In 1243 it was decided to send an embassy to Asia. Under the leadership of the aeolian knight Balduin of Hainegau they set out from Constantinople to become the great khan of the Mongols. Little is known about Balduin and the precise circumstances and aims of this first occidental embassy in Asia. What we know, we can only open up. Presumably, however, Rome and the Crusader states began to flee to the front. And, if one did not find the priest John, one could perhaps try to win over the Mongols as allies in the fight against the Muslims, so cleverly to give a different direction to the momentum of the warlike nomadic people. Why not cast out the devil with the Beelzebub?
Balduin of Hainaut made the unbelievable. Not only did he reach the court of the Great Khans in Karakorum, he also returned unscathed. He did not have an alliance in his luggage, but a wealth of new, valuable information. The tide of warlike horsemen did not come from the abyss of hell Tartarus, but from a realm of sheer infinite extent, over which ruled a powerful king in a distant capital.
This must have been encouraging. It was equipped to a new legation, this time under John of Plano Carpini, a Franciscan born in 1182 at Perugia. With him, he led a papal letter, which identified him as an envoy of Pope Innocent IV and the request contained, the Mongols would like to refrain from further incursions. But John was far-sighted and decided to leave the letter in his pocket. His primary task was to spy on the plans and intentions of the Tatars.
Together with Father Benedikt as interpreter, he traveled via Lyon and Prague to Kiev, along the Volga on to the court of Khan, whom he met on 22 July 1246 at Karakorum. His job was done with diplomatic skill. His later report describes the political conditions and military means of the Mongols and culminates in a series of proposals on how to better address the threat in the future. It is not known whether, on his return to Lyon in 1247, he told the Vatican the least encouraging response of the mighty Great Khans that he would "devastate the whole earth from east to west."
While Johannes was still on his way back to Rome, another chapter of eastern secret diplomacy was written. King Hethum I of Armenia was aware of the precarious situation of his empire: the Mongols were to the north and east, the Christian states to the west, and the Muslims to the south. He had to do something not to be crushed between these powers. In 1248 he sent his brother Marshal Sempad to Karakorum to offer his submission to the Mongol rule. At the same time he wrote a letter to Henry of Lusignan, the king of Cyprus.