Imperial politics had put Qaidu and Baraq on a collision course. In the course of the rise to power, the Toluids had severely undermined their predecessors on the throne, the Ögödeids. Qaidu knew the sting of the great khan’s ruling methods: a few years before open fighting broke out between Qaidu and Baraq, Qubilai had gifted Baraq claim to territories conquered by Qaidu, but Qaidu refused to give them away. In an effort to rebuild his strength, Qaidu hoped to take Samarkand and Bukhara, the wealthiest cities in Central Asia, which were under Baraq’s administration. Baraq and Qaidu’s first battle took place on the banks of the Syr-Daria River. Baraq won, and Qaidu turned to Möngke-Temür, who was a natural ally. The Jochids understood that a victory for Baraq would be disastrous because Baraq had the great khan’s support, which meant that his success would only enhance Qubilai’s influence. Moreover, the Jochids were suspicious of Baraq’s expansionist tendencies, as he was their eastern neighbor. Möngke-Temür agreed to help Qaidu, sending him fifty thousand warriors under the leadership of Berkecher, Berke’s brother.10
With Berkecher’s forces at his side, Qaidu led an effective counterattack against Baraq, driving Baraq’s dying army into the agrarian region of Transoxiana, where Bukhara and Samarkand lay. Baraq hoped to restore his forces by requisitioning local resources and enrolling arms makers. At this point, Möngke-Temür, Berkecher, and Qaidu could have finished off Baraq’s army, but the allies understood that doing so might mean the destruction of Transoxiana, a high price considering the area’s importance as a center of trade, crafts, and food production. Rather than crush Baraq, the allies decided to negotiate for his surrender. In their view, Baraq had no reasonable choice but to accept peace terms.11
In the spring of 1269, Berkecher led a Jochid delegation to the Plain of Talas, where Qaidu was organizing a quriltai to settle the conflict with Baraq. Qaidu did not invite Qubilai; Abaqa, the Toluid chief of the Ilkhanids; or any of the other Toluid leaders. Qaidu and his allies wished to negotiate with Baraq alone. The quriltai opened with a week of festivities, during which the attendees enjoyed fresh kumis, wrestling competitions, music, and horse races. Then, Berkecher, Baraq, and Qaidu—representing the descendants of Jochi, Chagatay, and Ögödei, respectively—held their council.
What happened next exemplifies the power-balancing at which the Jochids excelled under Möngke-Temür. Rather than humiliate Baraq, who had lost the war, Berkecher and Qaidu brought him into an agreement that mostly hurt Toluid interests. Per the treaty, the parties decided that they would collect all of the imperial tax revenues from Transoxiana, while Qubilai received none of the share that had previously flowed to the great khan. Qaidu and the Jochids claimed one third of the revenues for themselves, leaving two thirds to Baraq and the Chagatayids. The agreement also put pressure on the Ilkhanids by motivating Baraq to make war on them. As part of the treaty, Baraq’s army was expelled from Bukhara, so he needed a new location to station his forces. Baraq decided to seize pasturelands in Khorasan; the region was under Abaqa’s jurisdiction, but Baraq claimed that the Ilkhanids had no inheritance rights there. Möngke-Temür and Qaidu supported Baraq’s position on Ilkhanid usurpation and agreed to back his war. For the Jochids, the results of the treaty could hardly have been better. They gained revenues at the expense of the great khan and formed an alliance with Qaidu and Baraq that could bring long-awaited victory over the Ilkhanids.12
The Talas quriltai was a significant meeting. By dividing up territories and tax income without consulting the great khan, Mongol leaders were taking both the great khan’s share and his authority for themselves. This was more than an assault on Qubilai’s financial interests; fellow Mongols were denying him his status as supreme ruler. In essence, the quriltai established equality where previously there was hierarchy. Möngke-Temür, Qaidu, and Baraq were asserting that Qubilai was a khan just like themselves, and that none of them could command the others. Behind the scenes, though, each of the allies had his own plan, and these plans were not mutually compatible. Möngke-Temür wanted to eliminate the Ilkhanid threat, to which neither Qaidu nor Baraq objected. But Qaidu sought to take over Baraq’s ulus, then to claim Qubilai’s throne, while Baraq intended to regain enough strength to expand again, potentially at the expense of his new partners.
