The diplomatic duel between Charles and Michael…

Mongol troops had reached Dai Viet’s northern borders as a result of the Mongol conquest of the Song Empire, by 1278–79.

Some former Song officials had fled to Annam and Champa, former vassals of Song China, during the final stage of Mongolian conquest of China.

The Trans' new ruler Nhan Tong has resisted renewed Mongol demands for personal attendance at Kublai's court, but had dispatched his uncle Tran Di Ai as envoy.

Kublai tries to enthrone Di Ai as prince in 1281 but Di Ai and his small army are ambushed by Dai Viet forces.

The Mongols initiate a series of Southeast Asian campaigns in country for which the Mongol cavalry is entirely unsuited.

The future Thai king Mangrai was born on October 2, 1238 in Ngoen Yang (present day Chiang Saen) Thailand on the Mekong River, a son of the local ruler Lao Meng and his wife Ua Ming Chommueang, a princess from the Tai Lue city of Chiang Rung, which is now called Jinghong, in Sipsongpanna (Xishuangbanna), China.

In 1259, Mangrai had succeeded his father to become the first independent king of the unified Tai city states in northern Lanna and what is now northern Laos.

Seeing the Tai states were disunited and in danger, Mangrai had quickly expanded his kingdom by conquering Muang Lai, Chiang Kham and Chiang Khong and initiating alliances with other states.

He founded the city of Chiang Rai in 1262 as his new capital in the Kok River basin.

He also seems to have been operating around this time in the area of Fang in the Upper Kok Valley.

Mangrai first made peace in 1280 between King Ngam Muang of Phayao and King Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai, who had seduced the former's queen.

The three Kings had then entered a pact to defend their lands against the expanding Mongol Empire.

While still living in the area of Fang, he had been visited by merchants from the Mon kingdom of Haripunchai (Haripunjaya, now known as Lamphun).

Hearing of the wealth of that kingdom, he determines to conquer it, against the advice of his counselors.

As it is thought impossible to take the city by force, Mangrai sends a merchant named Ai Fa as a mole to gain the confidence of its King Yi Ba.

In time, Ai Fa becomes the Chief Minister and manages to undermine the King's authority.

In 1281, with the people in a state of discontent, Mangrai defeats the Mon kingdom and adds Haripunchai to his kingdom.

Yi Ba, the last king of Hariphunchai, is forced to flee south to Lampang.

Kublai Khan, despite his education by Confucian scholars, adopts Buddhism.

He comes to practice (and will bequeath to his successors) a form of Buddhism blended with traditional shamanism (later known as Mongolian Lamaism).

In 281, the Khan orders the burning of sacred Taoist texts, resulting in the reduction in number of volumes of the Daozang (Taoist Canon) from four thousand five hundred and sixty-five to one thousand one hundred and twenty.

The Japanese had made many defense preparations after the failed first invasion by the Yuan navy.

Many forts have been constructed along the coast line and samurai further trained, perfecting their swordsmanship.

Kublai Khan had planned another invasion of Japan in early 1280 and had ordered his shipbuilders to rebuild the whole fleet within a year.

Many of the ships had been poorly made in the short time available; many are flat-bottomed river boats requisitioned by the Emperor.

Nine hundred Yuan ships are gathered in Korea by early 1281; the force is called the Eastern Route Army.

Crewed by seventeen thousand sailors, they transport ten thousand Korean soldiers and fifteen thousand Mongols and Chinese.

The Southern Route Army, meanwhile, is assembled just south of the Yangtze River, in China.

It is said to have consisted of one hundred thousand men on thirty-five hundred ships.

As before, Iki and Tsushima islands fall quickly under the great numbers and battle prowess of the Yuan forces.

The Eastern Route Army arrives at Hakata Bay on June 21, and decides to proceed with the invasion without waiting for the larger Southern force which has still not left China.

They ae a short distance to the north and east of where their force had landed in 1274, and ware in fact beyond the walls and defenses constructed by the Japanese.

The samurai respond quickly, assaulting the invaders with waves of defenders, denying them the beachhead.

At night, small boats carry small bands of samurai into the Yuan fleet in the bay.

Under cover of darkness they board enemy ships, kill as many as they can, and withdraw before dawn.

This harassing tactic leads the Yuan forces to retreat to Tsushima, where they wait for their Southern Route Army.

However, over the course of the next several weeks, three thousand men are killed in close quarters combat in the hot weather.

Yuan forces never gain a beachhead.

The first of the Southern force ships arrives on July 16, and by August 12 the two fleets are ready to attack Japan.

