The History of China - Bonus 4.1 - Mongol 8.1: Subotai & Jebe's Excellent Adventure

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

In the course of their pursuit of the fleeing Khwarazmian Amir, Genghis Khan's two top commanders have reached the shores of the Caspian Sea, and heard some of the strangest tales about what - and who - lay beyond. When the Great Khan gives his go-ahead to scout it out, they'll launch a three-year trek that will remake the world in their bloody image. Time Period Covered: 1220-1221 CE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War and

Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Mongol 8.1 Subutai and Jeb's Excellent Adventure Lord Genghis sent Subutai Baator northward to attack the lands and peoples of the following eleven tribes. The Kangalins, Kibchauts, Vajigis, Ausuts, Majarats, Asuts, Sasuts, Sarkasuts, Keshimirs, Bolars, and Raros. He made Subutai the valiant cross the great waters of the Volga, then the Ural rivers, and go as far as the wooden city of Kiev. Subutai Boator reduced the Kangalim, Kibchaut, and Bajigid peoples to submission and, after

crossing the Volga and the Ural rivers to destroy the city of Meghet, wiped out the Orsut people. They plundered the people of Asut, Sesut, Bular, Man Kermin, Kiev, and other cities, reducing them to a state of submission. After appointing resident commanders and garrison commanders, they returned. From the Secret History of the Mongols, translated by Ergung Onun The vast empire of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, Emir of Khwarizmia, who had been hailed as the second Alexander the Great

by his contemporary scholars, and held rule over a territory spanning from the mountains of Afghanistan to the shores of the Caspian Sea, was no more. It lay a crumbling, burning ruin, its people subject to slaughter, cities despoiled and put to the torch, and its once mighty king condemned to die a poor, broken shell of a man

on a tiny, abandoned island in the middle of the Caspian Sea, hounded to his very last breath by the conquerors who rode around the shores of that body. Muslim legend tells that when the Mongol pursuers reached the Caspian shores and saw the sails of Muhammad disappearing over the horizon, thus effecting his escape from their wrath, many of the warriors charged into the waters in pursuit until both they and their horses drowned. Though this is almost certainly a legend, the mindset and unending wrath that the Mongol conquerors felt toward their enemy was very real. They would find their quarry, even if it took them to the very edge of the world. At Samarkand, Khwarizmi's shattered capital, the great Khan, Genghis, contemplated his next move. While the Mongol military juggernaut had undoubtedly shattered their enemy's strength,

several of those shards were still keen enough to potentially cut if they were not handled with proper care. His main concern at this point was the question of manpower. The Mongol army had descended on Khwarizmia with a force of between 100,000 to 150,000 troops. Yet in spite of their unbroken succession of victories, even taking into account the Turkish defectors they'd begun accepting into their ranks rather than slaughtering outright, the Mongols were down to something like two-thirds of their initial strength. Moreover, these were no longer concentrated, but instead spread far and wide across the Persian Empire. The Great Khan had his own force at Samarkand, of course,

but a further 50,000 had been dispatched with his two sons to conduct further operations in the north, and his great general, Subutai, had been accompanied by three tumans, some 30,000 soldiers, to capture and mete out justice to the fleeing emir. What was more, his subject forces, the auxiliary tribes of Uyghurs and Adamaaliks that reinforced and filled out his own hardcore Mongol backbone, had begun petitioning the Great Khan that it was well past time for them to return to their own lands and peoples, and that they should be allowed to go home. Genghis was a ruthless taskmaster, of course, but he tried to be fair in his dealings with those who served him well. He was therefore inclined to grant his subjects' requests, if for no other reason than fatigued and reluctant soldiers were likely to be more of a hindrance than help to his further objectives.

