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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.
The vast empire established by Zingis, was apportioned among his four principal sons, Toushi, Zagatai, Octai, and Tuli, who had been respectively his great huntsman, chief judge, prime minister, and grand general.
He was pursued and taken by the titular Khan of Zagatai; and, after his capture and the defeat of the Ottoman powers, the kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the ministers of rapine and destruction.
No sooner had Timur reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries of Karizme and Kandahar than he turned his eyes toward the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris that extensive country was without a lawful sovereign. Peace and justice had been banished from the land above forty years; and the Mongol invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people.
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.
Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in his court; the ambassadors of Auruss Khan were dismissed with a haughty denial, and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success established Toctamish in the Mongol empire of the North.
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.
Hardly any part of it now remains independent, except Zagatai; or Transoxiana, Kharism, Candabar, and the deserts of Western Tartary: the former of which is subject to the Usbeks, and the latter to the Kirguses. Gibbon, Dec. and Fall, IV. 355. Decl. and Fall, XI. 402.
Fatigue and the indiscreet use of iced water accelerated the progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his age, 1405, thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai.
The object of this mission or embassy seems to have been as follows: A prodigious alarm was excited in Europe, by the victorious and destructive progress of the Mongals or Tartars; who, under the command of Tuschi-khan, and of Batu-khan, the son of Tuschi, advancing through Kipzhak, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, all of which they had most horribly ravaged and laid waste, had penetrated even into Silesia; while by the eastern side or the Caspian, penetrating through Transoxiana and Persia, under the command of Zagatai-khan, likewise a son of Zingus, and Holagu-khan, a nephew of Zagatai, they had made their appearance on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris.
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