-1202

Erkekara.--State of the country.--Wandering
habits.--Yemuka.--Sankum.--Yemuka's intrigues with
Sankum.--Deceit.--Temujin's situation.--His military
expeditions.--Popular commanders.--Stories of Temujin's
cruelty.--Probably fictions.--Vang Khan's uneasiness.--Temujin.--Vang
Khan's suspicions.--A reconciliation.--Fresh suspicions.--Plans
laid.--Treachery.--Menglik.--Menglik gives Temujin warning.--The
double marriage.--Plans frustrated.--Temujin's camp.--Karasher.--Vang
Khan's plans.--His plans betrayed by two slaves.--How the slaves
overheard.--A council called.--Temujin plans a stratagem.

Temujin remained at the court, or in the dominions of Vang Khan, for a
great many years. During the greater portion of this time he continued
in the service of Vang Khan, and on good terms with him, though, in
the end, as we shall presently see, their friendship was turned into a
bitter enmity.

Erkekara, Vang Khan's brother, who had usurped his throne during the
rebellion, was killed, it was said, at the time when Vang Khan
recovered his throne. Several of the other rebel chieftains were also
killed, but some of them succeeded in saving themselves from utter
ruin, and in gradually recovering their former power over the hordes
which they respectively commanded. It must be remembered that the
country was not divided at this time into regular territorial states
and kingdoms, but was rather one vast undivided region, occupied by
immense hordes, each of which was more or less stationary, it is true,
in its own district or range, but was nevertheless without any
permanent settlement. The various clans drifted slowly this way and
that among the plains and mountains, as the prospects of pasturage,
the fortune of war, or the pressure of conterminous hordes might
incline them. In cases, too, where a number of hordes were united
under one general chieftain, as was the case with those over whom Vang
Khan claimed to have sway, the tie by which they were bound together
was very feeble, and the distinction between a state of submission and
of rebellion, except in case of actual war, was very slightly defined.

Yemuka, the chieftain who had been so exasperated against Temujin on
account of his being supplanted by him in the affections of the young
princess, Vang Khan's daughter, whom Temujin had married for his third
wife, succeeded in making his escape at the time when Vang Khan
conquered his enemies and recovered his throne. For a ti