Now let us go back to the Great Kaan, who had news of all this plot.

NOTE 1.—­There is no doubt that Kublai was proclaimed Kaan in 1260 (4th month), his brother Mangku Kaan having perished during the seige of Hochau in Ssechwan in August of the preceding year.  But Kublai had come into Cathay some years before as his brother’s Lieutenant.

He was the fifth, not sixth, Supreme Kaan, as we have already noticed.  (Bk.  I. ch. li. note 2.)

NOTE 2.—­Kublai was born in the eighth month of the year corresponding to 1216, and had he lived to 1298 would have been eighty-two years old. [According to Dr. E. Bretschneider (Peking, 30), quoting the Yuen-Shi, Kublai died at Khanbaligh, in the Tze-t’an tien in February, 1294.—­H.  C.] But by Mahomedan reckoning he would have been close upon eighty-five.  He was the fourth son of Tuli, who was the youngest of Chinghiz’s four sons by his favourite wife Burte Fujin. (See De Mailla, IX. 255, etc.)

NOTE 3.—­This is not literally true; for soon after his accession (in 1261) Kublai led an army against his brother and rival Arikbuga, and defeated him.  And again in his old age, if we credit the Chinese annalist, in 1289, when his grandson Kanmala (or Kambala) was beaten on the northern frontier by Kaidu, Kublai took the field himself, though on his approach the rebels disappeared.

Kublai and his brother Hulaku, young as they were, commenced their military career on Chinghiz’s last expedition (1226-1227).  His most notable campaign was the conquest of Yunnan in 1253-1254. (De Mailla, IX. 298, 441.)

NOTE 4.—­NAYAN was no “uncle” of Kublai’s, but a cousin in a junior generation.  For Kublai was the grandson of Chinghiz, and Nayan was the great-great-grandson of Chinghiz’s brother Uchegin, called in the Chinese annals Pilgutai. [Belgutai was Chinghiz’s step-brother. (Palladius.)—­H.  C.] On this brother, the great-uncle of Kublai, and the commander of the latter’s forces against Arikbuga in the beginning of the reign, both Chinghiz and Kublai had bestowed large territories in Eastern Tartary towards the frontier of Corea, and north of Liaotong towards the Manchu country. ["The situation and limits of his appanage are not clearly defined in history.  According to Belgutai’s biography, it was between the Onon and Kerulen (Yuen shi), and according to Shin Yao’s researches (Lo fung low wen kao), at the confluence of the Argun and Shilka.  Finally, according to Harabadur’s biography, it was situated in Abalahu, which geographically and etymologically corresponds to modern Butkha (Yuen shi); Abalahu, as Kublai himself said, was rich in fish; indeed, after the suppression of Nayan’s rebellion, the governor of that country used to send to the Peking Court fishes weighing up to a thousand Chinese pounds (kin.).  It was evidently a country near the Amur River.” (Palladius, l.c. 31.)—­H.  C.] Nayan had added to