Steppe Yubermensch riding a tireless Mongolian horse (Mongolia, 1911)
The historiography about the invasion of Mongol-Tatars (or Tatar-Mongols, or Tatars and Mongols, and so on, as you like) to Russia is over 300 years old. This invasion has become a generally accepted fact since the end of the 17th century, when one of the founders of Russian Orthodoxy, the German Innokenty Gisel, wrote the first textbook on the history of Russia - "Synopsis". According to this book, the Russians hammered their native history for the next 150 years. However, until now none of the historians have taken the liberty of making a "road map" for the campaign of Batu Khan in the winter of 1237-1238 to North-Eastern Russia.
That is, take and calculate how much the indefatigable Mongolian horses and warriors passed, what they ate, and so on. The Interpreter's blog, due to its limited resources, tried to correct this flaw.
A bit of background
At the end of the 12th century, a new leader appeared among the Mongol tribes - Temuchin, who managed to unite most of them around him. In 1206, he was proclaimed at the kurultai (analogue of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR) by the all-Mongol khan under the nickname Genghis Khan, who created the notorious "state of nomads". Without wasting then not a minute, the Mongols began to conquer the surrounding territories. By 1223, when the Mongol detachment of the commanders Jebe and Subudai clashed with the Russian-Polovtsian army on the Kalka River, the zealous nomads managed to conquer territories from Manchuria in the east to Iran, the southern Caucasus and modern western Kazakhstan, defeating the state of Khorezmshah and conquering part of northern China along the way.
In 1227, Genghis Khan died, but his successors continued their conquests. By 1232, the Mongols reached the middle Volga, where they waged a war with the Polovtsian nomads and their allies - the Volga Bulgars (ancestors of the modern Volga Tatars). In 1235 (according to other sources - in 1236) at the kurultai, a decision was made on a global campaign against the Kipchaks, Bulgars and Russians, as well as further to the West. This campaign had to be led by Genghis Khan's grandson, Khan Batu (Batu). Here it is necessary to make a digression. In 1236-1237, the Mongols, who by that time were fighting in vast areas from modern Ossetia (against the Alans) to the modern Volga republics, captured Tatarstan (Volga Bulgaria) and in the fall of 1237 began concentration for a campaign against the Russian principalities.
Empire on a planetary scale
In general, why the nomads from the banks of Kerulen and Onon needed the conquest of Ryazan or Hungary is not really known. All attempts by historians to laboriously substantiate such agility of the Mongols look rather pale. Regarding the Western campaign of the Mongols (1235-1243), they came up with a tale that the attack on the Russian principalities was a measure to secure their flank and destroy the potential allies of their main enemies - the Polovtsy (in part, the Polovtsy left for Hungary, the bulk of them became the ancestors of modern Kazakhs). True, neither the Ryazan principality, nor the Vladimir-Suzdal, nor the so-called. The "Novgorod Republic" were never allies of either the Polovtsians or the Volga Bulgars.
Also, almost all historiography about the Mongols does not really say anything about the principles of the formation of their armies, the principles of managing them, and so on. At the same time, it was believed that the Mongols formed their tumens (field operational formations), including from the conquered peoples, nothing was paid for the soldier's service, they were threatened with the death penalty for any offense.
Scientists tried to explain the success of the nomads this way and that, but each time it turned out pretty funny. Although, in the end, the level of organization of the Mongol army - from intelligence to communications, could envy the armies of the most developed states of the 20th century (however, after the end of the era of miraculous campaigns, the Mongols - already 30 years after the death of Genghis Khan - instantly lost all their skills). For example, it is believed that the head of Mongolian intelligence, the commander Subudai, maintained relations with the Pope, the German-Roman emperor, Venice, and so on.
