The conquest of Persia was completed by Holagu, the son of Tuli and grandson of Zingis, who of course was' brother to the two successive emperors, Mangu and Cublai. From Persia, the Moguls spread their ravages and conquests over Syria, Armenia, and Anatolia, or what is now called Turkey in Asia; but Arabia was protected by its burning deserts, and Egypt was successfully defended by the arms of the Mamalukes, who even repelled the Moguls from Syria.
Batu, another son of Tuli, conquered Turkestan and Kipzak[3], Astracan and Cazan, and reduced Georgia and Circassia to dependence. 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.
[3] Dashte Kipzak, or the plain of Kipzak, extended on both sides of the Volga, towards the Jaik or Ural, and the Borysthenes or Dnieper, and is supposed to have given name to the Cosacs.--Gibb.
[4] As reported by Gibbon, from Matthew Paris, p. 396, forty or fifty herrings were sold for a shilling. This must be an error, perhaps for 40 or 50 thousand; as a shilling of these days was worth at least from fifteen to twenty modern shillings in effective value; and within memory herrings have often sold, in a very plentiful fishery, for a shilling the cart-load, when salt could not be had in sufficient quantity.--E.
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. Yet the vast empire which Timour established, fell into fragments after his death, in 1405, and his descendants have sunk into oblivion; while the race of Othman and Bajazet still rule over a large empire in Europe and Asia, nearly commensurate with the eastern Roman empire, still called Rumi in the east.
[5] Decl. and Fall. XII. I.
Having thus traced an outline of the revolutions of empire in Tartary, down to what may be considered as modern history, it is only necessary farther to mention, that all eastern Tartary and Mongalia is now subject to China, and Kipzac and all the northern to Russia. 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