Occupied with his own pleasures mainly, and leaving State cares [[392]]to his minister, Tob Timur became a nonentity. He died in 1332 at Shang tu, being twenty-nine years of age when his life ended.
Though the throne had been appointed to a son of Kushala, Yang Timur proposed to the Empress Putacheli to inaugurate a son of the late Emperor. Tob Timur had so loved the first minister that he gave him his one son to educate, bestowing on the youth the new name Yang Tekus, and took Targai, the minister’s son, to be reared in the palace. The Empress wished to enthrone a boy of seven years, Ylechebe, second son of Kushala, who had been named heir by the late sovereign. She had this boy proclaimed, and then became regent, but the health of Ylechebe was feeble, and he died some months afterward. The Chinese name Ning tsong was bestowed on him.
Yang Timur now made fresh efforts in favor of Yang Tekus, but the Empress objected that this prince was too young; Tob Timur, she declared, had promised Kushala to leave the throne to a son of his, and she informed the ex-minister that she had sent an officer to visit Kuang si and bring Togan Timur, Kushala’s eldest son, to Ta tu at the earliest.
The prince was thirteen years of age at that period. At the beginning of Tob Timur’s reign, Putacheli had put to death the Empress Papucha, wife of Kushala, and sent her son, Togan Timur, to an island off the coast of Corea with the command to let no man whatever approach him. When a year had passed the report ran that Togan Timur had been exiled because he was the true and rightful heir to the Empire. Tob Timur declared in reply, that Kushala had had no children in Mongolia, hence Togan Timur was no son of his. But he brought the boy back and sent him to live at Kuang si in South China
When Togan Timur was some leagues from the capital, Yang Timur, with princes and persons of distinction, set out to meet him. But, little satisfied with the reception given him by Togan and the persons accompanying him, Yang Timur delayed the enthronement. The coming Emperor saw his fault, and tried to repair it by marrying Peyao, Yang Timur’s daughter. While discussing this matter, and settling its details, death struck the minister. Since Tob Timur’s advent to authority this minister had been all-powerful; no person or combination of persons however [[393]]mighty had been able to successfully oppose him; he had done what he wished in all cases; he had forced the widow of Yissun Timur, an Empress, to marry him, and had dared to take forty princesses descended from Jinghis, the great conqueror, and make them his concubines; some of them he retained for three days only. His death, hastened by incontinence and drink, assured the throne to the son of Kushala. The Empress published the last will of the late Emperor, and Togan Timur was made sovereign immediately, with the promise to demand of the Empress that Yang Tekus, her son, would succeed him.
The new Emperor’s bent was toward luxury and pleasure, and he did nothing of service to any one. Peyen became minister, and Satun chief commander of the army. Satun, Yang Timur’s eldest brother, died soon after he had entered on his office, and was succeeded by Tang Kichi, the eldest son of that renowned minister, and therefore brother of Peyao, the young Empress. Togan Timur, wishing now to win Yang Timur’s powerful family, had raised Peyao to the highest rank possible to a woman. Tang Kichi, fiery and envious by nature, was enraged at seeing Peyen decide by himself the highest questions, hence he formed a plot to raise to the throne Hoan ho Timur, a grandson of Mangu the Emperor and a son of Shireki.
The conspirators, among whom with Tang Kichi were Targai, his brother, and Talientali, Tang Kichi’s uncle, planned to secrete troops and seize the Shang tu summer palace. Peyen, informed of this plot by a prince of the blood, gave command to arrest Tang Kichi and Targai in the palace. Tang Kichi, who strove to defend himself, was cut down and killed where they found him. Targai fled to the apartment of his sister, the Empress, who tried to conceal him with her garments; but she failed for the men hunting Targai cared not for her modesty, hence he was discovered and sabred to death in her presence. Peyao herself fared no better, for Peyen obtained from the Emperor an order to kill her, and charged himself with the office of headsman.
When Peyao saw him enter her apartments she divined what he wanted, and rushing to the Emperor’s chamber, begged life of him. Little touched by the tears of his consort, Togan Timur replied very coolly that her uncle and her brothers had plotted against him, and he would do nothing to save her. She was taken [[394]]from the palace to some house where Peyen himself killed her. Talientali defended his life arms in hand till he fled to Hoan ho Timur’s mansion, where the blood hunters slew him. Hoan ho was forced to raise hands on himself, and be his own executioner. Thus the great family of Yang Timur, the late minister, was extinguished.
Emperors of a day, palace tragedies, murders, civil war, and weakness roused up the Chinese at last, and they began to cast off the Mongol yoke. Revolts broke out in Honan, Su chuan, and Kuang tung simultaneously; they were stifled at the very inception. The Mongol court became thoroughly suspicious of the Chinese. In 1336 it prohibited them from having horses and arms and forbade them to use the language of the Mongols, their masters.
Peyen, the all-powerful minister, had reached now the acme of his influence, and was approaching his ruin and his doom. This man had the boldness to put to death without the Emperor’s knowledge a prince of the blood of Jinghis, and to exile two others. Ambitious and merciless, greedy and insolent to the utmost, he had drawn to his person the hatred of all save the Emperor and his own tools and creatures. Togan Timur knew nothing whatever of Peyen’s activity, being guarded most strictly by that minister’s servants, who owed all they had to their master. The blow came in 1340 from Peyen’s own nephew, Toktagha. This man, a mere officer of the guards, undertook to explain to the Emperor the real condition of the country and succeeded. Measures taken in secret secured Peyen’s downfall. The moment was chosen when the minister was absent on a hunting trip; when he returned he was not permitted to reëenter the capital. He was driven to an exile in South China, and died, as exiles usually died, while on the way. His brother, Machartai, took his place as first minister.