Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast

“In [this year] Nogai sent his wife [Yaylaq] Khātūn to the king Țuqṭā with a missive she would carry to him, and advice she would give to him. When she arrived at the [Golden] Horde he greeted her with honor, and celebrated hospitality and gifts with her, and she stayed in the hospitality for days. Then he asked her as to the reason for her coming, she said to him, “[Nogai] says to you that there are some thorns left on your path, so clean them up!” [Toqta] said, “What are the thorns?” so she named off the emirs who Nogai had mentioned to her, who were [23 in numer]. These were those who had conspired with Töle Buqa against Nogai.  When this missive was conveyed to him, and she told him this story, [Toqta] sought after those emirs, one after another, and killed all of them. So [Yaylaq] Khātūn returned to Nogai, informing him of their killing, so his worry subsided, and his fear gone.”       So the Mamluk chronicler Baybars al-Mansūrī records an interaction between Nogai, the Mongol master of the lower Danube and southeastern Europe, and Toqta, Khan of the Golden Horde. In 1291 Nogai had assisted Toqta Khan to the Jochid throne, overthrowing the previous Khan, Tele-Buqa. Now both expected favours of the other, which would have deadly consequences.  Our last episode looked at Nogai’s role in Europe; today, we look at his interactions with the Khans of the Golden Horde, culminating in the destructive civil war between Toqta and Nogai at the end of the 1290s. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       As noted before, much of this is based off the research of our series historian, Jack Wilson, who offered a reinvestigation of Nogai in the process of his Masters thesis. If you’re curious about more on this matter of his reinterpretation of Nogai, you can speak with directly through his Youtube channel The Jackmeister: Mongol History, where he is in the midst of sharing this reinterpretation in a video form.        While Nogai was the governor of the Golden Horde’s territory in southeastern Europe, he was hardly removed from wider Jochid affairs. After the death of Möngke-Temür Khan in 1280 or 1282, Nogai was the aqa of the Jochid lineage, as a few sources state, including an interesting letter from the Il-Khan Tegüder Ahmad to the Mamluks. As aqa,  he was one of the senior-most members of the family, respected and consulted on all sorts of familial and government matters. And indeed, this is the role he often appears in; when Töde-Möngke Khan considered releasing a captive son of Khubilai Khaan, he is recorded consulting with Nogai as well as other prominent members of the Jochids. Most of Nogai’s interactions from the Jochid khans Töde-Möngke, Tele-Buqa and Toqta all seem based on this aqa relationship. While scholarship has often accused Nogai of putting these various khans on the throne, and reducing the khans Töde-Möngke and Tele-Buqa to puppets, this is unsupported by the sources. In the royal succession, Nogai is unmentioned in the transition except in the overthrow of Tele-Buqa, as we covered in a previous episode. Over these years Nogai appears focused on the territory he was assigned to in southeastern Europe. On occasion he sent troops to assist Rus’ princes in raids in Poland and Lithuania, but Nogai only did so when requested by these princes, as described in the Rus’ chronicles. Likewise, when he led armies into Hungary and Poland himself, as we discussed in our previous episodes, Nogai only did so when demanded by Tele-Buqa.    If not presented as overthrowing khans, or reducing them to figureheads, literature often presents Nogai actively undermining the khans, or undertaking his own diplomatic efforts. But the evidence for this is likewise weak.  An interesting case of Nogai possibly undermining Tele-Buqa Khan comes in 1288, when he sent an embassy to the Il-Khan, Arghun, which gave him Buddhist relics. A few weeks after this meeting, Tele-Buqa unleashed his first invasion of the Ilkhanate. It’s tempting to see this as Nogai having his own Ilkhanid diplomacy or alerting Arghun of Tele-Buqa’s attack, but this is the only record of such an embassy, and Arghun was caught unawares by the invasion, as he was in the midst of leaving the Caucasus when the attack occurred. We might wonder if Nogai had actually been instructed to placate Arghun, sending him gifts in order to not suspect any Jochid attacks; Arghun may have seen little reason to believe the truce with the Ilkhanate was in any danger. Neither did Nogai carry out a marriage alliance with the Il-Khan, as if sometimes stated; references to him marrying one of his sons to a daughter of Abaqa Il-Khan have confused Nogai of the Golden Horde with another Nogai, a non-Chinggisid general who lived in the Ilkhanate, and the father of Abaqa’s son-in-law, in this instance.        Nogai did gave shelter to at least one Rus’ prince, who was out of favour with the reigning khan. Dmitri Alexandrovich, a son of the famous Alexander Nevskii, had a decades long feud with his brother Andrei for the title of Grand Prince. Most usually, you’ll see this presented as a sort of proxy war between Nogai and the khans, with Nogai pushing forward Dmitri as his candidate, and the khans supporting Andrei. While the khans did give Andrei armies and a yarliq to support his candidacy, there isn’t evidence for those who claim that Nogai did the same for Dmitri. In the early 1280s, Andrei Alexandrovich went to the khan, likely Töde-Möngke, and received military support for his claim to Grand Prince of Vladimir, the chief of the Rus’ princely titles. Dmitri fled before Andrei, and after a lengthy flight made his way to Nogai for shelter. As the Nikonian Chronicle records;       “Grand Prince Dmitrii Aleksandrovich with his druzhina, princes, children and entire court fled to the horde of Khan Nagai, to whom he told everything in order, relating it with tears, and gave him and his nobles many gifts. Khan Nagai listened to him and kept him in honour.”       What exactly being kept in “in honour” means in this context is unclear. Dmitri arrived with a great many gifts for Nogai to earn Nogai’s favour, a wise move. Nogai only the year before had taken fugitives like Ivaylo and Ivan Asen III to his court; as we noted in the last episode, Nogai, on the urging of his Byzantine father-in-law Michael VIII, had killed Ivaylo and almost executed Ivan too. Dmitri was wise to bribe Nogai for his favour, but should not have expected Nogai’s hospitality to go far if the request from the khan came for his head. But none came. By the next year Dmitri returned from Nogai and made peace with his brother Andrei. This is notable to emphasis; Nogai did not send Dmitri back with an army, or a yarliq. And later that year, Dmitri restarted the war with Andrei himself when he assassinated one of Andrei’s boyars. Only at this juncture, do ‘Tatars’ appear in Dmitri’s service. Their origin is uncertain, but they cannot be directly linked to Nogai, as the Rus’ chronicles themselves do not do so. The presence of Tatar troops of unspecified origin should not be too surprising. Similarly, at the famed Battle on the Ice against the Teutonic Order in 1242, Dmitri’s father Alexander Nevskii had nomadic horse archers fighting alongside him, but their identity, or origin, goes unmentioned. Since this is the closest the sources come to showing Nogai directly challenging the Khan in influence over the Rus’, we shouldn’t rely too much either on this image.       Our last episode discussed the fall of Tele-Buqa Khan and the enthronement of Toqta in 1291. This, in all of the primary sources, is the only actual removal and enthronement of a khan that Nogai took part in. Toqta had come to Nogai for aid, and promised to carry out Nogai’s will once he became khan. Nogai, as a pragmatic fellow, agreed, for who wouldn’t want the Khan to owe you a favour? Particularly since Nogai had already learned Tele-Buqa was plotting against him. Faking a severe illness, Nogai convinced Tele-Buqa and his allies that he was dying, and wanted to make final amends. With their guard let down, Toqta arrived with an army and executed Tele-Buqa Khan.  After Toqta was enthroned, Nogai returned to the Danube, where he carried out a rush of activity, bringing the submission of many of the banates and Serbia that we mentioned last week. New raids are recorded on Poland in the early 1290s, and Mongol emissaries reached even the King of Bohemia. Though unmentioned, it seems likely they originated from Nogai, who devoted most of his attention before 1295 on Europe.   A young man, Toqta was likely overawed at first by the experienced aqa. Nogai recognized that Toqta’s reign faced threats from loyalists to Tele-Buqa who still lived, and therefore sent word to Toqta; these princes needed to be killed in order to secure the throen. In 1293 a list of 23 noyans was provided, and Toqta duly carried out Nogai’s suggestions. More deaths of such Tele-Buqa loyalists, and presumably enemies Nogai had made over his career, followed the next year. This was much to Nogai’s relief, we are told, as he had been quite concerned over the matter. But Toqta was hardly the pushover he’s often presented as. In 1294 Toqta sent a message to Nogai, demanding the death of Jijek-Khatun and some of her followers. Jijek-Khatun was a widow of Berke and Möngke-Temür Khan, and had briefly served as regent in the final years of  Möngke-Temür and Töde-Möngke’s reigns. Nogai carried this out swiftly.    These reprisals, in which both Nogai and Toqta made demands of the other, seem to have been the extent of effective cooperation between them. Toqta in the early 1290s undertook his own actions which Nogai is not recorded affecting; in response to a request from Andrei Alexandrovich, Toqta ordered a devastating attack on the Rus’ principalities in 1293. This campaign permanently broke the power of Dmitri Alexandrovich, who had once sought shelter with Nogai. In 1294, Toqta also reached a peace agreement with the current Il-Khan, Geikhatu. Once more, it seems Nogai’s influence on Toqta was limited to that of the aqa, rather than a puppet master.       It appears that the actual fallout between Nogai and Toqta was not out of desire for one to depose the other, but more familial. Nogai had a number of wives and children, and despite his proclamation of Islam in his letter to Baybars in the early 1270s, seems to have not forced it onto any of his family. As noted he married the Greek Orthodox Christian Byzantine Princess Euphrosyne; no indication is provided of her ever abandoning her faith. Another wife, Yaylaq-Khatun, was baptized into the Catholic faith by Franciscan missionaries in Crimea around 1287. One of Nogai’s daughters, Qiyan, married a son of Salji’udai Güregen, who was Toqta’s grandfather and father-in-law. It was obviously a prominent alliance  related to Toqta’s ascension, as Salji’udai was close to Toqta and held great influence over his grandson. Salji’udai’s wife was Kelmish Aqa, a lady not only powerful in the Golden Horde, but respected in the Ilkhanate. Marrying into the family cemented Nogai’s relevance to the central court. After the marriage though, Nogai’s daughter Qiyan converted to Islam, to the great displeasure of her Buddhist husband. The husband began to abuse her, and Qiyan alerted her father. Nogai was furious at his daughter’s treatment, and demanded justice from Toqta; hand over Salji’udai and his son, or dismiss them. Toqta of course, was hardly about to hand over his grandfather.       