the Tatars placed themselves between the fighters and the city and mowed them down. Genghis Khan then fitted out a force to pursue Khwarazm Shah; they crossed the Jihun (Oxus) by wading and swimming, and he fled before them with the enemy hard on his heels. They next wheeled back, seized Rayy and Mazandaran, captured Khwarazm Shah’s mother together with his treasuries, and took her prisoner. They took Qazvin by the sword, leaving forty thousand dead, and then overran Azerbaijan. The ruler of Tabriz, the son of al-Bahlawan, bought peace with money, whereupon the Tatars marched to spend the winter in Mughan. They defeated the Georgians, stormed Maragha, and afterwards moved against Erbil. An army gathered to resist them, so they returned to Hamadan, where they had already wrought havoc and installed a military governor. When that governor demanded money, the townsmen killed him and shut their gates. The Tatars laid siege; the defenders sallied out, killed a number of Tatars, and their leading jurist was wounded. They sallied again the next day and the battle grew fierce, but on the third day the jurist could no longer mount his horse. The Tatars, who had been on the point of withdrawing because of their losses, saw no one emerge to face them, took heart, and in Rajab 618 AH advanced upon the city. They entered Hamadan by the sword; fighting raged through the alleys in a death-struggle, uncounted numbers were slain, and the city was burned.

The Tatars then marched on Tabriz; its people ransomed themselves with wealth. They moved on to Bailaqan, stormed it in Ramadan 618 AH, and butchered its inhabitants so savagely that they would place a woman on the scales and, having used her as a mere weight, kill her. From there they advanced to Ganja—the chief city of Arran—whose people placated them with money, after which they met the Georgians in battle and crushed them, thirty thousand of the Georgians being killed.

Next they set out for Derbent. They captured the city of Shamakhy by storm but could not force an entry into Derbent itself. They therefore asked Shirvan Shah to send envoys; he dispatched ten men. The Tatars killed one and said to the rest, “If you do not show us a road, we will kill you.” They replied, “There is no road—only a narrow pass.” The Tatars pressed through it, killing and taking captives, and slaughtered the Alans without restraint. They then surprised the Qipchaqs by night and annihilated them, proceeded to Sudāq (1) and took it, and remained there until the year 620 AH.