his armies to battle. His greatest triumphs were achieved sitting in
his palace in the Kremlin; and his weapons were found in a cunning and
far-reaching diplomacy. He swept away the system of appanages, and one
by one effaced the privileges and the old legal and judicial systems in
those Principalities which were not yet entirely absorbed. While
maintaining an outward respect for Mongol authority, and while
receiving its friendly aid in his attacks upon Novgorod and Lithuania,
he was carefully laying his plans for open defiance. He cunningly
refrained from paying tribute and homage on the pretense that he could
not decide which of the five was lawful Khan.

In 1478 an embassy arrived at Moscow to collect tribute, bringing as
the symbol of their authority an image of the Khan Akhmet. Ivan tore
off the mask of friendship. In a fury he trampled the image under his
feet and (it is said) put to death all except one whom he sent back
with his message to the Golden Horde. The astonished Khan sent word
that he would pardon him if he would come to Saraï and kiss his stirrup.

At last Ivan consented to lead his own army to meet that of the enraged
Khan. The two armies confronted each other on the banks of the Oka.
Then after a pause of several days, suddenly both were seized with a
panic and fled. And so in this inglorious fashion in 1480, after three
centuries of oppression and insult, Russia slipped from under the
Mongol yoke. There were many Mongol invasions after this. Many times
did they unite with Lithuanians and Poles and the enemies of Russia;
many times were they at the gates of Moscow, and twice did they burn
that city--excepting the Kremlin--to the ground. But never again was
there homage or tribute paid to the broken and demoralized Asiatic
power which long lingered about the Crimea. There are to-day two
millions of nomad Mongols encamped about the south-eastern steppes of