The Horde

by Marie Favereau

  By the mid-1260s, no Mongol could dispute Jochid supremacy over the western steppe. They had lost the war with the Toluids, but even the great khan had to recognize that the Horde was a consolidated power, a diverse but integrated world of Mongols, Russians, and Caucasians; pagans, Christians, and Muslims; city-dwellers and herders: a nomadic kingdom unto itself.

  5

  The Mongol Exchange

  After Berke’s death, three hordes rose to dominate the ulus of Jochi. Each of them had its own keshig and territory, but together they constituted a single regime, sharing tax revenues and other resources. The central, Batuid horde belonged to the khan; the eastern horde to the descendants of Orda; and the western horde to Nogay, the Horde’s highest-ranking military officer. For many years, these primary hordes were at peace with each other and ran the ulus of Jochi in concert.

  The resulting time of prosperity, from the mid-1260s until the mid-1300s, is often referred to as the Pax Mongolica. During the first decade of this period, Khan Möngke-Temür, who succeeded Berke, oversaw a sophisticated system of government that reflected the evolution of Mongol traditions. Far from static, Mongol governance adapted to conditions on the ground. Möngke-Temür drew on Chinggisid institutions, but he applied them to circumstances that his predecessors in the east could not have envisioned. The flexibility built into those institutions was on full display as Möngke-Temür balanced power among rivals within the empire, imposed Mongol-style law and order on sedentary subjects with unfamiliar political cultures and ethnic traditions, and fostered a trade network that knit together Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Siberia, and the Black Sea. This was truly the Mongol exchange; the various participants knew it was the Horde that made the network run, and they courted the khan in hopes of improving their own fortunes. In this period the Ordaids also became leading players in the Siberian fur trade, and Nogay’s expanding horde brought in new wealth from his highly productive territory girding the Danube River. The results included growth in the Horde and major consequences for the geopolitics of the day, as the Jochids asserted their influence over Christian and Muslim powers.

  But the Horde’s three-legged political structure always involved a tenuous equilibrium, which shattered with the death of Möngke-Temür in the early 1280s. The Horde continued to prosper and play its critical role as a globalizer. Yet within, the Horde was riven by power struggles, as ambition clashed with principle, ego with law. Möngke-Temür’s weak successors allowed rivalries to metastasize. In particular, Nogay could not be contained. Finally, in the closing decade of the thirteenth century, a civil war broke out within the Horde, pitting Nogay against Toqto’a, a khan whom Nogay had helped to place on the throne. Ultimately Toqto’a would emerge the victor, but only after the Jochid elite came to his rescue.

  This, then, became another turning point: the rise of the begs, the leading members of society. That new political forces could repeatedly arise within the regime only further emphasizes the dynamic character of Mongol governance. Yet the irony is that the begs were not looking for change. A conservative force, they hoped to ensure the continuation of the wider Mongol imperial system, based on the social and political hierarchy elaborated by Chinggis and ordained by Tengri—a system that both Nogay and Toqto’a threatened in their own ways. Thus did the begs become a power center of their own, with an agenda that was both historically unusual and yet legible within the universe of Mongol political theory and practice.

  When we dig into the story of the Pax Mongolica, we find how inadequate that concept is. The Horde, and the Mongols in general, did not “settle in” to a golden age. Prosperity did not entail stability. Rather, it was the Horde’s plasticity that enabled its continuing success. Even as the regime grew wealthier, it became that much more politically fractious; internal tensions were not incompatible with economic success. Ulus Jochi was a living, breathing entity, whose leaders constantly calibrated their policies in order to achieve public and personal goals and thereby created new conditions that spawned further transformations. The Pax Mongolica story encourages us to see the Horde as a state that rose, peaked, and fell—an empire that gained all it could from its strengths, burned through its good fortune, and then failed to develop further in the face of a changing world. The truth is far more interesting.

