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

BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF QUBILAI QA AN
pursuit of Ar'iq Boke, but messengers arrived and reported that because
of his absence, madness and confusion had appeared in the land
of Khitai. He therefore returned to his capital there.
Meanwhile, Qara-Buqa, who commanded Ar'iq Boke's vanguard,
gave battle to Alghu near the town of Pulad57 in a place called Siit-
K6l.s8 Alghu was victorious, and Qara-Buqa was killed. Alghu,
marveling and elated because he had defeated Ar'iq Boke's vanguard
and killed Qara-Buqa, turned back in a careless fashion along the
River Hila59 and alighted at his own ordos after dismissing the cherigs.
Asutai, who with his army formed Ariq Boke's rearguard, now arrived
and, passing through the hills which in that country are called Temur-
Qahalqa,60 attacked the Hila Moren61 and Almaliq with picked troops
and captured Alghu's ulus.
Since his cherigs had been dispersed, Alghu took his wife and the
army of the right hand, which Asutai had not yet reached, and fled
in the direction of Khotan and Kashghar. Ar'iq Boke now arrived in
his pursuit and passed that winter on the Hila Moren and in Almaliq,
continually feasting and slaughtering and pillaging Alghu's army and
ulus. After a month Alghu was joined by his fugitive troops and,
setting out with his heavy baggage, he made for Samarqand. [In
the] meantime, Jumqur, the son of Hiilegu, having been affected
with some slight ailment, asked Ar'iq Boke for permission to leave him,
saying that he was going to Samarqand for medical treatment. He
parted from him in the qulquna yil, that is, the Year of the Rat, falling
in Rabi' I of the year 662 [January, 1264]. And since Ariq Boke was
ruthlessly slaughtering and injuring Alghu's army and ulus without
their having committed any crime, the emirs conceived an aversion
to him and each of them turned away on some pretext. "He is now,"
they said, "wantonly slaughtering the Mongol army that was gathered
57 The Bolat of Rubruck (Rockhill, p. 137), where Biiri's German prisoners were
"digging for gold and manufacturing arms." Bretschneider (II, p. 42) suggests that
the town was situated somewhere in the valley of the Borotala, which flows into the
Ebi Nor.
58 In Turkish " Milk Lake:" Lake Sairam.
59 The Hi.
60 "Iron Gate" (cf. above, Section i, p. 61, note 260). Here the Talki Defile,
north of Kulja. See Bretschneider, II, p. 34, note 804.
61 That is, the River Hi: Mo. moren, "river."
259