History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c9.75

c9.75

the Chinese empire.³⁷ No contemporary writer even casually suggests that the Sultan meditated the conquest of China. Even Nizam-al-Din, though he calls the expedition an absurd project, does not say that it was directed against China.³⁸ Firishta further adds that the Sultan wished to obtain the great wealth of the empire of China. It is true, that the condition of the Chinese empire at that time justifies such a view. The Mongol government after the death of Qubla Khan had degenerated. The patriotic Chinese detested foreign domination which rested upon brute force, and in the provinces of the empire a movement in favour of independence was clearly discernible. In 1329 A.D. when Ton Timour ascended the throne through the murder of his brother he found himself confronted with an extremely difficult situation. National risings occurred in the south-western provinces and these were followed by similar disorders in Yunān and the adjoining parts of Szchuen, where the rebels defied the existing authority, and drove away the Mughal troops who were sent to reduce them to order.³⁹ After Timour's death in 1332 A.D., when the sceptre passed to Toghan Timour who assumed the title of Shunti, the forces of disorder began to assert themselves with redoubled violence. Shunti was a cruel and whimsical despot, and during his reign the prestige of the Mongol government declined. In the second year of his reign, a famine occurred which swept away no less than 13 million human beings, and the sufferings of the people became unbearable. The decline of political power marched *pari passu* with the degradation of the character of the governing race, and the weak and vacillating emperor found it impossible to overcome the rooted antipathy of the natives to foreign rule. Such a disturbed state of the kingdom might have opened a fresh field of conquest to a warlike oriental monarch, but whether the Sultan of Hind could have at this time successfully planned an expedition against China, is more than