the Mongol equivalent of Genghis Khan's Chief of Staff, Subutai marched with the Khan's army through the deadly Kyzylkum Desert to emerge behind the Khwarezm defense network at Bukhara. After the rapid capture of the Khwarezm center of defense, Samarkand, Genghis Khan dispatched Subutai and Jebe with 30,000 men to hunt the Khwarezm Shah and prevent him from rallying the other Khwarezm armies. Shah Mohammed attempted to save himself by fleeing into central Persia, but while he eluded capture, the relentless chase meant he could not rally his forces. As a result, the several hundred thousand man Khwarezm forces in reserve remained divided and were easily destroyed piecemeal by Genghis Khan's main army. Drained by the fierce pursuit, Mohammed fell ill and died at a fishing village on an island in the Caspian Sea in early 1221, an ignominious end for the man who styled himself the 'Second Alexander'. The Great Raid (1220–1223) Subutai and Jebe spent part of the 1219 winter in Azerbaijan and Iran, raiding and looting while preventing the western Khwarezm forces from assisting the rest of the empire to the east. Here he conceived the idea of conducting the most audacious reconnaissance-in-force in history, which was described by Edward Gibbon as [an expedition] "which has never been attempted, and has never been repeated": 20,000 Mongol forces would circle the Caspian Sea through the Caucasus Mountains to fall on the rear of the Wild Kipchaks and Cumans. After destroying resistance in Persia and submitting Azerbaijan, the Mongols invaded the Christian Kingdom of Georgia. Though the king George IV of Georgia was reluctant to commit to battle, Subutai and Jebe forced his hand by ravaging the countryside and killing his people. Subutai and Jebe then defeated the Georgian army despite the presence of many thousands of Georgian knights, by luring the knights away from their infantry with a feigned retreat, then enveloping the knights. After destroying them, the Mongols encircled and crushed the Georgian army. Subutai, who was identified by the Georgians as being in command, originally lured the Georgians into thinking his army was a friendly ally by having his men parade in front of crosses, and using spies to start false rumors that the Mongols were actually Christian wonder-workers who had come to assist the Georgians. This Mongol reconnaissance mission may have inadvertently altered the history of the Crusades, as Georgia had planned on sending their