A. D. 1206 From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and CHAP. the Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeat- LXIV. edly been poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by many pastoral Zingis tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which were emperor of the Mogul united and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. In his and Tartars ascent to greatness, that barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) had trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble but it was in the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned over thirteen hordes, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families above two-thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was obliged to fly and to obey: but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth year he had established his fame and dominion over the circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which policy is rude and valour is universal, the ascendant of one man must be founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the sweets and the bitters of life; and, when he had shared among them his horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy chaldrons on the fire, and seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of the khan of the Keraites; who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The ambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition; and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis,3 the most great; and a divine right to the the maners of pastoral nations, the conquest of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history. The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rights of baptism and ordination (Assemann. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 487–503.) 3 Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis, at least in French, seems fo be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appears just: Zin, in the Mogul tongue, signifies great, and gis is the superlative termination (Hist. Genealogique des Tatars, part iii. p. 194, 195.) From the same idea of magnitude, the appellation of Zingis is bestowed on the ocean. VOL. VI. 15 CHAP. Conquest and dominion of the earth. In a general couroultai, LXIV. or diet, he was seated on a felt, which was long afterward re ilis laws. vered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed great khan, or emperor, of the Moguls and Tartars.5 Of these kindred, though rival, names, the former had given birth to the Imperial race; and the latter has been extenden, by accident or error, over the spacious wilderness of the north. The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects, was adapted to the preservation of domestic peace, and the exercise of foreign hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on the crimes of adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts of a horse or ox; and he fiercest of men were mild and just in their intercourse with each other. The future election of the great khan was vested in the princes of his family and the heads of the tribes; and the regulations of the chase were essential to the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The victorious nation was held sacred from all servile labours, which were abandoned to slaves and strangers; and every labour was servile except the profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who were armed with bows, scimitars, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of a veteran commander. Each officer and soldier was made responsible, under pain of death, for the safety and honour of his companions; and the spirit of conquest breathed in the law, that peace should never be granted unless to a vanquished and suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis that best deserves our wonder and applause. The Catholic inquisitors of Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confounded by the example of a barbarian, who anticipated the lessons of philosophy, and established by his laws a system of pure theism and perfect toleration. His first and only article of faith was the existence of one God, the author of all good; who fills by his presence the heavens and earth, which he has created by his power. The Tartars and Moguls were addicted to the idols of their peculiar tribes; and many of them had been converted by the foreign missionaries to the religions of Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedom and concord, were taught and practised within the precincts of the same camp; and the Bonze, 4 The name of Moguls has prevailed among the Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the great Mogul, of Hindostan. 5 The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan (see Abulghazi, part i. and ii.) and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the borders of Kitay (p. 103-112.) In the great invasion of Europe (A. D. 1238,) they seem to have led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of Tartarei, recommended that of Tartars to the Latins (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) 6 A singular conformity may be found between the religious laws of Zingis Khan and Mr. Locke (Constitutions of Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.) the Iman, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin priest, en- CHAP. joyed the same honourable exemption from service and tribute: LXIV. in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might tramplen the koran under his horse's feet, but the calm legislator respected the prophets and pontiffs of the most hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was not informed by books; the khan could neither read nor write; and, except the tribe of the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars were as illiterate as their sovereign. The memory of their exploits was preserved by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis, these traditions were collected and transcribed; the brevity of their domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese. Persians," Armenians, Syrians," Arabians,12 Greeks,13 Russians," Poles," 7 In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of Persia, the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions, his vizir Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537-539.) The Histoire Genealogique des Tatars (à Leyde, 1726, in 12mo. 2 tomes) was translated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks of Charasm, or Carizme (A. D. 1644-1663.) He is of most value and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from Mogul to Zingis; the iiid, is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vt, vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons, and their posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar, and Charasm. Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des Mongous ses Successeurs, Conqueraus de la Chine; tirée de l'Histoire de la Chine, par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Societé de Jesus, Missionaire à Pekin; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance. 2 See the Histoire du grand Genghiscan, premier Empereur des Mogols et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à Paris, 1710, in 12mo; a work of ten years labour, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of Genghizcan, Mohammed. Gelaleddin, &c. in the Bibliotheque Orientale of d'Herbelot. 