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The struggle with the Mongols under Yesien continued, but his attention was distracted from China by his desire to become the great Khan of the Mongols, a title still held by his brother-in-law, Thotho Timour, of the House of Genghis.
Formerly, it seems, it was a haunt of robbers and bandits, and it is a pity that the renowned Ki-Tsang did not live in those days. Perhaps he would have become a Genghis Khan? Major Noltitz told me of a Turkoman saying to the following effect: "If you meet a Mervian and a viper, begin by killing the Mervian and leave the viper till afterwards."
Such was the superiority in numbers of the Kerait, that in the first battle of this long and keenly- contested struggle, Wang Khan defeated Temujin near Ourga, where the mounds that cover the slain are still shown to the curious or skeptical visitor. After this serious, and in some degree unexpected reverse, the fortunes of Genghis sank to the lowest ebb.
This regulation greatly increased the discontent of the Kitan, and made them more inclined to rebellion than they were before. Besides this, there had been for some time a growing difficulty between the Chinese government and Genghis Khan.
But the danger was, of course, infinitely greater in the days of Genghis Khan, when pikes and spears, and bows and arrows, were the only weapons with which the body of huntsmen could arm themselves for the combat. Indeed, in those days wild beasts were even in some respects more formidable enemies than men.
These men determined not to wait the operations of Genghis Khan in attacking the walls, but to make a sudden sally from the gates, with the whole force that could be spared, and attack the besiegers in their intrenchments. They made this sally in the night, at a time when the Monguls were least expecting it. They were, however, wholly unsuccessful.
It prevented the early triumph of the Caucasian race, and galvanized, for a time, the nations of the East and South into a false life. The ravages of the Tartar hordes under Genghis Khan and his successors were in no sense life, but only a fitful madness. The European stream was thus impeded in its flood by the new activity of Arabia and Turkomania.
At this moment I am desirous to return to Tartary, but could you allow my soldiers to take their departure without appeasing their anger with presents?" In reply Utubu sent Genghis a princess of his family as a wife, and also "five hundred youths, the same number of girls, three thousand horses, and a vast quantity of precious articles."
The five planets had appeared together in the southwest, and so much impressed was Genghis by this phenomenon that on his death-bed he expressed "the earnest desire that henceforth the lives of our enemies shall not be unnecessarily sacrificed." The expression of this wish undoubtedly tended to mitigate the terrors of war as carried on by the Mongols.
Genghis Khan, to punish the inhabitants, as he said, for even thinking of resisting him, set aside a supply of cattle and other provisions to keep them from starving, and then gave up all the rest of the property found in the town to be divided among his soldiers as plunder. At length the army reached the great plain in which Bokhara was situated, and encamped before the town.
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