The Mongols have fought for six years to regain control of Korea, but the renegade client-king finally submits, sends hostages to Karakorum, and is reinstalled in 1241 as Goryeo’s puppet ruler.

The Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241 first affects the regions of Moldavia and …

…Wallachia (situated east of the Carpathians).

Tens of thousands of Romanians in Transylvania (at this time part of the Kingdom of Hungary) lose their lives defending their territories from the Golden Horde.

Crops and goods plundered from Romanian settlements seem to have been a primary supply source for the Golden Horde.

The invaders kill up to half of the population and burn down most of their settlements, thus destroying much of the cultural and economic records from that period.

Neither Romanians nor the army of Hungary offer much resistance against the Mongols.

The swiftness of the invasion takes many by surprise and forces them to retreat and hide in forests and the enclosed valleys of the Carpathians.

In the end, however, the main target of the invasion is the Kingdom of Hungary.

A new danger appears from within the Seljuq state as the Mongols threaten from the outside: a charismatic preacher, Baba Ishak, is fomenting rebellion among the Turkmen of Anatolia.

Nomadic Turkmen had begun moving into Anatolia a few years prior to the Battle of Manzikert.

After 1071, Turkic migration into the region had gone largely unchecked.

Both their number and the persuasive power of their religious leaders, nominally Islamized shamans known as babas or dedes, have played a large part in the conversion of formerly Christian Anatolia.

The Persianized Seljuq military class has expended considerable effort keeping these nomads from invading areas inhabited by farmers and from harassing neighboring Christian states.

The Turkmen have been pushed into marginal lands, mostly mountainous and frontier districts.

Baba Ishak is one such religious leader.

Unlike his predecessors, whose influence had been limited to smaller tribal groups, Baba Ishak’s authority extends over a vast population of Anatolian Turkmen.

It is not known what he preached, but his appropriation of the title rasul, normally applied to Muhammad, suggests something beyond orthodox Islam.

The revolt had begun in about 1240 in the remote borderland of Kafarsud in the eastern Taurus Mountains and quickly spread north to the region of Amasya.

Seljuq armies at Amasya and …

…Malatya are destroyed.

Soon, …

…the very heart of Seljuq Anatolia, the regions around Kayseri, …

…Sivas, and …

…Tokat, are under the control of Baba Ishak’s supporters.

Baba Ishak himself is hanged in 1241, but the Turkmen continue their rebellion against the central Seljuq authority.

Emperor John III Vatatzes of Nicaea, aided by the confusion wrought by the Mongol invasion of Europe, oppresses Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, successfully reducing both Bulgaria and the Latin Empire of Constantinople to the status of pawns.

When Tsar Ivan dies in 1241, John III annexes territory in Bulgaria and attacks the Despotate of Epirus.