Decline
When he helped the young Tokhta to assume power, Nogai no doubt hoped to find in him a puppet to be manipulated or ignored as the case might be. Things turned out differently, for Tokhta (1291–1312), a man of exceptional ability, took in hands the reins of government with a marked will to rule. He won the first battle between Tokhta Khan and him, but he didn't want to chase Tokhta, because Nogai's grandson Agtji was murdered by Genoese in Crimea while collecting tributes from them. Then Nogai's Tatars plundered Italian ports in Crimea that was given to him by the khan.
Nogai was killed in battle in 1299 at the Kagamlik, near the Dnieper, against Mongols under legitimate khan. Because of his feud with Tokhta Khan, he was too dangerous to be kept alive. His head was brought to Tokhta Khan, who was offended that a mere Russian soldier had slain the mighty khan. He had the Russian put to death since "a commoner is unfit to kill a noble." Chini, one of Nogai's wives, with his son Turi, fled to Ghazan, who received them well and treated them with honour.
His son by his chief khatun Alagh (Алаг), Chaka, became tsar of Bulgaria for a few months before being deposed by Theodore Svetoslav, and Nogai's name was borne by the Nogai Horde, who ruled east of the Ural mountains.
Nogai is remembered by Russian chronicles as fat tsar.
Read more about this topic: Nogai Khan
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“But only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline, and which does not decline me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Considered physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually reduces his strength. The effect of ugliness can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever anyone feels depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with ugliness, they rise with beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)