Now You Must Know That Great Turkey Lies Towards The North-West When You
Travel From Hormos By That Road I Described.
It begins on the further bank
of the River JON,[1] and extends northward to the territory of the Great
Kaan.
Now I shall tell you of sundry battles that the troops of Caidu fought
with the armies of the Great Kaan.
NOTE 1. - We see that Polo's error as to the relationship between Kublai
and Kaidu, and as to the descent of the latter (see Vol I. p. 186) was not
a slip, but persistent. The name of Kaidu's grandfather is here in the G.
T. written precisely Chagatai (Ciagatai).
Kaidu was the son of Kashin, son of Okkodai, who was the third son of
Chinghiz and his successor in the Kaanate. Kaidu never would acknowledge
the supremacy of Kublai, alleging his own superior claim to the Kaanate,
which Chinghiz was said to have restricted to the house of Okkodai as long
as it should have a representative. From the vicinity of Kaidu's position
to the territories occupied by the branch of Chaghatai he exercised great
influence over its princes, and these were often his allies in the
constant hostilities that he maintained against the Kaan. Such
circumstances may have led Polo to confound Kaidu with the house of
Chaghatai. Indeed, it is not easy to point out the mutual limits of their
territories, and these must have been somewhat complex, for we find Kaidu
and Borrak Khan of Chaghatai at one time exercising a kind of joint
sovereignty in the cities of Bokhara and Samarkand.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 876 of 1350
Words from 235370 to 235638
of 370046
