Carpini Relates That
Chinghiz Was Killed By Lightning.
The Persian and Chinese historians,
however, agree in speaking of his death as natural.
Gaubil calls the place
of his death Lou-pan, which he says was in lat. 38 deg.. Rashiduddin calls it
Leung-Shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so called in the
heart of Shensi.
The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded
is very variously given. According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality
dangerously wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfu in 1212.
And it is possible, as Oppert suggests, that Polo's account of his death
before Caagiu (as I prefer the reading), arose out of a confusion
between this circumstance and those of the death of Mangku Kaan, which
is said to have occurred at the assault of Hochau in Sze-ch'uan, a name
which Polo would write Caagiu, or nearly so. Abulfaragius specifically
says that Mangku Kaan died by an arrow; though it is true that other
authors say he died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned; all which
shows how excusable were Polo's errors as to events occurring 50 to 100
years before his time. (See Oppert's Presbyter Johannes, p. 76; De
Mailla, IX. 275, and note; Gaubil, 18, 50, 52, 121; Erdmann, 443;
Ss. Setzen, 103.)
It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that
Chinghiz "began to think of conquering a great part of the world," that we
see Polo to have been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the
conquests of Chinghiz; the aim being literally the conquest of the world
as he conceived it; the extent of the empire which he initiated actually
covering (probably) one half of the whole number of the human race. (See
remarks in Koeppen, Die Relig. des Buddha, II. 86.)
CHAPTER LI.
OF THOSE WHO DID REIGN AFTER CHINGHIS KAAN, AND OF THE CUSTOMS OF THE
TARTARS.
Now the next that reigned after Chinghis Kaan, their first Lord,[NOTE 1]
was CUY KAAN, and the third Prince was BATUY KAAN, and the fourth was
ALACOU KAAN, the fifth MONGOU KAAN, the sixth CUBLAY KAAN, who is the
sovereign now reigning, and is more potent than any of the five who went
before him; in fact, if you were to take all those five together, they
would not be so powerful as he is.[NOTE 2] Nay, I will say yet more; for
if you were to put together all the Christians in the world, with their
Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians, - aye, and throw
in the Saracens to boot, - would not have such power, or be able to do so
much as this Cublay, who is the Lord of all the Tartars in the world,
those of the Levant and of the Ponent included; for these are all his
liegemen and subjects. I mean to show you all about this great power of
his in this book of ours.
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