It should be said that the abuse of Nogai’s daughter was unlikely to have been the sole cause of the conflict, but perhaps rather the spark that set off a growing pile of kindling. Rashīd al-Dīn records that Nogai was greatly frustrated already by Salji’udai’s influence over Toqta compared to his own. As Rashīd says, allegedly quoting Nogai’s response to one of Toqta’s embassies:   “It is known to all the world what toil and hardship I have endured and how I have exposed myself to the charge of perfidy and bad faith in order to win for [Toqta] the throne […]. And now Saljidai Küregen has authority over that throne. If my son Toqta wishes the basis of our relationship to be strengthened between us, let him send Saljidai Küregen back to his yurt, which is near Khwārazm.”       Nogai knew he had undertaken an extreme action by taking a lead role in the death of Tele-Buqa, and had expected greater reward for his actions. Rather than Toqta being a figurehead in Nogai’s shadow, as scholarship so often presents, Toqta had failed to give Nogai the respect and influence he felt he was owed. That is, Toqta was always rather independent and powerful, and Nogai lacked authority over him, yet still had hoped for it. Even before the marriage, Nogai may have been frustrated at his lack of influence over Toqta compared to Salji’udai, and perhaps the marriage had been an effort to address this. But the beating of his daughter was pushing things too far for this. And Toqta’s refusal to give justice for Nogai, even after multiple embassies only worsened things.       Numerous sources,  such as Rashīd al-Dīn and Marco Polo, record that at various points, both Nogai and Toqta began ignoring the embassies of the other, which may have occurred at any step of the process but only deepend antagonism between them. Feeling denied options, Nogai decided to force Toqta’s hands. He sent a wife, Chübei, and three sons, Chaka, Teke and Büri, to push a number of princes and generals in the western steppe into running amuck and causing damage, perhaps harassing officers of the khan. After essentially starting a revolt, many of these princes fled to Nogai’s court, where one married another of Nogai’s daughters. Messengers came from Toqta, demanding that Nogai hand over the rebellious princes. Nogai refused, unless Toqta would hand over Salji’udai and his son. That was the price, and it was not one Toqta was willing to pay. More rounds of envoys came, and finally, according to the Mamluk chronicler Baybars al-Mansūrī, Toqta sent a message bearing a plow, an arrow, and a pile of dirt as a riddle. The advisers of Nogai pondered it, but Nogai swiftly deduced what it was, declaring:        “For the plow, with it Toqta wants to say: if you went into the very depths of the earth, all the same I will pull you out from there with this plow; as for the arrow, with it Toqta wants to say: if you climbed to the very skies, then with this arrow I will force your descent;  as for the land, he says: choose for yourself the land on which our meeting will take place."       It was Toqta Khan’s declaration of war on Nogai. Nogai spoke simply to Toqta’s envoy, “tell Toqta that our horses our thirsty, and wish to drink from the Don.” The Don River was deep in the steppes, northeast of the Black Sea. Nogai was going to march against Toqta Khan.       War thus broke out around 1297. The initial advance in winter failed, as the rivers did not freeze, preventing either from crossing. A rest followed over the spring and summer of 1298, Toqta rested his troops near the Don river. Nogai advanced tentatively with a small force, including his wives and sons. Realizing that Toqta’s forces were dispersed until the fall, Nogai sent a messenger, telling the khan that Nogai was coming for a quriltai to make peace. In reality, he was hoping to capture Toqta with his small force before Toqta’s tümens could be recalled. Toqta saw through the ruse too late, and had only a small force with him when Nogai fell upon him near the Don.     Nogai had the better of this first engagement, and forced Toqta’s retreat. It is this victory which actually forms the final event in most versions of Marco Polo’s manuscripts. While Toqta fled back to Sarai, Nogai did not pursue; this was not a battle for mastery of the Golden Horde, and Nogai did not have the forces to advance so deep into Toqta’s territory, particularly once a number of his noyans defected, for unclear reasons. We might wonder if this was not unease among them, for going to war with the Khan of the Horde; another indication that Nogai had not spent the last thirty years in open revolt. Nogai fell back to his own territory, lest he become overextended. His cast his eye on the Crimean peninsula though, the valuable trade center the Golden Horde Khan collected a great many revenues from. Many Crimean cities offered their submission, and Nogai left it to his grandson Aqtaji to take further tribute. While invited to dine in Solkhat, called by Mongols and Turks as Eski Qirim, Aqtaji was wined, dined, and violently murdered by the inhabitants. Needless to say, Nogai was enraged, and swiftly ordered his army into Crimea. In December 1298 a number of Crimean cities were sacked, and refugees fled as far as Mamluk Sultanate bringing word.       Interestingly, when the survivors begged Nogai for the release of prisoners, he allowed it. Rather than a peaceful nature on Nogai’s part, we should assume this was Nogai attempting to build a base to renew trade ties with Crimea after the war, and remind them of his clemency. For Nogai’s generals and troops though, it did not have the desired effect, for they now lost out on their slaves. His forces already overstretched, and many generals having only recently allied with him, Nogai suddenly had to deal with a massive revolt as many of these discontented commanders declared for Toqta. One of his sons, Teke, seems to have sought to ally with the rebels before being captured, and Nogai’s oldest and most capable son, Chaka, with great slaughter and destruction put down the rebellion and rescued Teke. But many rebels had fled to Toqta with news of the discord; Toqta had used the intervening time to rebuild his forces, pulling troops from the borders. Truce was reconfirmed with the Il-Khan Ghazan, and the border garrisons now reinforced Toqta’s host.        With some sixty tümens, according to Rashīd al-Dīn, Toqta led the army himself against Nogai, who was still reeling from the revolt. Along the Dnieper River in the last days of 1299, Toqta faced off against Nogai’s much smaller army. The old dog had one last trick to play. Nogai stalled for time, claiming he was deathly ill, sending messengers to Toqta begging forgiveness. Nogai’s message laid the blame for the war all on his sons; while at the same time, the eldest of those sons, Chaka, was leading a force upstream in an effort to flank Toqta. Toqta, having taken part in Nogai’s ploy against Tele-Buqa almost a decade prior, saw right through it and spotted Chaka’s army. The gig was up. Toqta’s full weight fell against Nogai’s army, which disintegrated before it. Nogai tried to flee with a small group of horsemen, only to be caught by a detachment of Rus’ cavalry. Nogai was injured in the attack, and told the Rus’, “Do not not kill me! Take me to Toqta, for he is the khan, and I must speak with him.” The unit returned to Toqta, but Nogai died en route, either of injuries, or as one of the Rus’ decapitated him. In the account of Baybars al-Mansūrī, Toqta had the man who killed Nogai executed; no matter if Nogai was a rebel, he was still a Chinggisid, and this lowly Rus’ druzhina had no right to harm him. So ended the reign of Nogai.           Nogai’s armies and sons were dispersed. Chaka briefly rallied them from his base in Bulgaria, but when his younger half-brother Teke, and Teke’s mother suggested surrendering to Toqta, Chaka had them executed. The resistance of Chaka was cut short in 1301 when he was betrayed, imprisoned and soon strangled by the new Bulgarian Tsar, his brother-in-law Theodore Svetoslav, the son of Tsar Giorgi Terter. Svetoslav’s murder of Chaka was done only after getting the permission of Toqta Khan, who reconfirmed the vassalage of Bulgaria. The region was then reincorporated into the Golden Horde, and put under the jurisdiction of Toqta’s family, though he constantly had trouble with whoever was in the position. The remainder of Nogai’s family and forces submitted to Toqta, fled to the Byzantine Empire or even the Ilkhanate. All now recognized the authority of Toqta Khan, who quickly set about reasserting the authority of the Jochid khan.       Nogai’s influence and life ended suddenly at the start of the fourteenth century. Often presented as an all powerful, crafty mayor-of-the-palace type figure, Nogai’s actually handling of the khans seems somewhat clumsy. While true he knew how to play a trick, and could be a devious fellow, he grew rather over confident as soon as he had leverage over the khan— and even quicker, frustrated when he realized how little influence he actually had over Toqta. His actual power over the Golden Horde itself was minimal. Unlike real kingmakers in the Golden Horde in the late fourteenth century, named Mamai and Edigü, Nogai was totally forgotten about after his death. Turkic histories written in the fifteenth centuries onwards which collected some folk tales from the former Horde lands, such as those written by Ötemish Hajji and Abu’l Ghazi Khan, make no mention of Nogai, despite retaining stories of the reigns of Möngke-Temür, Töde-Möngke and Toqta. Some of you might make reference to the Nogai Horde, the Golden Horde successor state which emerged in the fifteenth century. But despite its name, the Nogai Horde bears no connection to Nogai of the thirteenth century; the Nogai Horde emerged in the lands northwest of the Caspian Sea, where Nogai’s influence never extended, and indeed, he was never known for certain to have even traveled east of the Volga. More importantly though, the Nogai Horde traced its rulers not to Nogai, but to the sons of Edigü, the later Golden Horde kingmaker until his death in 1419. Edigü remains a prominent folk hero among many Tatars, but no historical source connects him in any capacity to prince Nogai. A regional commander who once overthrew a khan, and once went to war with another, posthumously Nogai was turned into the most powerful figure of the Golden Horde by modern writers. While we can imagine he might have been flattered by the picture, it’s probably not one he would have recognized. Such was the reign of Nogai Khan.        Nogai’s life remains one of the most interesting, yet misunderstood parts of the thirteenth century Golden Horde. If you’re interested in learning more about that, you can check out the work of our series historian, Jack Wilson, who is sharing his ongoing research on Nogai through his Youtube Channel, the Jackmeister: Mongol History, and it forthcoming articles in Golden Horde Review, and Acta Orientalia Hungarica. For now, our series will continue with the reign of Toqta Khan in our next episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one!  