Militarily, the greatest concern was the crown prince, Jalal al-Din, who was ensconced northeast of the capital, gathering all the forces he could to his cause. This, Genghis was confident his Mongols and their remaining auxiliaries could handle with relative ease, if, that was, they were not pinioned between a possible second Khwarizmian or Arabic army, potentially even now making ready to approach from the west. From Gabriel, quote, If the western provinces raised new armies from their enormous manpower base, the Mongols might find themselves trapped between two powerful armies moving against them

in coordinated operations. Under these circumstances, Mongol discipline, speed, and maneuver might not suffice, placing the army at grave risk of defeat. End quote. The Khanate's spies and informants had Jalal al-Din and his mustering force under close observation, and thanks to the arrow messenger force that could travel hundreds of miles per day without stopping, the Great Khan was well appraised of almost every aspect of his foe's day-to-day operations, and changes to his force strength. The West, on the other hand, was an absolute mystery, totally dark on the Khan's radar, and thus plaguing his mind day in and day out with who knew what vast shadowy army that might even now be marching against him. Genghis's one link to further intel about the west was his general, Subutai,

who sat even now with his army on the shores of the Caspian, awaiting either the emergence of the Khwarazmian Amir from his hiding spot, for they did not and could not know that their quarry had already died on an island, or for further instructions from their lord Khan. Those instructions would come in the form of an arrow messenger, bearing a missive from Genghis to Subutai, that he should make at once back for Samarkand to answer the great Khan's questions about this vast unknown western expanse and what dangers it might hold. Quote, riding from horse station to horse station, sometimes tied to his saddle to ward off

exhaustion, stopping only for short periods to eat, Subutai the Valiant, Genghis Khan's greatest general, covered 1,200 miles from the Caspian shore to Samarkand in little more than a week." Let me take a moment to explain that title, Ba'ator, a little more fully. Subutai is known throughout the Secret History typically as Subutai Ba'ator, the suffix most often translated as meaning the valiant or also as the hero. Giovanni di Plano Carpini would describe it as the equivalent of a European knight, but perhaps in our modern parlance something more like a paladin captures that sort of semi-mythic heroic nature of the title. Notable bearers of the title Ba'athur include Modu Chanyu, founder of the Xiongnu Empire, Ba'athur Khagan of the Khazars in the mid-8th century,

Ba'athur Bagina Sevar, commander of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century, and Genghis's own father, Yesugei Borjigin, albeit that was posthumous and given by his son. Looking forward in time from this point, the title would spread across Eurasia and have such bearers as Mughal and Timurid Khans, Hungarian and Romanian Voivode, and even one of the founding members of Mongolia's National People's Party and father of Mongolia's revolution in 1921, Damdín Sukhbathar. Even the modern name for Mongolia's capital city, Ulaanbaatar, incorporates the honorific, meaning Red Hero. Once arrived from his 13th century warp speed

rush across Asia, Subutai likely wasted little time in conferring with his master. It's from the Arabic chroniclings that we know what was spoken between the two. Subutai made a full accounting of exploits in the west, the wealth and the power of Khorasan, modern northeastern Iran, and its great cities and fortresses. He told of the cities of Herat and Merv, and of further west still, Nishapur, and its great luxuries and wealth. However he went on, the land was harsh, mostly impassable, and only by skirting from oasis to oasis along the northern edges of the vast wastelands could it be traversed.

Listening intently all the while, the Great Khan finally asked, How long would it take for a Muslim army to march from Iraq to Khorasan? Iraq was of course the great beating heart of the Islamic Caliphate, with the circular shining jewel of Baghdad at its core. Should the Caliph commit to the aid of his Khwarizmian brethren, how much time would the Mongol occupiers have to prepare? Subutai replied confidently, In summer, O Khan, no such army could reach Khorasan at all,

for the sun burns with such great intensity that the grass is charred and the rivers dry up completely. In winter, too, he continued, no Muslim army could move across such an expanse because of the scarcity of forage, and Subedai knew from personal experience that his Mongol ponies were not only far hardier than the sleek Persian and Arab mounts, but far smarter as well. Unlike the Western mounts, the Mongol horses knew how to kick and stamp snow and ice aside to reach hidden grasses underneath. Muslim horses, unused to such harsh conditions, would simply drop dead trying to make such a journey.

