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In 1255 Batu Khan, founded of the Golden Horde, dies to be succeeded by his son, Sartak. Among Sartak's first actions was to arrange for a quiet demise of his beloved uncle, Berke. This action guaranteed his long as happy reign. The important thing to know about Sartak - he is a Nestorian Christian.

In the same year the Great Khan, Möngke charged his brother Hulagu with leading a massive Mongol army to conquer or destroy the remaining Muslim states in southwestern Asia. To accomplish this task he received 20% of all Mongolian forces. Part of that army were contingents sent from the Golden Horde. While being a follower of the traditional religion, Hulagu was quite sympathetic to the Christians (IIRC, his wife was a christian and so were quite a few of his subordinates). On January 29, 1258 Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to Baghdad and on February 10 Baghdad surrendered with the following extensive looting. To get things in a proper perspective, Yasa forbade destruction of the religious property and killing of the priests but this did not apply to the cases when the cities had been taken by storm. As a token of his good attitude toward the christians, Hulagu gave Caliph's palace to the Nestorian patriarch as a present. Caliph was killed.

Smaller states in the region hastened to reassure Hulagu of their loyalty, and the Mongols turned to Syria in 1259, conquering the Ayyubid dynasty and sending advance patrols as far ahead as Gaza.

In 1260 Mongol forces combined with those of their Christian vassals in the region, including the army of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia under Hethum I, King of Armenia and the Franks of Bohemond VI of Antioch. This force conquered Muslim Syria, a domain of the Ayyubid dynasty. They captured Aleppo by siege and, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, seized Damascus on March 1, 1260. A Christian Mass was celebrated in the Umayyad Mosque and numerous mosques were profaned. The last Ayyubid king, An-Nasir Yusuf, was killed by Hulagu in 1260.

Hulagu intended to continue southward through Palestine towards Cairo to fight the Mamluks. He sent a threatening letter to the Mamluk Sultan Qutuz in Cairo. He demanded that Qutuz open Cairo or it would be destroyed like Baghdad.

At that moment Mongke Khan died, so Hulagu, as an heir and potential Great Khan was supposed to return to Mongolia for the election of a new Khan with his troops. However, following example of his late cousin, Batu, Hulagu decided not to go and just sent few messengers to express support to his brother Khubilay. (*)

Instead he proposed an alliance with the remnant of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centered on Acre, and, while the Pope Alexander IV had forbidden such an alliance (it could be potentially strengthening Conrad III Stauffen), presence of the huge Mongolian army at the back door made importance of the whole issue rather theoretical. The barons of Acre still let the Mamluks to march northward without hindrance through Crusader territory and even let them camp near Acre to resupply but at Ain Jalut 15 - 20,000 Mamluks met 100,000 Mongols and had been slaughtered. In few months Cairo was burned and Hulagu created a vassal Coptic state in the Lower Egypt.

Jerusalem had been restored to Christianity and even a raving maniac like Alexander IV found it difficult not to greet such an occasion (anyway, he died in 1261). Expanded Kingdom of Jerusalem had been made Hulagu vassal and its king, Conrad, decided that it is better to go to his titular kingdom rather than to keep dealing with Papacy's "holy war" against the Stauffens.

The direct Mongolian presence in the region remains quite limited: the climate is too hot and there not enough grass to maintain there a large force for a long time.

Alliance with Sartak had been used by Hulagu in his attempt to crush the Muslim opposition on his territories. OTOH, having him as a neighbor allowed Sartak to strengthen his own position (quite a few of his subjects had been Muslims). While he was not quite successful, Il-Khanate, just like the Golden Horde, became a multi-religious state.

And everybody lived happily for a short while. :)

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(*) There is a distinct possibility that actually Hulagu withdrew most of his forces because he could not sustain such a large army logistically: the fodder in the region had been mostly used up and it was a Mongol custom to withdraw to cooler lands for the summer. If true, we are just postponing the timing of a renewed advance making Kitbuka to stay in a safe area with his small force until the main army returns the next year.
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