The Successors of Genghis Khan - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
commander of the Uriyangqat51 people who came to this country52
with Jebe, at the head of an army, to gather all together with the other
princes under Batu and set about the conquest of the northern countries.
In the bichiny'il, that is, the Year of the Monkey, falling in Jumada
11 of the year 633 [February-March, 1236], they set out and conquered
the greater part of those countries, and in the spring of the qulquna
yil, that is, the Year of the Rat, corresponding to the months of the
year 637/1239-1240," Giiyiik Khan and Mongke Qa'an, in obedience
to the yarligh of Qa'an, turned back and proceeded to the Court of
Qa'an. After a lapse of time, Batu, with his brothers and the emirs
and army, continued the conquest of those countries, as his posterity
are still doing.
Batu had many senior wives and concubines. He had four sons, in
the following order: Sartaq, Toqoqan, Ebiigen, and Shinggum.
The descendants of these four sons and their circumstances are such
as are recorded separately for each of them.
First Son of Batu—Sartaq54
He was born of 55 Khatun and had no son.56
Second Son of Batu—Toqoqan
He had five sons, in the following order: Tartu, Mongke-Temiir,
Tode-Mongke, Toqiqonqa, and Ugechi. The details regarding the
descendants of these five sons are as follows.
51 Rashid al-Din distinguishes between the Uriyangqat proper and the forest
Uriyanqat, the latter (the Orengai of Rubruck) inhabiting the Barghujin-Togiim
or "Barghu Depression," that is, the region to the east of Lake Baikal, Marco Polo's
"plain of Bargu." The Uriyangqat proper, so Pelliot thinks, "may have been the
ancestors of the present Uryangqai tribes of the Republic of Tuva." See Khetagurov,
pp. 123—25, and 156-60, and Polo I, pp. 77 and 337.
52 That is, Persia. The reference is to the two generals' pursuit of Sultan Muhammad
across Persia in 1220, on which see HWC, pp. 142-49.
53 Actually 1240.
54 On Sartaq, apparently a Nestorian Christian, who succeeded his father as ruler
of the Golden Horde (1255—1256), see Horded'Or, p. 34, Steppes, 473—74, Spuler 1943,
p. 33, and Vernadsky, pp. 148-50.
55 Blank in all the MSS.
56 Actually, Sartaq had at least two sons, one of whom, Ulaghchi, succeeded him
as ruler of the Golden Horde. See Horde d'Or, pp. 34-44. Rashid al-Din also fails to
mention Sartaq's "six wives" and his eldest son's "two or three" (Rockhill, p. 101).
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