In 1234, the Mongols destroyed the Jin Dynasty of the Yan clan, and together with the destruction of the Central Asian Kingdom of Faraz in 1219-1225 and the destruction of the Western Xia in 1227, the only two nomadic tribes that could threaten the Mongolian plateau were the Caspian Sea and the Chincha and Aran tribes in the northern Caucasus. The reigning Wokoutai Khan in 1235 summoned the princes and eldest grandsons of various clans (The Second Son of Shuchi Batu, the eldest son of Wokoutai, Guiyu, the eldest son of Torre, Möngke, and the eldest son of Chagatai Sun Buli) to march west to Eastern Europe.
The Mongol army was overwhelmed, and in 1236 the Chincha Department (present-day southern Russia) in the lower Volga River in the northern Part of the Rivie Sea, and in 1237 the Aran Department in the northern Caucasus surrendered successively; then turned north to conquer the Choros, in 1238 captured the Principality of Vladimir in Moscow (in present-day Russia), in 1239 swept away the departments and cities on the north shore of the Black Sea (present-day Black Sea coastal area of Ukraine), surrounded the Principality of Kiev Novgorod (in present-day Ukraine), attacked the land in 1240, and continued westward in 1241. Trapped in Poland, Silesia, Moravia, the Teutonic Knights, Hungary, and on the east bank of the Danube. On Christmas Day, 25 December 1241, the Danube River froze and the Mongols crossed the river to loot the city of Kotor. The next target was Austria, one of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire.
Mongol expedition to Europe
At this time, the news of the death of the Mongol Wokoutai Khan came, Batu returned to Mongolia, suspended the westward advance, and part of the western expedition army remained in the southern Russian steppe on the north shore of the Caspian Sea and the northern shore of the Black Sea, and later became one of the four major Mongol khanates, the Chincha Khanate.
The Yuan Dynasty and the Four Great Khanates established by the Mongols
At this time Pope Gregory IX was busy fighting with the Holy Roman Emperor over ecclesiastical and royal power. Since the 11th century, the ecclesiastical power of the European Roman Christian popes has overpowered the kings of various countries and become the "king of kings", so how did the popes who were invincible in Europe at that time face the overwhelming Mongol cavalry in the situation of the disastrous defeat of the countries?
The Pope apparently did not pay attention to the Mongol invasion at first, and wanted to use the Mongol invasion to impose a strong cleric, advocating that the Mongols were God's false hand to punish the sins, and that the Mongols were the biblical peoples who opposed the birth of Christ, and they came from the easternmost place to destroy Christianity. While strengthening the faith in God, it can also make the European knights bravely resist. After the last of Europe's knights fell under the iron hooves of the Mongols, the Pope was helpless.
Teutonic Knights in white robes and black crosses
On 25 June 1243, Innocent IV was elected pope. In early 1245, he convened a religious assembly in Lyon, France, to focus on how to prevent Mongol aggression. The Assembly decided to send priests as emissaries to Mongolia to persuade the Mongols to stop killing Christians and invade Europe, and to persuade the Mongols to convert to Orthodox Christianity. This task fell to the guest of St. Francis the Patriarch Of Brun. The guests of Braun carried the Pope to write two letters to the Great Khan of the Mongols in a vain attempt to intimidate and inspire the Mongols with the authority of God, but where did the Pope know that the Mongols were holding god's whip, and that God was nothing more than a poor slave here in the eternal life. (After the envoy, The Guest of Brown wrote his own experience in "The Journey of the Guest of Brown to Mongolia")
In 1245, The guest of Blanc and others carried two letters from the Pope to the Great Khan of Mongolia and set out from Lyon, France. In July 1246, they arrived near Helin, where they attended the enthronement ceremony of Guiyu Khan. Guiyu later warmly received Prangabbin and sent Zhenhai and others to learn from them about the contents of the Pope's letter and the situation in the Holy See and European countries. In November, The guests of Braun set out to return home with a reply from Guiyu to the Pope, and returned to Lyon in the autumn of 1247 to pay tribute to the Pope. The original Persian and Latin translations of Guiyu Khan's letter to the Pope can still be seen, and the archives of the Pope's letters to the Mongol Khan no longer exist, but two letters from the Pope are preserved in the annex to the Dawson Mission, the contents of which are credible by Western scholars according to the papal archives.
Official portrait of Pope Innocent IV
The following are the full texts of two letters from Pope Innocent IV to the Mongol Guiyu Khan.
