In the meantime he devoted himself with ardor to measures for the restoration of tranquillity in Kezan.  A numerous army was assembled at Nigni Novgorod, with orders to commence the campaign for the reconquest of the country as soon as the cold of winter should bridge the lakes and streams.  The Tartars had made very vigorous efforts to repel their foes, by summoning every fighting man to the field, and by the construction of fortresses and throwing up of redoubts.

In November of 1553, the storm of battle was recommenced on fields of ice, and amidst smothering tempests of snow.  For more than a month there was not a day without a conflict.  In these incessant engagements the Tartars lost ten thousand men slain and six thousand prisoners.  One thousand six hundred of the most distinguished of these prisoners, princes, nobles and chieftains, who had been the most conspicuous in the rebellion, were put to death.  Nevertheless these severities did not stifle the insurrection; the Tartars, in banditti bands, even crossing the Volga, pillaging, massacring and burning with savage cruelty.  For five years the war raged in Kezan, with every accompaniment of ferocity and misery.  The country was devastated and almost depopulated.  Hardly a chief of note was left alive.  The horrors of war then ceased.  The Russians took possession of the country, filled it with their own emigrants, reared churches, established Christianity, and spread over the community the protection of Russian law.  Most of the Kezanians who remained embraced Christianity, and from that time Kezan, the ancient Bulgaria, has remained an integral portion of the Russian empire.

Soon after, a new conquest, more easy, but not less glorious, was added to that of Kezan.  The city and province of Astrachan, situated at the mouth of the Volga as it enters the Caspian, had existed from the remotest antiquity, enjoying wealth and renown, even before the foundation of the Russian empire.  In the third century of the Christian era, it was celebrated for its commerce, and it became one of the favorite capitals of the all-conquering Tartars.  Russia, being now in possession of all the upper waters of the Volga, decided to extend their dominions down the river to the Caspian.  It was not difficult to find ample causes of complaint against pagan and barbaric hordes, whose only profession was robbery and war.

Early in the spring of 1554 a numerous and choice army descended the Volga in bateaux to the delta on which Astrachan is built.  The low lands, intersected by the branching stream, is composed of innumerable islands.  The inhabitants of the city, abandoning the capital entirely, took refuge among these islands, where they enjoyed great advantages in repelling assailants.  The Russians took possession of the city, prosecuted the war vigorously through the summer, and the tzar, on the 20th of October, which was his birthday, received the gratifying intelligence that every foe was quelled, and that the Russian government was firmly established on the shores of the Caspian.  Well might Russia now be proud of its territorial greatness.  The opening of these new realms encouraged commerce, promoted wealth, and developed to an extraordinary degree the resources of the empire.