While Mamai was licking his wounds, Toqtamish isolated him politically by inviting the support of the western begs. They had backed Mamai previously but had nothing to lose by changing sides: they would be allowed to keep their positions as councilors, tax collectors, ambassadors, and city governors. Not only that, but by joining Toqtamish the begs would hasten an end to civil war, which harmed everyone. The benefit for Toqtamish was twofold because the defection of the begs would undermine Mamai while providing Toqtamish a turnkey administration in the west, with skilled secretaries, accountants, guards, minters, and judges who knew the region.
One of the first to accept the deal was the beg of the Crimean city of Solkhat, whom the khan immediately delegated to conclude an agreement with the Genoese consul of Caffa. In 1375 Mamai had wrested from the Genoese eighteen locations surrounding Sudak, but now Toqtamish and his Solkhat beg offered to restore the territory to the Genoese. The Genoese were eager to negotiate, as the agrarian lands around Sudak were critical to their trade operations. During Janibek’s siege in the 1340s, the Caffans had gone hungry for weeks; they learned that fortifying their harbors was meaningless as long as they could not control their agricultural countryside. In exchange for generous land grants, Toqtamish asked the Genoese for their loyalty, and they provided it. In late 1380 or early 1381, the fugitive Mamai came to Caffa seeking shelter, but loyalty meant refusing to harbor the khan’s enemies, so the Genoese seized Mamai and kept him hostage. After the beg of Solkhat signed a written treaty swearing to uphold the khan’s agreement with the Genoese, the Genoese fulfilled their loyalty obligation by killing Mamai on the spot.9
In fact, the Genoese got much more than land for their loyalty. They also received rights to travel freely across the Horde’s territories; to retrieve slaves, cattle, and horses taken from them; and to be reimbursed for losses due to war and robbery. Finally, the Genoese asked the khan to mint new silver coins of better quality, a request that was soon satisfied as part of monetary reforms enacted by Toqtamish. This agreement was the first of three the Genoese were to seal with Toqtamish. All of them were written in Mongol script, continuing the tradition of Chinggis, and certified with the large square seal of the khan, embossed in gold. The agreements were translated into Latin and Genoese by experienced interpreters who also knew Qipchaq, Persian, and Slavic—all the main languages of the Horde.10
Toqtamish’s concessions to the Genoese may seem extravagant, yet, for the khan, the deal was worth making. Mamai’s head was a precious trophy because it erased the key power competitor within the Horde. And, more immediately, eliminating Mamai pacified southern Crimea, allowing Toqtamish to focus on the rebellious Russian princes: they had fought Mamai and won, and now they were Toqtamish’s problem. In August 1382 Toqtamish successfully besieged Moscow and partially burnt it—a show of strength that reminded Dmitrii Donskoi that he was still the Horde’s vassal. Dmitrii begged for mercy, and Toqtamish forgave him on the conditions that he deliver the tribute and that his eldest son visit the khan’s horde as a hostage.
Toqtamish was a canny strategist. He allowed his enemies to tear each other apart before delivering the final blow—for example, taking advantage of Mamai’s defeat by Moscow before turning around and attacking Moscow in order to assert his own authority. Toqtamish also exercised patience, first handling Urus, then Mamai, then Dmitrii. Though Toqtamish was an easterner who had grown up disconnected from western politics, he quickly grasped that Crimea was the key to power in the west, so he courted the Genoese. And he knew how to peel the western begs away from Mamai. The rewards were considerable: Urus and Mamai were eliminated, the Genoese were loyal, and the Russians were paying tribute again.11
* * *
The consolidation of power under Toqtamish was a creative response to the collapse of the Ordaids and Batuids, enabling the Horde to escape a deeper crisis of the kind that befell the Ilkhanids after the death of Abū Sa‘īd. The creativity lay in the unprecedented nature of Toqtamish’s ascent: the Toqa Temürids had never steered the Horde before. It was not inevitable that secondary Jochid lines would emerge to take control, or that one would take the lead without war against the others. Yet, at some point in the 1370s, the Jochids collectively acknowledged the primacy of two lineages, the Shibanids and Toqa Temürids. Only members of these two lines had the pedigree and popular support to claim Batu’s throne, and the Toqa Temürids were clearly first among equals.12
There are several reasons why the Toqa Temürids emerged as the primary lineage. First, they benefited from the fact that Toqa Temür had been Jochi’s youngest son. In the steppe inheritance system, the youngest was the “hearth keeper,” who watched over his parents’ belongings until those belongings were his to inherit. Analogizing from the family to the state was a constant among the Mongols, and by this logic the Toqa Temürids were the keepers of Jochi’s ulus, gifted with the ability to protect and unify the family members.13
A second Toqa Temürid advantage lay in the charismatic leader who solidified their lineage. Toqtamish’s history made him a sympathetic figure; others wanted to rally around him and see his moral rights vindicated. His military successes also elevated his stature, helping him to win over the Shibanids and motivating them to withdraw from the competition for succession.