Moreover, the Mongols, naturally, during their military campaigns acted without any radio communications, railways, road transport, and so on. In Soviet times, historians interspersed the traditional by that time fantasy about the steppe yubermensch, who did not know fatigue, hunger, fear, etc., with the classical ritual in the field of the class-formation approach:
With a general recruitment into the army, every ten carts had to put up from one to three soldiers, depending on the need, and provide them with food. Weapons in peacetime were stored in special warehouses. It was the property of the state and was issued to soldiers when they set out on a campaign. Upon returning from the campaign, each soldier was obliged to surrender his weapon. The soldiers did not receive salaries, but they themselves paid the tax with horses or other livestock (one head per hundred heads). In war, each soldier had an equal right to use the spoils, a certain part of which he was obliged to surrender to the khan. In the periods between campaigns, the army was sent to public works. One day a week was allotted for the service to the khan.
The organization of the troops was based on the decimal system. The army was divided into tens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands (tumyn or darkness), at the head of which were foremen, centurions and thousand. The chiefs had separate tents and a reserve of horses and weapons.
The main branch of the troops was the cavalry, which was divided into heavy and light. The heavy cavalry fought against the main forces of the enemy. Light cavalry carried out patrol service and conducted reconnaissance. She struck up a battle, frustrating enemy ranks with arrows. The Mongols were excellent horse archers. Light cavalry led the pursuit of the enemy. The cavalry had a large number of clockwork (spare) horses, which allowed the Mongols to move very quickly over long distances. A feature of the Mongolian army was the complete absence of a wheeled convoy. Only kibitki khan and especially noble persons were transported on carts …
Each warrior had a file for sharpening arrows, an awl, a needle, threads and a sieve for sifting flour or filtering turbid water. The rider had a small tent, two tursuks (leather bags): one for water, the other for kruty (dried sour cheese). If food supplies ran out, the Mongols bleed and drank the horses' blood. In this way, they could be content for up to 10 days.
In general, the very term "Mongol-Tatars" (or Tatar-Mongols) is very bad. It sounds roughly like Croatian Hindus or Finno-Negroes in terms of its meaning. The fact is that the Russians and Poles, who faced nomads in the 15th-17th centuries, called them the same - Tatars. Later, the Russians often transferred this to other peoples who had nothing to do with the nomadic Turks in the Black Sea steppes. The Europeans also contributed to this mess, who for a long time considered Russia (then Muscovy) Tartary (more precisely, Tartary), which led to very bizarre designs.
The French view of Russia in the middle of the 18th century
One way or another, that the "Tatars" who attacked Russia and Europe were also Mongols, society learned only at the beginning of the 19th century, when Christian Kruse published "Atlas and tables for reviewing the history of all European lands and states from their first population to of our times. " Then Russian historians happily picked up the idiotic term.
Particular attention should also be paid to the issue of the number of conquerors. Naturally, no documentary data on the size of the Mongol army has come down to us, and the most ancient and unquestioning source of trust among historians is the historical work of a team of authors led by an official of the Iranian state of the Hulaguids Rashid al-Din "List of Chronicles". It is believed that it was written at the beginning of the 14th century in Persian, however, it surfaced only at the beginning of the 19th century, the first partial edition in French was published in 1836. Until the middle of the 20th century, this source was not completely translated and published at all.
According to Rashid-ad-Din, by 1227 (the year of Genghis Khan's death), the total number of the army of the Mongol Empire was 129 thousand people. If you believe Plano Carpini, then 10 years later the army of phenomenal nomads amounted to 150 thousand Mongols proper and another 450 thousand people recruited in a "voluntary-compulsory" order from the subordinate peoples. Pre-revolutionary Russian historians estimated the size of Batu's army, concentrated in the fall of 1237 at the borders of the Ryazan principality, from 300 to 600 thousand people. At the same time, it seemed self-evident that each nomad had 2-3 horses.
By the standards of the Middle Ages, such armies look completely monstrous and implausible, it is worth admitting. However, to reproach pundits with fantasy is too cruel for them. Hardly any of them at all could have imagined even a couple of tens of thousands of mounted warriors with 50-60 thousand horses, not to mention the obvious problems with managing such a mass of people and providing them with food. Since history is a science inaccurate, and indeed not a science at all, everyone can evaluate the run-up of fantasy researchers here. We will use the now classic estimate of the size of Batu's army at 130-140 thousand people, which was proposed by the Soviet scientist V. V. Kargalov. His assessment (like everyone else, completely sucked from the finger, if we speak extremely seriously) in historiography, however, is prevalent. In particular, it is shared by the largest modern Russian researcher of the history of the Mongol Empire, R. P. Khrapachevsky.