First Letter:
God the Father, with indescribable love, watched the unfortunate fate of mankind, who had fallen because of the sins of the first generation of men and because of his extremely great spirit of love. The desire to mercifully save mankind—for the devil to make a cunning suggestion out of jealousy, which caused mankind to fall—and so with great mercy, sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, from the high throne of heaven to the netherworld dust as his representative—his only begotten cry, conceived in the womb of a preferred virgin by the holy spirit, dressed there in the garment of human flesh, and from there entered the world through the closed door of his mother's chastity, showing himself in an image visible to all. Born with a rational human nature, it is suitable for nourishment with eternal truth as its most selected food, but since human nature is bound to deadly shackles, as a punishment for sin, its capacity is greatly weakened, and it must strive to understand the invisible things of the food of reason using methods of inferences from the visible. As a result of Jesus' descent, the Creator of mankind became visible—He grew the same flesh as we do, though His nature was not unchanged—for that purpose. Since He is Visible, He can summon the invisible things that follow the Visible things back to Himself, shape people with His useful teachings, and point out to them the way to perfection with His teachings: following the model of His divine way of life and his Gospel teachings, He does not hesitate to condescend to endure the pain of dying on a cruel cross, in order that through the end of his present life by torture, he can end the punishment of eternal death from there - this punishment, It was generations of humanity who suffered as a result of the sins of their first generation of ancestors – and enabled man to drink the sweet dew of eternal life in time from the bitter communion cup of his death. Jesus, the Mediator between us and God, should have both a short life and an eternal blessing, so that because of his short life, he can be like those who are destined to die. With eternal bliss, He can transition us from death to eternal life. Therefore, he sacrificed himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind, and he defeated the enemy who did not save mankind, rescued mankind from the shame of slavery, made it enjoy the glory of freedom, and opened the door of heaven and the motherland for mankind. Then he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, he left his Pope on earth, and after the Pope had proved his eternal love for mankind by the evidence of the Triple Vocation, he entrusted the Responsibility of protecting the human soul to the Pope, hoping that the Pope would keep an eye on the salvation of mankind, for the salvation of mankind, he had lowered his noble dignity; he gave the key to the kingdom of heaven to the Pope, and with this key the Pope and his successors had the power to open and close the gates of the kingdom of heaven to all men. Although we are not worthy of this heavy responsibility, and by God's arrangement we have now succeeded to the office of the Pope, we have therefore focused our keen attention on the question of saving you and others before discharging all the other responsibilities which we have because of our office, and on this issue we devote ourselves in particular to this issue, and we have always and tirelessly followed this issue with diligent enthusiasm and enthusiastic diligence, so that we can, with the help of God's mercy, lead those who have gone astray to the path of truth, And the one who wins everything for God. But since we cannot come to different places in person at the same time — for this is not permitted by the nature of our human condition — in order not to appear to neglect in any way those who are far from us, we send careful and careful people to them, and as our representatives, through whom we can fulfill our Pope's duty to them. It is for this reason that we consider it appropriate to send to you our beloved son, the Portuguese Monk Lawrence, and his Fellow Franciscans, who are the ones who sent this letter, who have an extraordinary religious spirit, who are virtuous and well versed in biblical knowledge, so that if you follow their useful teachings, you can recognize The True Son of God, Jesus Christ, and worship His glorious name by converting to Christianity. Therefore, we exhort all of you, ask and sincerely implore you, out of reverence for God and for us, to receive these friars kindly and to treat them in a considerate manner as if they were receiving us, and to treat them with unapologetic honesty in the matters which they have spoken to you on our behalf. We also ask you, in addition to consulting with them on the above-mentioned matters that are beneficial to you, and to give them a passport and other necessities they need on their round-trip journey, so that they can come back to us when they wish. We think it is appropriate to send to you the monks mentioned above, who we have specially selected from others who have been proven over the years to be consistently observant and proficient in the Bible, because. Whereas they follow the spirit of humility of our Savior. We believe that they will be of great help to you – if we think of a senior priest or other competent person who is more beneficial to you and more acceptable. Then we'll send those people to you. 5 March 1245 at Lyon
Second Letter :