A third and final source of the Toqa Temürids’ advantage was their beneficial alliances. In general, the Muslim Toqa Temürids and Shibanids both enjoyed good relations with Islamic clergy and elites, earning them friends in Khwarezm, Crimea, the Caucasus, Siberia, and the Volga region. But the Toqa Temürids also allied with the Qonggirad, making them considerably stronger militarily. And Qonggirad support probably helped to mollify the Shibanids. The Qonggirad were well positioned to mediate between the two Jochid houses, for the Qonggirad had marriage partnerships with both. With the Shibanids in Toqtamish’s camp, he could be consensus candidate for Batu’s throne, enjoying support from across the Jochid houses and the begs—of course, with exception of certain power rivals, such as Mamai.
This, then, was the solution to the long political crisis that followed Birdibek’s death: a profound change in the hierarchy of Jochid lineages. Since Qonichi, no ruler from the Blue Horde had directed ulus Jochi. Now it was not just easterners but also Toqa Temürids in charge. After Toqtamish took power, his name was praised every Friday during the Muslim prayer service and appeared on every silver coin produced in the Horde.14
Defection
In 1385 Toqtamish made his first diplomatic overture to the Mamluk sultan al-Zāhir Barqūq. The Mongol envoys brought Barqūq slaves, hawks, and seven types of cotton textiles. It had been ten years since the Horde and the sultanate last had diplomatic contact, and the khan wanted to revive the alliance. In the past the Jochids and Mamluks had joined against the Ilkhanids; now, the Horde faced a new enemy with designs on the Ilkhanid territories. Tamerlane, Toqtamish’s erstwhile partner, was on the Horde’s Caucasian doorstep, having launched military operations into Azerbaijan. By the time Toqtamish approached the sultan, Tamerlane had already conquered Tabriz and other locations. Northern Khwarezm was another friction point, as the Jochid-Qonggirad alliance there disrupted Tamerlane’s planned conquest of the region.15
The imminent danger to the Horde was that of a blockade, strangling the Jochids as Hülegü once had. By 1385 Transcaucasian passage was critical to the Horde’s exchange with the Mediterranean world, because in that year, the Genoese rebelled once more, waging war on Solkhat and preventing access to the sea route via Crimea. But traders did not have to rely on Crimea if instead they could exploit the Derbent-Shirvan pass, the overland connection from the Horde to Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt. However, access to the pass was no certainty, because Tamerlane’s forces stood on the south side of the pass, with the potential to block the Jochids’ land route just as the Genoese blocked the harbors.16
The Mamluks were similarly concerned about the effects of an embargo, as importing slave warriors remained crucial to their military capabilitie
s. Barqūq, himself a former slave, acquired some 5,000 slave warriors of his own during his sixteen years as sultan. His numerous emirs purchased slaves by hundreds. But the situations in Crimea and the Caucasus endangered the slave trade on two fronts. Exports from Caffa, the Mamluks’ largest supplier of slaves, had ground to a halt, and Tabriz, the second-largest supplier, was in the hands of Tamerlane. Given Tamerlane’s ambitions to expand across the Middle East and establish leadership over Muslims, the Mamluks could not trust him to make decisions in their interests. Tamerlane was Barqūq’s main competitor, threatening the sultanate economically and politically.17
Toqtamish’s plan was to multiply military fronts by launching simultaneous attacks from the northern Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, and Syria, trapping Tamerlane’s army between the Jochid and Mamluk forces. The Mamluk sources do not confirm that Barqūq promised to support the strategy, but we do know that he was prepared to take actions against Tamerlane. The same sources record that Barqūq allied with the Turkmen confederation of the Qara Qoyunlu against Tamerlane and sent forces against Tamerlane in Aleppo in 1387. As for Toqtamish, in winter 1385–1386, he led his warriors against Derbent, pushed through the Caucasian pass, and plundered Tabriz. Tamerlane replied with a counterattack and fought Toqtamish to a stalemate, possibly involving the negotiation of a ceasefire. But even with a truce in effect, Tamerlane continued to pursue his conquest of Azerbaijan.18