From Ryazan to Vladimir
In the fall of 1237, Mongolian detachments, who had fought all spring and summer in vast areas from the North Caucasus, the Lower Don and to the middle Volga region, pulled together to the place of general gathering - the Onuza River. It is believed that we are talking about the Tsna River in the modern Tambov region. Probably also some detachments of the Mongols gathered in the upper reaches of the Voronezh and Don rivers. There is no exact date for the start of the Mongols' uprising against the Ryazan principality, but it can be assumed that it took place in any case no later than December 1, 1237. That is, the steppe nomads with almost half a million herd of horses decided to go on a hike already in winter. This is important for renovation.
Along the valleys of the Lesnoy and Polny Voronezh rivers, as well as tributaries of the Pronya River, the Mongolian army, moving in one or several columns, passes through the wooded watershed of the Oka and Don. The embassy of the Ryazan prince Fyodor Yuryevich arrives to them, which turned out to be ineffectual (the prince is killed), and somewhere in the same region the Mongols meet the Ryazan army in the field. In a fierce battle, they destroy it, and then move upstream the Pronne, plundering and destroying the small Ryazan cities - Izheslavets, Belgorod, Pronsk, burn down the Mordovian and Russian villages.
Here we need to make a small clarification: we do not have accurate data on the population size in the then North-Eastern Russia, but if we follow the reconstruction of modern scientists and archaeologists (V. P. Darkevich, M. N. Tikhomirov, A. V. Kuza), then it was not large and, in addition, it was characterized by a low population density. For example, Ryazan, the largest city in the Ryazan land, counted, according to V. P. Darkevich, a maximum of 6-8 thousand people, about 10-14 thousand people could live in the agricultural district of the city (within a radius of up to 20-30 kilometers). The rest of the cities had several hundred people, at best, like Murom - up to a couple of thousand. Based on this, it is unlikely that the total population of the Ryazan principality could exceed 200-250 thousand people.
Of course, for the conquest of such a "proto-state" 120-140 thousand soldiers were more than an excessive number, but we will adhere to the classic version.
On December 16, after a march of 350-400 kilometers (that is, the average daily transition rate is up to 18-20 kilometers here), the Mongols go to Ryazan and begin to siege it - they build a wooden fence around the city, build stone-throwing machines with which they drive shelling of the city. In general, historians admit that the Mongols achieved incredible - by the standards of that time - success in the siege business. For example, the historian R. P. Khrapachevsky seriously believes that the Mongols were able to bungle any stone-throwing machines on the spot from an improvised forest in literally a day or two:
To assemble the stone throwers, there was everything necessary - in the united army of the Mongols there were enough specialists from China and Tangut …, and the Russian forests in abundance supplied the Mongols with wood for assembling siege weapons.
Finally, on December 21, Ryazan fell after a fierce assault.
We also do not have any clear evidence of what the climatic conditions were in December 1239, but since the Mongols chose the ice of the rivers as a way of movement (there was no other way to pass through the wooded area, the first permanent roads in North-Eastern Russia are documented only in the XIV century), we can assume that it was already a normal winter with frosts, possibly snow.
The question of what the Mongolian horses ate during this campaign is also important. From the works of historians and modern studies of steppe horses, it is clear that they were talking about very unpretentious, small ones - up to 110-120 centimeters tall at the withers, bunks. Their main food is hay and grass. In their natural habitat, they are unpretentious and hardy enough, and in winter, during tebenevka, they are able to break snow in the steppe and eat last year's grass.