  Peace in the Horde

  The Blue Horde, led by the descendants of Jochi’s eldest son Orda, was a key factor in the peace the Horde enjoyed in the final third of the thirteenth century. During this period, the Blue Horde grew in numbers. A few thousand warriors and their families became ten thousand or more. In addition to Orda’s direct family, his keshig and horde gathered women and men of various origins, including Qonggirad, Merkit, Kereit, Arghun, Oyirad, Naiman, and Kinggut. The Kinggut was a large military group who descended from the original minggan: the unit of a thousand warriors Chinggis had given to Jochi, which Orda inherited.

  Also in Orda’s horde were the Jalayir warriors. Orda probably acquired the Jalayir during the Hungarian campaign of the early 1240s. These seasoned warriors comprised four minggan and obeyed a powerful Oyirad family. But that was not all: on Orda’s territory there still lived the peoples of the four sons of Jochi who had followed Orda when his horde had separated from Batu’s. Together, these Mongol groups shaped the “left-hand wing” of the Horde—possibly the largest nomadic population of Mongol Eurasia.1

  Ordaids and Batuids were of the same flesh and blood. They worshipped the same ancestors and trusted one another. Yet there were some differences. Marco Polo saw the peoples of Orda as “the proper Tartars,” who strictly followed the yasa and the steppe spirituality. They believed in Tengri and Etügen, Earth, and they made offerings to Etügen Eke, Mother Earth. They made ongon—felt effigies that they rubbed with mare’s milk, food, and grease. The Ordaids sacrificed to the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, and the ancestors. Batuids also performed these rituals, but Marco Polo singled out the Ordaids as purists. Nothing indicates that, on the eve of the fourteenth century, there were Muslim or Christian populations in the left-hand wing of the Horde, a stark contrast to the diversity of the Batuid khan’s and Nogay’s hordes.2

  The peoples of Orda stretched across the western Siberian plain, the world’s largest swamp. In the south, they controlled the main valleys from the Ural River to the Irtysh River. Through the eyes of foreign travelers, most of these lands were wild, empty of human-driven development. Marco Polo reported that the Ordaid ruler had “neither city nor castles; he and his people live always either in the wide plains or among great mountains and valleys.” Yet there were in fact new settlements in the foothills of the Ulugh Tagh Mountains, in the lower Syr-Daria, and in the valleys of the Chu, Sari-su, Turgai, and Ishim rivers. These settlements confirmed that Orda’s Mongols had colonized these regions. Although the western Siberian plain was dominated by nomads, brick buildings popped up, as they did everywhere under Jochid rule.

  The Ordaid territory lay in the middle of Mongol Eurasia, surrounded by other Mongol hordes. To the west were the Batuids; to the southeast the heirs of Ögödei; in the southwest, the descendants of Chagatay; and in the east, only the Irtysh River separated the Ordaids from the lands of the Toluid great khan. The Ordaids watched their neighbors closely, as changes in the surrounding world could affect the Blue Horde quickly and profoundly. The Ordaids were repeatedly involved in the challenges of the Ögödeids, Chagatayids, and Toluids and were key players in Jochid affairs. From their central position, the Ordaids were always the first to know about the hordes’ controversies, alliances, wars, droughts—whatever happened to the Mongols, the Ordaids got the news.3

  The Ordaids not only occupied the center of the Mongol Empire but also did so peacefully. They were experts in multilateral diplomacy and maintained constant communication with the other Mongol leaders. The sons of Orda fostered lines of contact between the Horde and the other Mongols, dispatching envoys to inform the Jochid khan and the begs of events elsewhere in the empire. Mo
st importantly, the Ordaids never exhibited expansionist tendencies. Although they were born of bloody conquests, the descendants of Orda were not themselves belligerent; they sought order and happiness among the Mongols.

  The three major Jochid hordes, 1270–1299, showing the White Horde of the Jochid khan, the Blue Horde of the Ordaids, and the horde of General Nogay. Also noted is the territory claimed by Qaidu, the heir of Ögödei.

