Kuchum fled during the night and the Russians entered his capital the next morning. This was probably in October 1582. The Russians had lost 107 men. {Battle of Chuvash Cape gives a slightly different account. Grousset has the battle at 'a fortified camp at the mouth of the Tobol to protect the approaches to Sibir'. Naumov has it 'not far from Sibir'. A fort may have guarded the town further upriver, but the matter is not clear.} Occupation Over the next several months various native chieftains offered their submission. Ermak, perhaps unexpectedly, found himself the ruler of a Khanate and sent Ivan Koltso, 50 men, and 5,200 furs to Moscow to announce his conquest. Meanwhile, the Ostyaks and Voguls had been raiding the Perm territories. Ivan the Terrible thought that Ermak had provoked that and sent an angry letter to the Stroganovs that demanded Ermak's recall to protect Perm. A few days later, Ermak's envoys reached Moscow. The Tsar immediately changed his mind and promised to send a Voyevoda and troops. He sent Ermak gifts, including the famous suit of armor. The Cossacks sent out raiding parties to collect Yasak. Bogdan Bryazga went north down the Irtysh as far as its junction with the Ob. Ermak explored the Tavda. Kuchum's whereabouts at the time is uncertain. His nephew, Mamet-Kul, attacked the Russians several times, but was captured on the Vagai River and sent to Moscow, where he later had an honorable career under the name Sibirsky. Seid Akhmat, Kuchum's Taibugid rival, returned to the area and gained some supporters. 'The Karacha' (one of Kuchum's former officials) sent a request to Ermak for help in fighting the steppe nomads. When the forty Cossacks under Ivan Koltso arrived, they were murdered. A punitive expedition was defeated, which seems to have set off a general uprising and it became unsafe to leave the fort at Sibir. About this time (November 1584) 500 reinforcements, including Streltsy, arrived from Russia. Food was inadequate and there were many deaths over the winter. In March the Karacha besieged Sibir. Two months later, it was broken by a sortie (Naumov has the sortie in March). In August 1585, Ermak heard that a caravan was arriving from the south and that Kuchum was waiting to plunder it. He went up the Irtysh to capture either the caravan or Kuchum but found that there was no caravan. Returning, he camped