Capture of Tbilisi by Jalal al-Din (1226)

Timeline

1. 1223–1225Tbilisi · GeorgiaAfter George IV died on 18 January 1223, Rusudan became queen of Georgia. The golden age was nearing its end at her brother's death. Before Khwarazmian shah Jalal al-Din advanced west into the Caucasus in autumn 1225, she still used Tbilisi as her capital; only after the defeat at Garni did the court move to Kutaisi. The city's captor in 1226 was Jalal al-Din, not the Mongols.
2. 1225–1226Caucasus · CaucasusIn autumn 1225 Khwarazmian shah Jalal al-Din (Jalal al-Din Mingburnu) defeated the Georgian army at Garni, and Rusudan's court moved to Kutaisi. Jebe and Subutai's Mongol expeditionary force had already passed through heading north in the early 1220s; the 1226 attack on Tbilisi came from Jalal al-Din, not the Mongols.
3. 1226Kutaisi · GeorgiaOn 9 March 1226 Jalal al-Din stormed Tbilisi; the Georgian Orthodox tradition calls the massacre the '100,000 martyrs', with those refusing to trample icons or convert beheaded on the bridge over the Mtkvari River. Rusudan organized the remnants in the west at Kutaisi. The great Mongol conquest of Georgia came after 1235, so 1226 must not be written as a Mongol siege.