1715 A.D. Ulan Erge, Khanate of Kalmykia
In this isolated village in the center of Kalmykia, documents from the golden age of Kalmyk history were recently uncovered in a buried box. The documents were written in Kalmyk using the traditional Todo Bichig script and were therefore not easily decipherable by the villagers (despite being able to speak Kalmyk unlike many Kalmyks in Kalmykia). The documents were taken to the institute of Kalmyk philology at the Kalmyk State University in Elista where they were analyzed and transliterated by historians. It was revealed that the documents were an account of the final days of the rule of Ayuka Khan—the most powerful leader of the Kalmyk Khanate—and they seemed to describe troubles that occurred in the Khanate as well as possible reasons for the death of Ayuka. It appears that it was connected to the arrival of Manchu emissaries in 1714. Below is an account written by a retainer of the Khan.
After the Manchu emissaries arrived with the Khan's nephew in tow, we immediately treated them to a feast. We also noticed that one of the Manchus appeared to be ill. When the Khan asked Tulixen—the leader of the Manchu party—he merely replied that a deranged Tatar had suddenly attacked him and bit him the night before they arrived in Kalmyk territory. The Khan then turned to treat the wounded Manchu but he then expired before all of us. Due to the unusual nature of the death, the Khan ordered that the body be inspected. That night, we heard screaming and went to investigate the source. It appeared that one of the Manchus was trying to feast on the flesh of his comrades. The doctors who had examined him earlier fled and went to inform the Khan. Tulixen raised his sword and attempted to decapitate the deranged Manchu but the man suddenly collapsed when an arrow shot into the eye by the Khan. The Khan immediately started to reprimand Tulixen and demanded that he return to the Qing Empire. Tulixen protested this but nonetheless complied. One of the doctors had been bitten along with another Manchu. Both expired afterwards and the bodies—deemed to be cursed by the Khan due to the black gunk that spilled from the Manchu that he killed—were cast into the Caspian Sea. All seemed well for nine more years. When all of a sudden the Khan started to act deranged after an engagement with a monstrosity that walked out of the Caspian Sea.
Corresponding records from Manchu archives found in Heilongjiang reveal that Tulixen was arrested a little over a decade after the journey and that one of his charges was the killing of his comrades during this journey. He was eventually released and pardoned by the Manchu emperor Qianlong. This incident may've also raised tensions between Qianlong and the Kalmyks—possibly to the point of encouraging the Manchu Emperor to carry out genocide against Kalmyk-Oirats in Dzungaria in 1755. Ayuka Khan's death eventually led to the collapse of the Khanate of Kalmykia and although there were no more reports of zombies in the region, what became of the other body the Kalmyks disposed of in the Caspian Sea is not known. How the Tatar was infected is also a mystery.