Thus, it would only be in the spring or autumn that any such journey would be possible at all for the Western armies, and even then, only with an absolutely massive baggage train in tow. It would be slow, it would be ponderous, and it would be exceedingly obvious. That is, if it came at all. And from what Subutai had seen, having ridden now twice from one side of Khorasan to the other, he'd seen not a single trace of evidence of anyone making a move to even raise, much less mobilize, an army. Oh, there were soldiers, to be sure, and a lot of them, but they, like the Khwarazmians before them, remained locked up tight in their fortresses,

without any clear leadership to rally them. Subutai was confident, therefore, that there would be no attack on the Khan's western flank, an assessment that was more than sufficient for the Great Khan. His fears thus allayed. Genghis began the next phase of his planned conquest of Khwarazmia, a two-pronged assault on both east and west, Afghanistan and Khorasan, two theaters that were more than 600 miles apart, yet for the Mongols easily reachable by aero-messenger in days should the need arise. In the spring of 1221, the Mongol force commanded by Genghis's son Thule swept down on the city of Balkh, an urban center that had already surrendered to Subutai, but was now massacred and burned regardless.

Merv faced the same fate, and then Nishapur, which would receive special attention. Quote, It was outside Nishapur that Toghachar, the son-in-law of the Khan, had been killed fighting as a common soldier after having been relieved of command. In revenge, Nishapur was taken by storm and destroyed. Toghachar's widow presided at the massacre of the inhabitants. To guard against deception, the corpses were beheaded and the heads of men, women, and children were stacked in separate piles. Even the dogs and cats were killed. End quote. Crossing the Hindu Kush range into Afghanistan, the Mongols swept down upon the city of Bamiyan,

famously home to the monumental cliff carvings of the Buddha until their destruction in 2004 by the Taliban. Here, Cengiz's favorite grandson, Mutigun, was struck down in battle. In response, no loot or plunder was permitted of the city. It was all to be destroyed. No prisoners were taken, and every living creature was massacred. The Mongols at last caught up with the fleeing Crown Prince Jalal al-Din at the banks of the Indus River, where his army was cut to pieces.

The prince himself, however, managed to escape, and would thereafter live to fight another day, seeking refuge with the Sultan of Delhi, putting him effectively out of the Great Khan's reach. But his family line was at an end. His sons had all been killed, and his kingdom destroyed. For all intents and purposes, Khwarazm was no more. In all of this cruel slaughter and conquest, General Subutai took no part.

Instead, having made his full account to the Great Khan, he included further information which had piqued his interest. He'd received reports from the Kipchaks of a land beyond the Caspian, a place full of men of the strangest kind, narrow-faced with light hair and blue eyes. Curiosity aroused at what sort of men these might be. Subutai proposed that he, along with Commander Jeb, and a small force of two or three tumens, a mere 20 or 25, maybe 30,000 troops, be given leave to make a long reconnaissance ride around the far side of

the Cassian Sea to see what they could see, after which they returned through the Kipchak territories of the western steppes to Mongolia to give their report proper. Genghis, too, was intrigued with reports of such a people as he'd never heard of before, and agreed to Subutai's request, giving him his reconnaissance force in full, and leave to return no later than three years thence. The force under Subutai's command would set out in late autumn of 1220, leaving Khwarezmia to its brutal fate in what would be perhaps the most remarkable and amazing cavalry ride in history. Given his status as one of the right hands of the Great Khan, and the fact that this expedition had been his whole idea, it was only natural that Subutai would be given overall command of the exploratory mission. It would be Jeb, however, always the arrow, fast and furious on the offensive,

who would command his own tuin and be the second in command of all field operations. The mission objectives were straightforward enough. Explore, document, and study this unknown land and its strange peoples. Gather any and all information that they could about these western tribes beyond the shores of the Caspian. Assess their strengths and weaknesses. Do battle if you have to, but make no attempt to try to conquer anything or risk the greater mission. And then report it all back to the Mongol intelligence service in order to build up a compendium of information to be used in a future, and far larger, eventual campaign of conquest. An eventuality Subutai, it would later be confirmed, took as a given and was planning for from the very outset.

