NOTE 1. - There is no doubt that Kublai was proclaimed Kaan in 1260 (4th
month), his brother Mangku Kaan having perished during the seige of Hochau
in Ssechwan in August of the preceding year. But Kublai had come into
Cathay some years before as his brother's Lieutenant.
He was the fifth, not sixth, Supreme Kaan, as we have already noticed.
(Bk. I. ch. li. note 2.)
NOTE 2. - Kublai was born in the eighth month of the year corresponding to
1216, and had he lived to 1298 would have been eighty-two years old.
[According to Dr. E. Bretschneider (Peking, 30), quoting the Yuen-Shi,
Kublai died at Khanbaligh, in the Tze-t'an tien in February, 1294. - H. C.]
But by Mahomedan reckoning he would have been close upon eighty-five. He
was the fourth son of Tuli, who was the youngest of Chinghiz's four sons
by his favourite wife Burte Fujin. (See De Mailla, IX. 255, etc.)
NOTE 3. - This is not literally true; for soon after his accession (in
1261) Kublai led an army against his brother and rival Arikbuga, and
defeated him. And again in his old age, if we credit the Chinese annalist,
in 1289, when his grandson Kanmala (or Kambala) was beaten on the northern
frontier by Kaidu, Kublai took the field himself, though on his approach
the rebels disappeared.
