Volume Fourteen元朝秘史 卷14

When Chinggis had passed the winter, he meant to attack the Tangut and he mustered his horsemen anew. In the autumn of the Year of the Dog he went to attack the Tangut, and he took the lady Yesui along with him. In the winter they made a ring hunt in the land of Arbukha. Chinggis was riding a red sand-colored horse, and it was startled by a wild horse, and Chinggis fell from the horse and was hurt. So he made camp in the land of Choorkhad. The next day the lady Yesui said to the princes and the officers, "The emperor is in a high fever tonight. Take counsel among yourselves." So the princes and the officers gathered, and among them Tolun gave his counsel and said, "The Tangut have towns and moats, and their people cannot move about. It would be well to turn back for now, and to come again and take them when the emperor is at ease." All the officers thought this right and told it to Chinggis. Chinggis said, "If the Tangut people see us turning back, they will surely take me for a coward. I will nurse my sickness here, and first send a man to the Tangut and see with what words he answers." So he sent a man to say to Burkhan, the lord of the Tangut, "You said once that you would be our right hand. Yet when I attacked the Muslims you did not follow, and you mocked me with your words besides. Now that I have taken the Muslims, I will call you to account for those former words." Burkhan said, "The mocking words were not mine." Asha Gambu said, "It was I who said them. If you would fight me, come to the Helan Mountains and fight. If you want gold and silver and silk, come to Xiliang and take it." The envoy came back and told these words to Chinggis. Chinggis said, "He speaks so big. How can we turn back? Though I die, I will go and call him to account. Let the Everlasting Heaven know it." So he came to the Helan Mountains and beat Asha Gambu, who fled up to his mountain stronghold, and the army of Chinggis killed and carried off all his men who could fight, together with the pack loads and the rest. The people who were left they let each man keep as he had taken them.

Chinggis passed the summer at the Snow Mountain, and he sent soldiers to take captive, to the last of them, the people who had gone up the mountain with Asha Gambu. He gave Boorchu and Mukhali goods as a reward and let them take all that their strength could carry. He said also to the two, "The people of the Jin have never been divided out to you. Now there is the lord's own kin of the Jin. Divide them evenly between you. Let their good sons hold the hawk for you, and let their fair women smooth the clothes of your wives. In the old days the ruler of the Jin trusted these men and kept them as his close servants, and they made an end of our forebears. You two are my close servants. Now take these men and use them."

Chinggis set out from the Snow Mountain, passed the town of Ulakhai, and went on instead to attack the town of Lingzhou. At that time Burkhan, the lord of the Tangut, came and offered a golden Buddha, and vessels of gold and silver, and men and women, and horses and camels and the rest, all of them counted out in nines of nine. Chinggis had him perform the rites outside the gate only. While the rites were being performed, Chinggis felt sick. On the third day he changed Burkhan's name to Shidurgu and ordered Tolun to kill him. He said to Tolun, "When I first attacked the Tangut I fell from my horse at the ring hunt. You cared then for my body and spoke of turning back. Because the words of the enemy were not respectful I came to attack them, and by the help of Heaven they are taken. Now take for yourself the traveling palace and the vessels that Burkhan brought."

Chinggis took the Tangut people captive and killed their lord Burkhan, and he destroyed his parents and his children and grandchildren. Whenever food and drink were brought in, he had it said without fail, "The Tangut are wiped out." At the first, because the Tangut did not keep their word, he went twice to attack them, and only now did he come back. In the Year of the Pig, after Chinggis died, many of the Tangut people were given to the lady Yesui.

After Chinggis died, in the Year of the Rat, Chagadai and Batu, the great princes of the right hand, and Otchigin, the great prince of the left hand, together with Tolui and the other princes who were within, and the sons-in-law, and the commanders of ten thousand and of a thousand, held a great assembly in the land of Kodee Aral on the Kerulen River, and by the command that Chinggis had left they set up Ogodei as emperor. The ten thousand men of the night guard and the bodyguard that Chinggis had kept, and all the people, were given into his charge.

When Ogodei had been set up, he took counsel with his elder brother Chagadai. Among the peoples left unfinished by his father the emperor Chinggis there was the Caliph, the king of the people of Baghdad, and Chormakhan had once been ordered to go and attack him; so now Okhotur and Menggetu were ordered to go as his support and attack. There were also the towns and the peoples of the eleven tribes, the Kangli and the Kipchak and the rest, and Subeetei had once been ordered to go and attack them; but because the towns there were hard to storm and take, now the eldest sons of the princes, Batu and Buri and Guyuk and Mongke, were ordered to go as his support and attack. Among those princes Batu was made the head, and among those who went out from within, Guyuk was made the head. Of all the princes and the sons-in-law and the commanders of ten thousand and of a thousand and of a hundred who went out to fight, every one was made to send out his eldest son. The reason why all of them were made to send out their eldest sons was that his elder brother Chagadai had said, "If the eldest sons are sent out, the men and the horses will be many, and the might and the show of them will be great." It was heard that the enemy there was very hard, and so, because his elder brother Chagadai was careful, the eldest sons were sent out. Such was the reason.

