Batu Khan - Conquest of Rus

Conquest of Rus

Main articles: Mongol invasion of Rus, Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria.

After the end of the Mongol-Jin War, the Great Khan Ögedei ordered Batu to conquer western nations at the kurultai in Mongolia. In 1235 Batu, who earlier had directed the conquest of the Crimean Peninsula, was assigned an army of possibly 130,000 to oversee an invasion of Europe. His relatives and cousins Güyük, Büri, Möngke, Khulgen, Khadan, Baidar and notable Mongol generals Subutai (Subeedei), Borolday and Mengguser joined him by the order of his uncle Ögedei. The army, actually commanded by Subutai, crossed the Volga and invaded Volga Bulgaria in 1236. It took them a year to extinguish the resistance of the Volga Bulgarians, Kypchaks, and Alani.

In November 1237 Batu Khan sent his envoys to the court of Yuri II of Vladimir and demanded his allegiance. When Yuri refused to surrender the Mongols besieged Ryazan. After six days of the bloody battle, the city was totally annihilated, and never restored to its former glory. Alarmed by the news, Yuri II sent his sons to detain the horde, but they were soundly defeated. Having burnt Kolomna and Moscow, the horde laid siege to Vladimir on February 4, 1238. Three days later the capital of Vladimir-Suzdal was taken and burnt to the ground. The royal family perished in the fire, while the grand prince hastily retreated northward. Crossing the Volga, he mustered a new army, which was totally exterminated by the Mongols on the Sit' River on March 4.

Thereupon Batu Khan divided his army into smaller units, which ransacked fourteen Rus' cities: Rostov, Uglich, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kashin, Ksnyatin, Gorodets, Halych, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yuriev-Polsky, Dmitrov, Volokolamsk, Tver, and Torzhok. The most difficult to take was the small town of Kozelsk, whose boy-prince Titus and inhabitants resisted the Mongols for seven weeks. As the story goes, at the news of Mongol approach, a city of Kitezh was submerged into a lake with all its inhabitants, where it may be seen to this day. Khadan and Buri stormed the city in three days after they joined Batu. The only major cities to escape destruction was Smolensk, which submitted to the Mongols and agreed to pay tribute, and Novgorod with Pskov, which could not be reached by the Mongols on account of considerable distance and the intervening marshlands.

When Batu drank a cup of wine before the others at the victory banquet, Buri complained of the unfairness of Batu receiving such a vast and fertile steppe and the Mongol army, and, along with Güyük and others, ridiculed Batu as an "old woman with beard". Then they left the banquet. Batu sent an envoy to his uncle Ögedei to complain of his cousins' rude behavior. Ögedei, who got angry on hearing the news, recalled Buri and Güyük. According to some sources, Buri, who was sent to his grandfather Chagatai, never returned to join the Mongol conquest of Europe. But Güyük returned to the Russian steppe after his father Ögedei harshly criticized him.

In the summer of 1238, Batu Khan devastated the Crimea and pacified Mordovia and Kipchak-controlled steppe. In the winter of 1239, he sacked Chernigov and Pereyaslav. After several days of siege, the Mongols stormed Kiev in December 1240. Despite fierce resistance by Danylo of Halych, Batu Khan managed to take two principal capitals of his land, Halych and Volodymyr-Volyns'kyi. Ruthenian principalities became vassals of the Mongol Empire.