10 Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and afterward a monk of Premontré (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 34,) dictated in the French language, his book de Tartaris, his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus (Basil, 1555, in folio.) 11 Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius (vers. Pocock, Oxon. 1663, in 4to. ;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians, or primates of the East. 12 Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in person, under the Mamalake standard, against the Moguls. 13 Nicephorus Gregoras (1. ii. c. 5, 6,) has felt the necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons. 14 M. Leveque (Histoire de Russie, tom. it.) has described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nichon, and the old chronicles. 15 For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica et Europea of Matthew à Michou, or de Michovia, a canon and physician of Cracow (Å. D. 1506,4) CHAP. Hungarians, 16 and Latins ;17 and each nation will deserve creLXIV. dit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats.18 sion of China, -1214; The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced Ilis inva- the hordes of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of China, and the Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and soldiers, who felt their united strength, and were impatient to rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south. His ancestors had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors; and Temugin himself had been disgraced by a title of honour and servitude. The court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy from its former vassal, who in the tone of the king of nations, exacted the tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to treat the son of heaven as the most contemptible of mankind. A haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable squadrons, who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the great wall. Ninety cities were stormed, or starved by the Moguls; ten only escaped; and Zin. gis, from a knowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard with their captive parents; an unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of the virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundred thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to a treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five hundred youths and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and silk, were the price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he compelled the Chinese emperor to retire beyond the yellow river to a more southern residence. The siege of Pekin19 was long 19 inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus. Fabric. Bibliot. Latin, mediæ et infimæ Etatis, tom. v. p. 56. 16 I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general historian, (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150,) in the first volume of the Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative of a contemporary, an eyewitness, and a sufferer (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni Hungariæ, Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros facta, p. 292-321 :) the best picture that I have ever seen of all the circumstances of a barbaric invasion. 17 Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents, the danger and distress of Europe (consult the word Tartari in his copious Index.) From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of the great Khan, in the xiiith century, was visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini, and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin Relations of the two former are inserted in the first volume of Hackulyt; the Italian original or version of the third (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin, medii Evi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25,) may be found in the second tome of Ramusio. 18 In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom. iii. 1. xv-xix. and in the collateral articles of the Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi. the Carizmians, I. xiv. and the Mamalukes, tom. iv. 1. xxi: consult likewise the tables of the first volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. 19 More properly Yen-king, an ancient city, whose ruins still appear some fur, and laborious: the inhabitants were reduced by famine to de- CHAP. cimate and devour their fellow-citizens; when their ammuni- LXIV. tion was spent, they discharged ingots of gold and silver from their engines; but the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of the capital; and the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty days. China was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the five northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis. Transoxia na, and Persia, A. D. 1218 In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed sultan of Carisme, of Carizme, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of India and Turkestan; and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his -1224: fathers to the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Zingis to establish a friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the Moslem princes; nor could he be tempted by the secret solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the invasion of the southern Asia. A carayan of three ambassadors and one hundred and fifty merchants, was arrested and murdered at Otrar, by the command of Mohammed, nor was it till after a demand and denial of justice, till he had prayed and fasted three nights on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor appealed to the judgment of God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic writer,20 are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the standard of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that extend to the north of the Sihoon or Jaxartes, they were encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan; and in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was astonished by the multitude and valour of his enemies: he withdrew from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the frontier towns, trusting that the barbarians, invincible in the field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts, informed perhaps of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreign country with more vigour and success than they had defended their own. The longs to the southeast of the modern Pekin, which was built by Cublai Khan (Gaubel, p. 146.) Pe-king and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north and of the south. The identity and change of names perplex the most skilful readers of the Chinese Geography (p. 177.) 20 M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, tom. iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains, as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular errors. |