During the winter of 1387–1388, Toqtamish resumed the fight, challenging Tamerlane on their other common border in Transoxiana. The khan gathered forces from northern Khwarezm and the middle Syr-Daria, crossed the Amu-Daria, and laid siege to Bukhara. Tamerlane sent troops to reinforce the city, but as they approached, the Jochids lifted the siege and went on to plunder the surrounding region. In 1389 Toqtamish’s and Tamerlane’s troops clashed on the banks of the Syr-Daria, probably several times. The forces were well-matched, and the war season ended with another stalemate.19
Tamerlane needed help to break the impasse, and he got it from within the Horde itself. His chief collaborator was a beg named Edigü, leader of the powerful Manghit clan. The Manghit were among the secondary Mongol groups that made large gains during the succession crisis of the 1360s and 1370s. When Toqtamish took the throne, Manghit territory stretched from the Ural River to the Emba and included the important city of Saraijuq. The Manghit benefited from their location on the frontier between Batu’s and Orda’s territories, where the Manghit welcomed nomadic families from both sides seeking peace and protection amid the infighting of the bulqaq. By the time Toqtamish and Tamerlane were at war, Edigü was said to have 200,000 horsemen. That number is likely an exaggeration, but it reveals how strong the Manghit were perceived to be. Edigü was not only a powerful ally, he was also a motivated one. He resented Toqtamish for favoring the Qonggirad and the western begs, who monopolized the Horde’s most lucrative positions to the detriment of the eastern Manghit. Working with Tamerlane offered Edigü an opportunity to undermine Toqtamish; Edigü visited Tamerlane in secret and proposed a new war plan.20
With Edigü’s guidance, Tamerlane carefully prepared his next move. In January 1391 he launched a large-scale campaign, and after an exhausting five-month chase, his troops met Toqtamish’s in a major battle at the confluence of the Qundurcha and Volga rivers. Unexpectedly lacking the support of the Manghit warriors, the Jochid army was smashed. Tamerlane ordered the torching of the khan’s camp, captured women and children as spoils, and confiscated Toqtamish’s gold, jewelry, herds, tents, and carts. But that was all. Tamerlane had no intention of conquering the Horde; he took his substantial booty and headed back to his headquarters in Samarkand.21
The war, however, was far from over. Toqtamish withdrew northward, to the middle Volga region, where he reorganized his headquarters. He must have moved quickly because by 1393 he had recovered enough authority and military strength to go dunning his vassals for tribute payments. In particular, Toqtamish reminded the Polish-Lithuanian king Vladislav Jagiello to send tax receipts and to “let the merchants circulate on the roads” for the benefit of the “great ulus.”22 (Jagiello had inherited the throne of Lithuania from his father and in 1385 was invited to take the Polish throne as well. He ruled alongside Vytautas, his cousin, who was grand duke of Lithuania.) The exchange between the Horde and Poland-Lithuania had grown more important, given that Tamerlane controlled the Caucasian door and the Genoese hindered the Crimean one.23
By 1394 Toqtamish had regained enough power to campaign in the Caucasus again. He sent his ambassadors to the Mamluk sultan and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid. Together they discussed the terms of a joint attack on Tamerlane. No known joint attack occurred, but both the Mamluks and Ottomans stationed forces to fight Tamerlane in advance of Toqtamish’s own attack, in winter 1394–1395. The khan’s troops entered the Derbent-Shirvan pass and in early spring 1395 met Tamerlane’s army on the Terek River, north of Derbent. Toqtamish lost the battle and fled northward with Tamerlane’s horsemen on his heels. According to the Mamluk ambassador to the khan’s court, Toqtamish was defeated because of the defection of one of his main commanders. A beg named Aktau, who had his own political dispute with Toqtamish, suddenly left the battlefield with his thousands of warriors.24
