Incident at Kuruktagh

In the 13th century, where the Silk Road splits into two routes at the Tarem Basin, the Uyghur Khanate of Turfan fell under the control of the Mongol Empire.   Turfan’s inaugural tribute was seized by desert raiders from Novgorod and then subsequently retrieved by Mongols.

It became known as the Incident at Kuruktagh.

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Nomads from Kiev had arrived months before the Mongols, and settled around the fertile lands of Bosten Hú.  Rather than forcing them out as interlopers, the Mongols dispatched a scout to explain that the land was all ready owned by the Mongol Empire.  The scout never returned, and soon the Russians were violently ousted by a Mongol myanghan under the command of a sub-General called Burhan.

Weak in number, and unable to remain as outcasts in the Alashan Plateau, the Russians set about to live as bandits, robbing Silk Road caravans.  Their first choice proved disasterous; they attacked the official dispatch from Turfan,  bound for the Mongols settlement at Bosten Lake.  Ignorant of its significance, they were soon set upon by the Mongols and caught unprepared for the level of violence enacted in order to retrieve the stolen tribute.  Only ten men escaped on horseback with a hostage, the Turfan emissary. They fled into the narrows of a nearby mountain chain, and hoping to rid themselves of the Mongol posse, dropped their stolen haul of silk, pottery, and gold.

The Mongols kept up their pursuit.

At the time, it was not known why General Burhan led his personal guard deep into mountains to retrieve them…

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