histori

                                   histori


to a long and distinguished career, in fact two careers, one at either end of
Eurasia.
We first hear of Bolad in 1248 when Qubilai, still a prince, ordered Chang
Te-hui (1197–1274), a noted scholar, “to tutor his eldest son [Dorji] and Po-lo
and others.”3 At this juncture Bolad was probably a child of seven or eight
serving as a cadet in Qubilai’s guard/household establishment. In any event, it
appears that young Bolad was an attentive pupil with a talent for languages.
This is borne out by documents preserved in the Yuan-tien chang, a collection
of administrative and legal precedents compiled in 1320–22. We learn from
this source that in 1269 the General Secretariat (Chung-shu sheng) heard
“Bolad’s [Po-lo’s] hurried and rough oral translation [ch’uan]” of an imperial
rescript regulating burials in the vicinity of the capital. Two years later,
another document in the same collection reports that Bolad prepared for the
General Secretariat “a written translation [wen-tzu i]” of an imperial rescript
prohibiting construction in cemetery grounds.4 As a Mongol who knew
Chinese well, Bolad’s services would always be in demand.
While there is no information on Bolad’s activities in the 1250s, it is clear he
rose steadily in Qubilai’s entourage, which, it should be remembered, was a
most cosmopolitan body, recruited as it was from among Mongols, Muslims,
Uighurs, Chinese, and many other ethnic and communal groups. Once Qubilai
assumed the throne in 1260 he naturally formed his own imperial guard (wei)
and Bolad was one of its rising young officers. On one occasion the emperor
charged Bolad with the task of preparing Tieh-ko, a member of a distinguished
Kashmiri Buddhist family, for service in the guard.5 At this time, too,
Bolad received his first active military command when in 1264 he led a contingent
against “rebels” in the city of T’ung-shih in Shantung. He successfully
suppressed the uprising and then on the emperor’s orders took charge of pacifying
and rehabilitating the region.6
Obviously, he carried out these and other duties to his sovereign’s satisfaction,
for his next assignment propelled him into the realm of high politics. In
1264, following Ariq Böke’s submission to Qubilai, the qaghan, in the words