On the basis of this, historians unanimously believe that due to these properties, the question of feeding the horses during the campaign in the winter of 1237-1238 to Russia was not raised. Meanwhile, it is not difficult to notice that the conditions in this region (the thickness of the snow cover, the area of herbage, as well as the general quality of phytocenoses) differ from, say, Khalkha or Turkestan. In addition, the winter tebenevka of steppe horses is the following: a herd of horses slowly, passing a few hundred meters a day, moves across the steppe, looking for dead grass under the snow. In this way, animals save their energy costs. However, in the campaign against Russia, these horses had to walk 10-20-30 or even more kilometers a day in the cold (see below), carrying a load or a warrior. Did the horses manage to replenish their energy costs under such conditions?
After the capture of Ryazan, the Mongols began to move towards the Kolomna fortress, which is a kind of "gateway" to the Vladimir-Suzdal land. After passing 130 kilometers from Ryazan to Kolomna, according to Rashid ad-Din and R. P. Khrapachevsky, the Mongols at this fortress "get stuck" until 5 or even 10 January 1238. On the other hand, a strong Vladimir army is moving towards Kolomna, which, probably, the Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich equipped immediately after receiving news of the fall of Ryazan (he and the Chernigov prince refused to help Ryazan). The Mongols send an embassy to him with a proposal to become their tributary, but the negotiations also turn out to be fruitless (according to the Laurentian Chronicle, the prince agrees to pay tribute, but still sends troops to Kolomna).
According to V. V. Kargalov and R. P. Khrapachevsky, the battle of Kolomna began no later than January 9 and it lasted 5 whole days (according to Rashid ad-Din). Here a natural question immediately arises - historians are sure that the military forces of the Russian principalities as a whole were modest and corresponded to the reconstructions of the era when an army of 1-2 thousand people was standard, and 4-5 thousand or more people seemed to be a huge army. It is unlikely that the Vladimir prince Yuri Vsevolodovich could collect more (if you make a digression: the total population of the Vladimir land, according to various estimates, varied within 400-800 thousand people, but they were all scattered over a vast territory, and the population of the capital city of the earth - Vladimir, even for the most daring reconstructions, it did not exceed 15-25 thousand people). Nevertheless, near Kolomna, the Mongols were stuck for several days, and the intensity of the battle shows the fact of the death of Chingizid Kulkan, the son of Genghis Khan.
After the victory at Kolomna, either in a three- or five-day battle, the Mongols cheerfully move along the ice of the Moskva River towards the future Russian capital. They cover a distance of 100 kilometers in just 3-4 days (the average daily march rate is 25-30 kilometers): according to R. P. The nomads began the siege of Moscow on January 15 at Khrapachevsky (according to N. M. Karamzin, on January 20). The nimble Mongols took the Muscovites by surprise - they did not even know about the results of the battle at Kolomna, and after a five-day siege, Moscow shared the fate of Ryazan: the city was burned, all its inhabitants were exterminated or taken prisoner.
It should be noted here that all historians recognize the fact of the movement of the Mongol-Tatars without a convoy. Say, unpretentious nomads did not need it. Then it is not entirely clear how and on what the Mongols moved their stone-throwing machines, shells to them, forges (for repairing weapons, replenishing the loss of arrowheads, etc.), how they stole prisoners. Since during the entire time of archaeological excavations on the territory of North-Eastern Russia not a single burial of "Mongol-Tatars" was found, some historians even agreed to the version that the nomads also took their dead back to the steppes (V. P. Darkevich, V. V. Kargalov). Of course, it is not even worth raising the question of the fate of the wounded or sick in this light (otherwise our historians will think of the fact that they were eaten, a joke) …
Nevertheless, after spending about a week in the vicinity of Moscow and plundering its agricultural contado, the Mongols moved on the ice of the Klyazma River (crossing the forest watershed between this river and the Moscow River) to Vladimir. Having traveled over 140 kilometers in 7 days (the average daily march rate is about 20 kilometers), the nomads on February 2, 1238 begin the siege of the capital of the Vladimir land. By the way, it is at this crossing that the Mongolian army of 120-140 thousand people "catches" a tiny detachment of the Ryazan boyar Yevpatiy Kolovrat, either 700 or 1700 people, against whom the Mongols - from impotence - are forced to use stone-throwing machines to defeat him (it is worth considering that the legend about Kolovrat was recorded, according to historians, only in the 15th century, so … it is difficult to consider it completely documentary).