The divergence in these goals became obvious during Baraq’s war on the Ilkhanids. A few months after the Talas quriltai, Baraq, with the aid of reinforcements sent by Qaidu, attacked Abaqa as planned. But Baraq quickly lost ground, and Qaidu recalled his men. Not only that, but Qaidu then switched sides, offering to support Abaqa. At the battle of Herat in July 1270, Abaqa defeated Baraq and the Chagatayid army for good. Baraq died soon after, and his commanders, advisers, and court staff went to Qaidu and offered to serve him. Qaidu had abandoned Baraq; now Qaidu integrated Baraq’s people into his own, achieving one part of his goal.
Glazed ceramic bowl with a bird figure (Horde, fourteenth century). The Jochids produced glazed ceramics in large numbers.
For Möngke-Temür, the Ilkhanid victory over Baraq was a humiliation, but it did not lead to a fundamental change of strategy. Möngke-Temür went on balancing power; what changed was the relative power of his competitors. Whereas Möngke-Temür previously used Qaidu to check Abaqa and Qubilai, now the Jochids had to be more concerned with Qaidu, who had gained much by absorbing Baraq’s former ulus and had clear intensions on the great khanship. With respect to the Ilkhanids, then, Möngke-Temür swallowed his pride. In November 1270 the Jochid khan congratulated Abaqa on his victory, sending a gift of falcons and hawks, which in the language of gifts could be read as an acknowledgment of the two khans’ status as peers.13
Möngke-Temür flexed his power-balancing muscles again in the fall of 1276, when a coalition of Toluid princes rebelled against the great khan. The princes accused Qubilai of violating Chinggis’s rules and becoming pro-Chinese after having moved the empire’s capital from Qaraqorum to the Chinese city of Shangdu. The allegations were mere excuses; what really concerned the rebel princes was installing their preferred Toluid on the throne in place of Qubilai. The rebels captured one of Qubilai’s generals and Qubilai’s son Nomuqan. Seeking to enlist the support of other Mongol leaders, the rebels sent the general to Qaidu and Nomuqan to Möngke-Temür, possibly via Qaidu. In either case, Möngke-Temür had a decision to make. He could have Nomuqan killed, pleasing Qaidu, who was still technically Möngke-Temür’s ally. Or the Jochid khan could send Nomuqan home, scorning Qaidu and embracing Qubilai. Would Möngke-Temür back the great khan or the man who would be the great khan?
Möngke-Temür chose neither option. He saw no benefit in supporting Qaidu over Qubilai, potentially upsetting the imperial center. But, at the same time, returning to Nomuqan to Qubilai would have meant throwing away a valuable bargaining chip. To ensure a balance of power that favored only the Jochids, Möngke-Temür did what was best for the Horde, not for Qaidu or Qubilai: he kept Nomuqan as a hostage. The brilliance of this move would become clear nearly a decade later, when, amid new power dynamics, Möngke-Temür’s successors decided to release Nomuqan in order to break with Qaidu and court Qubilai. But though the Horde’s allegiance shifted, its goal remained the same: to buttress an imperial system that served Jochid goals.14
It might seem that Möngke-Temür got little in return for the ample support he offered Qaidu in his war with Baraq. Undoubtedly, the Jochids provided Qaidu military and political help he badly needed; Baraq would have crushed Qaidu without Berkecher’s intervention, and it was Möngke-Temür’s agreement at the Talas quriltai that allowed Qaidu to legally confirm his victory over Baraq. Perhaps most importantly, the Jochids decided not to oppose Qaidu’s seizure of Baraq’s ulus. But the Jochids were always looking out for their own interests. These interests did not include controlling Bukhara and Samarkand, so allowing Qaidu to take over was no loss. What the Jochids did need was trade connections with the cities and surrounding region. As long as Qaidu kept the area stable and respected the Horde’s trade rights in his domain, tha
t was enough for Jochid leaders. Möngke-Temür’s instrumental role in Qaidu’s rise helped to assure that the Jochids would keep their trade status. The Jochid khan also gained a position of superiority over his ally, Qaidu, who was his protégé and debtor. Möngke-Temür therefore had ample reason to remain on good terms with his eastern neighbor.15
But the alliance with Qaidu also bore rotten fruit. By providing Qaidu with troops and equipment, Möngke-Temür emboldened Qaidu to challenge the great khan, fostering a lengthy war among Mongols. The tension between Qaidu and Qubilai would become a critical constraint on Jochid foreign policy in the 1280s, as I discuss below. On top of that, Möngke-Temür’s alliance with Qaidu did nothing to temper the Ilkhanid threat. The Ilkhanids remained a thorn in the Jochids’ sides throughout the 1260s and 1270s. Such was the game of alliances: it came with benefits and downsides.