  Political stability was also important at home, and the Ordaids achieved it due in part to their structural advantages. Unlike the other Mongols, the Ordaids did not share their territory with populous sedentary communities such as the Russians, Iranians, and Chinese. Consequently, the frictions common to interactions between nomads and sedentary peoples were limited. (To the extent that there were subject populations, the Ordaids treated them much as the Batuids treated their own subjects: both leading houses were less interested in regulating the daily lives of subjects than in enhancing their productivity.) The left-hand wing also enjoyed privileged access to the fur market of the far north. While the Batuids controlled the Pechora River fur network, the Ordaids oversaw the Siberian market.4 The Ordaids were beneficiaries and practitioners of the longstanding Mongol policy of ruling through trade, an approach they took toward the highly fragmented societies of the far north.

  Key among these subjects were the Samoyeds, the hunters and reindeer herders of the Sayan Mountains. Mongol scout troops had established contact with them during northward explorations that may have brought the nomads as far as the Arctic Ocean. The Mongols forced a tributary relationship on the Samoyeds, who provided their new masters with the furs of Siberian black foxes, sables, ermines, and white bears. Furs were some of the most sought-after commodities in Eurasia. Over time the Ordaids became the exclusive buyers and so were able to purchase furs at a convenient price. They also taxed hunters, trappers, and traders in kind. But, in turn, the left-hand wing was largely dependent on the wider Mongol trade system, because the major markets were operated by the Batuids in the west and the Toluid great khan in the east.5

  Of their own accord, the Ordaids aligned their politics with the Batuids’ and respected the Jochid khan. When necessary the Ordaid elite assembled with the other Jochid leaders, and they made political and military decisions together. Carrying out their diplomatic role, the Ordaids represented the Jochids at quriltai with the other branches of the golden lineage. All the Mongols agreed that the Ordaid leader was no one’s vassal. As a rule, the Horde’s Batuid khan neither appointed the Ordaid leader nor meddled in the internal business of the left-hand wing. Yet the Ordaids and Batuids were deeply intertwined. The Ordaids “ruled their ulus in autonomy,” Rashīd al-Dīn reported, but their leaders also understood that they “should recognize Batu’s successors and write their names at the top of their decrees.”6

  The first of those successors had been Berke. The next was Möngke-Temür, one of Batu’s grandsons. When the Horde’s elite elected Möngke-Temür at a 1267 quriltai, they expected him to walk in the footsteps of his founding ancestor Jochi, and they were not disappointed. Möngke-Temür maintained the Horde’s independence, refusing upon his enthronement to visit Great Khan Qubilai. Instead Qubilai’s ambassadors had to come to the lower Volga to bless the new Jochid leader, who welcomed the envoys and accepted the gifts they carried. In effect Möngke-Temür was announcing his autonomy without acrimony. He was a cautious ruler who would make overtures for peace, as long as doing so benefitted the Horde. This was Möngke-Temür’s principal goal: not conquest or vengeance but prosperity. His people loved him and called him Kölüg, Strong Horse, a name that signifies “the best khan.”7

  Although he could not occupy Chinggis’s throne, Möngke-Temür had a strong claim to the position of primus inter pares among Mongol leaders. He was a descendant of Chinggis’s eldest son Jochi, ruled the largest Mongol territory, and had no personal enemies within the golden lineage. On top of this, the Jochid army was large, growing, and well-equipped, and warriors enjoyed high social standing. They were loyal to their khan, who could command them to go to war at any time. The other Mongols, including the great khan, respected the Jochids under Möngke-Temür.