Kings and Generals: Mongol Empire Podcast Episode 64: Golden Horde #4, Tele-Buqa and the Third Mongol Invasion of Poland       Our previous episode saw a watershed moment in the normally stale politics of the Golden Horde: in the aftermath of the second Mongol invasion of Hungary, the reigning Khan, Töde-Möngke, was deposed by his nephew, Tele-Buqa. Accusing his uncle of insanity, Tele-Buqa and a group of allies now ruled in a four-way alliance, dividing the Golden Horde between them. Over the next four years, all sorts of hell broke loose, as Tele-Buqa ordered a number of new military ventures, all of which ended in failures. An increasingly desperate Tele-Buqa brought the princes Nogai and Toqta into a whirlpool, which would spell disaster for Tele-Buqa, and open warfare as the Golden Horde approached its first civil war. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.        Tele-Buqa was a great-grandson of Batu Khan, a son of Tartu, the older brother of Khans Möngke-Temür and Töde-Möngke. As is standard for the Jochid Khans, we know almost nothing about his life before he took the throne of the Golden Horde in 1287, just over 80 years after Chinggis Khan first declared the Mongol Empire. A great-great-great-grandson of Chinggis, Tele-Buqa shared little in common with his illustrious ancestor, though certainly sought to emulate him through military ventures. Tele-Buqa first appears leading the army into Hungary in 1285, as covered in our last episode. You’ll sometimes see in the literature and Wikipedia that Tele-Buqa and Nogai both took part in the 1259 attack on Poland. We covered this campaign in our first episode on the Golden Horde, where it was commanded by Burundai Noyan. The placement of Nogai and Tele-Buqa in the 1259 attack first appears in the fifteenth century chronicle of Jan Długosz, which almost certainly conflated it with the attack Tele-Buqa did lead on Poland in 1287. No other contemporary source supports it, and given that Tele-Buqa was born in the sixth generation of Chinggisids, he was at best a young boy when the 1259 attack occurred. Though children can be known for their lack of mercy, it’s rather doubtful even the most ruthless of toddlers would be given an army.        When Tele-Buqa took the throne in 1287, he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties. As we discussed in our last episode, Töde-Möngke Khan entered in a religious or mental torpor by the mid-1280s, and the Golden Horde was governed by a widow of Möngke-Temür Khan, Jijek-Khatun. While Nogai is popularly said to have deposed Töde-Möngke and sat Tele-Buqa onto the throne, our series researcher, Jack Wilson, has demonstrated in his own studies how this is not the portrayal in the surviving primary sources. Rather, it seems Tele-Buqa eyed the throne himself, and the ensuing attack on Hungary in 1285, led by Tele-Buqa, was an effort to garner the status and resources to succeed his uncle Töde-Möngke. As we detailed in the last episode, this campaign resulted in the loss of much of his army while crossing the Carpathian mountains.        Tele-Buqa was furious over his defeat, particularly as Nogai’s forces had escaped comparatively whole with considerable loot. Requiring a new plan, Tele-Buqa conspired with his brother, Könchak, and two sons of Möngke-Temür, Alghui and To’rilcha. As the Mamluk chronicles recorded Töde-Möngke exiling a number of these sons during the succession to Möngke-Temür, we might suspect they had nursed their vengeance throughout Töde-Möngke’s reign. Together, they forced Töde-Möngke to abdicate early in 1287. The justification they told the Mamluks was that Töde-Möngke willingly stepped down to live as a religious hermit; the justification within the Golden Horde seems to have been that Töde-Möngke was insane and unfit to rule. This was what Rashīd al-Dīn learned in the Ilkhanate, and when Ötemish Hajji was collecting folktales from former Horde lands in the sixteenth century, stories of an insane Töde-Möngke had grown in popularity and particularly vulgar ones were supposedly favourites around the campfire.       The four-way princely junta  that Tele-Buqa ruled through is not well understood, beyond the fact that it was some sort of division of power between them, with Tele-Buqa the first-amongst-equals rather than overlord. Rashīd al-Dīn simply remarks that they ruled jointly. The Rus’ chronicles typically mention Alghui alongside Tele-Buqa, indicating that he may have been Tele-Buqa’s #2. As Alghui was the oldest of Möngke-Temür Khan’s sons, it was unsurprising that Alghui was likewise predominant. Their division of power is also supported archeaologically. In the Mongol Empire, coinage generally bore the khan’s name and the tamgha, a sort of individual stamp or crest. In the Golden Horde, Möngke-Temür had been the first to mint coins not in the name of the Great Khan, but in his own name. Likewise, Töde-Möngke followed him in this pattern, and so did Tele-Buqa. Except under Tele-Buqa, it was not just his name on coins. As coins usually bore the city and date of minting, the following pattern emerges. Tele-Buqa’s name is on coins minted in Crimea, but in Sarai, Ukek and Khwarezm—the central and eastern parts of the Golden Horde— coins bearing the tamgha of the deceased Möngke-Temür predominant. These, in the opinion of scholars like Roman Reva, indicate coins minted by  Möngke-Temür’s son, Alghui and To’rilcha. A different tamgha in the northern part of the khanate, the important centre of Bulghar on the Volga likely belonged to Tele-Buqa’s brother, Könchak.        Interestingly, at the same time, there is evidence that Nogai, from his base on the lower Danube at Saqchi, modern Isaccea in Romania, began minting coinage as well. It seems on a whole, Tele-Buqa oversaw a decentralization of the Horde, something understandable given the size of the khanate, Tele-Buq’s own inexperience, and the perceived right of all of the sons of Möngke-Temür to rule.  The Mamluk chronicles indicate that most of Möngke-Temür’s sons joined the princes too, though Tele-Buqa, Könchak, Alghui and To’rilcha remained the dominant. Had this union lasted longer, we might be able to discuss how such a princely division worked; were these all new administrative wings, with all the leaders considered khans equal in status, in a sort of Mongolian version of the Roman tetrarchy? Certainly foriegn authors understood Tele-Buqa as the senior, but our lack of internal Golden Horde documents means we can’t, at the current time, understand precisely how this worked in practice.       With the administration supposedly settled, Tele-Buqa could devote himself to other pursuits; namely, war. Tele-Buqa had a major problem facing him. By usurping the throne, his legitimacy was questionable, particularly without much of a military reputation to justify himself. Additionally, both the textual and climatic proxy data indicates the Golden Horde saw a decrease in precipitation after 1280. What this meant in the steppe, was an associated decrease in pasture, in the form of both aridisation and less bountiful pastures. And a consequence of this, was famine among the herds of the Horde. Starving, sick and dying animals, meant less supplies for the nomadic element of the khanate, the valuable Turkic and Mongolian troops who made up the Horde’s military.  For the usurper Tele-Buqa, already know for a catastrophic defeat in Hungary, to now be in the midst of an ever worsening climate, it could have appeared rather dangerously like Heaven was expressing its displeasure.  Therefore, Tele-Buqa thought he might remedy the solution, and shore up his legitimacy, with military victories.       The first target was Poland.  In 1241 and in 1259, the Polish duchies had been horrifically ravaged by the Mongol armies. Tele-Buqa undoubtedly expected the same result.  Jan Długosz directly connects the attack as a reaction to famine within the Golden Horde, supporting the earlier thesis. The new Khan, soon after the coup, summoned Nogai and his forces, as well as a body of Rus’ troops, and possibly Lithuanians as well, and in December 1287, his armies entered Poland in two main bodies; one under himself and Prince Alghui, and the other under Nogai. The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle informs us that discord still existed between Nogai and Tele-Buqa, and it seems they refused to interact in person. It was, in the words of that same chronicle, a great host, though no specific numbers are given. After taking the time to array his troops in a field and perform an inspection, the campaign was underway. Largely Tele-Buqa bypassed fortifications, ravaging suburbs and outlying communities. He had not come for conquest, but to loot, to return with wagons of slaves and goods in order to demonstrate how Heaven had granted him victory, and therefore smiled upon his place as khan. His efforts to cross deeper into Poland were stymied by initial difficulty finding ice thick enough to bear his army over the Vistula River. Next, a large body of the Rus’ troops withdrew, on account of the mortal illness one of the lead Rus’ princes suffered from. Pressing on without them, Tele-Buqa’s army encircled and assaulted the city of Sandomierz. In the two previous Mongol invasions, the city had fallen to them in quick order. But this time, resistance was stiff, and finally Tele-Buqa lifted the siege when it was clear it would not be overrun except with great struggle.       