Yaroslav, after this vain attempt to assist Andrei, saved himself by fleeing first to Ladoga and thence to Pskoff, but his wife was killed and his children were taken into captivity. The Mongols inflicted great suffering and slaughtered a multitude of people. Those who were able to escape fled, and, scattering through forests, lived among wild beasts, as men had lived during Batu’s invasion. Nevruya withdrew after that, and Alexander returned from the Horde to Vladimir, where his first work was to collect the people, and resettle ruined places. CHAPTER XIII ALEXANDER NEVSKI In 1252–1253 Alexander Nevski began rule and was the real successor of Yaroslav, his father. When Andrei had grown weary of exile, he begged Nevski to intercede for him at the Horde. Meanwhile Sartak, Batu’s son, had been murdered, as is said, by Berkai, his uncle, who took the Kipchak throne and waited confirmation from Mangu, at that time Grand Khan. Again all Russian princes had to visit the Horde and wait to have their titles confirmed. Alexander sent his nephews, Glaib and Boris, with rich gifts to Ulavchi, the favorite. The gifts were accepted and Andrei was forgiven, but Nevski himself had to go to the Horde with his guilty brother to receive the formal pardon. The eternal enmity in Novgorod between the strong and the weak; the rich and the poor; the rooted hostility of haughty merchants and opulent traders to craftsmen and land-tillers; and the rivalry among the ambitious for power and offices raged unceasingly. From of old a large number, and at times a majority, were attracted to the Russia outside of Great Novgorod. There had long been partisans of Vladimir among Novgorod boyars, men who thought it well for their country to act with Vladimir and even to be merged in it, but there were also implacable opponents to either coöperation or union, and these nourished hatred for Vladimir at every hazard. On the Vladimir side were all the more or less well-to-do people, the peace men. Therefore it seemed as if the adherents of Vladimir were only the well-to-do, and the satisfied, who cared not for the poor; but this was not the case. On the side of Vladimir were the land-tillers and common folk.