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

BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF QUBILAI QA AN
the marks of his fingers, and since these are correct, he can no longer
deny it.148 And having taken this precaution in all the Divans, they
make their report and take action in accordance with the order then
given.
It is the custom for the above-mentioned emirs to go to the shing
every day and interrogate people. The affairs of the country are
numerous, and when these four chingsangs are sitting, the other officials
also, each with their bitikchis, are seated in due order according to their
office. In front of each of them is placed a stand like a chair with a
pen-case on it. They are always there, and each emir has a special
seal and tamgha. And several bitikchis are appointed, whose duty it is to
write down the names of the persons who came to the Divan every
day, so that if they do not attend for several days their wages are
deducted. And if someone fails to attend without a valid excuse he is
dismissed. It is these four chingsangs that report to the Qa'an.
The shing of Khan-Bal'iq is extremely large, and the Divan archives
for several thousand years are housed there. They record [everything]
accurately in them and they contain excellent precepts. The employees
in that shing number nearly two thousand. There is not a shing in every
town, only in [those] places that provide a capital for many towns and
provinces, such as Baghdad, Shiraz, and Qpniya in Rum. In the
Qa'an's empire there are twelve shings. In all the shings, except that of
Khan-Bali'q, there is no chingsang; at the head of each is an emir, in the
capacities of both shahna and emir, and four finjans; and there are
also the other Divans and offices. The locations of the twelve shings
and their ranks are such as shall be recorded in this place, with the
help of God Almighty.
First—the shing of Khan-Bali'q and Daidu.
Second—the shing of the province of Jiirche and Solangqa. This
Divan is situated in the town of Chunju,149 which is the largest town in
148 Rashid al-Din clearly had only a vague idea of what the process of taking
fingerprints involved. On the antiquity of the practice in China and Japan, see
Cathay, pp. 123—24, note 2.
149 This would appear to be Chongju, in the extreme northwest of Korea. On the
other hand, Rashid al-Din is far more likely to have heard of Ch'ungju, in the South,
attacked by the Mongols in 1253 and again in 1256. See Henthorn, pp. 113, 127, and
129. Actually the capital of the Yuan province to which Rashid al-Din here refers
was Liaoyang in Manchuria.
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