He gave his troops leave to ravage a broad strip of Poland for 10 days while he decided his next maneuver. As December 1287 gave way to January 1288, Tele-Buqa settled on Kraków, and the city he marched. Near Torzk he halted, for there he learned that Nogai had been lain siege to  Kraków since Christmas. His frustration had not subsided with Nogai, and having felt denied his great victories throughout the campaign, Tele-Buqa Khan abandoned the effort altogether; the imperial equivalent of taking the ball home with you at recess, once you stopped having fun. He’d be damned if he, the Khan of the Golden Horde, would assist Nogai in a siege. Thus in early January 1288 did Tele-Buqa leave Poland, ravaging all the territory he could as he went; including Galicia, his own subjects. And Nogai too was soon forced to withdraw, unable to break the defences of Kraków. For their valiant defence, the Polish Duke Leszek the Black granted the krakowianin [people of Kraków] generous tax exemptions.        The immediate consequence of the 1287 attack on Poland was in furthering the divide between Tele-Buqa and Nogai. There was no outright defeat, and no great numbers had been lost as had been in the withdrawal from Hungary. Certainly, the Mongols left with a good deal of loot and slaves, given the amount of time they spent ravaging the countryside. But both Nogai and Tele-Buqa blamed the other for the rather inconclusive outcome. There had been attempts to take cities, and these were repulsed, and Nogai knew that Tele-Buqa had actively chosen to not assist in the siege of Kraków. Tele-Buqa’s military dreams were not dashed, though; he simply found another target. In May 1288, only a few months after the return from Poland, Tele-Buqa ordered an attack on the Ilkhanate, under the command of Tamma-Toqta. The Il-Khan, Arghun, rapidly turned back and repelled the Jochid troops, as well as their followup assault that October. And in spring 1290, when Tamma-Toqta once again led Jochid troops into the Ilkhanate, they were again met with defeat. The Ilkhanid forces killed a great many, and captured numerous Jochid princes in the army. It was a humiliating defeat.       From 1285 through to 1290, Tele-Buqa had led or ordered a number of military ventures. Most of them ended in outright, or even catastrophic, failure. Only in Poland could the result be, somewhat charitably, described as inconclusive. If we imagine Tele-Buqa had undertaken these campaigns in order to shore up his position— a usurpation in the midst of drought and famine— then these efforts had instead looked like Heaven offered no support for Tele-Buqa’s rule; for if it did, surely it would have signaled this through some sort of victory? Alas for Tele-Buqa Khan, this was not the case.       His legitimacy shaky, his right to rule questioned, rumours may have come to Tele-Buqa of doubt in his leadership, that Heaven was displeased at him and now the princes and noyad whispered of how ill-fit he was. He had usurped the throne from a man seen as incompetent; what would stop someone else from doing the same to him? At this point, Tele-Buqa may have decided to strike first at his perceived rivals. This manifested in two main figures; one was Nogai, who Tele-Buqa had already blamed for military defeats. The powerful prince on the Danube  seemed a great potential threat. And the other was Toqta; a son of Möngke-Temür Khan, Toqta is described in all sorts of manly virtues, a real figure to rally anti-Tele-Buqa support around. More significantly, there is no evidence for Toqta taking part in the princely-power sharing arrangement Tele-Buqa had organized with Möngke-Temür’s other sons. Or perhaps he had been, and an ever-more paranoid Tele-Buqa threw him out on some perceived slight, and then decided he should have killed him. Regardless of the process, Toqta felt that Tele-Buqa was threatening his life, and fled to the most powerful person he could: Nogai. Tele-Buqa had inadvertently made the alliance that would cost him his life.       Fleeing to Nogai’s ordu,  according to Rashīd al-Dīn, Toqta gave this message to the elder prince: “My cousins are trying to kill me, and thou art the aqa. I will take refuge with thee so that thou mayst preserve me and prevent the hand of their oppression from reaching me. As long as I live I shall be commanded by my aqa and shall not contravene thy will.” While scholarship usually presents Nogai as the khanmaker deposing the Jochid rulers at will and the man actually running the state, our series researcher has argued against this. If Nogai was the less dominant man, then this offer from Toqta must have been an enticing promise; to have the ruler of the Golden Horde essentially be your man, especially when the current one was making threatening moves? It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Nogai quickly came up with a stratagem to bring down Tele-Buqa and get Toqta to the throne.       Nogai was the aqa of the Jochids; that is, the senior member of the lineage. As aqa, he held great influence, and was expected to be consulted on prominent matters, delivering his experience and wisdom to those younger generations who simply didn’t know any better. “Kids these days!” we might imagine the one-eyed Nogai mumbling after a frustrating council session with Tele-Buqa. His consultation is recorded when Töde-Möngke released the captive son of Khubilai Khaan, for instance. In fact, most of his influence within the Golden Horde is certainly attributable to this status. And it was this status that Nogai would employ for his plan.       Two slightly different versions of what he did exist, recorded separately by Rashīd al-Dīn in the Ilkhanate and Baybars al-Mansūrī in the Mamluk Sultanate. It’s possible both accounts are correct, and this is how it may have looked. In the Mamluk account, Nogai received summons from Tele-Buqa, that the khan demanded his presence, on the pretext of needing his advice, though in truth planned to kill him. Nogai gathered his allies, and with foreknowledge accepted Tele-Buqa’s summons, and advanced to meet him. Both the Mamluks and Rashīd recorded that before the meeting though, Nogai contacted Tele-Buqa’s mother, who was not involved in the plot. He convinced her that he had only peaceful intentions; he was the aqa, and only wanted to advise Tele-Buqa, and therefore the lady should convince her son to come, unarmed, with a small party to meet Nogai. Rashīd’s account differs slightly, in that at the same time Nogai feigned that he was deathly ill; he needed the Khan and his allies to come and make final amends before he passed on.  He sold the show further by swallowing blood clots, which he would then dramatically cough up. The weakening Nogai assuaged the fears of all others who came across him, telling them “Old age has set in, and I have abandoned conflict, fighting, and disputes. I have neither intention of contending with anyone nor thought of doing battle. However, we have been commanded by [Chinggis] Khan that if anyone in his ulus or urugh goes astray and upsets the ulus, we must investigate and make them content to agree.”       Tele-Buqa’s mother was utterly convinced, and sent word to her sons, “Go as fast as possible and meet that weak old man who is about to depart this life for the hereafter. If you do not, your mother’s milk will be forbidden to you.” Tele-Buqa and his allies arrived as Nogai had desired, unarmed without any army. Perhaps they had indeed fallen for Nogai’s trick, or perhaps Tele-Buqa wanted a final chance to gloat over the old-man.        As Tele-Buqa and the princes arrived in the camp, and were beguiled by Nogai’s smooth talk and pained coughs, a messenger was sent to Toqta, bringing him and his men out of hiding. In quick order, Tele-Buqa and the sons of Möngke-Temür were surrounded. Their eyes must have darted back and forth in confusion and terror, from the armed horsemen under Toqta, to the suddenly perfectly fine Nogai rising from his bed, who promptly gave the order for Tele-Buqa and the princes to be tied up. Nogai turned to Toqta, and pointed to Tele-Buqa, almost dismissively saying, “This one took over the kingdom of your father, but these sons of your father agreed with him to seize and kill you.  I give them into your hands;  kill them as you wish.”       Out of respect to their imperial status, the bound princes had their heads covered, and backs broken. So ended the four year reign of Tele-Buqa Khan. It was not just Tele-Buqa and his closest allies killed; all of the sons of Möngke-Temür Khan, Toqta’s brothers, were likewise executed Swiftly, Toqta was confirmed as khan of the Golden Horde; Nogai stayed close to confirm it, and Toqta’s few surviving brothers swore their loyalty to him. Upon the completion of the ceremonies, Nogai swiftly returned to the lower Danube. For Nogai’s khanmaker reputation, this was the first, and last, overthrow of the ruling khan that he took part in, according to the primary sources. Even Marco Polo, passing through Anatolia only a few years later, recorded a muddled version of events, making Töde-Möngke and Nogai work together to overthrow Tele-Buqa. Tele-Buqa’s brief reign would largely be forgotten in succeeding generations, but it had ushered in a process of decentralization that would require some time to be corrected. Toqta would begin the process; but not before things came to a head with Nogai. Both men had made promises of assistance, and both were about to find that the other was not as keen to keep their end of the bargain. To see how their conflict develops, be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast. If you’d like to help us continue bringing you great khan-tent, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kings and generals, or sharing this with your friends. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one. 

