On hearing of the dread destruction which had fallen upon Ani, and the slaughter of all who had lived in it, the inhabitants of Kars fearing the doom which, as they thought, would meet them unless they could avert it, carried the keys of their city to the Mongol commander. Notwithstanding this voluntary submission and surrender, a dreadful massacre followed, for Chormagun gave direction to put all to the sword except children, desirable women, and artisans of skill, who were needed by the Mongols. When Kars had been ruined the invaders returned to the plains of Mugan, which abounded in rich winter pastures. In 1240 Prince Avak of Tiflis and his sister Tamara went to give homage at Ogotai’s court, and were met there with kindness. The Grand Khan gave them an order commanding Chormagun to reinstate them and other Georgian princes; a second command was sent also to take from them only the tribute agreed on already. When people north of the Euphrates and Tigris had been thinned out sufficiently and enlightened by slaughter, the Mongols turned to take Rūm and subdue it. Rūm had been ruled for a century and a half by a branch of the Seljuks. Asia Minor was conquered about 1080 by Suleiman Shah, whom his cousin Sultan Melik, Shah of Persia, had sent toward the west with eighty thousand Turkman households to bring down the infidel. Suleiman seized the central provinces of that region from the Byzantine Empire, and made Konia the capital of his newly won kingdom, which was called Rūm in the Orient, but in the west with another vowel, Rome. From that period on, the Turkman swarms which followed the banners of the Seljuks spread over those conquered lands widely. Most places were given them as fiefs, and the Christians of that entire region passed under the yoke of unsparing and insolent nomads. The Sultan Ghiath ud din Kei Kosru, eighth successor of Suleiman the first conqueror, had ruled over Rūm for five years when in 1243 the Mongols set out to subject it. Chormagun was now dead and Baidju, who succeeded him, had come with an army, in which were Armenian and Georgian contingents, to invest Erzerum where Sinan ud din Yakut was commandant. This Yakut was a freedman of Sultan Kei Kubad, the father of Kei Kosru. At the end of two months the walls were destroyed by twelve catapults; the city was taken by storm, and one day later the citadel met with a similar misfortune. The commandant and also his warriors were put to the sword without exception. Artisans, workmen, desirable women and children were spared to be driven into slavery. When the city had been plundered and ruined the Mongols withdrew to their winter camp on the plain of Mugan.