From Georgia, the generals Jebe and Subedei raced out onto the Russian steppe. As they approached Crimea, they were met by envoys from the Republic of Venice—who had demonstrated only a few years earlier on the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople that they were almost as capable as the Mongols of ruthlessness in the pursuit of profit. The Venetians struck a deal by which the Mongols agreed to attack their trading rivals, the Genoese, in their lucrative colony at Soldaia, on the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. This was the start of a lasting partnership between Venetian doges and Mongol khans,
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