Last week you heard the first part of the interview between our series researcher, Jack Wilson, and Dr. Stephen Pow on his theory regarding the death of the famous Mongol general, Jebe Noyan. Dr. Pow argues that Jebe died in a small skirmish in the days leading up to the Kalka River, and today they discuss some of the reaction to Pow’s theory, further expanding upon his evidence as well as the possibility of Jebe’s survival. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.

Any experience reading sources from the Mongol Empire will find a frustrating tendency for them to not mention the fates of some of the empire’s key figures. A recent theory by Dr. Stephen Pow, a frequent guest on our podcast, has sought to cast a light on the possible last days of one of the top generals of the early Mongol Empire, Jebe Noyan, the associate of Subedei during their pursuit of the Khwarezm-shah Muhammad. In  part one of their discussion, our series researcher Jack Wilson talks with Dr. Pow on Jebe’s life, the Kalka River battles, and his theory and evidence for Jebe’s death, and what this reveals about the use of sources in the Mongol Empire. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.

Perhaps no Khan of the Golden Horde in the thirteenth century has had his reputation so maligned as Töde-Möngke. This younger brother of Möngke-Temür ruled the Jochid ulus from around 1282 until he gave up the throne in 1287. His reign is, at the most charitably, usually described as Töde-Möngke being dedicated to religious pursuits, leaving real power in the hands of the rising prince, Nogai. At worst, as in the sixteenth century Qara-Tawarikh of Öttemish Hajji, Töde-Möngke suffered from a debilitating mental condition that left him hopelessly unable to deal with the strains of governance, or indeed even the world around him. Here, based on the research of our series historian conducted during the process of his Masters thesis, we’ll offer a somewhat more nuanced portrayal of Töde-Möngke, who appears to have acted with a little more energy than he has generally been credited with. Along the way, we’ll also deal with the Second Mongol Invasion of Hungary, which occurred during his reign.  I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Töde-Möngke, or Tuda-Mengu as he’s known to Turkic speakers, was a younger brother of the previous Khan of the Golden Horde, Möngke-Temür and therefore a grandson of Batu Khan. Like his brother, his life before he became Khan is entirely unknown to us. His older brother died as early as 1280, or as late as 1282, depending on the source. Literature has often placed Töde-Möngke’s rise to power as being through the efforts of prince Nogai maneuvering him to the throne, and entering into a power sharing agreement. However, the primary sources do not portray such a manner of succession.       Möngke-Temür died of complications following an operation on an abcess in his throat. There is no indication of a preferred successor. He instead left behind nine sons, who in the works of the Mamluk historians Baybars al-Mansuri and al-Nuwayri, immediately squabbled for the throne. His brother Töde-Möngke though, as apparently the oldest surviving descendant of Batu, is described by these sources as essentially fighting off his nephews to take the throne himself. Whether it was open fighting is not particularly clear: the process was probably a mix of threats, bribery and promises over several months, far from unusual in a Chinggisid succession. We might assume that Möngke-Temür died around 1280-1281, and it took until early 1282 for the ascension of Töde-Möngke to be finalized. For anyone claiming Nogai controlled this process, there is simply no mention of his involvement in any of the contemporary sources, nor is there evidence for Professor Vernadsky’s claim that, at the time of Töde-Möngke’s enthronement, that Nogai was also enthroned as a “Khan of the Manghit tribe.” As far as we can tell, there is no reason to assume Nogai was not among the princes and commanders who simply backed Töde-Möngke at the quriltai.       The first years of Töde-Möngke’s reign are somewhat hazy, but a few details can be made out by comparing the various sources he’s mentioned in. It appears his most notable efforts were related to diplomacy. Though modern writers often by this point give Nogai most control over the Golden Horde’s foreign policy, there is little direct evidence for this. In fact, Töde-Möngke seems to have acted with a bit of vigour in this area. A Mamluk embassy sent with gifts to Möngke-Temür in 1282 arrived too late, and found Töde-Möngke on the throne. The gifts were instead given to Töde-Möngke, and friendly relations commenced. There is nothing particularly distinct in the embassy’s first description of Töde-Möngke, in comparison to his late brother. This first embassy, as recorded by the Mamluk chroniclers, does not describe Töde-Möngke as a Muslim; this is interesting, as not only is Töde-Möngke’s status as the second Muslim khan of the Golden Horde is one of the most notable things of his reign to modern authors, but we would think that the Mamluks would also have been quite interested by such a prospect following Möngke-Temür, who is generally agreed to have been a shamanist-animist. But Töde-Möngke’s 1283 letter to the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun was markedly different. In this second letter, Töde-Möngke espouses at length about his conversion to Islam, how he had established sharia law in the Golden Horde, and asked for an Islamic name as well as banners from the Mamluk Sultan and his puppet ‘Abbasid Caliph. If Töde-Möngke was such an intensely devout Muslim, how did the previous embassy fail to note it?       Well, Professor Peter Jackson offers an intriguing explanation. First we must look to the year prior to Töde-Möngke’s letter. In June of 1282, a new Il-Khan had taken the throne following the death of Abaqa. This was Tegüder Ahmad, the first Muslim Il-Khan, who we have covered in a previous episode. Soon after taking the throne, Tegüder sent envoys to both the Golden Horde and to the Mamluk Sultanate, informing them of his enthronement and conversion to islam. The letter he sent to the Golden Horde does not survive, but his letters to Cairo do. Here these letters serve as a warning; telling the Mamluks that the Mongols were at peace, and that as a Muslim it would be easier for the Mamluks to submit to Tegüder.        What Professor Jackson suggests is that Töde-Möngke, upon learning of a Muslim on the throne of Hülegü, worried of rapproachment between the Ilkhanate and the Mamluk Sultanate. While Töde-Möngke maintained the peace with the Il-Khans, there was no advantage to him if Sultan Qalawun submitted to, or made peace with, Tegüder.  Recall how the Jochids may have seen the Mamluks as their vassals; this was not to the Jochids’ liking to have their vassals submit to another power. But more immediately, there would be economic and potentially military consequences. The Golden Horde’s trade ties, especially the sale of slaves, to Cairo would presumably lessen, if not dry up, if there was no Egyptian need for these slaves who made up the heart of the Mamluk army. And if the Ilkhanate no longer needed to worry about its border with the Mamluks, then they may be less willing to maintain peace with the Jochids, and could potentially bring its full might to bear on its shared frontiers with the Golden Horde. For Töde-Möngke, it was much better for war to continue between the Ilkhanate and Mamluks. Hence, his letter in 1283 to Qalawun, loudly proclaiming his conversion to Islam; essentially, a means to “out-Muslim” Tegüder’s claim, and discourage Qalawun from feeling he needed to respond too kindly to the Il-Khan’s letter. In the end, Töde-Möngke needn’t have worried much; Tegüder was overthrown and executed by Arghun in 1284.       But Jackson’s theory raises the question: did Töde-Möngke convert to Islam just for the sake of diplomatically outmaneuvering Tegüder Il-Khan? Possibly, though doubtful. The fact that non-Mamluk sources, including Rashid al-Din, make no mention of Töde-Möngke’s Islam may be telling, though he also casts doubt on Tegüder’s Islam too, in an effort to delegitimize pre-Ghazan Khans who were Muslims. It could be that Töde-Möngke happened to convert in a similar time to Tegüder’s ascension, or was simply quiet about it during the initial Mamluk embassy. Whatever the case, he may have been initially ambivalent of the Mamluk alliance, but upon learning of Tegüder’s conversion via his letter, found it more useful to fully embrace Islam, or at least loudly alert the Mamluks of it. Regardless, by 1283 Töde-Möngke claimed to the Mamluks that he was a Muslim.       Generally speaking, Töde-Möngke sought peace on his frontiers with other Mongol Khanates. We’ve already noted how Tegüder’s letter spoke of peace between him and Töde-Möngke. There is no record of fighting between the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate during Töde-Möngke’s reign, and it seems likely that Töde-Möngke maintained the treaty established by Möngke-Temür and Abaqa. The front between the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate and the Ögedeids seems to have likewise remained quiet. Given that Qaidu in 1282 was able to fully assert his authority and place Du’a on the Chagatayid throne, then divert resources to continual attacks on Khubilai’s northwestern frontier, it seems that a truce, perhaps uneasily, was kept in Central Asia. Here, this may have been in large part to the efforts of Qonichi, the head of the line of Orda and ruler of the Blue Horde. Qonichi seems to have acted largely as an independent monarch: both Rashid al-Din and Marco Polo portray Qonichi as answering to no one. Modern scholars have often presumed that Qonichi’s independence was a result of Nogai weakening the Golden Horde Khan. Yet it is not at all apparent that Töde-Möngke held lesser or greater influence over the Blue Horde khans than either his predecessor or successors. Instead, it may well be that the relationship between Töde-Möngke and Qonichi was much the same as it had been under their predecessors: the occasional consultation, perhaps tribute or troop demands, but no real oversight or interference. Qonichi and his son and successor, Bayan, are known to have sent friendly messages to the Il-Khans, and given their apparent interest in neutrality, and position on the east wing of the Golden Horde bordering Qaidu’s dominions, that Qonichi must have sought neutrality with these khans as well.        