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0134 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 134 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

cxviii

The conquêst of China was commenced by Chinghiz, although it was not completed for several generations. Already in 1205 he had invaded TANGUT, a kingdom occupying the extreme northwest of China, and extending beyond Chinese limits in the same direction, held by a dynasty of Tibetan race, which was or had been vassal to the Kin. This invasion was repeated in succeeding years ; and in 1211 his attacks extended to the empire of the Kin itself. In 1214 he ravaged their provinces to the Yellow River, and in the following year took Chungtu or Peking. In 1219 he turned his arms against Western Asia, and conquered all the countries between the Bolor and the Caspian and southward to the Indus, whilst his generals penetrated to Russia, Armenia, and Georgia ; bat a lieutenant whom he had left behind him in the East continued to prosecute the subjection of Northern China. Chinghiz himself on his return from his western conquests renewed his attack on Tangut, and died on that enterprise 18th August, 1127.

92. Okkodai, the son and successor of Chinghiz, followed up the subjugation of China, extinguished the Kin finally in 1234 and consolidated with his empire all the provinces north of the Great Kiang. The southern provinces remained for the present subject to the Chinese dynasty of the Sung, reigning now at Kingssé or Hangcheu. This kingdom was known to the Tartars as NANGKIASS, and also by the quasi-Chinese title of MANGI or MANZr, made so famous by .Marco Polo and the travellers of the following age, a title which the Western Mahomedans not unnaturally confounded and identified with MACHIN, a term of another origin and properly of a larger application.1

whilst the successors of Chinghiz, viz., Okkodai, Kuyuk, Mangu, Kublai, and those who followed him on the throne of Khanbalik, the Magni Canes of our ecclesiastical travellers, should properly be designated as Qaan.

But I have not ventured on such a refinement. (See Quatremère on Rashid, pp. 10 et segq.)

1 illcichin is merely a contraction of Mahachina, " Great China", the name by which the Hindus anciently styled the Great Empire (see supra, p. lxviii), and in this application I have heard it still vernacularly used by them. In this sense, also, it would appear to have been understood in old times by the more intelligent Mahomedans, as when Al Biruni, speaking of the Himalyas, says that beyond those mountains is Mahach.jn.