His force initially probed westward along the southern shore of the Caspian, seeking a suitable winter encampment, first over the high steppes of northwest Persia, and then into Azerbaijan, making directly for the city of Tabriz. Tabriz, both the governmental seat of its Turkish governor and the wealthiest city in the region, made a tempting target. Arriving outside its closed gates, Subutai sent a missive to the governor within, saying that he would burn the city to its very foundations and kill everyone inside unless they were sated with clothes, treasure, silver, and horses. Deciding, understandably, that discretion was the better part of valor, the governor acceded to the demand and handed over the greater part of the city's wealth, hoping that through such a payment they would see the back of this terrible force forever.

As the chill of winter began to descend in late 1220, Subutai opted to make his seasonal camp with the dual mouths of the Kura and Araxes rivers spill forth into the Caspian. Gabriel writes, quote, here on the Mohan steppes, the winter months are quite mild, and the Mongols past January building up their horses and preparing for the coming campaign. The Mongol army had been increased by the recruitment of several thousand wild Kurds, as Sulatai referred to them. In February 1221, the Mongol force broke camp and continued its march around the southern shore of the Caspian, toward the kingdom of Georgia and its capital, Tiflis, modern Tbilisi. Given Georgia's status as a major Eurasian crossroads, and Tiflus in particular guarding

the approaches to the major pass westward toward the Black Sea, conflict was probably inevitable, even if Subutai initially might have intended none. He and his warriors' fearsome reputations had preceded them, however, especially his threats against Tabriz the prior autumn. Georgia itself was in the middle of a golden age of unprecedented prosperity, power, and reputation since the mid-10th century. Commerce, culture, and wealth flowed through the kingdom to and from Europe, Byzantium, and the Holy Lands Crusader kingdoms. Thus it was that the young, handsome, and dashing king of Georgia, Lasha Georgi IV, or George the Brilliant,

was in a uniquely strong position when reports of this steppe force moving through Azerbaijan and into his lands reached him. Since the year prior, as a good and devout member of the Orthodox Church, he'd been making large-scale preparations to send an army down to Jerusalem to assist and relieve the armies of the Fifth Crusade, even now battling there. Now, word about numbers here, and I know I've said it before throughout our dealings with the massive Chinese military forces, but it bears repeating here again, and I probably will later on as well. Pre-modern counts of how many people there were in a particular army or fighting force

are liable to be inaccurate, highly so, and this for a variety of different reasons. An attacking force like Subutai and the Mongols might beef up the enemy numbers to make it look as though their victory was all the more heroic, while the Georgian army might have likewise overstated its fourth strength to the other crusader states in order to look like they were sending a stronger force than they could actually muster. Regardless, the reports of George IV having an army of 70,000 mounted knights along with 30,000 light cavalry is probably overblown. You'd have a hard time scraping that number of actual quote-unquote knights from Europe as a whole. A century before, for instance, circa 1100 CE,

I've read estimates that put the whole of England as having no more than 1100 knights altogether. By knights, of course, I'm referring specifically to the warrior noble class, not the men-at-arms that they took into battle with them. Whatever the number, it was almost certainly a much smaller core contingent of true knights, commanding a significantly larger number of men-at-arms. Another estimate, made by modern Armenian scholar Setadadoian, places the number of combined Armenian-Georgian mounted soldiers at a mere 10,000, with the addition of the Cuman outriders and an unknown number of infantry. Regardless, thinking to use his mighty force to smash the Mongol invaders before they reached

the gates of his capital, King George rode out with his crusader host to meet Subutai, Jeb, and their tumens as they made their way up the winding course of the Kura River through the Cuman Plain. This was, of course, the first time a medieval European fighting force had directly encountered or engaged a Mongol army, and the differences in fighting style and the consequences for those differing expectations, would quickly become apparent. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, the French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. By contrasting both the experiences of contemporaries and the conclusions of historians, Grey History dives into the detail

and unpacks one of the most important and disputed events in human history. From a revolution based on hope and liberty, to its descent into the infamous reign of terror, there's plenty to discuss, and plenty of grey to explore. One can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So if you're looking for your next long-form, binge-worthy history podcast, one recommended by universities and loved by enthusiasts, then check out Grey History, The French Revolution today. Or simply search for The French Revolution. Drawing closer to one another, the two armies began to array for a set-piece battle, as it's often called, along the Kura's shores,

the river itself running slightly to the Georgian rear. The Mongols, given their numeric inferiority, had sent ahead thousands of their Kurdish and Turkoman volunteers that had been conscripted into the Mongol army, while keeping their own elite shock corps well in reserve. From McLean, Subedai's plan was to wear the Georgians out through attrition before delivering the coup de grace. First he had the vanguard split up into raiding parties that spread fear and havoc. Then he united them for a pitched battle with George,

who won the encounter, giving him a false sense of security. George took heavy casualties while slicing through the Kurds and Turkomans, and was not prepared for another battle immediately after. But another battle there would be, because it was time for Subutai to deploy his star team. While the larger Georgian force re-arrayed itself in a wide, shallow formation, seeking no doubt to close on the enemy's flanks and thus destroy them, the Mongol cavalry concentrated into a denser, deeper mass.

The Georgian heavy cavalry was given the order to commit a full-scale charge against the Mongol center. In response, Subutai commanded his light cavalry archers to sweep in wave after wave across the advancing armored enemy, unleashing volley after withering volley from their meter-long recurve composite bows. A note on these weapons and their wielders. Though certainly less visually impressive than the later English longbow, or mechanically ingenious as the Chinese Zhugunyu crossbow, the Mongol bow was second to none in terms of power, accuracy, or range. In terms of their ammunition, birch was the primary material used in the construction of the arrow shafts,

but these, made specifically as weapons of war against heavily armored enemies, were tipped with narrow iron points specifically designed to punch through heavy armor and chainmail. Inscriptions from the time period, such as the 1226 Stele in Siberia recounting a celebration by the Great Khan, routinely depict Mongol warriors and hunters as being deadly accurate in their fire from or even beyond a range of 500 meters, able to hit a target from such a distance three times in a row in rapid succession. Bows made for the cavalry corps, rather than foot soldiers, were somewhat smaller for ease of travel and useful on horseback, and thus somewhat less powerful, but the cavalry archers sent against the Georgian army was nonetheless lethal in their effect. Despite the heavy losses inflicted by this Mongol strike,

the Georgian force pressed the attack, thinking that if they could just close the distance and engage them in a melee, the tide would yet turn in their favor. The Mongols, however, had no plans to allow this. Slowly giving ground and retreating in a fashion that no European army would have thought to do, but was typical for a step force, for whom a battle site could be moved in any direction, and retreat never meant breaking off the attack. Constantly harassed and picked apart by the Mongols who fired at them even as they pulled further and further back across the plain, the Christian force soon found itself spread widely over the plain atop mounts that were now utterly spent. The Mongol horses were likewise exhausted, but this had all been taken into account by Subutai, who before the battle had ordered his

soldiers to position their herds of backup mounts, for every good Mongol warrior carried with him on campaign his own personal herd, and had them hidden in the woods behind the Mongol battle line. Quickly swapping their mounts out and re-equipping a new fully stocked quiver to replace their depleted first, the Mongol force now broke into two formations, the right led by Subutai, the left by Jeb, and circled around the flanks of the scattered Georgian knights in a devastating counter-attack. Before they could reform in the center, it would be Jeb the Arrow who would take the core of his own force and punch a wedge directly through the heart of the Georgian army, cutting

one half off from the other, and, their morale now totally shattered, caused the remaining European warriors to break and flee as the Mongols, in a ringing formation patterned after their ancient hunting techniques to entrap game, inexorably closed in around them. King George, in shock at this devastating slaughter in progress, still had enough of his senses left to realize that he'd be unable to hold his ground against the approaching Mongol force, and wisely turned to flee, along with any whose mounts still had the energy to keep pace with his royal retinue. Some of the knights, to guard their king's retreat, and likely because their horses were too drained to keep up, decided to make a stand along the road back to Tiflis, but were quickly surrounded and

slaughtered by Jeb's cavalry force. George IV and the shell-shocked, bedraggled survivors of what had earlier that very day been the mightiest military force Georgia had ever put together stumbled back into Tiflis and locked the gate behind them, unable to quite believe the wholesale destruction that they had just witnessed and themselves barely escaped. For more than two weeks thereafter, the Georgian king huddled within his capital, awaiting the inevitable arrival of the terrible force that would be appearing over the horizon to besiege his city at any moment. But it never came. When scouts were sent out to assess the movements of this Mongol force arrayed against

them, the reports came back with news that was frankly unbelievable. They had vanished, it seemed, into thin air. Subutai and Jeb's army had not, of course, vanished into the ether, though the speed at which his force was capable of traveling would time and again confound their western enemies into thinking as much. Instead, they'd withdrawn back southeast into Azerbaijan. Yes, the Mongol losses had been minimal, and they'd been able to achieve victory against the Georgian with little fuss, but the fact that they'd engaged in such a battle at all had been an error. They were a reconnaissance force, remember, not an army of conquest. No or very few reinforcements were going to be sent, save what they could scrounge from mercenaries and tribes that would pledge them service. And if they bled away their strength in battle after pointless battle,

however lopsided those victories might prove to be, they'd soon be no longer capable of completing their actual objective. Not the destruction of enemies, but the gathering of information. Subutai had not anticipated such a force to be arrayed against him as he made his way up the Kura River. Instead, he'd hoped to increase his food and supply stores by picking off small, soft targets on his way through the region, thus preparing his army for their most difficult challenge yet, crossing the Caucasus Range to what lay beyond. Instead, he'd been forced to use up valuable men and material fighting the Georgians, and all for no concrete gain. Now, still unsure of the total Georgian strength, and unwilling to waste time or much effort finding out, he opted to retreat

back into Persia and replenish his army's stores by raiding and demanding tribute there. Their targets would include Marakha, utilizing the familiar tactic of hurting the local civilian population in front of their attack to soak up the defenders' assault and disguise their own movements, and then slaughtering the population before making off with all the wealth and material that they could carry. Quote, Having sacked the city on 31 March 1221, they pretended to have departed, waiting until the survivors crawled out from the rubble, then returning suddenly to massacre them also. End quote. Following this was one of Persia's finest cities, Hamadan. A year prior, they had exacted a steep tribute payment from the leaders of the city,

in order to leave it and its populace intact. Now, however, with little enough left for themselves, the city refused the Mongol army's renewed demands for payment and then resisted the attack that followed in what is reported as having been a terrible street battle. Once subduing the city, again the total slaughter of the population followed, along with the sacking and burning of Hamadan. With their supplies and horses replenished, and having received a messenger from Genghis that he had Khursmia well in hand and no longer required them to remain around the southern Caspian, just in case, Subutai and his Mongols turned north towards Georgia and the Caucasus once again. Not up the course of the Kura toward Tteyfris this time, but instead along the Caspian

itself, toward the powerful coastal port city of Derbent. A look at the etymology of this coastal city's name gives us a good hint as to the sort of fortifications the Mongol army had to look forward to. Derbent derived from the Persian word Darh, meaning barred gate, and was called in Arabic bab al-abwab, meaning the gate of gates. It was even, supposedly, the site of the legendary Gates of Alexander the Great. And it was a fitting moniker. Derbent sits astride the narrow, only three kilometer wide, strip of land between the Caspian waters and the jutting heights of the Caucasus.