Let's ask an academic question: what is, in general, an army of 120-140 thousand people with almost 400 thousand horses (and it is not clear if there is a train?), Moving on the ice of some river Oka or Moscow? The simplest calculations show that even moving with a front of 2 kilometers (in reality, the width of these rivers is much smaller), such an army in the most ideal conditions (everyone goes at the same speed, observing the minimum distance) stretches at least 30-40 kilometers. Interestingly, none of the Russian scientists over the past 200 years have even asked such a question, believing that giant cavalry armies literally fly through the air.
In general, at the first stage of the invasion of Khan Batu to North-Eastern Russia - from December 1, 1237 to February 2, 1238, the conditional Mongol horse covered about 750 kilometers, which gives an average daily rate of movement of 12 kilometers. But if we exclude from the calculations, at least 15 days of standing in the Oka floodplain (after the capture of Ryazan on December 21 and the battle at Kolomna), as well as a week of rest and looting near Moscow, the pace of the average daily march of the Mongolian cavalry will significantly improve - up to 17 kilometers per day.
It cannot be said that this is some kind of record pace of the march (the Russian army during the war with Napoleon, for example, made 30-40-kilometer daily marches), the interest here is that all this took place in deep winter, and such rates were maintained quite a long time.
From Vladimir to Kozelsk
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War of the XIII century
Prince of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich, having learned about the approach of the Mongols, left Vladimir, leaving with a small squad in the Volga region - there, in the middle of windbreaks on the river Sit, he set up a camp and awaited the approach of reinforcements from his brothers - Yaroslav (father of Alexander Nevsky) and Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. There are very few soldiers left in the city, led by the sons of Yuri - Vsevolod and Mstislav. Despite this, the Mongols spent 5 days with the city, firing at it from stone throwers, taking it only after the assault on February 7. But before that, a small detachment of nomads led by Subudai managed to burn Suzdal.
After the capture of Vladimir, the Mongol army is divided into three parts. The first and largest unit under the command of Batu goes from Vladimir to the northwest through the impassable forests of the Klyazma and Volga watershed. The first march is from Vladimir to Yuriev-Polsky (about 60-65 kilometers). Further, the army is divided - a part goes exactly to the north-west to Pereyaslavl (about 60 kilometers), after a five-day siege this city fell, then the Mongols go to Ksnyatin (about 100 kilometers more), to Kashin (30 kilometers), then turn to the west and on the ice of the Volga they move to Tver (from Ksnyatin in a straight line a little more than 110 kilometers, but they go along the Volga, there it turns out all 250-300 kilometers).
The second part goes through the dense forests of the watershed of the Volga, Oka and Klyazma from Yuryev-Polsky to Dmitrov (about 170 kilometers in a straight line), then after taking it to Volok-Lamsky (130-140 kilometers), from there to Tver (about 120 kilometers), after the capture of Tver - to Torzhok (together with the detachments of the first part) - in a straight line it is about 60 kilometers, but, apparently, they walked along the river, so it will be at least 100 kilometers. The Mongols reached Torzhok already on February 21 - 14 days after leaving Vladimir.
Thus, the first part of the Batu detachment in 15 days travels at least 500-550 kilometers through dense forests and along the Volga. True, from here it is necessary to throw out several days of siege of cities and it turns out about 10 days of march. For each of which the nomads pass through the forests 50-55 kilometers a day! The second part of his detachment travels in aggregate for less than 600 kilometers, which gives an average daily march rate of up to 40 kilometers. Taking into account a couple of days for the siege of cities - up to 50 kilometers per day.
Near Torzhok, a rather modest city by the standards of that time, the Mongols were stuck for at least 12 days and took it only on March 5 (V. V. Kargalov). After the capture of Torzhok, one of the Mongol detachments advanced another 150 kilometers towards Novgorod, but then turned back.
