ABAQA
357
A day after Mas'ud's departure the news was received of the appearance
of a hostile army on the Oxus. The Il-Khan dispatched a party to
apprehend him, but he eluded their pursuit and crossed the Oxus just
as they reached the left bank. In the course of another embassy to
Abaqa (apparently in the winter of
1267-8, when the Il-Khan was again
in Mazandaran and Gurgan) the emissaries of Baraq presented Prince
Tegiider, a grandson of Cha
ghatai who had led a contingent westward
under Hiilegu, with a special kind of arrow known as toghana, dis-
creetly indicating that there was a message hidden inside it. In the
message Baraq apprised his kinsman of his intention and appealed for
his co-operation. Returning to his fief in Georgia Tegiider, after
consulting with his amirs, decided to make his way into Baraq's
territory by way of Darband. The Il-Khan's suspicions had by now
been aroused, and the noyan Shiremiin, the son of Chormaghun, was sent
in his pursuit; finding the passage through Darband barred, he returned
to Georgia, still pursued by Shiremiin, hid for a while in a great forest,
was overtaken and defeated in battle and finally, in the autumn of
1269,
surrendered to Abaqa. He was imprisoned for a year on an island in
Lake Urmiyeh and then released after Baraq's defeat. Until his death,
though not perhaps restored to favour, he enjoyed free access to the
Il-Khan's court. The story of his revolt is told with many curious
details in the Georgian Chronicle
1
and in the History of
the
Nation of
the
Archers of the Armenian Grigor.
2
Tegiider's name has often been
misread as Nigiider (Nigudar) and has in consequence been connected
with the Nigudaris, who, as we have seen, were in fact the troops of
the Jochid princes Tutar and Quli.
Baraq's first hostile move was to demand that Tubshin, Abaqa's
younger brother and commander in
Khurasan and Mazandaran, should
evacuate the meadowlands of Badghis, which he claimed, along with the
territories stretching southwards to the Indus, to be the hereditary
property of his own ulus. It was only after an exchange of angry messages
with Tubshin and Abaqa himself that he moved his forces towards the
Oxus. Qaidu, to whom he had appealed for assistance, had sent,
according to
Vassaf,
3
a whole host of princes to swell his army; but
Rashid al-Din mentions only two, Qipchaq and Chabat, a grandson and
great grandson respectively of the Great Khan Ogedei. The Cha
ghatai
princes crossed the river in the spring of
1270
and advanced to Marii-
1
Quoted
by
Howorth,
vol. 11, pp. 229-31.
2
Transl.
Blake
and Frye, pp.
(IO7)-(IO9).
3
Transl.
Hammer-Purgstall,
p. 134.