In 1252 Mangu gave Honan to Kubilai, his brother, as an appanage, and a part of Shen si with it also. In the same year, having previously consulted Chinese sages as to all needful and proper details, he made a great sacrifice to Heaven from a mountain top. The year following he directed that a census be taken of the people in Russia. Yun nan was made up at that time of several small kingdoms, independent for the greater part. Toward the end of 1252 Wang te chen, a commander of Mongols, made some advance in Su chuan. He pillaged Ching tu, and took Kia ting fu, thirty leagues to the south of it, thus opening Kubilai’s way to him. Kubilai in October, 1253, marched from Lin taow, where he had assembled an army. Under him was Uriang Kadai whose father, Subotai, had done most toward Mangu’s elevation. Uriang Kadai was charged by the Grand Khan with the real command of this expedition. Kubilai traversed all Su chuan, and after a march of great trials, over mountains which seemed quite impassable for an army, he crossed on rafts the Kin sha (Golden Sand), a large river. The king of the Mussu man, the first people beyond the Kin sha, submitted. The sovereign of the next people, the Pe man, made no resistance, but his nephew defended the capital. Kubilai took the city, and put the nephew to death, but he spared the inhabitants. Tali, the capital of Nan chao, received Mongol rule without fighting. Yao shu, his adviser, told Kubilai how Tsao pin, sent by a Sung Emperor to seize Nan shan, did the work without killing a person, and even without stopping any traffic in the city. Kubilai declared that he would show a like wonder. Shortly after this he mounted his stallion, and arriving at the walls of Tali, he unfurled silk banners, on which it was written in large characters that to kill man or woman was forbidden under penalty of death. In virtue of this statement on the flags, and possibly for some other cause also, Tali opened its gates, and this conquest cost only five lives, those of the city’s two commandants, who slew the three officers sent to ask for surrender. Kubilai did not go beyond Tali; he returned to Mongolia and left Uriang Kadai to master those southern regions. After Nan chao, the Mongol chief attacked and subjected the Tupo or Tibetans, a war-loving people, between one and two millions in number. Many of these entered his army, which was thereby strengthened greatly. Some even served in the vanguard and acted as scouts in attacking.