The second detachment of the Mongolian army under the command of Kadan and Buri left Vladimir to the east, moving along the ice of the Klyazma River. Having passed 120 kilometers to Starodub, the Mongols burned this city, and then “cut off” the wooded watershed between the lower Oka and the middle Volga, reaching Gorodets (this is still about 170-180 kilometers, if in a straight line). Further, the Mongolian detachments on the ice of the Volga reached Kostoroma (this is still about 350-400 kilometers), some detachments even reached Galich Mersky. From Kostroma, the Mongols of Buri and Kadan went to join the third detachment under the command of Burundai to the west - to Uglich. Most likely, the nomads moved along the ice of the rivers (at least, let us remind you once again, as is customary in Russian historiography), which gives another 300-330 kilometers of travel.
In early March, Kadan and Buri were already near Uglich, having traveled in three weeks from a little to 1000-1100 kilometers. The average daily pace of the march was about 45-50 kilometers among the nomads, which is close to the indicators of the Batu detachment.
The third detachment of Mongols under the command of Burundai turned out to be the "slowest" - after the capture of Vladimir, he set out for Rostov (170 kilometers in a straight line), then overcame more than 100 kilometers to Uglich. Part of the forces of Burundi made a march to Yaroslavl (about 70 kilometers) from Uglich. In early March, Burunday unmistakably found the camp of Yuri Vsevolodovich in the Trans-Volga forests, whom he defeated in the battle on the Sit River on March 4. The transition from Uglich to the City and back is about 130 kilometers. In total, the Burundian detachments covered about 470 kilometers in 25 days - this gives us only 19 kilometers of an average daily march.
In general, the conditional average Mongolian horse clocked "on the speedometer" from December 1, 1237 to March 4, 1238 (94 days) from 1200 (the lowest estimate, suitable only for a small part of the Mongol army) to 1800 kilometers. Conditional daily passage ranges from 12-13 to 20 kilometers. In reality, if we throw out standing in the floodplain of the Oka River (about 15 days), 5 days of storming Moscow and 7 days of rest after its capture, a five-day siege of Vladimir, as well as another 6-7 days for the siege of Russian cities in the second half of February, it turns out that the Mongolian horses for each of their 55 days of movement covered an average of 25-30 kilometers. These are excellent results for horses, given that all this happened in the cold, in the middle of forests and snowdrifts, with an obvious lack of food (the Mongols could hardly requisition a lot of food from the peasants for their horses, especially since the steppe horses did not eat practically grain) and hard work.
After the capture of Torzhok, the bulk of the Mongol army concentrated on the upper Volga in the Tver region. Then they moved in the first half of March 1238 on a broad front south in the steppe. The left wing, under the command of Kadan and Buri, passed through the forests of the watershed of the Klyazma and Volga, then went to the upper reaches of the Moskva River and descended along it to the Oka. In a straight line, it is about 400 kilometers, taking into account the average pace of movement of impetuous nomads, this is about 15-20 days of travel for them. So, most likely, already in the first half of April, this part of the Mongolian army went into the steppe. We do not have information on how the melting of snow and ice on the rivers affected the movement of this detachment (the Ipatiev Chronicle only reports that the steppe inhabitants moved very quickly). There is also no information about what this detachment was doing the next month after leaving the steppe, it is only known that in May Kadan and Buri came to the rescue of Bat, who had been stuck near Kozelsk by that time.
Small Mongolian detachments, probably, as V. V. Kargalov and R. P. Khrapachevsky, remained on the middle Volga, plundering and burning Russian settlements. How they came out in the spring of 1238 in the steppe is not known.