For the most part, the Jochids negotiated skillfully, though. This was true outside the confines of the Mongol Empire as well. Under Möngke-Temür’s rule, the Jochids became key players in Europe and the Mediterranean, shaping regional politics and commercial relations in an effort to enhance their own security and prosperity. Relations with sedentary populations inside the Horde and beyond were highly complex, but the Jochids knew how to make the best of their opportunities. They applied the longstanding Mongol playbook based on trade, tribute, and elite cooptation, evolving the steppe tradition to meet the challenges of their domain and its neighborhood.
A Geopolitical Leader
To sustain their power, the Jochids needed to adapt to circumstances alien to their forebears. The Horde had inherited the yasa and the varied heritage of steppe nomads. But the Jochids ruled sedentary Europeans including Hungarians, Bulgars, and Russians. Some Jochid subjects practiced steppe spirituality, while others were Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. And from their place on the edge of Europe, the Horde interacted with many peoples beyond their rule, including Slavs, the Byzantine Empire, Genoese and Venetian merchants, and the Mamluk sultan in Cairo, across the Mediterranean. The pope and the metropolitan—the head of the Russian Orthodox church—were both important pieces on the Horde’s diplomatic chessboard.
The khans and their officers learned to work with these and other players—how to rule them, directly and indirectly; how to trade with them and encourage them to take advantage of the Mongol-run trade network; how to insert themselves into foreign interests; and how to make the interests of foreigners align with their own. Of course, Mongols had a history of dominating foreigners in the east and in Central Asia, but Europe and West Asia were different and required different political strategies. The Jochids thus had to innovate in order to prosper. Under Möngke-Temür and his successors, the Jochids did just that, but they also maintained the key political structures underlying their ulus. In the final decades of the thirteenth century, the Horde proved how flexible Mongol governance was, as the regime invented new strategies of rule on the basis of age-old principles.
A case in point was the eastern Slavs, primarily Russians. Russians were the most numerous among the Horde’s sedentary subjects. Their governing institutions were unlike those of the Mongols, as were their economic priorities. Not only that, but Russians and other Slavs were hardly analogous to the Central Asians and Chinese the Mongols had earlier learned to rule. Politically, the Russians were fragmented, subject to layers of feudal rule and lacking central leadership. The Russians were also mostly scattered among small villages; there were a few major cities, but the urban lifestyles of China and Khwarezm were largely unknown. On top of all that, the Russian principalities were agriculturally poor, their output unstable and varying drastically from year to year. The Russians subsisted largely on fish, small game, and berries, and produced some finished agricultural products such as honey and alcohol. But there was not much surplus they could turn over in tribute. Other items, such as furs and crafted objects, became the focus of Mongol taxation.
The Jochids created for the Russians a type of governance befitting their political and economic particularities and cultural sensitivities. The overall approach was supervisory and indirect. The khan did not place garrisons in Russian towns, nor did the Mongols attempt to absorb the Russians into their hordes en masse, as they had the Qipchaqs and other dominated peoples. Instead the Jochids worked with existing Russian elites to enact policies that kept the public contented enough to abide the regime and pay their taxes.
The two major power centers among the Russians were the ruling elite—including the princes and the boyars—and the church. The Mongols communicated with and coopted both. The khan and his advisers had frequent exchanges with the kniazia, especially the grand prince of Vladimir, who was required to visit the khan’s court regularly. Mongol envoys also brought orders and messages to the metropolitan. Princes and religious officials alike would sometimes respond to messages through the Mongol envoys, but the Russians also at times used their own men—a sign that the relationship with the Mongols was a two-way street rather than merely an exercise in top-down control. Partnership was key to Jochid rule over the Russian principalities, not least because the Mongols relied on Russian elites to collect taxes for them. This reflected the evolution of the Horde’s governing practices under Möngke-Temür. Prior Mongol leaders had sent their own tax collectors right into Russian towns, where the collectors faced huge local opposition. Starting in the 1260s, the Jochids took a different approach. Now it was local notables who would gather taxes from the commoners. The notables would then turn the payments over to Jochid envoys who were instructed to await delivery at the fringes of population centers.16
To keep the Russian boyars on their side, the Mongols learned to respect the sources of their wealth and influence. Although boyars usually lived in cities like Novgorod, where political decisions were taken, their status was based on the sizeable landed domains they owned. The Mongols left these lands be. In one sense, this was not unusual, for the Mongols never taxed property directly. Instead they taxed craft and agricultural production, sales, trade, and households; demanded levies on particular resources such as water; and collected supplies for the yam. The Russian boyars did have to pay these taxes, but they were also permitted to keep their lands. This is what was unusual: the lack of interference in landholding itself. In China and Central Asia, the Mongols were much more interventionist, redrawing property lines and redistributing ownership. By allowing the thousands of Russian landowners to keep their domains intact, the Jochids were making clear that they intended to share the fruits of their conquests with the sons of those they had vanquished.
