Should
take to their bows, a weapon that they know how to handle better than any
troops in the world. They did as he bade them, and plied their bows
stoutly, shooting so many shafts at the advancing elephants that in a short
space they had wounded or slain the greater part of them as well as of the
men they carried. The enemy also shot at the Tartars, but the Tartars had
the better weapons, and were the better archers to boot.
And what shall I tell you? Understand that when the elephants felt the
smart of those arrows that pelted them like rain, they turned tail and
fled, and nothing on earth would have induced them to turn and face the
Tartars. So off they sped with such a noise and uproar that you would have
trowed the world was coming to an end! And then too they plunged into the
wood and rushed this way and that, dashing their castles against the trees,
bursting their harness and smashing and destroying everything that was on
them.
So when the Tartars saw that the elephants had turned tail and could not
be brought to face the fight again, they got to horse at once and charged
the enemy. And then the battle began to rage furiously with sword and
mace. Right fiercely did the two hosts rush together, and deadly were the
blows exchanged. The king's troops were far more in number than the
Tartars, but they were not of such metal, nor so inured to war; otherwise
the Tartars who were so few in number could never have stood against them.
Then might you see swashing blows dealt and taken from sword and mace;
then might you see knights and horses and men-at-arms go down; then might
you see arms and hands and legs and heads hewn off: and besides the dead
that fell, many a wounded man, that never rose again, for the sore press
there was. The din and uproar were so great from this side and from that,
that God might have thundered and no man would have heard it! Great was
the medley, and dire and parlous was the fight that was fought on both
sides; but the Tartars had the best of it.[NOTE 3]
In an ill hour indeed, for the king and his people, was that battle begun,
so many of them were slain therein. And when they had continued fighting
till midday the king's troops could stand against the Tartars no longer;
but felt that they were defeated, and turned and fled. And when the
Tartars saw them routed they gave chase, and hacked and slew so
mercilessly that it was a piteous sight to see. But after pursuing a while
they gave up, and returned to the wood to catch the elephants that had run
away, and to manage this they had to cut down great trees to bar their
passage. Even then they would not have been able to take them without the
help of the king's own men who had been taken, and who knew better how to
deal with the beasts than the Tartars did. The elephant is an animal that
hath more wit than any other; but in this way at last they were caught,
more than 200 of them. And it was from this time forth that the Great Kaan
began to keep numbers of elephants.
So thus it was that the king aforesaid was defeated by the sagacity and
superior skill of the Tartars as you have heard.
NOTE 1. - Nescradin for Nesradin, as we had Bascra for Basra.
This NASRUDDIN was apparently an officer of whom Rashiduddin speaks, and
whom he calls governor (or perhaps commander) in Karajang. He describes
him as having succeeded in that command to his father the Sayad Ajil of
Bokhara, one of the best of Kublai's chief Ministers. Nasr-uddin retained
his position in Yun-nan till his death, which Rashid, writing about 1300,
says occurred five or six years before. His son Bayan, who also bore the
grandfather's title of Sayad Ajil, was Minister of Finance under Kublai's
successor; and another son, Hala, is also mentioned as one of the
governors of the province of Fu-chau. (See Cathay, pp. 265, 268, and
D'Ohsson, II. 507-508.)
Nasr-uddin (Nasulating) is also frequently mentioned as employed on this
frontier by the Chinese authorities whom Pauthier cites.
[Na-su-la-ding [Nasr-uddin] was the eldest of the five sons of the
Mohammedan Sai-dien-ch'i shan-sze-ding, Sayad Ajil, a native of Bokhara,
who died in Yun-nan, where he had been governor when Kublai, in the reign
of Mangu, entered the country. Nasr-uddin "has a separate biography in ch.
cxxv of the Yuen-shi. He was governor of the province of Yun-nan, and
distinguished himself in the war against the southern tribes of Kiao-chi
(Cochin-China) and Mien (Burma). He died in 1292, the father of twelve
sons, the names of five of which are given in the biography, viz.
Bo-yen-ch'a-rh [Bayan], who held a high office, Omar, Djafar, Hussein,
and Saadi." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. 270-271). Mr. E.H. Parker
writes in the China Review, February-March, 1901, pp. 196-197, that the
Mongol history states that amongst the reforms of Nasr-uddin's father in
Yun-nan, was the introduction of coffins for the dead, instead of burning
them. - H.C.]
[NOTE 2. - In his battle near Sardis, Cyrus "collected together all the
camels that had come in the train of his army to carry the provisions and
the baggage, and taking off their loads, he mounted riders upon them
accoutred as horsemen. These he commanded to advance in front of his other
troops against the Lydian horse.... The reason why Cyrus opposed his
camels to the enemy's horse was, because the horse has a natural dread of
the camel, and cannot abide either the sight or the smell of that
animal.... The two armies then joined battle, and immediately the Lydian
warhorses, seeing and smelling the camels, turned round and galloped off."
(Herodotus, Bk.
