[1] A village or community. [↑]
CHAPTER II
TEMUDJIN BEGINS HIS MIGHTY CAREER
This intense rivalry between the descendants of Kabul and Ambagai was the great ruling fact among Mongols at this epoch. Kabul and Ambagai were second cousins, both being third in descent from Kaidu, that little boy saved by his nurse from the Jelairs; the Kaidu whose descendants were the great ruling Mongols of history. Kabul and Ambagai are remarkable themselves, and are notable also as fathers of men who sought power by all means which they could imagine and bring into practice.
Yessugai with his brothers was now triumphant and prosperous. He was terribly hostile to the Buyur Lake Tartars; he was ever watching the Taidjut opposition, which though resting at times never slumbered. Once in the days of his power Yessugai while hawking along the Onon saw a Merkit named Yeke Chilaidu taking home with him a wife from the Olkonots. Seeing that the woman was a beauty Yessugai hurried back to his yurta and returned with his eldest and youngest brothers to help him. When Yeke saw the three brothers coming he grew frightened, struck his horse and rushed away to find some good hiding place, but found none and rode back to the cart where his wife was. “Those men are very hostile,” said the woman. “Hurry off, or they will kill thee. If thou survive find a wife such as I am, if thou remember me call her by my name.” Then she drew off her shift and gave it to Yeke. He took it, mounted quickly and, seeing Yessugai approaching with his brothers, galloped up the river.
The three men rushed after Yeke, but did not overtake him, so they rode back to the woman, whose name was Hoelun. She was weeping. Her screams when they seized her “raised waves on the river, and shook trees in the valley.”
“The husband has crossed many ridges already, and many [[17]]waters,” said Daritai, Yessugai’s youngest brother, “no matter how thou scream he will not come to thee, if thou look for his trail thou wilt not find it. Stop screaming!” Thus they took Hoelun, and she became a wife then to Yessugai.
Some months after the capture of Hoelun, Yessugai made attacks on the Tartars, and among other captives took Temudjin Uge, a chieftain. Hoelun gave birth to a son at that period[1] near the hill Dailiun Baldak. The boy was born grasping a lump of dark blood in his fist very firmly, and since he was born when Temudjin Uge was taken they called the child Temudjin. After that Hoelun had three other sons: Kassar, Hochiun and Taimuge, and one daughter, Taimulun.