When Tului received the command in 1220 to march on Khorassan he sent forward ten thousand men, under Togachar, as a vanguard. This body went on toward Nessa and when approaching that city a part of it met with resistance. Belgush, its commander, fell in the action which followed. Togachar, to avenge the death of Belgush, besieged Nessa. Shah Mohammed, when fleeing, had sent an official to advise Nessa people: “The Mongols,” said he, “will abandon the Empire when they have plundered it, so flee to the desert, or to mountainous regions, unless ye wish to rebuild the old fortress, which was razed by my father.” They rebuilt the old fortress. Togachar attacked Nessa, using twenty catapults handled by captives, who, whenever they fell back, were massacred by Mongols behind them. On the sixteenth day at dawn a breach in the wall was effected; the Mongols burst through and drove out the inhabitants. On the plain near Nessa some were forced to bind others; when the hands of each man were bound behind his back the Mongols slaughtered all who were there, seventy thousand in number. The ancient city of Meru, or Merv, renowned in Persian story, and still more in Sanscrit poems, was the first place attacked by Tului with the main army. It was one of the four ruling cities, and the one which Melik Shah and Sindjar, the Seljuk Sultans, had favored. It stood on a broad, fertile plain through which flowed the Murghab, or Bird, River. When Mohammed fled from Jinghis he directed Merv troops and officials to retire on Meraga, a neighboring fortress. “All people who remain must receive Mongol troops with submission,” this was his order. Mohammed’s fear, not his counsel, remained in that city. His governor, Behai ul Mulk, did not think Meraga strong and found elsewhere a refuge; some chiefs returned to Merv, others fled to distant places. The new governor, a man of no value, declared for submission, and so did the mufti, but the judge and descendants of the Prophet demanded resistance. The governor lost his place soon and was followed in office by a former incumbent named Mojir ul Mulk, who managed Merv matters till Tului appeared with a force seventy thousand in number, made up in some part of captives. Next day he surrounded the outworks and within a week’s time his whole army had inclosed that doomed city, February, 1221.