The Emir and the chancellor set out with this letter and overtook Alai ud din at Sarai, Batu’s capital. Batu gave them an audience and to him they explained how Yzz ud din had discovered Tarantai’s evil plotting and also that of his colleague. On a time, as they said, Tarantai had been stricken by lightning, hence should not stand in the presence of Mangu. Shuja ed din, his associate, was a leech greatly skilled in all magic, and had with him poison to use for the Grand Khan’s undoing; hence the Sultan had sent them to replace those two envoys, who must go back immediately to Konia.
Batu commanded to search the effects of the envoys; certain roots were found in them, among other things scammony. They directed Shuja to swallow the drugs in his baggage. He swallowed parts of each except scammony. Batu thought this last to be poison, but his doctor declared it a plant used in medicine. After that the Khan decided that Alai ud din must go with the new envoys, while the two others must take with them the presents.
Each party went its own way. Alai ud din died on the journey. [[183]]When they arrived at the court of Mangu, the opposing officials defended each two of them their own cause. The Grand Khan decided that Rūm must be given to both brothers, Yzz ud din getting everything west of the Sivas, and Rokn ud din all that lay east of that river, as far as the Erzerum border. The tribute was fixed, which each Sultan must send in annually.
After Alai ud din had set out for Mongolia, Rokn ud din’s partisans, thinking that Yzz ud din wished to be rid of this brother, had him slip away from the capital where agents were watching him. He went to Cesaraea, gathered troops there and led them to Konia where, defeated in battle, he was captured and imprisoned.
In 1255, one year later, Baidju being impatient at Yzz ud din’s loitering with the tribute, entered Rūm, marched against Konia, and met the Sultan’s forces between Ak Serai and the capital where he scattered them. Yzz ud din fled and found refuge in the stronghold Anthalia.
Baidju then took Rokn ud din out of prison and installed him as Sultan in all the Rūm provinces. Yzz ud din fled now a second time and found refuge with the Byzantine Emperor who was visiting Sardis. This emperor, Theodore Lascaris, fearing Rokn ud din’s partisans, as well as the Mongols, advised the fleeing Sultan to return to his kingdom. Yzz ud din took the advice, and offered submission to Hulagu, who upheld the division of Rūm between the two brothers.
When Mangu became Grand Khan in 1251 the Cilician king, Hayton, begged Batu to recommend him to the new Mongol sovereign. Batu counseled him thus wise: “Go to Mangu and stop on the way to confer with me.” The Armenian, alarmed by the length of the journey, and knowing that evils might happen to the country in his absence, was fearful to leave it. Meanwhile Argun, the collector, with a great horde of Moslem assistants, appeared in Armenia. These men caused immense hardship to Christians. “Whoso could not pay,” declares an Armenian historian, “suffered torture. Owners of land were driven from their places, their children and women were sold into slavery. Any man trying to emigrate and caught in the act was stripped, beaten and torn to pieces by raging dogs kept for that purpose.”
The King, learning of these savage deeds in Armenia, decided to go to the Grand Khan and intercede for the people of his nation, [[184]]but the death of his queen, Isabella, detained him. He set out at last in 1254 and, traveling in disguise, crossed Asia Minor. He passed through Derbend to the court of Batu, and to that of Sartak, Batu’s son, said then to be a Christian. From Batu’s Horde he spent five months in reaching Mangu, who received him with distinction. Letters patent were given the King. These were to serve as a safeguard to him and his country, and as a charter of freedom to the church in Armenia. He remained fifty days at the court, and returned in 1255 to Cilicia through Transoxiana and Persia. Hulagu had at this time arrived with his army.
Great was the ruin effected by Mongols in Asia Minor between Jelal ud din’s death and the coming of Hulagu. Great too were the ravages wrought by Jelal through his various adventures. Though Chormagun’s army and that under Baidju were vastly inferior to those of the princes in Western Asia, the dissensions of those princes were so hopeless and their wretched self-seeking so pitiful and paltry that the enemy brought most of them down to death or submission, and thousands upon thousands of people to destruction or torture.
After Jinghis Khan had returned from the west to Mongolia his eldest son, Juchi, left Chin Timur in Kwaresm as its governor. When Chormagun was sent out by Ogotai against Jelal ud din, Chin Timur was commanded to march with the troops of Kwaresm, and keep guard in Khorassan while Chormagun was destroying the Sultan. Chin Timur remained in Khorassan as governor, having as colleagues four officers appointed by the heads of the four groups in Jinghis Khan’s family, namely: Kelilat by the Grand Khan; Nussal by Batu; Kul Toga by Jagatai, and Tunga by the widow and sons of Tului. Those countries west of the Transoxiana, and south of it, were the undivided inheritance of Jinghis Khan’s family. Despite all the horrors committed in Khorassan there was something still left there to pillage. Many districts had escaped through ready submission, and at their first coming the Mongols knew not precisely the value of treasures, but Chin Timur knew the value of jewels and gold, and was eager to get them. People were tortured by him to disclose hidden wealth, and on learning where it was he killed them very promptly. The few who were spared had to buy back their homes. Besides there was still another misery. Kwaresmian bands ravaged [[185]]actively in Khorassan. They killed all the prefects whom Chormagun the Mongol general sent to various places, and searched out and slew Kwaresmians who were faithful to Mongols. These bands were parts of a corps of Kankalis, ten thousand in number, or thereabouts, who occupied chiefly the Tus and the Nishapur mountains. Togan Sangur and Karadja, two of Jelal ud din’s lieutenants, commanded them.