  To bolster the wealth of his people and publicize his rule, Möngke-Temür launched a major monetary reform early in his khanship. He issued new silver coins bearing his name, title, and tamga (his seal); there was no mention of the great khan, which signaled that Möngke-Temür ruled his ulus without deference to any higher authority. Möngke-Temür also increased the number of mints and, in an effort to respect the diverse interests of his subjects, ensured that region-specific coins were issued across his domain. Coins minted in Khwarezm were valid in the Horde’s eastern territories; coins issued in Sarai circulated in the central lands; Bulgar coins circulated in the north; and coins minted in Qrim were used in the west. Regional coinage supported a kind of federal system that combined political centralization with clear-cut local distinctions. The Horde’s leaders controlled the mints and centralized the tax revenues; coins minted without the khan’s authority were officially worthless. But the system also allowed local economies to develop independently. The benefits were manifold. For one thing, preventing economic concentration centered on the khan’s court helped to keep the population of his horde relatively low, sparing his grazing grounds. For another, regional autonomy within an overarching Jochid system protected local trades without cutting them off from the main circuits of exchange. The inhabitants of northern Khwarezm, the lower Volga, the northern Caucasus, and Crimea realized that working within the Mongol regime was in their interest.8

  Not everyone needed coins, and coins did not need to circulate everywhere. Demand tended to be seasonal, following the schedule of trade fairs and tax collection. But coins could be issued wherever and whenever they were needed to conduct business. This meant that, although the khan was the only one who could authorize the design of a coin or determine where it would serve as legal tender, the minting could come at the request of a trader, taxpayer, or foreign traveler—anyone who owned silver bars and wanted to make coins out of them. One just had to bring the silver to the mint, pay the cost of fashioning the silver into coins, and pay a fee to the khan.

  Officials feared capital flight, so they tried to attract and retain coins within their regions. The laws of the Horde seemed intended to salve these anxieties by discounting the value of a coin beyond its production area: a Bulgar coin bought more in the north than in Sarai region, for instance. But this rule had the effect of driving up demand for silver, whose value remained stable from one region to another. Thus, while it was unlikely that coins would travel far, silver did, becoming a kind of universal currency within Mongol-dominated territories. Silver was the easiest means of transferring, transporting, and multiplying capital. It was easy to carry, accepted by everyone, and nonperishable. Produced massively in Europe, the Russian principalities, Volga Bulgaria, and Central Asia, silver bars were like modern-day traveler’s checks. They were converted into local coins for small or medium-sized transactions and used as a direct means of payment in large commercial operations. In the 1270s the Horde had both a booming economy and increasing economic needs. Möngke-Temür’s reform helped to fuel the boom, so that the needs could be met.9

  Möngke-Temür understood that the Horde’s prosperity depended not only on shrewd internal economic management but also on maintaining and improving the Jochids’ political position within the frequently tense political environment of the empire at large. A pragmatist, Möngke-Temür prioritized power balancing over personal ambition. Rather than try to force himself onto the throne—the Jochids had long since lost any lawful claim to the great khanship—Möngke-Temür wanted to limit the Toluids’ authority without weakening the overall Mongol regime. By the late 1260s, the Toluids were clearly ascendant, controlling the great khanship under Qubilai and the Ilkhanids under Abaqa, Hülegü’s successor. Möngke-Temür played both sides with respect to Qubilai, sometimes pressing his own i
ndependence from the great khan and sometimes courting his favor. And, even as Möngke-Temür openly preached peace, he tried to undermine Abaqa. The Ilkhanids continued to pose a threat to the Horde; their conflict had ended, but relations along the border were tense, and the two regimes competed for access to trade and markets. The peace Möngke-Temür pursued was not necessarily friendly: it was a balance of power that favored the Horde’s capacity to benefit from the Mongol system of economic domination. Like his grandfather Batu, he intended to see the Horde—and his family—profit by capturing the dynamics of exchange. For the Jochids, Möngke-Temür was a guide through politically fraught waters.

  Balancing Power

  In sharp contrast to the peacefulness that prevailed in West Asia, Mongols were killing each other in Central Asia. Around 1267 a conflict broke out between Qaidu, the heir of Ögödei, and Baraq, the heir of Chagatay. Qaidu and Baraq were neighbors, and both had expansionist views. Möngke-Temür and his associates found a way to exploit the situation for the benefit of the Horde, simultaneously enriching their people, striking an economic and diplomatic blow against the Toluids, and settling the feud between the other two houses of the golden lineage.