The emperor Ogodei sent again to take counsel with his elder brother Chagadai and said, "I sit in the great seat that my father the emperor made ready. What skill have I? Now the land of the Jin is not yet put down, and I mean to go and attack it myself. What do you say to it?" Chagadai said, "It is right. Only leave a good man in charge within the old camp. From here I will add soldiers to yours." Because this word came back, he left Oldakhar, who bore the bow and arrows, in charge to guard the old camp.

In the Year of the Hare the emperor Ogodei attacked the land of the Jin. He ordered Jebe to be the forward scout, and they beat the soldiers of the Jin. They passed the Juyong Pass, and Ogodei held his soldiers at the Longhu Terrace and gave his generals their several orders to attack and take the towns in every quarter. Of a sudden Ogodei fell sick, and his mind grew clouded and he lost his speech. A shaman was ordered to divine, and he said, "It is the spirit of the hills and streams of the Jin. Because the horsemen took the people captive and tore down the walls of the towns, it has become a curse in this way." They offered people and treasure and the rest to turn the curse away, but the divining would not have it, and the sickness grew heavier. It was said only that one near to him might take his place. When the sickness eased a little, he opened his eyes of a sudden, asked for water and drank, and said, "What has become of me?" The shaman said, "This is the spirit of the hills and streams of the Jin, and it has become a curse. We offered it many things to turn it away, and it took none of them. It asks only that one near to you take your place." Ogodei said, "Who is here before me now?" The great prince Tolui, who was there, said, "Our father of great fortune chose you from among us brothers and made you emperor. To me he said that beside my elder brother I should tell him what he forgets and wake him when he sleeps. If I lose the emperor my brother now, to whom shall I tell things, and whom shall I wake? To whom will the many Dadan people be given to rule? First let the will of the men of the Jin be satisfied. Now I will take my brother's place. What sins there are, I have made them all. I am well made besides, and I am fit to serve the spirit. Shaman, say your spell." The shaman took water and said the spell over it, and Tolui drank it. He sat a little while, and felt as if he were drunk, and said, "Before I wake, take up my orphans and my widow and raise them to stand on their own. Let the emperor my brother know it." When he had said this he went out, and soon he died. Such was the reason.

When Ogodei had made an end of the land of the Jin, he named their lord Little Fellow, and he plundered their gold and silk and their livestock and their people and came back. In Bianliang and Beiping and the other places he set up tammachi to hold them, and at last he came back to Lingbei and made camp.

Chormakhan attacked the people of Baghdad, and that people submitted. Because Ogodei found that land and the things it brings forth good, he made Chormakhan and the others tammachi officers and had them hold that land, and he had the gold and silk and camels and horses and the rest that come from there sent in tribute every year. Again, Batu and the other great princes who were the support of Subeetei brought down the three peoples of the Kangli and the Kipchak and the rest, and broke the towns of the Russian people, and killed and carried off all their men. Only with the people of the towns of the As, those who were to be taken were taken, and those who were to submit submitted. They set up darukhachi and tammachi officers to hold the land, and came back. Again, toward the Jurched and Goryeo, Jalairtai had been ordered before this to go and attack. At this time Yesuder was ordered to go as his support and attack, and then to be tammachi and hold that land.

Batu sent an envoy from the Kipchak to report and say, "By the strength of the Everlasting Heaven and the shelter of the good fortune of my uncle the emperor, the lands and the peoples of the eleven tribes have all been taken. As the great army was to go back and each man to part from the rest, I gathered the princes and made a feast, and because I am somewhat the elder among them I drank a cup or two first. Buri and Guyuk were angered at it, and the feast was not made, and they got on their horses and went away. Buri said, 'Batu is my equal. How does he drink first? He is a woman with a beard. I will push him over with my heel and tread on him.' Guyuk said, 'He is a woman who wears a bow and arrows. I will have his breast beaten with firewood.' Kharkhasun, the son of Eljigidei, said, 'I will hang a wooden tail on him behind.' So they spoke. We were about to take counsel on what was fitting and what was not fitting in our attacking this people of a strange kind, and while we spoke Buri and Guyuk said these things, and we broke up without taking counsel. Let my uncle the emperor know it."

When the envoy of Batu had spoken, Ogodei was greatly angered and would not let Guyuk come in and see him, and he said, "Whose words did this low thing listen to, that he dares to slander and curse his elder brother? To cast you off is like throwing away one bird's egg. Now I will send you to a far border to be a tammachi, to attack and take strong towns and to suffer hardship." He said also, "From whom has Kharkhasun learned this? He dared to slander and wound one of our own kin, and by right his crime deserves death. But if I kill him, men will surely say that I am partial. Let him go with Guyuk too. Buri is the son of my elder brother Chagadai. Let Batu send word about him to my elder brother Chagadai."