I'm continuing to post the history of my empire here - if it would be more appropriate to move this content to the MTW Main Hall, please let me know and I will post a copy of the history there.

Part Three

The first decade of the 1100s saw the Byzantine empire begin to crumble under the assaults of the Turks and Egyptians. Khan Batu accepted an alliance with the Emperor to secure his southern border whilst consolidating his gains. Those Magyars that refused to accept the Khan’s rule were put to hard labour in the deepening mines of Carpathia.

In 1110, the Lithuanians appeared on Batu’s borders as they invaded Chernigov. At his daughter-in-law’s urging, the Khan sent a force into Chernigov to help repel the newcomers alongside the Russian defenders. After a short and fierce engagement, the Russian border was again restored and the north quietened.

The kingdom was still on shifting sand, as the economic situation was very tight. Farms were built and more forests cleared, as well as armouries and workshops built. Yet each year saw less and less money. Then, in 1119, Batu Khan died of a sudden illness.

Khan Batu II was a clever, witty man, not well versed in letters and often abrupt. His first act was to secure alliances once more with Novgorod and the Turkish sultan, and his second to celebrate the birth of a son, who he named Chagatai. He quickly dismissed some of his incompetent governors and promoted cleverer men. Trying to manage his finances more effectively, he started to disband older and costlier units. It all seemed so well thought out. In 1127, the khan even reduced taxes to celebrate the wedding of his brother to another Russian princess. The Russian Prince was most appreciative of this gesture as war with Novgorod had descended upon him.

The laughter in the royal yurts fell silent in 1130 as Batu II fell ill and died after only eleven years on the throne. His brother Subudai acceded, for Batu’s son was still a minor. In later years, many looked back and wished the young warrior had taken the throne regardless, for the Winter of the Three Caskets was upon the land. Subudai was harsher than his brother, and raised tax again. It was with his last breath, for he too died within the year. The third brother, Temudur, a man of great physical beauty and charisma, but avaricious and gluttonous tastes took the throne.

Temudur was no warrior, and the chaos and uncertainty of the khanate encouraged the treacherous Poles and Hungarians, who watching the disbanding of armies, desperate building of farms, and other signs of weakness, had made a compact upon a holy relic to invade Carpathia under the generalship of the brave Prince Casimir. The Alliance army was 2500 strong against the adept governor but unmilitary Lord Zoilus’ 974. They chose the depth of winter, which in the Carpathians is most severe, and many Cumans froze to death as they waited for the hammer to fall. Their bowstrings cracked and their catapults iced solid. It was not until the vast horde was upon them that they could even see their enemy in the blizzard. Carpathia was lost.

Yet so arrogant were the Poles that they had emptied two provinces of all but a few old men, and so Temudur immediately counter attacked into Volhynia and Lesser Poland. This seemed to prompt Casimir to get it over with and he assaulted Carpathia castle – only to suffer a terrible defeat, losing three quarters of his army during a portentous thunderstorm. A relief force brought Carpathia back under the Khan’s writ, though the Alliance was spreading his forces too thin and he was forced to fall back from the Polish provinces and lost lightly defended Wallachia to the Hungarians. Worse, he discovered that his Russian allies, who had failed to come to his aid on the weakened Polish borders, were in truth sorely beset themselves by the People of Novgorod. As the Russian empire collapsed, Temudur (who had no particular love for the Russians unlike his brothers) allied instead with the north Rus. He hoped to strike at Kiev if the chance came, for the economy was as ill as the Russian kingdom.

In 1139 the gods finally tired of the sons of Batu I, and Temudur took the last of the three caskets. The age of fear, invasion and catastrophe was at an end. The golden reign of Chagatai the Great had begun.