In due order of succession the chief ship passed to Kabul Khan, who in the
year 1135 began to encroach on the dominion of Hola, the Kin emperor. He
seems to have been induced to commit this act of hostility by a prophecy,
to the effect that his children should be emperors, and also by
discourteous treatment received on the occasion of his visit to the court
of Oukimai. Whatever the cause of umbrage, Kabul Khan made the Kins pay
dearly for their arrogance or short-sighted policy. Hola sent an army
under one of his best generals, Hushahu, to bring the Mongol chief to
reason, but the inaccessibility of his home stood him in good stead. The
Kin army suffered greatly in its futile attempt to cross the desert, and
during its retreat it was harassed by the pursuing Mongols. When the Kin
army endeavored to make a stand against its pursuers, it suffered a
crushing overthrow in a battle at Hailing, and on the Kins sending a
larger force against the Mongols in 1139, it had no better fortune. Kabul
Khan, after this second success, caused himself to be proclaimed Great
Emperor of the Mongols. His success in war, and his ambition, which rested
satisfied with no secondary position, indicated the path on which the
Mongols proceeded to the acquisition of supreme power and a paramount
military influence whithersoever they carried their name and standards.
The work begun by Kabul was well continued by his son Kutula, or Kublai.
He, too, was a great warrior, whose deeds of prowess aroused as much
enthusiasm among the Mongols as those of Coeur de Lion evoked in the days
of the Plantagenets. The struggle with the Kins was rendered more bitter
by the execution of several Mongols of importance, who happened to fall
into the hands of the Kins. When Kutula died the chiefship passed to his
nephew, Yissugei, who greatly extended the influence and power of his
family among the tribes neighboring to the Mongol home. Many of these, and
even some Chinese, joined the military organization of the dominant tribe,
so that what was originally a small force of strictly limited numbers
became a vast and ever-increasing confederacy of the most warlike and
aggressive races of the Chinese northern frontier. Important as Yissugei's
work in the development of Mongol power undoubtedly was, his chief
historical interest is derived from the fact that he was the father of
Genghis Khan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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