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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Garshewáz became jealous of the rising power of Syáwush, and persuading
his brother, Afrásyáb, that he aimed at independence so excited his suspicions that he
summoned him to his capital and there killed him. Popular tradition points to the
Darwáza Ghoryán of Bukhárá as the spot on which he was slain; and the site was
long held sacred by the Mughán or "fire-worshipers," the followers of Zarathustra or
Zoroaster, who used to assemble there every New Year's day at sunrise, each man
bringing a cock which he sacrificed on the spot in commemoration of the murder.
The murder of Syáwush created intense excitement in Persia, and Kaikáos bend-
ing to the popular demand sent his general, the celebrated Rustam, with a great
army to avenge his death. He besieged Rámetan for two years, built Rámish
opposite to it, and finally driving Afrásyáb from the country occupied it for seven
years with his Persians.
Syáwush left a posthumous son by Farangís, named Kaikhusro, or Cyrus, who after
a romantic career of infancy became King of Persia, and warred with his grand-
father to avenge the death of his father. His general, Rustam, after many prodigies
of valour against the troops of Chín and Khutan, drove Afrásyáb from his capital,
and dividing his country amongst the Persian commanders returned to the Court of
Kaikhusro. Afrásyáb, however, again recovered his capital, and waged an indecisive
warfare against the Persian Sovereign till Kaikhusro finally conquered Bukhárá and
Samarcand, and capturing Afrásyáb slew him. His grave is said to be at the
Ma'bad gate of the city where these events are commemorated amongst the people of
Bukhárá in the popular ditties known as "The songs of Syáwush."
Kaikhusro now resigned his crown and government to his adopted son, Lohrasp,
the son-in-law of Kaikáos, and he soon exacted homage from the rulers of Tártary and
China, and thus established his authority over the country of the Afrásyáb Kings.
The Persian sovereignty thus established in Túrán was destroyed in the person of
Dáráb II., the fifth in succession from Lohrasp, by the conquest of Alexander the
Great about 330 B.C. And the Greek Bactrian kingdom founded by him in
Saghd was in its turn overthrown by the invasion from the north of the Great Yuchi.
During the period from the overthrow of the Afrásyáb dynasty to the subse-
quent establishment of the Greek Bactrian empire the region to the east, known
as Chinese Tartary, or locally as Kichik Bukhárá or "Little Bukhárá," was the theatre
of contest between conflicting races—the early Caucasian possessors, and invading
Moghol or Mongol hordes from the extreme north. These numerous tribes of hardy
mountaineers, pressed by the barbarian hosts from the north—who in later times
have become prominent on the pages of history under the names of Moghol, Mánjhú
or Máncbúr, Kalmák or Kalmuck, Kirghiz or Kirguise, Noghay, Báshkir, Uzbek,
&c.—during the long period of the Chow dynasty from 1122 to 250 B.C., when the
Chinese Empire was divided into a fluctuating number of petty principalities—from
125 at one time to 41 at another—made repeated incursions into the more tempting
territories of their eastern and southern neighbours, until in 253 B.C., Che Hwangti,
the first universal monarch of the empire, built the Great Wall against their
destructive inroads.
Of these northern tribes the Yuchi or Tokhár, a branch of the Tungnu or
Eastern Tártár people, were the most warlike and formidable. They had been
driven from their lands westward to the banks of the Ila River just anterior to 200
B.C. by the Hiungnu, or Huns, under their Chief Mothe who, in his victorious
career, finally conquered all the country from the borders of China on the east to
the banks of the Volga on the west. The rapid rise to power of the Hiungnu
alarmed the Chinese, and in the reign of Kaou-tsu, the first Emperor of the Han
dynasty, from 202 to 194 B.C., they sent an army against Mothe. But it hastily
retired before the vast superiority of his numbers, and the Hiungnu for 50 years
maintained their supremacy.
At this time the Yuchi, pressed by the Hiungnu, separated. The lesser division
or Little Yuchi passed into Tibet, while the greater division or Great Yuchi—the
Táy Yuchi—descended upon Káshghar, Yárkand, and Khutan where, about 163 B.C.,
they displaced the original occupants called Sáká or Sú by the Chinese.