This emphatic declaration of war was followed on both sides by the mustering of armies.  The horde was soon in motion, passing from the Volga to the Don in numbers which were represented to be as the sands of the sea.  They rapidly and resistlessly ascended the valley of this river, marking their path by a swath of ruin many miles in width.  The grand prince took the command of the Russian army in person, and rendezvoused his troops at Kalouga, thence stationing them along the northern banks of the Oka, to dispute the passage of that stream.  All Russia was in a state of feverish excitement.  One decisive battle would settle the question, whether the invaders were to be driven in bloody rout out of the empire, or, whether the whole kingdom was to be surrendered to devastation by savages as fierce and merciless as wolves.

About the middle of October the two armies met upon the opposite banks of the Oka, with only the waters of that narrow stream to separate them.  Cannon and muskets were then just coming into use, but they were rude and feeble instruments compared with the power of such weapons at the present day.  Swords, arrows, javelins, clubs, axes, battering-rams and catapults, and the tramplings of horse were the engines of destruction which man then wielded most potently against his fellow-man.  The quarrel was a very simple one.  Some hundreds of thousands of Mogols had marched to the heart of Russia, leaving behind them a path of flame and blood nearly a thousand miles in length, that they might compel the Russians to pay them tribute.  Some hundred thousand Russians had met them there, to resist even to death their insolent and oppressive demand.

The Tartars were far superior in numbers to the Russians, but Ivan had made such a skillful disposition of his troops that Akhmet could not cross the stream.  For nearly a week the two armies fought from the opposite banks, throwing at each other bullets, balls, stones, arrows and javelins.  A few were wounded and some slain in this impotent warfare.

The Russians were, however, very faint-hearted.  It was evident that, should the Tartars effect the passage of the river, the Russians, already demoralized by fear, would be speedily overpowered.  The grand prince himself was so apprehensive as to the result, that he sent one of his nobles with rich presents to the khan and proposed terms of peace.  Akhmet rejected the presents, and sent back the haughty reply: 

“I have come thus far to take vengeance upon Ivan; to punish him for neglecting for nine years to appear before me with tribute and in homage.  Let him come penitently into my presence and kiss my stirrup, and then perhaps, if my lords intercede for him, I may forgive him.”

As soon as it was heard in Moscow that the grand prince was manifesting such timidity, the clergy sent to him a letter urging the vigorous defense of their country and of their religion.  The letter was written by Vassian, the archbishop of Moscow, and was signed, on behalf of the clergy, by several of the higher ecclesiastics.  We have not space to introduce the whole of this noble epistle, which is worthy of being held in perpetual remembrance.  The following extracts will show its spirit.  It was in the form of a letter from the archbishop to the king; to which letter others of the clergy gave their assent: