Mysterious Baty Khan

In this article, we will consider several mysterious events related to the person and actions, as well as the alleged fragments of the biography of a famous historical personage. In our days and in our country it is customary to call Baty-khan, during his lifetime in the Mongolian Empire, in the expanses of the ulus of Juchi and in the surrounding lands his name was Batu, after his death, some began to call him Sain Khan. After many centuries, Batu's life seems mysterious and incomprehensible.

Name

The first discrepancy is connected with the name of Batu, whom we used to refer to as Batu. Khan in the Mongol Empire was only one, it was in fact the title of king - head of state. Batu, as you know, was never the head of the empire. During his lifetime, the Khan's title could rightly belong to Temujin (Genghis Khan), Ugadei, Guyuk, and also Mongke. While the ulus Juchi (or the Golden Horde) was part of the empire, during Batu's lifetime she was not an independent state. The Novgorod chronicle (1242) Batu calls the voivode, whom he, in fact, was. The royal title was appropriated by Batu the chroniclers of a later period, and so it was fixed.

Inheritance of the Juchi ulus

After the death of the eldest son of Genghis Khan, the most extensive western possessions of the Mongol Empire, called by the name of the former ruler ulus Djuchi, were inherited by one of the numerous (there were about forty) sons of the deceased - Batu. Khan Temujin personally ordered the appointment of this heir to his successor ulus Juchi. Meanwhile, it is known that Batu was not the eldest son of his father, did not have the reputation of a famous warrior by that time, could not be recognized as a military leader - in 1227 he was only 18 years old. Also, one can not be suspected that he was the beloved grandson of his great grandfather. Only the information about the special charisma of the young Batu, his ability to act as an intermediary between people and the Higher Powers can explain the mystery of this appointment, the justice of which has never been challenged even after the death of Genghis Khan.

Command of the Western campaign

On the orders of Khan Ogadei, the march to the west was led by Baty. Khan was forced to appoint his nephew Sain-Khan (Batu) as a compromise candidate, since the other Chingizids (Gyuk, Buri and Munke) also had their ambitions for supremacy in this campaign, they were not going to concede to each other. Although the plan for the campaign was developed by Subadei, the latter was an ally of Genghis Khan, but was not Genghiside. The appointment of Batu was appropriate also because he was the heir of the elder son of Temurjin and the ruler of the ulus of Juchi, whose expansion of possessions was supposed primarily due to the western campaign. Therefore Batu was most interested in the successful fulfillment of the mission.

The Conquest of Russia

After the conquest of the Bulgarian cities in the summer of 1237, the combined forces of the Mongolian army headed north. We will not describe how Ryazan, Moscow and Vladimir were conquered. In this article, we are interested not so much in the campaign of Khan Batu, as in his individual, incomprehensible explanation, and therefore only for moments of versions of the versions. One of these nuances is the fact that after the conquest of the principalities Sain Khan left the princes loyal to him in leadership positions, moreover, the religious system and that part of the clergy which did not call for the overthrow of the khan's power was left unchanged. We can assume that Batu fully satisfied both the state structure and the religious order of the conquered lands. This is confirmed by regular trips of Russian princes to the Horde for labels - symbols of power given by the khan, as well as exemption of clergy from taxes.

The episode of the northern campaign, connected with the renunciation of the conquest of Novgorod, is perplexing.

According to the generally accepted version, in March 1238, not reaching 100 versts to Novgorod, the Batym tamens turned south due to the beginning of mudslides, in which the cavalry might get bogged down. However, there is an opinion that Batu Khan in Russia was afraid not so much of impassability and slavery, as there was a lack of provisions for troops and fodder for horses. His numerous army was a horse. In addition to the war horse, each warrior had other horses (from 1 to 3), which were provided by fodder due to confiscation of winter stocks in captured villages. By the beginning of spring, these stocks were already minimal. But this, of course, is one of the versions. Like all the others, it is a subject for discussion and does not pretend to be a truth.