In this region Töde-Möngke carried out one significant diplomatic maneuver: in 1283, after consultation with Nogai, Qonichi, and after years of lobbying by the high ranking lady Kelmish Aqa, Töde-Möngke released Khubilai Khaan’s captive sons Nomukhan and Kököchü. After nearly ten years in captivity, the boys were finally allowed to return to the Yuan Dynasty. The effort, clearly enough, was intended on warming relations with the Great Khan. Perhaps Töde-Möngke was a believer in unity between the Mongol Khanates, and did not seek to bring further turmoil between them. Whatever the case, he maintained a non-hostile diplomacy with his cousins, but did not succeed in achieving any empire-wide peace, if that was his intention. The increasingly withdrawn Khubilai hardly showed great interest in the return of Nomukhan, let alone in turning any energy to whatever overtures Töde-Möngke hoped to convey with such an effort. It would take another twenty year for any real strides at peace to be made across the Empire.        Non-aggressive diplomacy to other Mongols does not mean Töde-Möngke engaged in peaceful relations with all his neighbours. He may simply have been an adherent to the belief, as espoused by the thirteenth century writer ibn Wasil, that if the Mongols stopped killing each other then they could conquer the world. Regarding the Rus’ principalities, Töde-Möngke’s policies much resembled Möngke-Temür’s, and he continued to assign or rescind yarliqs, or patents, granting a given Rus’ prince right to his title. Töde-Möngke did not interfere in the succession of the princes; he respected the Riurikid tradition, and confirmed who was presented to him.    In the first years of his reign, Töde-Möngke regularly provided armies to Alexander Nevskii’s son Andrei, who was in a protracted dispute with his brother Dmitri for the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir.  According to the Nikon Chronicle, Töde-Möngke even sent one of his own sons at the head of an army to assist Andrei.  While at point Dmitri Alexandrovich did flee to Nogai, careful readings of the Rus’ chroniclers do not make it apparent that Nogai provided either army or yarliq to support Dmitri in opposition to Andrei as Töde-Möngke’s candidate. For these campaigns between princes, the troops Töde-Möngke sent always used the opportunity to raid and pillage extensively. As the Chronicle of Novgorod records, “in the winter of [1284], Knyaz Dmitri came to Novgorod with his brother Andrei with an armed force, and with Tartars and with the whole of the Low Country, and they did much harm and burned the districts.”       Most of the activity we can unambiguously write of Töde-Möngke taking part in, even as a participant, can be dated from the first years of reign; roughly, 1282-1284. By the middle of the 1280s, though, Töde-Möngke’s presence nearly disappears. This is best exemplified in 1285, when Nogai and another prince, Töde-Möngke’s nephew Tele-Buqa, attacked the Hungarian Kingdom. The sources make no mention of Töde-Möngke’s involvement, in either ordering or organizing the attack in any fashion.  What seems to have occurred is that Töde-Möngke, depending on the source, either went insane or began to devout himself entirely to Islam, growing weary or disinterested in governance in favour of his religious pursuits. Rashid al-Din, the Mamluk Chroniclers and Öttemish Hajji’s sixteenth century history all portray Töde-Möngke effectively abandoning the duties of the Khan. In Mamluk Egypt, Baybars al-Mansuri described Möngke-Temür’s widow, Jijek-Khatun, acting as a regent during part of Töde-Möngke’s reign; it could be that, as Töde-Möngke withdrew from the running of the state around late 1284, Jijek-Khatun became the effective leader of the Golden Horde, as she may have done in the final days of her husband’s illness.       The inception of the 1285 attack on Hungary is difficult to pinpoint. Someone in the Golden Horde certainly picked a good time to take advantage of matters in Hungary. Following the devastating invasion of the 1240s, the Hungarian King Béla IV had invited the Cumans to return to the kingdom, marrying his son István to a Cuman princess to ensure their place as the first line of defense should the Mongols return. In 1272 after the sudden death of István two years into his reign, his son Laszló, or Ladislaus, the product of the union with the Cuman princess, ascended the Árpádian throne. Only a young boy, his first years were spent tossed between powerful barons who jockeyed for power, while his mother was regent-in-name only. Perhaps because of this, Laszló preferred his mother’s people, the Cumans, and as he grew older lived among them, wore their clothes and took Cuman mistresses— to the horror of his lawfully wedded Christian wife. Hence, Laszló’s epithet, Laszló the Cuman. Laszló’s favouring of the Cumans led to Papal and baronal efforts to clamp down on their privileges and assimilate them, the catalyst for a large Cuman revolt in 1280. Laszló was forced to lead the Hungarian army to defeat the Cumans, culminating at Lake Hód in 1282. Many fled to the Golden Horde, pursued by Laszló right into Horde territory,  and brought word of upheaval in the Hungarian kingdom. Certainly, this was as good a time as any for a Jochid army to ravage Hungary. Any one in the Horde could see that.       But then from whom did the idea for the attack arise? Nogai, whose expanding ordu along the Lower Danube bordered Hungary, is often attributed as the mastermind behind the attack. It would not be out of line given how he had spent his time in the Balkans since 1270, which was a series of raids and threats across southeastern Europe. However, medieval sources which discuss this aspect tend to suggest Tele-Buqa was the impetus. And it seems logical: if Töde-Möngke had delved into his religious fervour, and the Golden Horde was effectively without a head, then all of the princes may have been eyeing the succession. Tele-Buqa, the oldest son of Tartu, the older brother of Möngke-Temür and Töde-Möngke, was perhaps the most promising candidate. Likely the oldest of Batu’s great-grandchildren, Tele-Buqa was a combative, ambitious individual, and probably closely affiliated with the court in Sarai. Seeing perhaps first hand his uncle Töde-Möngke’s dereliction of duties, the dream of the right to rule inherent to every Chinggisid must have stirred within him.  But Tele-Buqa had a problem: perhaps no more than 20 years old in the mid-1280s, there had been no real wars in his lifetime, in which Tele-Buqa could have gained glory for his name, and thus make himself a real candidate at the quriltai.       This idea then, is that Tele-Buqa himself organized the Hungarian campaign, as means to build his reputation in order to seize power from his uncle Töde-Möngke. Considering that Baybars al-Mansuri records Tele-Buqa ordering Nogai to take part, this seems quite probable. But it can’t be totally ruled out that Töde-Möngke himself had originally taken part in the planning. If we assume his foreign policy had been to seek peace with the other khanates, and resume conflict with non-subjugated peoples, then it would be hardly out of line. Tele-Buqa may have been officially delegated responsibility to lead the attack by Töde-Möngke, prior to any incapacitating attack the latter suffered.       Launched in the February of 1285, the so-called Second Mongol Invasion of Hungary led by Tele-Buqa and Nogai, is nowhere near as well understood as the first. It was certainly not on the scale of the former, and likely had no intention of conquering the kingdom but a raid aiming to take advantage of instability. It has no comparable overview to the first invasion’s eyewitness accounts of Master Roger or Thomas of Split, but it does appear in a wide range of sources: Rus’, Polish, and even Mamluk chronicles; Hungarian and other European letters and charters, and even some archaeologically. Though generally overlooked in favour of its more famous predecessor, when it does appear in popular discussion usually the second invasion is portrayed as a dismal failure, where newly constructed stone castles and well-armoured Hungarian knights, learning the lessons of 1241, overcame the Mongol armies.   The most recent reconstructions, building on the works of Tibor Szőcs, Peter Jackson, Michal Holeščák and our own series researcher, Jack Wilson, generally paint a more nuanced picture. In short: the surviving sources describe a series of small engagements with no great clash between Mongol and Hungarian armies. If King Laszló had defeated Nogia and Tele-Buqa in open battle, then that would have been described and glorified somewhere. It’s difficult to imagine a King as battered by the nobility and papacy missing the propaganda coup of defeating the Mongols in the field, yet no such battle is recorded.    Instead, after entering the Kingdom through what is now Slovakia, Nogai and Tele-Buqa’s armies broke into smaller parties and sought to ravage as much of the kingdom as possible. In some regions, particularly the  Sáros and Szepés counties, local resistance was stiff. One defender, Master George of the Soós noble house in Sáros county, enjoyed particular success, and a number of Hungarian charters attest to his victories over Mongol parties — and his habit of sending the heads of defeated Mongols to King Laszló. Speaking of Laszló, based on the charters he issued, which record the location of their issue, it seems he stayed as far away from the Mongols as possible, remaining in Buda and Pest until after the Mongol withdrawal, upon which he made a survey of the damaged territory. There is no medieval source describing the King facing the Mongols in any battle.   But despite charters playing up victories over Mongol arbans, it seems that Nogai and Tele-Buqa’s campaign was rather successful, though specific movements are hard to trace. They pushed as far west as Pest, where two Mongol forces were memorably described converging below the city walls. It does not seem that major cities were assaulted, and given the fact the attack lasted only a few weeks, such hard points were certainly bypassed in favour of speed, overrunning and destroying unfortified towns and villages. When the Mongols began to withdraw around April 1285, they do not seem to have been in retreat, but returning triumphant; described as ladden with a great number of prisoners, it seems they had felt their raid was a success, acquired the booty they could carry and decided to return to the Golden Horde, appearing victorious, and Tele-Buqa doubtless ready to play up the raid as a great victory.   Their withdrawal through the Carpathians though, was to permanently stain the memory of the campaign. When Nogai turned south through Transylvania to return to his Danube territory, he faced stiff resistance from local Vlachs, Saxons and Szekély, who freed a number of prisoners. Their success over Nogai has likely been greatly overstated though, given that he had strength enough to campaign in Bulgaria and Thrace later that same year. But it was Tele-Buqa who was to feel the brunt of the misfortune. In the best recorded episode of the campaign, noted in Rus’, Polish and Mamluk chronicles, while attempting to cross the Carpathian mountains to return to the Horde a vicious snowstorm caught his army. Losing the trail, pounded by the elements and likely assaulted by local defenders, all in addition to some sort of epidemic, his men starved or died of exposure.  