The Nāṣirī Generations 258.9
Tabakat-i-Nasiri 258.9
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258.9.1
After being thus treated, the remainder of the Khifchak tribes sought aid from the Rus — in the Rauzat-us-Safa, and some other Histories, they are always styled Urus — and, between them, they raised a great army, and set out to encounter the Mughals, who also advanced to meet them. The Mughal leaders, finding the confederates too numerous for them to cope with, again had recourse to stratagem, in order to separate them. When the Rus and Khifchaks drew near, the Mughals, as though terrified of them, took to flight; and the Rus, taking heart, followed in pursuit of them for ten or twelve successive days, when, finding the number of their pursuers gradually diminished, and that the horses of the remainder were quite knocked up, one morning, at dawn, the Mughals mounted quietly, and fell upon the Rus; and, such was the havoc they made among them, that “the ground was made wet with their blood.” It is stated in Alfi, that, in the beginning of the year 611 of the Rihlat = 621 H. [it certainly is not correct that the two Nu-yins rejoined the Chingiz Khan early in 620 H., as will be proved farther on], the Mughals moved from the country of the Khifchaks, and penetrated as far as the city of Suadak — by some Sudak [سوداق] — on the shore of the same sea adjoining, and near to [the territory of?] Kustantiah [Constantinople?], and gained possession of Suadak city, after which they entered the country of the Rus, as above stated.
258.9.2
Petis de la Croix gives another account, however — but does not quote his authority — in which it is stated that the Alans were Tattars of Daghistan, but, in the account above, the Mughals, who doubtless knew best, styled them aliens and strangers, and did not by descent consider them, in any way, connected with themselves, who were “Turks.” “They devastated their country,” he says, “so that the Mughals might not obtain anything, and this enraged them so, that they surprised and ruined their chief city, Tarku, and took Terki [Mosdok of the present day], the chief city of the Cherkassians, who were in alliance with them, and also with the Kalimak Tartars”! According to that account, it was to these last—the Khifchak of my authorities—that the Mughals sent envoys claiming them as kinsmen, and that, by favour of the Kal-imaks, they crossed the Atil or Wolga, and entered Rus. P. de la Croix has here brought in events which happened when Juji Khan subsequently went into Khifchak, mentioned farther on, from a totally opposite direction, as the country of the Kal-imaks sufficiently indicates. The pro-Mughal writers narrate that, after the defeat of the Rus, as I have narrated above, Jabah [Yamah] and Swidae [Sahudah] set out to rejoin the Chingiz Khan, and, having done so, laid their spoils before him; and that they completed their expedition within the prescribed period of three years, in which case they must have rejoined him before the fourth month of 620 H. [= June 1223 A.D.].
258.9.3
But what are the facts? Having passed the Atil, with the consent of the Khifchak tribes, the season being far advanced, the Mughals had to winter in the Dasht-i-Khifchak. They appropriated the lands and pastures of the Khifchak tribes, in consequence of which hostilities arose between them and the Mughals; but the latter, being unable to cope with the former, had to act on the defensive, and send for aid to Juji Khan, who, since the disagreement with his brothers before Urganj of Khwarazm, had retired into the Dasht-i-Khifchak, which had previously been assigned to him as his fief. The Chingiz Khan did not move homewards from the Indus until the spring of 620 H., and passed the summer at Bughlan or Bughlan; and they only joined him in the summer of 621 H., when he was encamped near the Sihun, while others say they re-joined him only at Kalur-an. Juji sent them aid, the Khifchak tribes were now forced to submit; and Juji, at this juncture, was summoned to join his father, who was on his return homewards, and he therefore kept Jabah [Yamah] and Swidae [Sahudah] in Khifchak during his absence. They, by his command, reduced the Naguz [vul. Nogays], crossed the river in their route, easily on the ice, reached what was afterwards known as Haji-Tarkhan, the capital of the Naguz, situated on an island in the Atil or Wolga, reduced it, and compelled the Naguz to submit, after a war of six months, to the Mughal yoke.
258.9.4
Juji was directed to return to the Dasht-i-Khifchak in the autumn of 621 H. [A.D. 1224], after the great subsequent to which Jabah [Yamah] and Swidae [Sahudah] set out for the of the Chingiz Khan, and, in due course, joined him during the summer of 621 H., as stated farther on.
258.9.5
Now considering that the two Nu-yans and their force wintered in the kishlak of the Khifchak tribes, during the winter of 620-21 H. [= A.D. 1223—24] and are supposed to have rejoined the of the Chingiz Khan "early in that year," the idea of those, originally 30,000 horse, after nearly three years campaigning, during which they must have lost a good many of their number from sickness and fatigue, without allowing for the killed and wounded [P. de la Croix, quoting "Fadlallah," as he styles the "great Raschid," says that "Hubbe and Suida" had lost 10,000 men, and the Mughal ruler had sent off a reinforcement of 20,000 to join them in Mazandaran, when Tuli was sent against Nishapur in 618 H.], "dividing into two sections" after reaching the Dasht-i-Khifchak and partially destroying "Hadshi Tarkan"—"twisted" into Astrakhan by Europeans—and one body going back from thence into the "Krimea," and plundering the Genoese city of "Sudak," then "rejoining their brethren on the Don," and returning by way of "Precop," as stated in "Mongols Proper" on the authority, apparently, of Karamzin and Wolff, respecting this Russian campaign [pp. 94 and 95] is, as regards the expedition under Jabah [Yamah] and Swidae [Sahudah], at this