On August 15, a major tempest strikes the Tsushima Straits, lasting two full days and destroying most of the Yuan fleet.

Contemporary Japanese accounts indicate that over four thousand ships were destroyed in the storm; eighty percent of the Yuan soldiers either drowned or were killed by samurai on the beaches.

Skomantas, with help from Lithuanians, had led four thousand men against the Teutonic Knights after the Great Prussian Uprising,

The Old Prussians and other Balts are losing their power, however.

Skomantas' estate is devastated in 1280–1281 and he escapes with three sons, Rukals, Gedetes and Galms, to Black Ruthenia, controlled at this time by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Boleslaw II had died on December 26, 1278 and Henry had then been able to succeeded him as a Duke in Legnica.

Shortly afterwards, Henry in turn had given lands to his younger brothers: Bolko I and Bernard had received Jawor and Lwówek as co-rulers, but Henry had retained the town of Środa Śląska, a town obtained in 1277 in exchange of Henry IV's freedom.

Henry has continues the hostile relations with the other Piast Silesian Dukes characteristic of his father's rule.

In 1281, he makes the mistake of accepting the invitation of Henryk IV Probus to a meeting in Sadowel.

Henry IV imprisons the Duke of Legnica together with his former allies Henry III of Głogów and Przemysł II of Greater Poland, in order to obtain political concessions from them.

Henry regains his freedom only in return for the recognition of Henry IV as Duke of Wroclaw.

However, Henry IV will not maintain his sovereignty for very long, as the Duke of Legnica immediately enters into close communication with the King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, who will assert his own claim to that land.

Qalawun also negotiates an alliance with Greek emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1281 to bolster resistance against Charles of Anjou, who is threatening both the Constantinople and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

What Michael has on his side—the result of his consummate diplomatic ability—is (for a time) the papal alliance with the Greek church, a secret agreement with the Hohenstaufen supporters in Sicily, the support of Genoa, and finally, most important, a secret alliance with King Peter III of Aragon, the son-in-law of the late Hohenstaufen King Manfred of Sicily.

Qalawun directs his energies against the Il-Khanid Mongols, thus providing a respite for the beleaguered crusader states, who in 1280 had again failed to join the Mongols.

Qalawun and Sungur reconcile in 1281 as a matter of convenience when the Mongol Il-Khan emperor of Persia, Abaqa, invades Syria.

In response to the Mamluk victories over Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260 and Elbistan in 1277, the Il-khan Abaqa sends his brother Möngke Temur at the head of a large army said to have numbered eighty thousand: fifty thousand Mongols and thirty thousand auxiliaries, chiefly Georgians under Demetrius II and Armenians under Leo II.

The two armies meet south of Homs, a city in western Syria, on October 29, 1281.

In a pitched battle, the Georgians, Armenians and Oirats under King Leo II and Mongol generals rout and scatter the Mamluk left flank, but the Mamluks, personally led by Sultan Qalawun, destroy the Mongol center.

Möngke Temur is wounded and flees, followed by his disorganized army.

However, Qalawun chooses to not pursue the defeated enemy, and the Georgian-Armenian auxiliaries of the Mongols manage to withdraw safely.

This effectively ends the Mongol threat to Egypt.

The Empire’s frontier defense troops in Anatolia have been withdrawn to Europe or neglected, and bands of Turkish raiders, driven westward by the upheaval of the Mongol invasion, have begun to penetrate into imperial territory.

Like the Seljuqs in the eleventh century, the new arrivals find little organized opposition.

Some of the local Greeks have even collaborated with them out of their own antipathy to the Emperor in Constantinople.

By about 1280, Turks were plundering the fertile valleys of western Anatolia, cutting communications between the Greek cities, and …

…their emirs have begun to carve out small principalities.

One such, Ertugrul, has established a principality centered at Sögüt.

Ertugul, born in the Eastern Anatolian town of Ahlatm had in 1230 inherited the command of the Kayi tribe of the Oghuz Turks as a result of his assistance to the Seljuqs against Constantinople.

Ertugrul had received lands of Karaca Dağ, a mountainous area near Angora (now Ankara), by Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh I, the Seljuq Sultan of Rum.

One account indicates that the Seljuq leader's rationale for granting Ertugrul land was for Ertugrul to repel any hostile incursion from the Greeks or other adversary.

Later, he received the village of Söğüt which he had conquered in 1231 together with the surrounding lands.

This village, where he dies in 1281 at around ninety years of age, will become the Ottoman capital in 1299 under his son and successor Osman I, Ertugrul's son.

Ertugrul has two other sons, Saru Batu Savci Bey and Gündüz Bey.