Advancing From The
Black Sea To Livonia On The Baltic, Moscow And Kiow Were Reduced To Ashes,
And Russia Submitted To Pay Tribute.
Their victorious arms penetrated into
Poland, in which they destroyed the cities of Lublin and Cracow; and they
even defeated the confederate army of the dukes of Silesia, the Polish
palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic knights, at Lignitz, the,
most western extremity of their destructive march.
From Lignitz they turned
aside into Hungary, and reduced the whole of that country to the north of
the Danube. During the winter, they crossed the Danube on the ice. Gran,
the capital of Hungary, was taken by storm, and Bela, the unfortunate king
of Hungary, had to take shelter in one of the islands at the head of the
Adriatic. So terrible was the alarm in Europe, that the inhabitants of
Sweden and the north of Germany neglected, in 1238, to send their ships, as
usual, to the herring-fishery on the coast of England; and, as observed by
Gibbon, it is whimsical enough to learn, that the price of herrings in the
English market was lowered in consequence of the orders of a barbarous
Mogul khan, who resided on the borders of China[4]. The tide of ruin was
stemmed at Newstadt in Austria, by the bravery of fifty knights and twenty
cross-bow-men; and the Tartars, awed by the fame of the valour and arms of
the Franks, or inhabitants of western Europe, raised the siege on the
approach of a German army, commanded by the emperor Frederic the Second.
After laying waste the kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, the
adventurous Batu slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga, and
established his seat of command in the city and palace of Serai, both of
which he had caused to be built upon the eastern arm of that noble river.
Another of the sons of Tuli, Shaibani-khan, led a horde of 15,000 Tartar
families into the wilds of Siberia; and his descendants reigned above three
centuries at Tobolsk, in that secluded region, and even reduced the
miserable Samoyedes in the neighbourhood of the polar circle.
Such was the establishment and extent of the first Tartar or Mogul empire.
The descendants of Cublai gave themselves up to luxury in the palace of
Peking, amidst a mischievous crowd of eunuchs, concubines, and astrologers,
and their Mogul army, dissolved and dispersed in a vast and populous
country, forgot the discipline and bravery of their ancestors. The
secondary Mogul sovereigns of the west, assumed entire independence; and
the great khan was satisfied with the empire of China and eastern Mongalia,
In 1367, one hundred and forty years after the death of Zingis, roused to
rebellion by a dreadful famine, in which thirteen millions of the
inhabitants of China perished, the native Chinese expelled their degenerate
Mogul oppressors, and the great khan became a wanderer in the desert. The
vast empire established by Zingis and his immediate successors was now
broken down into four vast fragments, each a powerful empire, Mongalia,
Kipzak, Zagtai or Transoxiana, and Persia; and these four khans often
contended with each other. On their ruins in lesser Asia, arose the
formidable, more permanent, and still subsisting empire of the Ottoman
Turks, whose youthful energies threatened the subversion of the last
remains of the Greek empire, which they at last effected, and might perhaps
have conquered the whole of Western Europe, if their progress had not been
arrested by the power of a new Mogul dynasty.
In the distribution of the vast empire of Zingis, we have already seen that
Zagathai, one of his sons, received the subordinate rule of Transoxiana, or
the rich country on the rivers Jihon or Amu, and the Sir or Sihon, the Oxus
and Jaxartes of the ancients. This extensive and fertile country, now
called Western Turkestan, Great Bucharia, Kharism, Chorassan, and Balk,
with some other smaller territories, is bounded on the west by the Caspian,
on the east by the Belur-tag or Imaus, on the north by the deserts of
western Tartary, and on the south by the mountains of the Hindoo-koh, and
the desert of Margiana. The descendants of Zagatai were long considered as
the khans or sovereigns of this fair empire, which fell into civil war and
anarchy, through the divisions and subdivisions of the hordes, the
uncertain laws of succession, and the ambition of the ministers of state,
who reduced their degenerate masters to mere state puppets, and elevated or
deposed successive khans at their pleasure; and the divided and distracted
country was subjected or oppressed by the invasions of the khans of
Kashgar, who ruled over the Calmucks or Getes in eastern Turkestan, or
little Bucharia, on the cast of Imaus or the Belur-tag.
In this state of misery and depression, a new hero arose, in 1361, to
vindicate and re-establish the fame and empire of the Moguls[5]. Timour,
usually called Tamerlane, was the son of the hereditary chief of Cash, a
small but fruitful territory about forty miles to the south of Samarcand.
He was the fifth in descent from Carashar-Nevian, who had been vizir or
prime minister to Zagathai, of which sovereign Timour was descended in the
female line. After various fortunes, he in 1370, rendered himself absolute
sovereign of Transoxiana, then called Zagatai, after its first Mogul ruler;
but for some time, he affected to govern as prime minister, or general, to
a nominal khan of the house of Zingis, who served as a private officer at
the head of his family horde in the army of his servant. After establishing
his authority in Zagatai, and conquering Kharism, and Candahar, he turned
his arms against Persia or Iran, which had fallen into disorganization by
the extinction of the descendants of the great Holacou, and which country
he reduced under subjection. He successively reduced Cashgar, or eastern
Turkestan, and Kipzak or western Tartary, and invaded Syria and Anatolia.
In this invasion, in 1402, was fought the great battle of Angora, in which
Bajazet, the great sultan of the Turks, was defeated and taken prisoner.
By this great victory, the progress of the Turkish arms was checked for a
time, and perhaps Europe was saved on that day from being subjected to the
law of Mahomet.
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