In april 1241 mongol armies had killed some one hundred thousand european knights and men-at-arms in poland and hungary. They had beaten every western army they had come against. Henry ii of silesia was dead, boleslav iv, count of the poles, was in hiding, and the kingdom of hungary no longer existed; its king, bela iv, was fleeing to the adriatic coast pursued by a mongol army determined to kill him. As for the country itself, the mongols began to systematically strip and depopulate it and to strike coins. It belonged to batu, grandson of jinghiz khan, the emperor of all men.
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