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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

T.N. cuting his Khitá campaign), they marched for three days along a hill white as snow
with the bleached bones of the slain in its siege, whilst the ground between to the
city was black and grimed with their gore, the stink of which killed some and
poisoned most of their party. At the city itself, under one of its towers, he saw
a pile of bones, said to be those of twenty thousand virgins, who had been cast from
it to escape by such death the fury of the Moghol soldiers.
Khwáhrizm Sháh's embassy was well received by Changíz, who dismissed the
envoy with rich presents, and the following brief message of his master :— "I am
King of the East. Thou art King of the West. Let merchants come and go between
us, and exchange the products of our countries." A caravan of merchants accom-
panied the returning envoy, who amongst the other presents from Changíz carted
away a block of native gold the size of a camel's neck. On arrival at the frontier
city of Atrár, 1218 A.D., the Governor, Kádir Khán, by order of Khwáhrizm Sháh,
detained the caravan, and soon after murdered all the merchants to the number of
four hundred, and plundered their property.
This treacherous act brought down upon the country the savage vengeance of
Changíz. He collected his forces from Turkistán, Chin, and Tamgháj, under eight
hundred standards of a thousand men each; eight hundred thousand horsemen. He
appointed, besides, three hundred thousand horses for the baggage of the army, its
carts, and families, &c., including one horse to every ten men, with its load of three
sheep made into eddid= "sundried salt-meat," a skin of Cumiz= "mare's milk wine,"
and a Kazghan= "iron cooking pot." Thus provided his hardy soldiers marched three
months across deserts, and rivers, and mountains, and towards the end of 616 H.
=1219 A.D. arrived at Atrár. Here he left Júji and Aoktay with their troops,
who on its capture after a siege of five months, in revenge for the murder of their
merchants there, destroyed every living thing in it. Meanwhile Changíz himself
with a strong force hurried on to Bukhárá, the capital.
P. We need not here follow the career of his frightful butchery and devastation.
It is sufficient for our purpose to note here that the cities of Káshghar escaped these
calamities, and that a strong contingent of their Uighúr soldiery under Aydy Cút
and other leaders were in the conqueror's army; that Khwáhrizm Sháh, flying before
the storm his savagery had raised, was chased into Mazandarán, and escaped his
pursuers by ship on the Caspian to disappear from the scene; that the populous
cities of Bukhárá, Balkh, Nishabor, Herat, Ghazni, and many another in this region
were utterly destroyed with their inhabitants; that the vaunted impregnable castles
and fortresses of Tokháristán, Kábul, Ghor, Sistán, Khurásán, and Khiva were
without exception captured and dismantled or razed; that the entire region from
Azarbiján on the west to the Indus on the east, and from Dasht Kapchák on the
north to Sistán on the south, was in the short space of only six years so thoroughly
wasted and ruined that more than as many centuries has not sufficed to obliterate
the effects and marks of the havoc then worked, far less to restore the region to its
former state of prosperity and population; and finally, that having chased Sultán
Jalálluddin Khwahrizm Sháh, the son and successor at Ghazni of the fugitive King,
across the Indus, he was called back from his mad career of devastation to quell a
revolt in his own home at Tungút.
T. N. Changíz, the author from whose work these records are taken states, had in 615 H.
= 1218 A.D., just at the time he was preparing to set out against Khwáhrizm Shah,
received envoys from the Khálif Násir of Baghdad urging him to do so, in revenge
for the independence of the Khálifat assumed by this ruler of Máwaránahar. He
was joined on the way by Arslán Khán of Almálígh, and by Aydy Cút from Besh-
báligh with his Uighur contingent. On arrival at Atrár he left Aoktáy and Chagh-
táy, with Júji in support to take the place, and sending Alée Noyán and Mangú
Bocá to Banákat and Khujand, himself hurried on against Bukhárá, the Cutub-ul-
islám= "centre prop of Muhammadanism." In the Mugh or Parsi language Bukhár
is said to signify "collection of knowledge," but with the Uighúr and Khitáy it