The Mongols burst in from the Trans-Volga regions, through those open spaces called much later on the steppes of Tamboff and Saratoff, and attacked Ryazan boundaries. The Mongol army was enormous for that time. It seemed to the Russians as though a whole people were moving from one part of the earth to the other. This army was led by Batu, the great Jinghis Khan’s grandson, the son of his eldest son, Juchi. In attacking a region the Mongols surrounded it, as beaters surround game in a forest, and moved toward a fixed point of meeting. Batu sent envoys to Ryazan, and with them went an enchantress. The presence of this woman alarmed the Ryazan people greatly. The envoys brought this message: “Give one tenth of everything: one prince in ten; one man in ten of the common people; give every tenth one from black, white, brown, and pied horses; from every kind of beast, give one out of ten; and of all wealth and all products give the tenth part to us.” The princes met, and when they had counseled together they sent back this answer: “When no one of us is living, what is left will belong to you.” The Mongols advanced with fire and sword toward the capital. The time was December, 1237, and January, 1238. To prevent these invaders from entering settled places, the princes marched out to meet them in steppe lands. Flinging themselves on the advancing hordes, they fought with desperate bravery, only to be crushed and destroyed utterly. Ingvar, who was at that time in Chernigoff, with Kolovrat, a voevoda, seeking warriors and imploring the Polovtsi to help him, returned home to a desert. Towns and villages were charred ruins, and contained only corpses which beasts of prey and foul birds were devouring. Dead princes, voevodas and warriors lay in the frozen grass, snow-covered. Only at long intervals appeared people, who had been able to hide in the forest, and who came out now to weep over the ruin of their homes. The Mongols not only surrounded the city of Ryazan with an army, but with a wall as well, and they strengthened this wall in places with firm palisades. This they called “driving the pig in.” Thus they expressed themselves, delighted that no one could escape when the city was taken. After they had finished their wall, they put up rams for battering the city walls in, and prepared ladders for storming. The Ryazan men resisted many days, and fought with desperation. They inflicted great loss on the Mongols, but, as was clear, they were weakening. Since they did not let their weapons go out of their hands, they were sure to be conquered in the end by weariness. The Mongols relieved their own storming parties, they gave those men rest, and sent forward fresh regiments. At last they succeeded in crushing the walls down and firing the city by hurling in heavy stones and blazing substances. On December 21, 1237, they mounted the breaches, and through fire, smoke and slaughter burst into the city.