27.4 Europe: a.d. 1201 to 1300  (Page 13/14)

Rejoining Jebe on the Don, Subedei recruited 5,000 Brodniki (nomad fishermen on the lower Don) as mercenaries and then proceeded to the Dniester where his troops patrolled for several months, while his Mandarin scholars made maps of southern Russia and organized all information from their intelligence sources. Their reconnaissance then complete, they started eastward to go home. As they did so, however, spies brought in word that around and behind them the remnants of the Cumans had accumulated a new army, including forces from various Russian principalities. Greatly outnumbered, the Mongols could have easily outrun the combined armies, but they had also promised the Great Khan Genghis that they would destroy the Volga Bulgars enroute home, so they had to delay the oncoming Russians and Cumans by leaving some 1,000 men as a rear-guard on the Dniepner, under the command of Hamabek. In due time these men did their delaying job but were all killed, down to the last man. At the River Kalka the main Mongol army allowed the speeding, spread-out enemies to catch up with them and using their usual guile and splitting tactics, the Asians soon demolished the entire foe. Besides the thousands who went in backward flight, there were 40,000 Russians dead, including 6 princes and 70 nobles, all defeated by less than 18,000 Mongols and 5,000 Brodniki. This was in A.D. 1223. A little later, joined by another son of Genghis named Jochi and 10,000 reinforcements, they did strike the upper Volga and defeated the Kama Bulgars before moving on east into Asia. (Ref. 27 )

Fifteen years after that initial reconnaissance, the Mongols returned but there were two main obstacles to be overcome before entering European Russia. The first was still Bulgar, at the junction of the Kama and Volga rivers, which had grown rich with the fur trade. Slavs and Finns had been imported to work for the Bulgars, but the Mongols were not particular and killed all of Bulgar's 50,000 inhabitants. The city has never been rebuilt and the Bulgar state became a Mongol vassal. The second obstacle was a rejuvenated Cuman Kipchak group in the forests at the lower Volga, all of whom were slaughtered by the generals Manku and Budjek. (Ref. 27 ) Thus, as the Asians came into Russia they systematically eliminated in sequence the Volga Bulgars (1237), the great Principality of Vladimer (1238), the Cumans and Alans (1239) and finally the south Russian principalities. The army then split into two prongs to enter central Europe. (Ref. 137 )

To go back for a moment, plans had begun for this attack in 1236, with several corps of Chinese and Persian engineers, 20,000 conscripts and 50,000 experienced soldiers of the Mongol army which included no less than ten princes. At the beginning of the winter of 1237 generals Batu and Subedei had an army of 120,000 men ready to cross the frozen Volga and enter Russia, proper. As they drove into the center of that country there developed a reign of true terror. There was mass murder and destruction, then multitudes of prisoners and booty, with the targets including Moscow, Vladimir, Dimitrov, Tver, Rostov and Yaroslav among others. With the spring thaw, Batu stopped 60 miles short of Novgorod and turned back south to join Subedei. Although thus spared at the moment, Novgorod had to beat off repeated attacks of Germans and Swedes. The hero of these latter victories was Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, who defeated the Teutonic Knights and saved the identity of north Russia. The story is that Nevsky lured the invading Germans onto the frozen surface of Lake Peipus, which broke beneath the weight of their horses and armor. (Ref. 27 ) To continue to elude Mongol devastation, however, Nevsky soon had to begin to pay continued tribute to the Asians and recognize their overlordship. (Ref. 8 , 137 )