In the spring of 1202, Temudjin set out to attack the tribes Antshi and Tshagan.  These were doubtless the subjects of Wangtshuk and Tsaghan, mentioned by Ssanang Setzen.  They were probably Tungusian tribes.  The western writers tell us that Temudjin gave orders to his soldiers to follow up the beaten enemy, without caring about the booty, which should be fairly divided among them.  His relatives, Kudsher, Daritai, and Altun, having disobeyed, were deprived of their share, and became, in consequence, his secret enemies.  Ssanang Setzen has much more detail, and his narrative is interesting because, as Schmidt suggests, it apparently contains the only account extant of the conquest of the tribes of Manchuria.  He says that while Temudjin was hawking between the river Olcho and the Ula, Wangtshuk Khakan, of the Dschurtschid (Niutchi Tartars of Manchuria), had retired from there.  Temudjin was angry, and went to assemble his army to attack the enemy’s capital.  But as a passage was forbidden him across the river Ula, and the road was blockaded, the son of Toktanga Baghatur Taidshi, named Andun Ching Taidshi, coupled ten thousand horses together by their bridles, and pressed into the river, forced a passage, and the army then began to besiege the town.

Temudjin sent word to Wangtshuk, and said, “If you will send me ten thousand swallows and one thousand cats then I will cease attacking the town”; upon which the required number was procured.  Temudjin fastened some lighted wool to the tail of each and let them go; then the swallows flew to their nests in the houses, and the cats climbed and jumped on the roofs; the city was fired, by which means Temudjin conquered Wangtshuk Khakan, and took his daughter Salichai for his wife.  He then marched farther eastward to the river Unegen, but he found it had overflowed its banks, whereupon he did not cross it, but sent envoys to Tsaghan Khakan of the Solongos, i.e., of the Solons.  “Bring me tribute, or we must fight,” he said; upon which Tsaghan Khakan was frightened, sent him a daughter of Dair Ussun, named Kulan Goa, with a tent decorated with panther skins, and gave him the tribes of Solongos and Bughas as a dowry, upon which he assisted Tsaghan Khakan, so that he brought three provinces of the Solongos under his authority.

Ssanang Setzen at this point introduces one of those quaint sagas, which, however mythical in themselves, are true enough to the peculiar mode of thought of the Mongols to make them very instructive.  The saga runs thus: 

“During a three years’ absence of her husband, Brute Judjin sent Arghassun Churtshi, i.e., Arghassun the lute-player, to him.  When the latter was introduced, he spoke thus:  ’Thy wife, Burte Judjin Khatun, thy princely children, the elders and princes of thy kingdom, all are well.  The eagle builds his nest in a high tree; at times he grows careless in the fancied security of his high-perched home; then even a small bird will sometimes come and plunder it and eat the eggs and young brood:  so it is with the swan whose nest is in the sedges on the lake.  It, too, trusts too confidently in the dark thickets of reeds, yet prowling water falcons will sometimes come and rob it of eggs and young.  This might happen to my revered lord himself!’