Editing 1346 (section)

=== Western Asia ===
The [[Golden Horde]]'s siege of [[Kaffa (city)|Kaffa]] continued through 1346, despite a number of obstacles. They were struck with the [[Black Plague]] and forced to retreat, although not until the following year. As one Russian historian records:

[[File:Doutielt3.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Citizens of [[Tournai]] bury plague victims. Miniature ({{circa|1353}}) from ''The Chronicles of [[Gilles Li Muisis]]'']]

<blockquote>In the same year [1346], God's punishment struck the people in the eastern lands, in the town Ornach, and in Khastorokan, and in Sarai, and in Bezdezh, and in other towns in those lands; the mortality was great among the Bessermens, and among the Tartars, and among the Armenians and the Abkhazians, and among the Jews, and among the European foreigners, and among the Circassians, and among all who lived there, so that they could not bury them.<ref name = "bp">Benedictow, Ole Jørgen. ''The Black Death, 1346–1353''. Ipswich: Boydell Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-85115-943-5}} pg. 50</ref></blockquote>

The many areas and peoples listed here represent much of Western Asia and the [[Caucasus]]. The "European foreigners" are those fighting with the Tartars in the Mongol-led [[siege of Kaffa]]. These Europeans would return to Europe the following year, carrying the plague with them. Travellers returning from the Crimea also carried the plague to Byzantium and Arabia, according to Greek and Arab scholars of the time.<ref name = "bp"/>

Another account of the events in the Crimea reads: 
<blockquote>It seemed to the besieged Christians as if arrows were shot out of the sky to strike and humble the pride of the infidels who rapidly died with marks on their bodies and lumps in their joints and several part, followed by putrid fever; all advice and help of the doctors being of no avail. Whereupon the Tartars, worn out by this pestilential disease, and falling on all sides as if thunderstruck, and seeing that they were perishing hopelessly, ordered the corpses to be placed upon their engines and thrown into the city of Kaffa. Accordingly were the bodies of the dead hurled over the walls, so that the Christians were not able to hide or protect themselves from this danger, although they carried away as many dead as possible and threw them into the sea. But soon the whole air became infected, and the water poisoned, and such a pestilence grew up that scarcely one out of a thousand was able to escape.<ref>Benedictow, Ole Jørgen. ''The Black Death, 1346–1353''. Ipswich: Boydell Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-85115-943-5}} pg. 52</ref></blockquote>

Modern scholars consider this one of the earliest, and most deadly, [[biological warfare|biological attacks]] in world history, though in the end the Mongols were forced to retreat.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wheelis|first=Mark|title=Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa|journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases|publisher=Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|date=September 2002|volume=8|issue=9|pages=971–975|doi=10.3201/eid0809.010536|pmid=12194776|pmc=2732530|url=https://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no9/01-0536.htm|access-date=2008-07-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080521182654/http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no9/01-0536.htm|archive-date=May 21, 2008<!--Added by DASHBot-->}}

</ref> Early sources state that the plague began its spread in the spring of 1346 at the [[Don River (Russia)|River Don]] near the Black Sea, then spread throughout Russia, the Caucasus, and the [[Genovese provinces]] within the year.<ref>Benedictow, Ole Jørgen. ''The Black Death, 1346–1353''. Ipswich: Boydell Press, 2004. pp. 60–61 {{ISBN|0-85115-943-5}}</ref>

Further south in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[George V of Georgia|King George the Brilliant]] died and was succeeded by King David IX. King George V had managed to increase the Georgian realm to all of Transcaucasia. However, after 1346 the Kingdom began to decline, caused by George's death and the devastating spread of the plague throughout the area soon afterwards.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lang|first=David Marshall|author-link=David Marshall Lang|title=Georgia in the Reign of Giorgi the Brilliant (1314–1346)|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies|volume=17|issue=1|year=1955|pages=74–91|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00106354|jstor=609230|s2cid=154168058}}</ref>