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Khan Kardam took the helm in the midst of this chaos and ruled from 777 to 803. When Kardam put an end to internecine fights, the young state once again rallied around it's ruler. In 789 Khan Kardam defeated the Byzantine army in the valley of the Struma river. The local Slavic tribe of Strimonians welcomed the Khan and his warriors. Enraged, Emperor Constantine VI himself led his army in a march on Bulgaria. A fierce battle ensued in July 796, near the fortress of Markella in Eastern Thrace, and the Byzantines suffered a crushing defeat. The elite of Byzantine commanders were killed. The Bulgarians captured part of the Byzantine army, the treasure hoard, horses, and the royal tent and servants, reads the gloomy account of the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes. Emperor Constantine VI returned to Constantinople humiliated. He signed a peace treaty with Khan Kardam under which he was to pay him annual tribute. Later the Byzantines attempted to ignore the annual taxes they had to pay to Bulgaria and the Bulgarian ruler sent them a warning: "Pay your dues or I'll ravage Thrace". Khan Kardam spent the last years of his life in venerability and peace, happy that he had consolidated the state and the power of the Khan. He was the first Bulgarian ruler in the second half of the VIII century who provided a decade of peaceful development for Bulgaria.
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