Once again Toqtamish had lost the support of a key beg, giving Tamerlane the edge he needed. But this time the results were far worse. Rather than simply plunder Toqtamish’s camp, Tamerlane also scattered the khan’s army and his peoples and spent the whole summer and following winter raiding the Jochid hordes and cities. New Sarai, Hajji Tarkhan, and Azaq, including the Venetian district of Tana, suffered so badly that contemporary observers thought they would never recover. It was clear to all the major players in the west that the geopolitical situation had changed. The Mamluk ambassador hurried to escape the region, heading for Caffa where he expected to find a ship to leave for Egypt. But the Genoese saw no reason to do favors for the ally of the defeated Toqtamish. Indeed, the Genoese had already sent Tamerlane messengers carrying gifts of precious furs in hopes that he would spare their city. The Genoese extracted 50,000 dirhams from the ambassador in exchange for safe passage, and when Tamerlane’s troops devastated Crimea in August 1395, they left Caffa untouched.25
Exploiting Toqtamish’s retreat, Edigü the Manghit extended their realm westward. Around 1397 Edigü allied with Temür Qutluq, a Toqa Temürid and his sister’s son, and installed him on the Jochid throne. Edigü became beglerbeg and commanded the army. From the banks of the Dnieper, probably near Kremenchuk in modern-day Ukraine, Edigü subdued the western begs. He took the Crimean cities and villages and brought the Genoese rebels to heel.26
Toqtamish, his warriors, and their families withdrew to southern Russia and Lithuania, where Vytautas, the Lithuanian ruler, offered them herding grounds. Together with Vytautas, Toqtamish planned to reconquer the Horde. Their combined army made several successful operations in the lower Dniester and in Crimea, and in 1399 they crossed the Dnieper to negotiate with Edigü. But Edigü refused and sent a small but determined force into battle on the banks of the Vorskla, a tributary of the Dnieper. Despite being outnumbered, the beg’s army inflicted a humiliating defeat on Toqtamish, his men, and his Lithuanian and Polish troops.27
Ever tenacious and resourceful, Toqtamish went back to old friends in an effort to restore himself to the throne. He joined with the Shibanids and created an embryonic power in Ibir-Sibir, in southwestern Siberia. In 1405 Toqtamish sent an embassy to Tamerlane seeking to ally against Edigü. Despite years of fighting with Toqtamish, Tamerlane apparently agreed to restore the alliance the two had built some twenty-five years earlier, because at this point the Manghit were much more dangerous than the former khan. Yet there would be no redemption for Toqtamish. Both he and Tamerlane died that year.28
After Toqtamish
It is commonly said that Tamerlane destroyed the Horde, but this view is wrong for two reasons. First, the fall of Toqtamish was primarily a result of internal competition from the M
anghit. Second, the Horde was not destroyed. It survived even the turmoil of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
On the first point, even Persian sources, which all favor Tamerlane, emphasize that Toqtamish lost the war because he was unable to keep the nomadic elite on his side. The results included the damaging defection of 1391 and the ruinous defection of 1395. The khan had shown himself to be a capable leader on the battlefield and in foreign affairs, playing the game of diplomacy with all the enthusiasm and ability of esteemed predecessors like Berke and Möngke-Temür. Where Toqtamish faltered was in the realm of internal politics. He privileged the western begs in order to win them away from Mamai, a decision that made sense in the late 1370s and early 1380s. But Toqtamish failed to adjust in light of the Manghit’s growing power, making an enemy of Edigü. What brought down Toqtamish, then, was not an inability to stand up to Tamerlane but rather his attempt to rule the Horde without the consent of the Manghit.29
On the second point—the claim that the Horde was destroyed—it is simply not the case that Toqtamish took the Horde with him into defeat. The material world of the Horde recovered relatively quickly; ruined places were rebuilt, and the centers of transcontinental trade were largely restored. In fact, the only significant city that was permanently abandoned after the war was New Sarai, but its downfall had begun with Birdibek’s death, well before Tamerlane’s campaign in the lower Volga. The recovery of the western steppe was obvious to fifteenth-century travelers, merchants, and diplomats, who wrote lively accounts of the wealth and activity of the region. There was regular exchange between Moscow and the Volga Valley, and Kazan emerged as a hub of the fur trade. Hajji Tarkhan, half-destroyed by Tamerlane, rose from the ashes to become a powerhouse in the salt trade by the 1430s. Astrakhan, as Hajji Tarkhan came to be known, continued to develop over the centuries and is today one of the major population centers of southern Russia.30
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