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

BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF QUBILAI QA AN
there are in accordance with their rank. Their ranks are as shown in
detail below.
First rank—chingsang (he is qualified to be a vizier or minister).
Second rank—taifu (he is an army commander and, however
senior, must defer to the chingsang).
Third rank—finjan (these are ministers and viziers from the various
nationalities).
Fourth rank—yu-ching.133
Fifth rank—zo-ching.13*
Sixth rank—sam-jing.135
Seventh rank—sami.136
Eighth rank—lanjun.137
Ninth rank—(not known; all the secretaries are under him).
In the reign of Qubilai Qa'an, the chingsangs were the following emirs:
Hantum Noyan, Uchachar, Oljei, Tarkhan, and Dashman. Hantum
Noyan is now dead, but the rest are still the chingsangs of Temiir Qa'an
along with one other. Formerly the office of finjan was given to Khitayans,
but now it is given to Mongols, Tazlks, and Uighurs also. The
chief of the finjans is called siifinjan, that is, "cream of the finjans."l3B
At the present time, in the reign of Temiir Qa'an, the leader of them
all is Bayan Finjan, the son of Saiyid Nasir al-Din and the grandson of
Saiyid Ajall:135 he too now is called Saiyid Ajall. The second is 'Umar
Finjan, a Mongol, and the third Teke Finjan, an Uighur. Formerly it
was Lach'in Finjan, the nephew of the Emir Sunchaq, and now it is
his son, called Kermane. The fourth is Yighm'ish Finjan, who takes
the place of Temiir Finjan, and he too is an Uighur.
Since the Qa'an resides mostly in the town of Daidu, a place has
been made for the Great Divan, which they call shing,1*0 where they
133 Tu-ch'eng. See Doerfer, I, No. 407 (pp. 554-55).
134 Tso-ch'eng. See Doerfer, III, No. 1201 (pp. 215—16).
135 Ts'an-cheng. See Doerfer, I, No. 215 (p. 342).
136 Ts'an-i. See Doerfer, I, No. 216 (p. 342).
137 Lang-chung. See Doerfer, I, No. 358 (pp. 492-93).
138 Cf. below, p. 289, the title of Ahmad Fanakati. The etymology of su or shu
is not clear. See Doerfer, III, No. 1330, (p. 327).
135 On Saiyid Ajall and his son Nasir al-Din, see below, pp. 287-88.
140 Sheng, Polo's scieng. This was the Chung-shu shdng, or Grand Secretariat, which
"worked at the capital, but had provincial delegations called 'moving' (. . . hsing)
Chung-shu-sheng, or simply hsing-shfng, and even shlng alone; the areas under the
279