Most of the Mongol army under the command of Batu and Burundai, instead of the shortest path to the steppe, which the troops of Kadan and Buri passed, chose a very intricate route:
More is known about the Batu route - from Torzhok he moved along the Volga and Vazuz (a tributary of the Volga) to the interfluve of the Dnieper, and from there through the Smolensk lands to the Chernigov city of Vshchizh, lying on the banks of the Desna, writes Khrapachevsky. Having made a detour along the upper reaches of the Volga to the west and northwest, the Mongols turned south, and crossing the watersheds, went to the steppe. Probably, some detachments were marching in the center, through Volok-Lamsky (through the forests). Tentatively, the left edge of Batu has covered about 700-800 kilometers during this time, other detachments a little less. By April 1, the Mongols reached Serensk, and Kozelsk (chronicle Kozelesk, to be precise) - on April 3-4 (according to other information - already on March 25). On average, this gives us about 35-40 kilometers of daily march.
Near Kozelsk, where ice drift on Zhizdra could already begin and snow melting in its floodplain, Batu was stuck for almost 2 months (more precisely, for 7 weeks - 49 days - until May 23-25, maybe later, if we count from April 3, according to Rashid ad-Din - for 8 weeks). Why the Mongols needed to besiege an insignificant, even by medieval Russian standards, town is not entirely clear. For example, the neighboring towns of Krom, Spat, Mtsensk, Domagoshch, Devyagorsk, Dedoslavl, Kursk were not even touched by the nomads.
Historians still argue on this topic, no sane argumentation is given. The funniest version was suggested by the folk-historian of the "Eurasian persuasion" L. N. Gumilev, who suggested that the Mongols took revenge on the grandson of the Chernigov prince Mstislav, who ruled in Kozelsk, for the murder of ambassadors on the Kalka River in 1223. It's funny that the Smolensk prince Mstislav Stary was also involved in the murder of the ambassadors. But the Mongols did not touch Smolensk …
Logically, Batu had to hastily leave for the steppe, since the spring thaw and lack of fodder threatened him with a complete loss of at least "transport" - that is, horses.
The question of what the horses and the Mongols themselves ate, besieging Kozelsk for almost two months (using standard stone-throwing machines), none of the historians was puzzled. Finally, it is trivial to believe that a town with a population of several hundred people, the still huge army of Mongols, numbering tens of thousands of soldiers, could not take 7 weeks …
As a result, the Mongols lost up to 4,000 people near Kozelsk, and only the arrival of the Buri and Kadan detachments in May 1238 from the steppes saved the situation - the town was still taken and destroyed. For the sake of humor, it should be said that the former President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, in honor of the merits of the population of Kozelsk to Russia, awarded the settlement the title of "City of Military Glory." The trouble was that archaeologists, for almost 15 years of searches, could not find unequivocal evidence of the existence of Kozelsk destroyed by Batu. You can read about the passions boiling over this in the scientific and bureaucratic community of Kozelsk here.
If we sum up the estimated data in a first and very rough approximation, it turns out that from December 1, 1237 to April 3, 1238 (the beginning of the siege of Kozelsk), the conditional Mongol horse traveled on average from 1700 to 2800 kilometers. In terms of 120 days, this gives an average daily transition in the range from 15 to 23 kilometers. Since the time intervals are known when the Mongols did not move (sieges, etc., and this is about 45 days in total), the scope of their average daily real march spreads from 23 to 38 kilometers per day.
In simple terms, this means more than an intense load on the horses. The question of how many of them survived after such transitions in rather harsh climatic conditions and an obvious lack of food is not even discussed by Russian historians. As well as the question of the actual Mongolian losses.
For example, R. P. Khrapachevsky generally believes that for the entire time of the Western campaign of the Mongols in 1235-1242, their losses amounted to only about 15% of their original number, while the historian V. B. Koscheev counted up to 50 thousand sanitary losses during the campaign to North-Eastern Russia. However, all these losses - both in people and in horses, the brilliant Mongols promptly made up for at the expense of … the conquered peoples themselves. Therefore, already in the summer of 1238, Batu's armies continued the war in the steppes against the Kipchaks, and in 1241 Europe was invaded by whatever army - so, Thomas of Splitsky reports that it had a huge number of … Russians, Kipchaks, Bulgars, etc. peoples. How many "Mongols" themselves were among them is not really clear.
Mongolian steppe horse has not changed for centuries (Mongolia, 1911)
