CHANG EZ KHAN or Jenghiz Khan, a name from the Uigur chang, firm, and Kissar ghiz, powerful. Temuchin, afterwards known as Chan ghi z, was born of a Mongol tribe on the banks of the Onon in 1162. He conquered and expelled Mahomed the Kharas mian, and defeated his son Jalaluddin, on the banks of the Indus. Aung Khan of the Mongols, celebrated in Europe under the name of Prester John, was a contemporary of Changez Khan, whom, at the instigation of jealous enemies, he attempted but failed to destroy.— Elliot, p. 498. As the result of Temuchin's suc cesses against the nations of Tartary, he was saluted in 1206 by the diet of his nation as Changiz Khan. According to Quatremere, Changez did not use the higher appellation of Kaan (or_ Qaan), which was adopted by his son Okkodai and his successors as their distinctive title, identical with Khaqan, the Xaganos of the Byzantine historians. Properly a distinction should therefore be preserved between Khan, the ordinary title of Tartar chiefs, and which has since spread to Persian gentlemen, and in India become a common titular affix to the name of Mahomedans of all classes, and Qaan as the peculiar title of the supreme chief of the Mongols. The Mongol princes of the subordinate empires of Chaghtai, Persia, and Kapchak were entitled only to the former affix, though the other is sometimes applied to them in adulation, and claimed by all Afghans. The conquest of China was commenced by Changez, although it was not completed for several generations. In 1205 he invaded Tangut, a kingdom occupying the extreme north-west of China, and extending beyond Chinese limits in the same direction, held by a dynasty of Tibetan race, which was or had been vassal to the Kin. This invasion was repeated in succeeding years ; and in 1211 his attacks extended to the empire of the Kin itself. In 1214 he ravaged their pro vinces to the Yellow River, and in the following year took Chingtu or Pekin. In 1219 he turned his arms whist Western Asia, and conquered all the countries between the I3olor and the Caspian, and southward to the Indus, whilst his generals penetrated to Russia, Armenia, and Georgia; and a lieutenant, whom he had left behind him in the east, continued to prosecute the subjection of Northern China. Changez himself, on his return from his western conquests, renewed his attack on Tangut, and died in that enterprise, 18th August 1227. Okkodai, his son and suc cessor, followed up the subjugation of China, extinguished the Kin finally in 1234, and consoli dated with his empire all the provinces north of the Great Kiang. After establishing his power over that part of China, Okkodai raised a vast army and set it in motion towards the west. One portion was directed against Armenia, Georgia, and Asia Minor, whilst another great host, under Bath, the nephew of the Great Khan, conquered the countries north of Caucasus, overran Russia, making it tributary, and still continued to carry fire and slaughter westward. One great detach ment, under a lieutenant of Batu, entered Poland, burned Cracow, found Breslau in ashes and aban doned by its people, and defeated with great slaughter, at Wahlstadt, near Liegnitz (April 12, 1241), the troops of Poland, Moravia, and Silesia, who had gathered under Duke Henry of the latter province to make head against this astounding flood of heathen. Batu him self, with the main body of his army, was ravaging Hungary. The king had been very slack in his preparations, and when, eventually, he made a stand against the enemy, his army was defeated with great loss, and lie escaped with difficulty. Pesth was now taken and burnt, and
all its people put to the sword. The rumours of the Tartars and their frightful devastations had scattered fear through Europe, which the defeat at Liegnitz raised to a climax. Indeed, weak and disunited Christendom seemed to lie at the feet of the barbarians. The Pope, to proclaimed a crusade, and wrote circular letters, but the enmity between him and the Emperor Frederick tr. was allowed to prevent any co-operation,' and neither of them responded by anything better than words to the earnest calls for help which came from the king of Hungary. No human aid merited thanks when Europe was relieved by hearing that the Tartar host had suddenly retreated eastward. The Great Khan, Okkodai, was dead in the depths of Asia, and a courier had come to recall the army from Europe. In 1255, however, a new wave of conquest rolled westward from Mongolia, this time directed against the Ismaili or Assassins on the south of the Caspian, and then successively against the Khalifs of Baghdad and Syria. The conclusion of this expedition under Hulaku may be considered to mark the climax of the Mongol power. Mangu Khan, the emperor then reigning,and who died on a campaign in China in •1259, was the last who exercised a sovereignty so nearly universal. His successor Kablai extended, indeed, largely the frontiers of the Mongol power in China, which he brought entirely under the yoke, besides gaining conquests rather nominal than real on its southern and south eastern borders, but he ruled effectively only in the eastern regions of the great empire, which had now broken up into four, viz. (1) the immediate empire of the Great Khan, seated eventually at Keanbalik or Pekin, embraced China, Corea, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Tibet, and claims at least over Tunking and countries on the Ava frontier ; (2) the Chaghtai khanate, or middle empire of the Tartars, with its capital at Almalik, included the modern Dsungaria, part of Chinese Turkestan, Transoxiana, and Afghan istan; (3) the empire of Kapchalc, or the northern Tartars, founded on the conquests of Batu, and with its chief seat at Sarai on the Wolga, covered a large part of Russia, the country north of Caucasus, Khwarizrn, and a part of the modern Siberia ; (4) Persia, with its capital eventually at Tabreez, embraced Georgia, Armenia, Azerbijan, and part of Asia Minor, all Persia, Arabian Irak, and Khorasan.
The conquests of Changes Khan, and of his successor Okkodai Khan, in the first half of the century, brought into China a vast influx of Uigoor and Toongani immigrants. Atabeg, also Atabak, in ancient Persia, was an officer or prince, ruler of a province. Luristan seems to have been the latest territory so ruled, until Changez Khan, with his destructive hordes of Tartar and Moghul, overwhelmed the land. Changez Khan, with respect to religion, was the apostle of the most complete toleration. Mahomedans relate that he had thb subject discussed in a mosque of Bokhara, and there laid down the principle that he required only faith in one all-powerful God, leaving all the rest to be supplied by man's free study and judg ment. But the creed of Changes Khan was Buddhism.—Prinsep's Tibet, Tartary, and Mon golia, pp. 3 and 4 ; Yule's Cathay, i. cxviii., ii. 522 ; Osborn's Islam • Vambery, Bokhara, p. 120.