations. The sons andsuccessors to whom the vast possessions descended soon quarreled amongthemselves, and the immense fabric fell to pieces in less time than ithad taken to construct it. 

 THE END. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

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2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published asbanners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of thechapter for the reader's convenience.