Losses were massive, his loot abandoned in the mountains. The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle has Tele-Buqa make his way out of the mountains, on foot, with only a wife and a single mare.    While Nogai may have been rather happy with his bounty, Tele-Buqa had suffered a humiliating defeat. His chances of earning his election over Töde-Möngke must now have seemed slim. Envious of Nogai’s good fortune while desiring the Jochid throne, it seems a little something in Tele-Buqa snapped that day.  Over the next year he made his plan. He enlisted his brother, Könchak, and two sons of Möngke-Temür, Alghui and To’rilcha, and together they schemed and schemed.    The conspirators launched their plot in 1287. In the accounts of the Mamluks, Töde-Möngke willingly abdicates, giving the throne to Tele-Buqa in order to spend the rest of his days in religious devotion. This was, presumably, the official version of events sent to the Mamluks, in order to not sour relations between the new Khan and the Sultan. Within the Horde, as recorded by the less favourable Rashid al-Din and the latter Öttemish Hajji, it seems the justification spread by Tele-Buqa and his allies was that Töde-Möngke was insane and totally unfit to rule. Thus, sometime in 1287 Töde-Möngke was pushed from the throne, and Tele-Buqa enthroned as the new Khan of the Golden Horde, splitting power between himself and his allies. The final fate of Töde-Möngke is unknown, but presumably Tele-Buqa did not long allow a potential rival claimant to enjoy his retirement.    Töde-Möngke, after his removal, seems to have become a favourite for folk tales in the Golden Horde, predominantly humorous ones reflecting stories of his insanity— and likely reflecting the insanity being the official excuse spread by Tele-Buqa within the Golden Horde. Öttemish Hajji, in the sixteenth century, records a few of these stories, though noted that many more vulgar versions existed that he dared not repeat.   The first amusing tale goes as follows.  An ambassador came for an audience with  Töde-Möngke, but the nobles worried that he would say meaningless things before them. However, knowing that Töde-Möngke would say whatever they told him to, (and indeed, that was what kept him on the throne), they came up with a plan. The nobles tied a rope around Töde-Möngke’s hands, and would pull on it to stop him from speaking if necessary. The next morning, the ambassador came before the Khan. After initial pleasantries, Töde-Möngke asked if there were many mice in his country. The ambassador, presumably after a moment of confusion, responded with “a lot.” Next, Töde-Möngke asked if it often rained in his country; once again the ambassador answered in the affirmative. When Töde-Möngke began to ask his next question, the nobles began to pull on the rope, to which Töde-Möngke told the ambassador, “I would ask you more, but they are pulling the rope!” Hurriedly the nobles ushered the ambassador out of the room, giving him a fine fur coat and a horse to distract him.        Returning to his country, the ambassador was asked by his sovereign what kind of person Töde-Möngke was. The ambassador said, “I saw the Khan only once, and could not see him again, but he asked me these questions.” The ruler and his advisers pondered over the questions, and came to these conclusions: “It is good that he asked how much rain we receive, for all peoples benefit from rain. And it is good that he asked  about the mice, as they harm everything.” But no matter how much they discussed it, they could not comprehend his words, “They are pulling on the rope!”   Funny stuff, right? Maybe your sense of humour is a bit different from the sixteenth century Volga steppe. We’ll share one more. On another occasion, Töde-Möngke led a campaign, and on his return suffered an attack of insanity. Whenever these fits occurred, he was totally unresponsive, and on this occasion remained so for 15 days. The army, unable to move during this time, faced starvation. With the situation drastic, it was decided to dress up a young man as a woman, and parade him before Töde-Möngke, hopefully causing him to remember his wife and desire to return home. Upon showing him to Töde-Möngke, the Khan immediately jumped up, got on a horse and rode off.  When Öttemish Hajji reports at this interval that more obscene versions of the story exist that are unfit to be shared, we’ll let you fill in your mind what happened before he got on horseback.          Töde-Möngke then, in the company of a few courtiers, rode off like a madman to see his wife, only to suddenly grow angry that a mountain on the horizon wasn’t moving. He then promptly got off his horse, laid down on the ground and refused to move until the mountain did. They lay there for hours, until one of the courtiers had a clever idea, telling the Khan that they could outsmart the mountain by moving under the cover of night.    We shouldn’t rely too much on Öttemish Hajji’s humorous anecdotes as genuine reflections of the thirteenth century. But even here, where Töde-Möngke is at his most incompent, he is still portrayed as capable of going on campaign, and suffering not constant illness, but periodic fits. Perhaps he suffered a condition that resulted in him being immobilized temporarily, physically or mentally, which worsened over his reign, causing him to try and seek assistance through religion and prayer, having run out of alternative means to save his body and throne. The process of which forced him to leave the daily running of governance to Jijek-Khatun. Tele-Buqa, unsympathetic to his uncle’s plight, chose to portray it entirely as insanity in order to justify his coup. Thus, was Töde-Möngke, Khan of the Golden Horde, grandson of Batu, great-great-grandson of Chinggis Khan, remembered in history. Our next episode deals with the reign of Tele-Buqa Khan and his princely junta, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, then consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, or liking, sharing and leaving a review of this podcast. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one. 

Having taken you, our dear listeners, through the Yuan, Chagatayid and Ilkhanates, we now turn our attention to the northwestern corner of the Mongol Empire: the Jochid ulus, the Golden Horde. Ruled by the line of Chinggis’ eldest son Jochi, this single division of the Mongol Empire was larger than the maximum extent of most empires, dominating from the borders of Hungary and the Balkans, briefly taking the submission of Serbia, stretching ever eastwards over what is now Ukraine, Russia, through Kazakhstan before terminating at the Irtysh River. Under its hegemony were many distinct populations; the cities of the Rus’ principalities, the fur trading centres of the Volga Bulghars along the Samara Bend, the mercantile outposts of the Crimean peninsula which gave the Jochid Khans access to the Mediterranean Sea, to the Khwarezm delta, giving them a position in the heart of the Central Asian trade. These distant frontiers, hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres apart, were connected by the western half of the great Eurasian steppe, the Qipchaq Desert as it was known to Islamic writers. Thus was the Golden Horde, and over the next few episodes we’ll take you through its history, from its establishment under Batu, to the height of its glory under Özbeg, to its lengthy disintegration from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. This first episode will serve as an introduction to the history of the Golden Horde, beginning first with its very name and important historiographical matters, then taking you through its origins, up to the death of Berke and ascension of Möngke-Temür, the first ruler of the Golden Horde as an independent state.  I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       As good a place to start as any is terminology, and the Golden Horde is known by a host of names. Firstly and most famously, we can note that the Golden Horde is a later appellation, given to the state centuries later in Rus’ chronicles. In Russian this is Zolotaya Orda (Золотой Орды),  which in Mongolian and Turkish would be Altan Orda. The English word “horde” comes directly from Mongolian ordu, though also used in Turkic languages, and signifies, depending on the case, a command headquarters, the army, tent or palace- quite different from the image of uncontrolled rabble that usually comes to mind with the term. While commonly said that the Rus’ chronicles took the term from the golden colour of the Khan’s tents, we actually do see the term Golden Horde used among the Mongols before the emergence of the Golden Horde state. For the Mongols and Turks, all the cardinal directions have colour associated with them. Gold is the colour associated with the center; while the divisions of the army would be known by their direction and colour, the overall command or imperial government could be known as the center, the qol, or by its colour, altan. This is further augmented by the association of the colour gold with the Chinggisids themselves, as descent from Chinggis Khan was the altan urugh, the Golden Lineage; and the name of a well-known Mongolian folk band. For example, in 1246 when the Franciscan Friar John de Plano Carpini travelled to Mongolia as an envoy from the Pope, he visited a number of camps of the new Khan, Güyük. Each camp was named, and one of these was, as Carpini notes, called the Golden Horde. In this case, Carpini also describes Güyük’s tent as being literally covered in gold, with even the nails holding the wooden beams being gold.       So Altan orda, or Golden Horde, may well have been in use within the Golden Horde khanate. However, the term is never used to refer to it in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. What we see instead is a collection of other terms. In the Ilkhanate, it was common to refer to the rulers as the Khans of Qipchap, and the state as the Desht-i-Qipchaq, the Qipchaq steppe or desert. Hence in modern writing you will sometimes see it as the Qipchap Khanate. But this seems unlikely to have been a term in use by the Jochid Khans, given that the Qipchaps were the Khan’s subjects and seen as Mongol slaves; a rather strange thing for the Mongols to name themselves after them. Given that it was the pre-Mongol term for the region, and the Ilkhanid writers liked to denigrate the Jochid Khans whenever possible, it makes rather good sense that they would continue using it.       