The worst of the Mongol yoke was not that every man’s head, and every horn and hoof of his cattle was registered, not that Mongol inspectors were stationed in all parts of the country; the heaviest weight of the yoke came when the Khan farmed Russian taxes to men from Khiva, Turkestan and Bukhara. Among partners and aids of those tax-farmers were Jews and Armenians, persons of various languages and religions. These traders in tribute, a people unheard of in Russia till that time, began a work which greatly intensified Mongol oppression. They became real torturers, squeezing the last copper coin from the people. They imposed grinding interest for arrears of tribute. They were worse than the most cruel usurer. Men who were unable to pay they sold into slavery or beat savagely with whips and clubs. This terror extended from end to end of the country. From those galling oppressions came riots. The riots were suppressed most unsparingly, and with bloodshed. No longer could safety and peace be connected with any place. There were disorders in Suzdal, in Pskoff, even in Pereyaslavl Beyond the Forest. These uprisings were not against Mongols directly. The people beat tax-farmers and their assistants, not the Khan’s men, hence the Khan could not be angry in the same degree; still his anger might be looked for, and reports were often current that regiments from the Horde were marching “to pacify” Russia. At this juncture news came that Germans, the Knights of Livonia, were advancing with a numerous force to attack Pskoff. Nevski sent his own personal troops to Dmitri, his son, Prince of Novgorod at that time, and ordered his brother, Yaroslav of Tver, to go also; he went then to the Horde to try to save the Russian people from some of their new and great afflictions. The gifts which he took with him were more valuable than any he had given earlier, and his petitions were the simplest, and the most reasonable. But at the Horde they gave Nevski to understand that they were dissatisfied. They let him know that they were not pleased with him personally. Berkai was different from what he had been while Batu was still living or while he was struggling with Sartak for mastery. He was curbed now by no man; besides, he was angered by military failure beyond the Caucasus, where he was warring with Hulagu, his strong cousin. He detained Nevski without need all that winter, then he detained him during the following summer, and only late in autumn could the prince set out for home, sick and broken, to die before reaching Vladimir. He came to Nizni-Novgorod, and when they brought him to Gorodets his last hour was near. At that place he took the monk’s habit, and on November 14, 1263, his life left him.