This made it one of the only two passable routes through the mountain range. The other, the Dariel Gorge, now effectively beyond Subutai's reach on the far side of Kifris. It was now the early winter of 1221-22, and it's likely that Subutai had chosen this route, and this time of year, to move in a direct effort to avoid any further entanglements. Before leaving Georgia, however, he was determined to break its military potential, even if conquest was beyond his mandate. Thus, Subutai opted to bait the Georgian army into a fight on his own terms. The bait in question would be the massacre of the city Shemakha.

Quote, Chamaka capitulated after a three-day siege. A fearsome massacre did oblige the Georgian ruler to appear in the field. End quote. King George, having somehow convinced himself that since they'd vanished after the Battle of Kura Plains, the Mongol army had been defeated after all, never mind his own panicked flight back to the capital, the Georgian monarch had assembled a new, large army, perhaps as many as another 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers, and had made it for Durban to block the Mongol forces' likely route of advance.

The second clash between Georgian and Mongol was set on markedly different ground than the first Battle of Kura, specifically as I mentioned that it was situated on a much narrower plain. This was decidedly, at least on its face, to the Georgian forces' advantage, since it tightly restricted the Mongol cavalry's ability to maneuver. The Georgian army had likewise learned its lesson well from the first terrible battle, and were under strict orders from their officers that this time, no matter what, they were to maintain their formations. No riding off all willy-nilly to go chasing after the horsemen,

because that's exactly what they wanted us to do. Instead, the Georgian army advanced uniformly and slowly, braving the devastating hail of arrow fire that once again took a toll on their ranks, though their formation this time did allow them to avoid the worst of it, and they somehow managed to stay mostly beyond the range of the light Mongol archers. Still, they held together in their ranks, and slowly pushed Suvadai's army back further and further across the valley floor, and toward the literal rocks at their backs of the Dagestan range. If they could pin the Mongol force against these mountains, they could be smashed by the Georgian heavy cavalry once and for all when they had nowhere to run. Everything was going according to the plan, the Georgian commanders thought.

Just a bit further, and we have them trapped like a rat in a cage. And it was all going to the plan. It just wasn't the Georgians' plan. It was Subodai's. Having taken the constraints of the Derbent plain well into consideration, Subodai had not failed to take note of a much narrower pass extending into the mountains directly from the valley floor. Into this defile, Subutai had directed Jeb to take a force of some five thousand and wait for the right time. What would the right time be?

Jeb would know it when he saw it, Subutai had no doubt. The main Mongol force, therefore, had steadily drawn the tightly packed Georgian force further and further back through the valley, with the mountains to the Mongols' right and the Georgians' left, appearing terrified of the advancing Georgian force and having been ordered to deliberately be off their mark with their shots, time and again shooting short to draw the enemy yet closer. Until, having moved to the far side of the narrow gap that Jeb sat within, waiting, they lured the European force at last over the threshold, and the trap sprang shut. Screaming out of the side passes, only

Mongols truly could, Jeb's force struck the Georgian flank with a ferocious assault. Amazingly, in spite of the arrow's fury, the Georgian force managed to retain its cohesion—they'd not shatter this time—and ponderously turned to face this new and unexpected threat, fully engaging Jeb's 5,000. It was a maneuver that probably very few medieval armies could have pulled off, even in the best circumstances. To turn an entire army on what amounts to a dime, and engage a flanking force as it ambushes your own, is an incredibly impressive display of command and control, and the Georgian army of George IV deserves full credit for being able to pull it off. Unfortunately, in so doing, they also sealed their doom. Now fully engaged, fending off Jeb's assault, the Georgian army had, in so turning, exposed

its right flank to Subutai and the main Mongol army. Just as he'd planned from the outset, the Mongol commander halted his retreat, wheeled his warriors around, and plunged them headlong against the vulnerable sides of the Christian force, rolling it up and then shattering through it in a single, overwhelming assault. One flanking maneuver had been difficult, but not impossible for the Georgians to overcome. But the second flanking strike once again found the Europeans' shatterpoint, and they broke and ran. The Mongol force hunted the soldiers down like game,

annihilating them almost to the last man. Once again, George and his personal bodyguard were able to slip away, but the king was grievously wounded by a Mongol arrow during the battle, an injury from which he would never recover. George IV, the Brilliant, would die the following year at the age of 31, leaving only an infant son as his heir. His crown would ultimately be passed to a very unlikely recipient, his sister,

