The Nāṣirī Generations 258.3
Tabakat-i-Nasiri 258.3
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258.3.1
The young men of Bukhara, who had been spared for another purpose, were driven off with the troops towards Samrkand and Dabusah [also called Dabus and Dabust. It was a fortified town about midway between Bukhara and Samrkand], and from Bukhara the Chingiz Khan turned his face towards Samrkand. Having heard accounts of the great strength of Samrkand, which had lately been added to, the Chingiz Khan had been led to despatch bodies of troops under Juji and the Nu-yan, Alak, to subdue other places in Turkistan razm Shah, was there, on the part of that monarch, with a force of 12,000 horse; and the Mughals invested the city. On the day of the festival of the kurbān [10th of Zī-Ḥijjah — 15th February, 1220] of that same year, they took the city and fortress of Bukhārā, and expelled the whole of the inhabitants — gentle and simple, the learned and the noble, both male and female — and martyred them, and burnt and destroyed the whole of the city, and all the libraries of books; and a few persons [only] were made captive. They then turned their faces towards Samrḳand. The leader of the van of the Chingiz Khān's army, which issued from the wilds, and captured Utrār, and advanced to the gate of Bukhara and took it likewise, was a Turk whose name was Tamur-chi, the Jazbi, a man of great energy ; and, in the Mughal dialect, signifies a Hajib [Chamberlain]. On first reaching the gate of Samrkand, the Mughal forces laid an ambuscade;
258.3.2
and the troops in Samrkand, and the people, moved out to give battle. On the ambuscade being drawn, defeat befell the troops of Islam and the people of Samrkand, and nearly 50,000 Musalmans became martyrs. Subsequently to that, for a period of ten days or a little over, the Mughals took up a position round about Samrkand. Within the walls of that city, on the part of Sultan Muhammad, Khwarazm Shah, was a force of 60,000 horse, consisting of Turks, Ghuris, Tajziks, Khalj, and Karlughs, and all the Maliks of Ghur, such as Khar-zor Malik [Malik ?], and Zangi-i-Khar-Jam [Cham ?], and other Maliks of Ghur, were there. On the day of ’Ashura, the 10th of the month of Muharram, 617 H., the Mughals took Samrkand, and burnt that city and destroyed it, and made captives of some [of the inhabitants, and put the rest to the sword]. Bodies of troops were nominated to various parts of Mawara-un-Nahr, Farghanah, and Bilasa-ghun, and destroyed all the cities, and martyred all their inhabitants. Mughal armies were also despatched to take possession of different parts of the dominions [of the Khwarazmi Sultan], and forces were sent from Upper Turkistan to pursue Kashlu Khan, the Tatar, who was a king, and the son of a king, of the Tatar tribes, who had seized and brought [away] the Gur Khan of Kara-Khita; and they captured him [Kashlu Khan] on the boundaries of Jab and Kikrab which is Ghuzzistan, and the hill tracts of Samrkand; and they slew him.
258.3.3
When the news of the taking of Samrkand, and of the or Lukah, soon after found that the Makrits were again preparing for war. There is considerable discrepancy with regard to these events, and some oriental writers have, through the carelessness of copyists, apparently, turned two events into one, with respect to Kodu and the sons of the late Bigi Tukta, and his nephews, and Tuk-Tughan, the Makrit. At the period in question, Kodu and his nephews were residing in the Naeman country, and were regaining strength, which they were using in support of Koshluk, the Naeman sovereign, who, at this time, had seized the last of the Gur Khans, and his dominions. The Makrits had likewise incited other tribes of Mughals, who were quite ready to do so, to throw off the yoke of the Chingiz Khan, under which they had fallen. Among the tribes instigated to war by them were the Tum-at or Tum-ad Mughals [turned into “Comat,” in the Kashghar Mission History, a different tribe from the Burghuts or Burkuts], who were dwelling in the tracts towards the south-east from Kashghar—now part of the great sandy desert—towards the frontier of Khita, about the Kok Nawar, incorrectly written Kokonor in our maps.
