Batu Khan

Batu Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan and the son of Jochi. He commanded, with the great general Subutai, the Mongol invasions of the Rus’ principalities and central Europe in the 1230s and 1240s.

After the campaign he established his power on the lower Volga, creating the political foundation of the Golden Horde. His relations with other branches of the imperial family strongly influenced the election and authority of later great khans. Batu Khan was born in Mongolia and died in Sarai.

Cecelia Holland’s Until the Sun Falls views Batu Khan from inside the western Mongol armies, where the fictional commander Psin serves under Batu and Subutai through the destruction of Kyiv and the campaigns that culminate at Legnica and Mohi. Conn Iggulden’s Empire of Silver follows Batu more directly as one of the princes driving the Mongol advance through the Rus lands and into central Europe while succession rivalries threaten the unity created by Genghis Khan. In Neal Stephenson and his collaborators’ The Mongoliad: Book 1, Batu’s western conquests create the crisis that sends the Shield-Brethren towards the Mongol court; The Mongoliad: Book 2 keeps that invasion and the divisions of the imperial family behind their eastward mission, and The Mongoliad: Book 3 brings those dynastic tensions into the heart of Mongol power as the attempted intervention reaches its climax.