In April 1223, the Mongols of Genghis Khan sent an envoy of ten ambassadors to negotiate a surrender or alliance.
[citation needed] The Mongol commanders Subutai and Jebe defeated and captured him three days after the Battle of the Kalka River at a palisade on a nearby hill.
According to the Novgorod Chronicle, of the large Kievan Rus' army sent out to fight the Mongols, only "every tenth returned to his home."
An account of Mstislav's execution after the battle is described in Jack Weatherford's historical book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World:[4] At the end of the campaign, Subutai and Jebe led their soldiers down to spend a relaxing spring in the Crimea on the Black Sea.
The guest of honor was the defeated Prince Mstislav and his two sons-in-law, but their treatment showed how much the Mongols had changed since the time of Genghis Khan.