The Horde took other measures as well to maintain the trust and affection of the boyars, even while imposing their own methods of social control. As we have seen, life in the hordes was unusually safe and secure, surprising European visitors. The Jochids tried to ensure similar order in the Russian principalities, so that the people could achieve the economic output and population growth that would fuel the khan’s regime. To this end, the Mongols regulated Russian subjects much as they did their own, banning Russians from carrying weapons and riding warhorses, while deputizing local rulers to provide security. Princes, boyars, and their guards were allowed to be armed, provided that they showed loyalty to their Mongol masters. Thus, in exchange for supporting the regime, Russian elites were empowered at the local level, enabling them to maintain their traditional place in the hierarchy with respect to ordinary Russians. This was a critical governing maneuver. Slavic elites were accustomed to clear distinctions of status and could not accept relegation to the common herd. To confirm the positions of local rulers, the Mongols granted them yarliks—written diplomas, which had long been used across the empire to make formal announcements.
At the same time, the Mongols did not forget about unarmed elites. Artisans, merchants, and religious leaders were also critical to the Horde’s political economy. While artisans and merchants generated wealth, the clergy had great influence over the public and the princes, whose own power was
difficult to maintain without the backing of the church. To support the work of these unarmed elites, the Mongols granted some of them—especially clergy—tarkhan status.17 The conferral of tarkhan status began with the metropolitan and the Orthodox priests. As tarkhans, the clergy and their institutions were exempt from taxation, and the clergy themselves were exempt from military conscription. In exchange for these legal protections, the clergy supported the legitimacy of the Mongol regime. In effect, by accepting tarkhan status, the Orthodox Church was announcing that it backed Mongol sovereignty, a substantial political victory for the Mongols. The imprimatur of the church helped to keep the kniazia from rebelling and asserting authority that many of the princes felt was rightfully theirs. The system would prove highly advantageous for the church as well. The Orthodox Church was elevated while other Christians in the Horde, such as Catholics, Armenians, and Greeks, were not initially granted tarkhan status. The financial benefits allowed the Orthodox clergy to establish new properties, while the conscription exemption boosted the church’s work force, as individuals chose to join the church rather than be sent away to war or to labor in Mongol camps. The benefits of the conscription exemption were perhaps clearest in the fortunes of Orthodox monasteries, which gained many recruits and prospered.18
The structure of the tarkhan privilege helps to clarify the ways in which the Jochids under Möngke-Temür maintained a specifically Mongol scheme of rule. Alternatively, instead of the tarkhan system, the Horde might have implemented the dhimmi system of religious toleration practiced in Muslim polities. After all, though Möngke-Temür was not Muslim, his predecessor Berke had been and had turned the Horde in the direction of Islamic ruling practices. So the Horde might well have applied the dhimmi system. But Möngke-Temür must have reasoned that the tarkhan approach better suited his political needs: whereas the purpose of the dhimmi system was to integrate subjects, the goal of the tarkhan system was to coopt elites. Under the dhimmi system, non-Muslims paid a special tax but were allowed to practice their faith. Under Mongol governance, religious tolerance was presumed; the khans did not care what faiths and rituals their subjects practiced, as long as these subjects contributed the taxes and labor expected of them. Möngke-Temür determined that the Russian peasants would obey the boyars whose land they worked and the religious leaders who protected their souls, so his advantage lay not in mollifying the general population—as the dhimmi system did—but in coopting the elites. If the khan could keep the boyars on his side by respecting their domains, and the clergy by bestowing tarkhan privileges, then it would not matter that the kniazia were restive. Without the clergy, the aristocracy, and the public on their side, the kniazia could never mount a serious challenge to the khan.19
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