After Batu had established himself in the steppes of the Volga, he began to build Sarai, the capital of his Horde. He cleared the whole country and drove out the Polovtsi. Kotyan, the Polovtsi Khan, took a remnant of his people, forty thousand in number, and settled in Hungary. The king gave him land on condition that he and his tribes became Catholic. The rest of the Polovtsi joined with the Mongols, and from that day they ceased forever as a people in Russia. Pereyaslavl on the Alta and Chernigoff were doomed now, and all who could leave those two places hurried elsewhere for refuge. When winter had again frozen the rivers and put snow on the steppe lands, the Mongols set out afresh to capture cities and slaughter new thousands of people. Batu sent a number of his leaders of ten thousand to the north again to search out and finish all places bordering on Vladimir. This work they did thoroughly in December, 1238, and January, 1239. Batu, meanwhile, took Pereyaslavl; destroyed the church of Saint Michael; slew the bishop; killed all who were useless as captives; took whatever belonged to the people and the churches; and moved on Chernigoff. The walls of that city were broken in by hurling stones, each of such weight that five men were needed to lift it. The city was stormed then and burned, the people slain, and every building plundered. One of the younger princes fell with the warriors. The chronicler states that the older princes had fled to Hungary. It is true that Michael’s heir, Rostislav, who had been left by his father in Galitch, and driven thence by Daniel soon after, had gone to marry King Bela’s daughter. Michael, himself, who at this time had taken Yaroslav’s place, in Kief, soon found it impossible to stay there. When Chernigoff was ruined, Batu commanded his brother to advance upon Kief and make a reconnaissance. From the Chernigoff bank of the Dnieper he saw the mother of cities and wondered at its beauty. Envoys were sent to demand its surrender. The Kief people slew them, and Michael fled from the capital. He went, as he thought, to a safe place, to Hungary, to be present at his son’s wedding. But, learning of the ruin of Chernigoff by the Mongols, Bela would not give his daughter to Rostislav. Michael and his son went then to the Mazovian prince, Konrad. Bolder than Michael, Rostislav, a Smolensk prince, occupied Kief, now abandoned by others. But Daniel of Galitch would not let Rostislav stay there, and seized for himself the old capital. He did not wait in Kief for Batu; he sent Dmitri, his boyar, to defend the city. Daniel left even Volynia and Galitch, and went to Hungary. From there he went to Poland, for Bela himself was struck with such terror that he fled from the Mongols, and knew not where to find refuge.