Chapter 192: Economy of Conquest
The citadel hall had been cleared before Batu entered it, and what remained on the stone were the dark marks at the entrance and at the base of the platform steps where the blood had dried in the spring heat.
The hearth sat cold at the room. The open entrance let the late afternoon light through in a broad column that reached the hearth and stopped there.
Batu sat in the timber throne on the platform and looked down toward the entrance. The hall’s length gave him a clear vision to the outer courtyard’s far gate and the sky above the walls beyond it.
Suuqai was at the platform’s right side and two Khar Kheshig riders stood at the hall’s south corners. The room was empty of everyone else and would stay that way until the afternoon required otherwise.
Torghul and Dorbei came through together and stopped below the platform steps. Batu gave them the orders in the sequence they applied.
The city was under Jochid occupation
The garrison was destroyed and the civilian population was not to be touched. Any rider found looting individually or harming a civilian lost a hand on the first offense and his life on the second. That order went in writing to every jaghun commander before the evening watch.
The population was was to be gathered at the multiple squares under guard. Any craftsmen or worker with expertise was to be sorted from the general population. The sorted craftsmen would move to Sarai with the next supply column. The general population would follow when the logistics permitted it.
The loot was divided by merit across the multiple tumens and the numbers went through Torghul’s and Dorbei’s offices under Khulgen’s format.
Torghul received thirty bars of silver from the city’s treasury stores, one hundred sable pelts from the merchant quarter’s goods stock, and the finest bolt of eastern silk the city’s merchants had been carrying.
Dorbei received thirty bars of silver and the city’s bronze metalwork, which was substantial. The specifics were Batu’s acknowledgment of what each man had commanded and nothing more.
The mingans were to spread through the remaining Bulgar territory. Every secondary village, every river crossing, every market town not already under Jochid authority from was to be formally occupied and brought into the tributary system before winter.
The organized military resistance was finished. The administrative foundation still needed to be set up throughout the territory.
Torghul received it and did not ask questions. He confirmed the formation distribution for the occupation spread and went.
Dorbei stayed a moment after. He looked at the floor of the hall, at the dark marks on the steps, and then at Batu.
"The men won’t be satisfied with only substantial," he said.
Batu received that for what it was. Dorbei had pushed the tumen to the forest siege and kept a large part of its mingans there throughout the whole campaign. When put in comparison with their fellow riders that were permitted to raid and amass plunder from the cities and villagers, animosity was easy to breed.
It was both an advice and a warning.
Dorbei went.
Temur came through the entrance alone, walked to the platform base and stopped. The left forearm had been bandaged since the rear courtyard but the linen was dark with what had come through it.
Batu looked at the forearm first.
"The shaft went through it," Temur said.
Batu’s gaze stayed there. "How’s your arm?"
"Could be worse. It’ll be healed by next winter." Temur said.
Just in time for the future campaign.
"I was told you killed the Emir." Batu said.
"Myself and my riders, yes."
Batu looked at the forearm again.
"You and those that survived will have preferential treatment when it comes to the spoils."
Temur said nothing, which was agreement.
"If you still had any doubts, forget them. You are as much part of this army as any man."
A subtle silence spread out through the room. Temur eventually lowered his head, and respectfully walked away.
Subutai came through in the late afternoon, when the light through the entrance had changed from its midday position to the longer flat light of the later hours. He came at his characteristic pace, nothing fast and nothing slow.
He named the location first. The steppe south of the Sura river, on the ground between the Bulgar lands and the Mordvinian forest to the west.
Hard ground for a winter camp. The supply route from Sarai went back through administered Bulgar territory, established Jochid ground now. A force wintering there was in supplied territory with the Oka river a season’s march ahead when spring opened.
The Jochid army would winter in the Bulgar territory. The Toluid army would arrive in late winter. The Ogedeid armies would close from the north on their own route.
By early spring of the year after this one the full force would be at the camp and the Oka river would be within reach. The campaign expectation the kurultai created would be met.
The first target was Ryazan.
Batu agreed to the position. He would send Siban and the Nüden to the Mordvinian forests before winter. To known the position before it became required.
Subutai left.
The four brothers came through the entrance together in the hall’s later afternoon. Orda first, then Tangqut and Toqa-Timur side by side, then Berke a step behind.
They did not stop at the platform steps. They came to the platform’s edge.
Orda expressed the White Horde’s report first. The northern sweep from Džuketau and the region that surrounded the Kama river had created a specific figure in silver and goods, and he named both flat.
Tangqut followed with the southern flank count before being asked. There were no major cities there, only small market towns, and it reflected on the numbers.
Toqa-Timur named the Bilyar figure last, which was the largest, and he said it plainly and without effort.
Berke completed with what the Upper Volga coverage created, less than the plunder but real enough. He said it without matching the others’ energy.
Then Tangqut raised the topic both him and Toqa-Timur were eager to introduce. The princesses, and the Mongol tradition that they would be taken to be concubines of the Jochid lineage.
He jokingly added, "Since Batu has become a celibate and abstained from a concubine, I’ve made my choice."
Toqa-Timur snickered and folded his arms loosely. "As have I."
Orda looked at Batu and did not mention his own. It was his right as their eldest brother.
Batu knew succession built on many sons from many women fractured before it stabilized. He had Saran and the child and that was enough. And if it wasn’t, he wasn’t against a harem, but it had to be of either trustworthy and reliable women, or those that would not become a problem.
Berke said nothing about the matter, but the way he walked with the others implied he had also made a choice. They left the hall together.
Orda paused at the entrance.
"The Rus next spring," he said, and went.
Tangqut’s voice came from the outer courtyard.
"And richer cities after that!"
Toqa-Timur lifted a hand without turning.
"And more stunning concubines as well!
Berke’s voice came last, from past the entrance, flat and separate.
"None can stop the khanate," he said.
Batu walked through the complex when the day was done.
The stairs in the hall took him to the balcony on the north, and from there the city appeared below, and beyond it the open ground where the army had camped through the weeks of the siege.
The camp fires were going up as the dark came in, the organized breaks between the fire clusters carrying the presence of the tumen as if the formation was ready for the march.
The city below was darker than the camp. The fires that had caught during the assault had burned down to coals and the smoke from them had gone thin and was drifting south with the evening air.
The main avenue went south to the breach where the gate had been, and the hole showed as a darker interruption in the wall.
The steppe to the west was flat under the evening sky, washing out to the horizon without any feature to stop it, and above it the last of the light was leaving and the stars were coming in.
He stood on the wall and looked at it.
