Timour
Was Compelled By The Sustained Hostility Of Kaidu To Continue The Struggle
With That Prince, But He Confined Himself To The Defensive, And The Death
Of Kaidu, In 1301, Deprived The Contest Of Its Extreme Bitterness Although
It Still Continued.
Timour was, however, unfortunate in the one foreign enterprise which he
undertook.
The ease with which Burmah had been vanquished and reduced to a
tributary state emboldened some of his officers on the southern frontier
to attempt the conquest of Papesifu - a state which may be identified with
the modern Laos. The enterprise, commenced in a thoughtless and light-
hearted manner, revealed unexpected peril and proved disastrous. A large
part of the Mongol army perished from the heat, and the survivors were
only rescued from their perilous position, surrounded by the numerous
enemies they had irritated, by a supreme effort on the part of Koko, the
viceroy of Yunnan, who was also Timour's uncle. The insurrectionary
movement was not confined to the outlying districts of Annam and Burmah,
but extended within the Chinese border, and several years elapsed before
tranquillity was restored to the frontier provinces.
Timour died in 1306 without leaving a direct legitimate heir, and his two
nephews Haichan and Aiyuli Palipata were held to possess an equal claim to
the throne. Haichan was absent in Mongolia when his uncle died, and a
faction put forward the pretensions of Honanta, prince of Gansi, who seems
to have been Timour's natural son, but Aiyuli Palipata, acting with great
energy, arrested the pretender and proclaimed Haichan as emperor.
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