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

BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF MONGKE QAAN
Khan. May God Almighty make the Lord of Islam130 during many
years the heir to [countless] lives and may He grant him enjoyment
of empire, power, and kingship, by His grace and the amplitude of
His bounty!
*a THE FURTHER HISTORY OF O_UBILAI Q_A AN
during that campaign and how the news of Mongke Qa'an's death
reached him
At that time, Qubilai Qa'an had departed from thence and had
reached the great river of the Nangiyas country which they call
Khui Kho.131 When he heard the bad news about Mongke Qa'an
he consulted Bahadur Noyan, the grandson132 of Muqali Guyang,
and said: "Let us pay no attention to this rumor." And he sent Erke
Noyan, the son of Bulqan Qalcha of the Barulas people, ahead with
the vanguard, and he himself followed. They captured and killed
the scouts of the Nangiyas army and so prevented them from reporting
that news. Then he crossed the River Keng, which is 2 parasangs
wide, by boat and came to the town of Oju,133 which he besieged and
captured.134 A force, which had returned from fighting against
Mongke Qa'an, came to the aid of that town: the names of their
commanders were Gia Dau135 and Ulus Taifu.136 When they arrived,
Qubilai Qa'an had already taken the town. Immediately afterward
there arrived messengers from Chabui Khatun and the emirs of her
ordo, Taichi'utai Noyan and Yekii Noyan. The messengers, whose
130 That is, Ghazan.
131 The Hwai Ho. See also below, p. 248 and note 29.
132 This is correct. See above, p. 227 and note 119.
133 O chou, the modern Wuchang, in Hupeh. See above, p. 226, note 117.
134 In actual fact, Qubilai, upon receiving the news of his brother's death, raised the
siege of Wuchang and withdrew northward, having first concluded some kind of
peace with the Sung. See Steppes, pp. 351-52, and Franke, IV, pp. 324—25.
"s Reading KYA DAW with Blochet's MS. B. This was the infamous Chia Ssu-tao,
to whose incompetence and cowardice the collapse of the Sung was largely due.
See Franke, IV, pp. 322 ff., 330 ff., 336 ff.
136 According to the Titan shih (quoted by Verkhovsky, p. 148, note 68), the second
of the two commanders was Lii Wen-te, the brother of Lii Wen-huan, the defender
of Siangyang. His name, however, bears little resemblance to Rashid al-DIn's Ulus
Taifu. On taifu (Chinese t'ai-fu) as a military title, see below, p. 278, Polo I, p. 222,
and Polo II, pp. 851-52.
229