especially of the eastern part, of Chaghatai's Khanate, and it is impossible to give an intelligible account of the latter without occasional references to the former."[1]
Little is known of the way in which Chaghatai disposed of his kingdom at his death, and there appears to be no mention, anywhere, of his having followed the ancestral custom of his house in distributing it among his descendants. He is recorded to have left a numerous family, but to have been succeeded by a grandson, and a minor, named Kara Hulaku, while his widow, Ebuskun, assumed the regency. This statement, however, seems to apply to Turkistan, Transoxiana, and the adjacent regions: at all events not to Kashghar, Yarkand, Khotan, Aksu, and the southern slopes of the Tian Shan mountains—or, in other words, to the province south of the line of the Tian Shan, which is called, in our times, Eastern Turkistan. As regards this province, Mirza Haidar tells us that it was given by Chaghatai, presumably at his death, to the clan or house of Dughlát, whose members were reckoned to be of the purest Mongol descent, and one of the noblest divisions of that people. We shall hear more of this clan and the province they ruled, farther on; but the important point to notice here, with reference to subsequent events, is that the Dughláts were made hereditary chiefs, or Amirs, of the various districts of Eastern Turkistan, as far back as the time of Chaghatai, for it is chiefly on this incident that hinges the permanent division of the Chaghatai realm into two branches, at a later date.
Ebuskun's sway was a short one, for as early as 1247 Almáligh was attacked by Kuyuk, the son and successor of Oktai, and she was deprived of her power. For a time, disorder prevailed throughout the Khanate; but Kuyuk seems to have had sufficient power to set up one Yasu (or Isu) Mangu, who, being himself a worthless debauchee, governed the country through the agency of a Musulman Wazir, called Khwája Bahá-ud-Din. Kuyuk died within three years of his accession, and was followed, as supreme Khakán, by Mangu, who, in 1252, restored Kara Hulaku and Ebuskun to their former dignities. Bahá-ud-Din and Yasu Mangu were now, in their turn, removed, the former being put to death at once. Kara Hulaku died within a few months of his restoration, and after his death we hear no more of Ebuskun. Hulaku's throne passed over to his own widow—one Orgánah Khatun—whose first act was to execute Yasu Mangu,
- ↑ Oliver, pp. 90, 91.