Roussidon, who became known commonly as the Maiden King. It would be Roussidon who would, upon her brother's death, write to the Pope and tell him that due to unforeseen technical difficulties, regretfully, they were not going to be able to participate in the Crusades at this time. She wrote, quote, A savage people of Tartars, hellish in aspect, as voracious as wolves in their hunger for spoils, as brave as lions, have invaded my country. The brave knighthood of Georgia has hunted them down out of the country, killing 25,000 of the invaders. But, alas, we're no longer in a position to take up the cross as we promised your holiness to do. End quote. And wow, that's certainly one way of telling it. Never mind that there was absolutely no way that the Georgians had killed anything remotely close to 25,000 Mongols, which was, again, pretty much the entire size of Subodai and Jeb's reconnaissance force altogether.

And sure, yeah, driven out, that's one way to tell it. They didn't just, you know, leave after wiping the floor with your brother. Sure. Gabriel writes, quote, the Georgians had lost more than 100,000 men at arms in their two battles against Subotai's army. Three years afterwards, with no army to protect them, Georgia was ravaged continually by brigands And again, the specific numbers of that are questionable, but the larger point remains true. With the destruction of the Georgian military, so ended its golden age, and in the decade and a half to follow, the kingdom would be devastated time and again, eventually being conquered by none other than our old friend Jalal al-Din of Khwarazmia in the mid-1230s. For now, however, the Georgians had succeeded in once again depleting the Mongol forces of their much-needed supplies.

Thus, following up this second battle, they turned to Durban itself and its wali, an Arabic title meaning custodian, protector, or governor, the Prince Rashid ibn Faruqzad. Subutai had little interest in a protracted siege operation against the city. Again, that's not why they were here. They were just passing through, dammit. As such, he and Prince Rashid, who likewise had very little interest in seeing his city go the way of Hamadan, were quickly able to work out an arrangement that both agreed was in everyone's best interest. Durbent and everyone inside would be left untouched and unmolested, and the Mongols would just go, disappear, and never bother them again.

In return, the city would provide the Mongol army with such provisions as it might require, like fodder for the horses, food for the soldiers, oh and one other thing, ten of your best guides who can show us the best and quickest route over the Caucasus and over to the far side. To all this, Rashid readily agreed, and the supplies and guides were quickly given over to the Mongol general. Rashid then smiled and waved as the receding army vanished into the distance, wishing them well and good fortune and all of that. Meanwhile, the wali of Durban had been true to his title's meaning, and while protecting his own city in the moment by smiling to the

murderous demon's face and giving him precisely what he demanded, he'd likewise acted as the custodian and protector of the entire western world by giving those guides that he dispatched to the Mongol army strict, secret instructions that yes, yes, you should take the Mongols on the shortest, easiest path through the mountains, by which he made perfectly clear he meant the longest, highest, deadliest, and most dangerous pass through. Via the actual short, easy paths, he dispatched numerous messengers carrying word of the doom that was even now winding its way through the mountains, to sound the alarm among the Muslim and Christian worlds alike

that a force unlike anything they'd ever seen or could possibly fathom was bearing down on them, one and all. And it was only if they acted now, fast and together, that there might yet be one single chance to stave off this eastern juggernaut of death and destruction from consuming them all. That is where we're going to leave off for this first half of the Great Mongol Cavalry Raid. If you are a subscribing patron, you can go and listen to part two, Subodai and Jeb's Bogus Journey, right now.

And if you're not, consider joining up at patreon.com slash thehistoryofchina, and for just a buck a show, get access to all the past, present, and future bonus episodes. Regardless, see you next time, and thanks for listening. you you you Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.