Tartars held sway in Persia, Georgia, Armenia, and a part of Asia Minor.

When the great Mangu Khan died in 1259, one empire lay spread across Asia and Europe, from the Yellow River to the Danube.

There had been nothing like it in the world before, and there was nothing like it again, until the Russian Empire of modern times.

By 1268 it was beginning to split up into the four kingdoms of China, central Asia, Russia, and Persia, but still it was one people.

Now, the attitude of the West to the Tartars at this time was very interesting.