258.3.4
In the year 612 H., therefore, the Chingiz Khan despatched the Nu-yin, Sahudah, or Swidae, the Uriangkhut Kungkur-at, with a considerable army against the Makrits, and he was provided with carts or waggons, specially made and strengthened with iron, so that they might not easily break down, as the Makrits had taken shelter in a very mountainous tract of country. This tract was called Kum-Kunjak—which, through the careless copying of some scribe, or an imperfect MS., has been mistaken for Kibchak by many oriental authors with ridiculous results, and European writers generally have followed them. Sahudah set out in the beginning of 612 H. [it commenced on the 1st May, 1215 A.D.], and was joined, on the way, by the Bahadur, Taghachar, with another force [this leader, probably, is Guzidah’s Tutmar-i-Chubin, but Abu-l-Ghazi, Bahadur Khan, calls him Toshajar]. The two leaders, after great exertions, reached the whereabouts of the Makrits, brought them to action near the banks of the river Jam—the Jam Muran; but, in some Histories, the letter has a dot over it instead of under, which makes it Kham, while in others again it is not pointed, and therefore stands for—with which no Turkish word begins [Chinese, and Europeans, however, vitiate kh and turn it into 'Arabic h as in Hatun for Khatun, Tophanah, for Top-khanah, Hatti-Humayun for Khatt-i-Humayun, Hodjah for Khwajah, Halji for Khalji, Han for Khan, Hamil for Khamil, and the like].
258.3.5
Bentinck says the Jam Muran rises in the mountains crossing the Gobi—the Altan, not Altyn mountains—of which but little had been previously known, if the existence of such a range has not been altogether ignored until the recent discoveries by the Russians, and that the river runs S.S.W., and falls into the Kara-Muran or Hoang-ho, on the borders of Tibbat. See the map to Col. Prejevalsky's explorations in the Geographical Magazine for May, 1878, which confirm the existence of this range, which has been distinctly mentioned by Oriental writers and old travellers, and which is clearly laid down, although not quite exactly, in the maps of the Jesuits. A Chinese envoy told Gerbillon that he had crossed a river of Kok Nawar, “called in the Mongol [Turki?] tongue Altan Kol, or Golden River,” which falls into the Lakes of Tsing-hai, and has abundance of gold mixed with its sands. The Makrits stood their ground against the Mughals, and the consequence was they were defeated with immense loss. Some say the tribe was almost massacre and captivity of its inhabitants, and of the troops destroyed, together with Kodu and all his nephews but one, a mere child, who was taken to the presence of the Chingiz Khan, who ordered him “to be sent to join his brothers and uncle,” notwithstanding Juji Khan would have taken charge of him, and have brought him up.
258.3.6
It has been asserted that the Makrits were entirely annihilated on this occasion, but such is not correct, as I shall presently show, and Kodu, brother of the late Bigi, Tutta, and Tuk-Tughan, who is also called the brother of the same chief, have been mistaken for one and the same person, of which there is no probability, for Tuk-Tughan, and the remnant of the Makrit tribe were encountered by Juji Khan, in the northern part of the present territory of Kashghar in 615 H., after the death of Koshluk, and when the Chingiz Khan was on his way westward to invade the territory of Sultan Muhammad, Khwarazm Shah, and when Juji, against his will, sustained the attack of the Sultan’s army in which his own was roughly handled. To demonstrate this clearly, it is necessary to go back a little, and refer to what is said about it elsewhere. When Koshluk, the Naeman, left the presence of the Gur Khan, his father-in-law, to call around him his dispersed Naemans, and proceeded towards Bhalik, when he reached its confines and that of I-mil, Tuk-Tughan, the Amir of the Makrits, who had fled—from whence is not mentioned on hearing the rumour of the Chingiz Khan’s fury, joined him, together with many of the Gur Khan’s chiefs. During the time that Koshluk exercised dominion over the state of the Gur Khan, however, after the latter’s seizure by him, Tuk-Tughan, with the remainder of the tribe of Makrit, had separated from Koshluk, and returned to Kum-Kunjak again.
258.3.7
The next information we obtain is, that the Chingiz Khan, having determined to invade the dominions of the Khwarazmi Sultan, when making his preparations for the march, considered it advisable, before setting out, to leave no enemies in his rear; and, as Koshluk, the Naeman, and Tuk-Tughan, the Makrit, still remained, and their whereabouts was in the vicinity of his route towards the west, he deemed it necessary to reduce them first, and so the Nu-yin, Jabah [Yamah], was sent with a large army against Koshluk and Juji Ughlan, the Chingiz Khan’s son, at the head of another army, against the Makrits under Tuk-Tughan.