“The Mongol armies,” writes Mr. S. Lane-Poole, “divided into several immense brigades, swept over Khwarazm, Khorasan, and Afghanistan, on the one hand; and on the other, over Azerbayjan, Georgia, and Southern Russia; whilst a third division continued the reduction of China. In the midst of these diverging streams of conquest Chingiz Khan died in A.H. 624 (1227), at the age of sixty-four. The territory he and his sons had conquered stretched from the Yellow Sea to the Euxine, and included lands or tribes wrung from the rule of Chinese, Tanguts, Afghans, Persians, and Turks.

“It was the habit of a Mongol chief to distribute the clans over which he had ruled as appanages among his sons, and this tribal rather than territorial distribution obtained in the division of the empire among the sons of Chingiz. The founder appointed a special appanage of tribes in certain loosely defined camping-grounds to each son, and also nominated a successor to himself in the Khanate.”379

In this division of the newly founded Mongol Empire,—i.e. Transoxiana, with part of Kashghar,—Badakhshan, Balkh, and Ghazna fell to the lot of Chingiz Khan’s second son, Chaghatay, the founder of the Khanate of that name, which existed for 146 years, till its overthrow by Timur in A.H. 771 (1370). The annals of his branch of his dynasty have hitherto been obscurer than those of the other descendants of Chingiz.380 He appears to have profited by the lessons of the Naiman chancellor,381 and to have developed into a just and energetic ruler, capable of preserving order among the heterogeneous population under his charge.

He scrupulously observed the Yasak, or Civil Code, established by his father, and, like him, was tolerant towards all religions and creeds. He fixed his capital at Almaligh,382 in the extreme east of his dominions. His Mongol ministers, loving the life of the steppes, probably induced him to choose this locality rather than Samarkand or Bokhara.383 They would serve no Khan who did not lead a life worthy of free-born men; and Chaghatay and his immediate successors saw, as did his later descendants, that the one way of retaining the allegiance of his people was to humour their desires in this respect and live with them a nomad’s life.384 In the year A.H. 639 (1241) both Ogday and Chaghatay,385 the great Khans of the Mongolian Empire, died, and the successors of Chingiz fell to disputing the succession.

We do not propose to enlarge on the struggles and disorders which existed almost without cessation in Turkestan during the whole period of the Chaghatay Khan’s rule, and will confine ourselves to a consideration of the social conditions of that country under his successors.386 The Mongols in contact with communities possessed of a comparatively high standard of civilisation lost none of their passion for their boundless steppe. In their eyes the town, the settled abode, were abominations, indicating deep-seated effeminacy and corruption: the only life worth living was that of the herdsman, roving free as air, with his tent of white felt.

Their subjects who preferred a sedentary existence, so long as they were obedient and orderly, were left in tranquil occupation of their homes, and were even encouraged by their nomad lords to repair the damage suffered by their cities in war. Ruin doubtless fell on many great centres of population, such as Herat;387 but in Persia and Transoxiana there was no systematic obliteration of organised society,388 no reversion to the nomadic level. The case in Mongolia and Kashgharia was different. Less than a century prior to the rise of the Mongols these countries had been occupied by the Uighurs, who were a race which had attained a certain degree of development, and evinced it by preferring a settled existence in towns. Their successors, the Kara-Khitay, though less civilised, seem also to have affected urban life. In these countries, however, during the Chaghatay period, no new towns sprang up, while those already in being fell into a state of ruin.

“Amidst the terrible ravages committed by the Mongolians,” writes VambÉry,389 “the science of theology and its votaries alone continued to flourish. In the days of the earlier Chaghatay Khans the mullas of Turkestan had enjoyed a certain amount of protection, thanks partly to the principle of religious toleration, and partly to the superstitious awe in which every class of the priesthood was held; and in almost every town there was some one or other holy man to whom the Moslems had recourse in the day of peril. The spiritual teachers thus became at the same time secular protectors, and from this time forward we find the Sadr-i-shari`at (heads of the religious bodies) and chief magistrates, and in general all men of remarkable piety, attaining an influence in the towns of Transoxiana unknown in the rest of Islam; an influence which maintains itself to this day, though the land has been for centuries governed by Musulman princes. The seats of spiritual authority were filled by regular dynasties of learned men of certain families, as though they had been thrones.”

It appears that about the year A.H. 721 (1321) a final division of the Chaghatay Khanate took place. The two branches established were the Khans of Transoxiana and those of Jatah, or Moghulistan;390 but each had other provinces in its possession. As for the history of the western branch, it is only necessary to mention that during the fifty years of their rule, which continued until Timur made himself master of the country, we find no less than fifteen Khans recorded—some of them strangers in blood to the Chaghatay line—and long periods of anarchy.391

Leaving, then, this confused chapter of Central Asian history, we will pass to the rise of the mightiest of her conquerors.