Given that not only human beings, but even irrational animals, no, even the individual elements that make up this world, are united by some natural law according to the example of the gods of heaven, and that God the Creator divides all these into thousands of groups and places them in the lasting stability of a peaceful order, it is not unreasonable that we are compelled to express in strong terms our surprise at your violent behavior—we have heard that you have invaded many nations that belong to both Christians and others, and have ravaged them, Make it desolate. And, with a spirit of undiminished rage, you have not only not stopped extending your hand of destruction to more distant lands, but have broken the bonds of natural ties, regardless of gender and age, and you have wielded the sword of punishment and attacked all mankind indiscriminately. Therefore, following the example of the King of Peace and longing for all human beings to live together in harmony in the fear of God, we exhort, request and sincerely plead with all your peoples: from now on, cease such attacks completely, especially the persecution of Christians, and, after committing so many and grave sins, you should appease God's wrath through proper repentance, and there is no doubt that what you have done has seriously aroused God's wrath. You should not be encouraged to commit further barbaric crimes by the fact that, when you wield the sword of might against other human beings, Almighty God has so far allowed many nations to perish before you; this is because sometimes God will temporarily refrain from punishing the proud in this world, so that if these people do not humble themselves and bow their heads before God, then God may not only no longer postpone their punishment in this life, but may also aggravate their evil retribution in the next life. We therefore deem it appropriate to send your beloved son, John Plang, and his companions, the person who sent this letter, to you. They had an extraordinary religious spirit, were virtuous, and were well versed in Biblical knowledge. Please, out of reverence for God, receive them kindly, treat them with respect as if they were receiving us, and speak honestly with them on the things they tell you on our behalf. When you have had a useful discussion with them on the above-mentioned matters, especially those relating to peace, please let us know fully through these monks what exactly is driving you to destroy other peoples, what your future intentions are, and please give them a passport and other necessities they need on their way back and forth so that they can come back to us if they so they wish. 13 March 1245 at Lyon
Literally from the two letters of Innocent IV, the content of the first letter was to persuade the Mongols to convert to Christianity, but in his letters he trumpeted the power of God, and the way of preaching in which he tried to make the Mongols convert for fear of God was obviously stupid, this theory of original sin may be valid for Europe, but how can those who have beaten god's people in Ganggang Dang be afraid of God? The second letter, sent by Prangabbin, was intended to rebuke the Mongols for their aggression and massacres against the Christian countries and to exhort them to cease such acts. But as with the first letter, God's deterrent power did not exist for the Mongols. Therefore, the outcome of these two letters is also predictable, and in addition, Christians have always been afraid of the number "13" as ominous. However, Innocent IV chose the 13th to write this second letter, and the result was to add a piece of evidence to the taboo of the believers. Now let's see how Guiyu Khan taught this stupid pope a lesson.
Letter from Guiyu Khan of the Mongol Empire to Pope Innocent IV:
We, the Immortal Heaven (Immortal Heaven: i.e., "Tengger", the supreme celestial deity of the nomadic peoples of the Mongolian plateau), The Khan of the Great Uluth ("Uluth": The domain of the Great Khan of the Mongols divided into clans and ministers called Uluth), our order: It was a translation sent to the Great Pope so that he could learn and understand the contents of the letter in the Muslim language. Your request to support us at the time of the Assembly in the Emperor's Land was received from your Messenger. If your Messenger returns to you and sends his own report, you, the Great Pope, together with all the monarchs, should come to serve us at once. At that time, I will publish all the orders of Zaza. You also said that you had prayed and prayed to God that I would be baptized. I don't understand this prayer of yours. You also said something else to me: "I am very surprised that you have seized all the lands of the Magyars (i.e., the Hungarians) and the Christians. Tell us what their fault is. "I don't understand your words either. Changshengtian killed and destroyed the people of these places because they were neither loyal to Genghis Khan nor to Hehan (the Mongols believed that both Genghis Khan and Hehan were sent to preach the orders of Immortality. "Hehan" is an inflection of "Khan", which here refers to Wokoutai Khan); and does not obey the orders of the Immortal Heaven. Like you said, they were rude, they were arrogant, they killed our messengers. How can anyone disobey the orders of the Immortal Heaven and rely on his own strength to catch or kill people? Although you also say that I should become a devout Nestorian Christian, worship God, and become an ascetic. But how do you know who the Immortal Heaven forgives? To whom do you truly show mercy? How do you know that these words you said were approved by the Immortal Heavens? From sunrise to sunset, all the land has been surrendered by Me. Who could have done such a thing in violation of the orders of the Immortal Heavens? Now you should sincerely say, "Sincerely willing to surrender and serve you." "You, the first of all sovereigns, should come and serve us at once! Then I will confess your surrender. If you do not obey the orders of the Immortal Heavens, if you ignore my orders, I will consider you my enemy. In the same way, I will make you understand the meaning of this phrase. If you don't follow my orders, the consequences will only be known to the Immortals. (Hijri) Late June 644 (i.e. November 1261 AD) The Emperor's Seal In the immortal weather force, the Great Mongol Ulus all the Khan's holy will. When the edict is granted, the subjects are obeyed.
In this letter, the third Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Guiyou Khan, unceremoniously refuted the Pope's accusations against him and regarded Prangabbin's envoys as a sign of the Pope's surrender. The Pope tried to intimidate the Mongols with the will of God he played with in his hands, a tactic that could not frighten even Friedrich II, let alone a believer in the immortal heavens who had won successive battles. God became a poor slave here in the eternal heavens, only qualified to serve. The Holy See had intended to disarm the threat of armed aggression by establishing friendly relations with the powerful Mongol rulers, but because of the stupid pope's two letters that could not be grasped, it invited an even greater threat to the other side.