"Pay us ransom for thyself and thy chief men, and thou shalt be allowed to depart in peace," said the Tartar Kan; but the barbarian broke his word as soon as the ransom was paid, hewed to pieces the prince's guard, stifled him and his two sons-in-law under planks, and held high carnival over their bodies.
Instead of following up his advantage, the Chief of the Kans recalled his Tartars to Northern China, and three years later died, leaving to his four sons one of the greatest empires that the world had ever seen.
The Russians, who thought that these wild tribes were the hosts of Gog and Magog, foretelling the end of the world, soon forgot the danger which had threatened them, and for a dozen years more their princes quarrelled to their hearts' content, not heeding the fatal omens, the famines and pestilences, fires, comets, earthquakes, and eclipses which we know by the chronicles warried the land.
TARTAR CAVALRY IN BATTLE.
When Oktai, the eldest son of the Great Kan, had established his power and brought the nations of Asia to terms, he sent his nephew, the terrible Baty, with an army as numberless as the locusts, to conquer the lands north of the Caspian Sea. Baty crossed the Ural Mountains and came down into the valley of the Volga, where he burned the great city, capital of the half-civilized Bulgars, and put the inhabitants to the sword.
Then pressing on directly west through miles of unbroken forest, he entered the heart of Russia, and sent a sorcerer and two heralds to the princes of Riazan, saying:—
"If you want peace give us a tenth of your goods."
The Russian princes replied:—
"When we are dead you can take all that we have."
They asked help in vain of the selfish princes of Tchernigof and George II. of Suzdal. Nevertheless they bravely advanced to meet the Tartar Kan. Baty was victorious. Nearly all the princes of Riazan and their allies were left dead upon the field. But the Russians did splendid deeds of valor. Prince Theodore fought like a hero to prevent his young wife from falling into Baty’s hands, but he was crushed by superior forces, and his princess, when she heard that he was dead, took their little son and leaped from the upper window of her apartment. Oleg the Handsome was found alive on the battle-field and brought before the Kan, who offered him his life if he would accept the Tartar religion, worship the sun, and serve him. But the brave prince rejected the temptation and was hewn in pieces. Then the Tartars went through the provinces, sacking the cities and killing the inhabitants. George II. of Suzdal, who had refused to come to the aid of Kief, or Riazan, was now punished for his selfishness. His army was beaten on the Oka; Moscow, and a multitude of other towns were burned and sacked. He left his two sons to defend Vladimir, which. the Tartars closely invested. Princes and nobles chose death rather than servitude. The bishop gave them all the holy sacrament, and they shut themselves into the cathedral with their wives and children and perished in the flames.
The Tartars scaled the walls, sprung the gates, and swarmed through the city; the streets ran with blood. The Grand Prince was in camp on the bank of the river Sit, not far from Novgorod, whither he went to raise a new army. He hastened back to save his capital, but when he heard of the fate of the citizens and of his family he cried:—
"Better for me were it to perish than to live to see this day! Why am I left alone? "
The Mongol host drew nigh and George gave them gallant fight, but it was all in vain. The Tartar cavalry overrode his men-at-arms and swept them down. The Grand Prince himself was slain, and after the battle the Bishop of Rostof found his headless body. His nephew, Vasilko, was taken prisoner, and his noble face, his bravery, his genial manners greatly pleased the victors. "Be our friend," said they, "and fight under the standard of the Great Baty." "The enemies of my fatherland and of Christ can never be my friends," was his reply. "Great as is my woe, ye will never force me to fight against Christians. Thy destruction also is at hand, O heavy and cursed power! "
The Tartars, grinding their teeth with rage, stabbed the young hero and threw his body into the underbrush.
The devastating host swept on. "Villages and cities disappeared, and the heads of the Russians fell beneath the swords of the Tartars as grass falls beneath the scythe." Only the deep forests and the impassable marshes and the rivers, swollen by the spring rains, spared Novgorod the Great. Baty came within one hundred kilometers of the old city, then he turned toward the south. The little town of Kozelsk made such a determined resistance, caused them such a long delay and so much loss of life, that the Tartars called it the "Wicked City." When at last they took it they set it on fire, exterminated the inhabitants, and drowned the young prince in blood.
Two years were spent in desolating Southern Russia. At last it came the turn of Kief. Long stood the Kan on the left bank of the Dnieper, admiring the beautiful city rising on the opposite hills, with its white walls of cut stone, reflected in the wide river, with its lofty towers, its churches with golden domes shining in the sun.
The barbarian offered terms of surrender, but the men of Kief, though their princes fled and though they knew well how other states had fared, put the Kan's envoys to death and waited their fate. The annalist says that as the main army drew nigh, so loud was the grinding of the wooden chariots, the bellowing of buffaloes, the cries of the camels, the neighing of the horses, and the ferocious shouts of the Tartars, that men could not hear each other's voices in the heart of the town.
The barbarians assailed the Polish gate and the walls with their rude battering-rams. Dimitri, a noble of Galitch, the deputy of Prince Daniel, headed the citizens in holding the ramparts until sunset.
Then they retreated to the Church of the Tithe and built a palisade, behind which the next day they perished on the tomb of Fiery Fame. The brave Dimitri was spared by the Kan, but the mother of Russian cities was pillaged for the third time, and from this blow it never recovered. The Church of the Tithe was dismantled; even Saint Sophia and the Monastery of the Caves were plundered. This was the convent where the saints bricked themselves into cells which became their tombs, and where their bodies stayed incorruptible. It is now one of the "Holy Places,” and every year three hundred thousand of the faithful make pilgrimages to the city and bow before the holy relics of the past.
TARTAR KAN AT HOME.
All Russia, except Novgorod and the northwest country, was now in the power of the Tartars. Few of the princes remained; the most were dead or in exile. Many of the richest citizens were dragged into bondage; "the wives of boyars who had never known toil, who but a short time since had been clothed in rich raiment, adorned with jewels and collars of gold, surrounded by slaves, were now made to be the slaves of barbarians, and of their wives, turning the stone of the mill and cooking their coarse food."
Baty invaded Hungary and fought with the Poles in Silicia, but was long checked by a gallant noble in Moravia. Europe was terror-struck by the danger.
The Pope, whose help was asked by Daniel, Prince of Galitch, summoned Christendom to arms. Lewis IX; of France got ready for a crusade. The Emperor Frederic wrote to the Kings of the West:—
"This is the moment to open the eyes of body and soul when the brave princes on whom we reckoned are dead or in slavery."
Just as the King of Bohemia and the Dukes of Austria and Karinthia were mustering their forces to oppose the conquering Kan, the second ruler of the vast Mongol Empire died, and his nephew deemed it best to withdraw.
On his way back he founded, on one of the branches of the lower Volga, a city which he called the Castle, and which became the capital of the Golden Horde, or the Kipchak, a powerful empire reaching from the Ural Mountains to the Danube, whose Tsars or Kans exacted tribute of money and furs and military aid from the nations under their sway.