quell the
disturbance. After this his life was spent in conquering China, a feat
which he never accomplished. But in several campaigns, extending over a
period of about twenty years, he worsted the Imperial troops so
continually, that before his death, in 1227, he had occupied all the
northern provinces of that empire, with Pekin, and left to his son and
successor, Ogdai Khan, the task of completing the work which he had
commenced. On the death of Genghis Khan, his vast possessions were
divided amongst his children, and Kashgar, including Jungaria, Khwaresm,
and Afghanistan, fell to the lot of Chaghtai Khan. This ruler was able
to hold during his life the extensive territory he had succeeded to; but
on his death dissensions broke out in all quarters of the country, and
produced a fresh distribution of the various provinces. It may be
mentioned that, although Chaghtai was a fanatical Buddhist and a
confirmed debauchee, he was a prudent and sagacious ruler, and no
unworthy successor to his distinguished father. The dissensions that
broke out on his decease continued, with more or less violence, for a
period of almost 100 years after that event took place, and they finally
only received a momentary solution in the formation of a new kingdom of
Mugholistan, or Jattah Ulus, as it was more specifically called, under
one of Chaghtai's descendants.

As briefly and as clearly as possible, we will endeavour to lay before
the reader the chief events of this troubled epoch, when the numerous
progeny of Genghis Khan warred throughout the whole extent of Central
Asia, and a term was only at last placed to their restlessness by their
disappearance. In the first place, it may be as well to mention, that
the religions of Christ, Buddha, and Mahomed, were equally tolerated in
Eastern Turkestan during the greater part of this period. The Arab
invasion and the advance of Islam, had been hurled back beyond Bokhara
"the Holy," by the victorious arms of the great Buddhist conqueror,
Genghis Khan; and for a long period after the Mongol conquests, little
was heard of attempts at conversion to the tenets of the "true Prophet."
But it must not be supposed that, although Genghis Khan, in the sack of
Bokhara, had almost exterminated the race of Mahomedan priests, he was
disposed to stamp out the new heresy from his realms. Having crushed its
power in the field, he was quite content to let it live on or die out,
so long as his imperial or personal