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

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
to Toqta: "We are the servants and subjects of the IlrKhan.120 If
the king will pardon us we will seize Noqai and deliver him up to him."
The sons of Noqai learnt of the message and prepared to attack the
hazaras.121 Meanwhile the commanders of the hazaras sent someone
to Tiige, the second son of Noqai, to say: "We have all agreed together
about thee." Tiige went to them, and they at once imprisoned him.
Joge, who was the elder brother, collected his army and gave battle
to the great hazaras. The hazaras were defeated, and one commander
fell into [Joge's] hands. He sent his head to the other hazara which had
captured Tiige, and the three hundred men who formed his guard
made one with him, made off in the night, and went to Noqai and his
sons.
When Toqta heard of the conflict between the hazaras and the
army, he crossed the Uzi with an army of 60 tumens and encamped on
the bank of the River ,122 where Noqai's jyuri was. Again feigning
illness, [Noqai] lay down in a wagon and sent ambassadors to Toqta
with this message: " I did not know that the king was coming in person.
My kingdom and army are the Il-Khan's, and I am a feeble old man
who has spent his whole life in the service of your fathers. If there has
been some trifling error, it is the fault of my sons. It is to be expected
of the king's magnanimity that he will forgive that fault." But in
secret he had sent Joge with a large army to cross the I2J
higher up and attack Toqta and his army. However, Toqta's guards
caught a scout, who told them the state of affairs, and Toqta, on being
informed of Noqai's guile, ordered his troops to make ready and mount
horse. Battle was joined between the two sides, and Noqai and his
120 In the sense of subordinate to the Great Khan, this title was applied to the rulers
of the Golden Horde as well as to those of Persia.
121 See Glossary.
122 Verkhovsky (p. 86) reads the name as Tarku; Spuler (1943) takes the river to be
the Terek in the Caucasus but Noqai's jiurt lay in quite a different region, between
the Dnieper and the Lower Danube. Taking an alternative reading of the name
(JVRKH), we can perhaps see in it the Mongol nerge, "hunting circle," and connect
it with the "plain of Nerghi" in which, according to Marco Polo, the earlier battle
between Noqai and Toqta was fought. Vernadsky (pp. 187-88) believes "that the
name refers to the ancient fortified line between the Dniester and the Pruth rivers in
Bessarabia and Moldavia, called Emperor Trajan's Wall, remnants of which still
exist." The river, whatever its Mongol or Turkish name, would appear to be the
Dniester, or perhaps the Bug.
123 See above, note 122.
128