Many modern historians, and our series researcher, like to refer to it as the Jochid ulus, the patrimony of the house of Jochi, particularly before the actual independence of the Golden Horde following 1260. This term appears closer to what we see in Yuan and Mamluk sources, where the Golden Horde was usually called the ulus of Batu or Berke, or ulus of whoever was currently the reigning Khan. Either designating themselves by the current ruler, or by the more general ulug ulus, meaning “great state or patrimony,” with perhaps just the encampment of the Khan known as the altan ordu, the Golden Horde, among the Jochids themselves. Over the following episodes the term Jochid ulus will be used to refer to the state in general, and Golden Horde will be used specifically for the independent khanate which emerged after the Berke-Hülegü war in the 1260s.       There is another matter with terminology worth pointing out before we go further. The Jochid domains were split into two halves; west of the Ural river, ruled by the line of Batu, Jochi’s second son. And east of the Ural River, ruled by the line of Orda, Jochi’s first son. Now, Batu may have been the general head of the Jochids, or a first amongst equals, or Orda and Batu may have been given totally distinct domains. Perhaps the ulus of Orda simply became more autonomous over the thirteenth century. Opinions differ greatly, and unfortunately little information survives on the exact relationship, but the ulus of Orda was, by 1300, effectively independent and the Batuid Khans Toqta and Özbeg would, through military intervention, bring it under their influence. So essentially, there were two wings of the Jochids with a murky relationship, which is further obfuscated by inconsistent naming of them in the historical sources. Rus’ and Timurid sources also refer to the White Horde and the Blue Horde. The Rus’ sources follow Turko-Mongolian colour directions and have the White Horde, the lands ruled by the line of Batu, the more westerly, and Orda’s ulus being the Blue Horde to the east.  Except in Timurid sources, this is reversed, with Batu’s line ruling the Blue Horde, and Orda the White.        There has been no shortage of scholarly debate over this, and you will see the terms used differently among modern writers. This is not even getting into the matter if the Golden Horde was then itself another division within this, referring to territory belonging directly to the Khan within the Batuid Horde. For the sake of clarity, this podcast will work on the following assumptions, with recognition that other scholars interpretations may differ greatly: that following Jochi’s death around 1227, the Jochid lines and lands were divided among Batu and Orda, with Batu acting as the head of the lineage. The western half of this division, under Batu, we will call the White Horde, and Orda’s eastern division will be the Blue Horde. Together, these were the Jochid ulus, with the rest of their brothers given allotments within the larger domains. While Batu was the senior in the hierarchy, Orda was largely autonomous, which following the Berke-Hülegü war turned into the Blue Horde becoming effectively independent until the start of the fourteenth century, as apparently suggested by Rashid al-Din and Marco Polo,        One final note is that we have effectively no internal sources surviving from the Golden Horde. In the opinion of scholars like Charles Halperin, the Golden Horde simply had no chronicle tradition. Any records they maintained were likely lost in the upheavals of the late fourteenth century that culminated in the great invasion under Tamerlane in the 1390s, where effectively every major city in the steppe region of the Horde was destroyed.  The closest we come to Golden Horde point-of-view chronicles appear in the sixteenth century onwards, long after the dissolution of the Horde. The first and most notable was the mid-sixteenth century Qara Tawarikh of Ötemish Hajji, based in Khiva in the service of descendants of Jochi’s son, Shiban. Sent to the lower Volga by his masters, there he collected oral folk tales which he compiled into his history. While often bearing intriguing and amusing tales, they reveal little in the way of the internal machinations of the Golden Horde. Luckily we are serviced from more contemporary sources, most notably Ilkhanid and Mamluk sources- once again our friend the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din is of utmost importance, who provides us an important outline of the Golden Horde’s politics up to 1300. The Mamluks and Ilkhanid sources largely collected information from Jochid diplomats or refugees. Most of our understanding of Golden Horde political events, and the details of the following episodes, comes from these sources.   Post-Ilkhanid Timurid and Jalayirid authors help somewhat for the later fourteenth century, while the Rus’ sources provide information on the Golden Horde almost exclusively in the context of its interactions with the principalities, similar to other European and Byzantine sources. A few details can be gleaned too from travellers like Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, and even distant Yuan sources from China. Archaeology has provided some interesting details, particularly relating to trade and the extensive coinage circulation of the Jochids. Despite this, the Golden Horde remains, regardless of its fame, arguably one of the poorer understood of the Mongol Khanates.       So, with that bit of paperwork out of the way, let’s get on with it! The kernel of the immense Golden Horde can be found in the first decades of the thirteenth century. In the first ten years of the Mongol Empire Jochi, Chinggis Khan’s first son, was tasked with leading campaigns around Lake Baikal, as well as the first expeditions that brought their armies far to the west of Mongolia. While around Baikal he had been sent to subdue the local peoples, in 1216 Jochi and Sübe’edei pursued fleeing Merkits across Kazakhstan, to the region between the Aral Sea and the Caspian. Here, the Merkits had allied with Qangli-Qipchaps, beginning the long running Mongol animosity to the various Qipchap peoples. While Jochi was the victor here, he was forced into battle with the Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad on his return, as we have previously detailed. But the result seems to have been an association of these western steppes as Jochi’s lands, in the eyes of the Mongol leadership.       Such an association was strengthened following the campaign against the Khwarezmian Empire. The Mongols saw conquering a region as making it part of the patrimony of a given prince, and such a belief fueled into the interactions between Jochi and his brothers, especially Chagatai. This was most apparent at the siege of the Khwarezmian capital of Gurganj, where Jochi sought to minimize destruction to the city- not out of humanity, but as it would be a jewel in his domains as one of the preeminent trade cities in Central Asia. Chagatai, in a long running competition with his brother, was not nearly so compassionate. The end result was Gurganj being almost totally annihilated, and Jochi and Chagatai’s antagonism reaching the frustrated ears of their father. As you may recall, Jochi’s mother Börte had been captured by Merkits before he was born, leaving an air of doubt around the true identity of his father. Chinggis, to his credit, always treated Jochi as fully legitimate, and indeed up until 1221, in the opinion of some scholars, appears to have been grooming him as his primary heir. However, the falling out between Jochi and Chagatai over the siege of Gurganj, and Chagatai’s apparent refusal to accept Jochi as anything but a “Merkit bastard,” as attributed to him in the Secret History of the Mongols, left Chinggis with  the realization that should Jochi become Khan, it would only lead to war between the brothers. And hence, the decision to make Ögedai the designated heir.       It has often been speculated that Jochi’s massive patrimony was essentially a means to keep him and Chagatai as far apart as possible,and appeasing Jochi once he was excluded from the throne.  Following the conquest of Khwarezm, Jochi seems to have taken well to the western steppe being his territory, the grasslands between the Ural and Irtysh Rivers. Juzjani, writing around 1260, writes of Jochi falling in love with these lands, believing them to be the finest in the world. Some later, pro-Toluid sources portray Jochi then spending the last years of his life doing nothing but hunting and drinking in these lands, but this seems to have been aimed at discrediting his fitness. Rather he likely spent this time consolidating and gradually pushing west his new realm, past the Aral Sea towards the Ural River, while his primary camp was along the Irtysh. Though effectively nothing is known of Jochi’s administration, we can regard this period as the true founding of what became the Jochid ulus, and eventually the Golden Horde. Though he died between 1225 and 1227, either of illness, a hunting accident or poisoned by his father, Chinggis immediately confirmed upon Jochi’s many offspring -at least 14 sons- their rights to their father’s lands. And Chinggis, or perhaps Ögedai, made Jochi’s second son Batu the head of the lineage. It was then that the division of the Jochid lands into two wings under Orda and Batu may have been first implemented.        By the start of Ögedai’s reign, the western border of the Mongol Empire  extended past the Ural River, and Mongol armies were attacking the Volga Bulghars.  While we do not have much information on it, we may presume a level of involvement on the part of Batu and his brothers. Of course, in the second half of the 1230s Ögedai ordered the great invasion that overran the western steppe. Starting from the Ural River, within 5 years the Mongol Empire was extended some 3,000 kilometres westwards to the borders of Hungary. Whereas previously the urban area of the Jochid lands was restricted to the Khwarezm Delta and the scattered steppe settlements, now it included the cities of the Rus’ principalities, Volga Bulghars, other Volga communities, and the Crimean peninsula. All in addition to the western half of the great Eurasian steppe, and the now subdued Cuman-Qipchaq peoples. By 1242, Batu was arguably the single most powerful individual in the Mongol Empire. Enjoying the rich grasslands along the Volga between the Black and Caspian Seas, Batu created a permanent capital, Sarai. Much like the imperial capital of Qaraqorum, Sarai served as a base to collect tribute, receive embassies, and house the administration and records, while Batu and the other Jochid princes continued to nomadize. The newly conquered territories were quickly incorporated in the Mongol tax system, and the Rus’ principalities began to see Mongol basqaqs and darughachi come to collect the Khan’s due.       But Batu was an ambitious man. There was clearly an understanding that the Jochids were granted the west of Asia as theirs, and he took this quite literally. As the Mongol Empire incorporated Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia over the 1230s through 40s, Batu ensured that Jochid land rights were not just respected, but expanded. The administration in these regions was picked either from Batu’s men, or from his consultation, such as Baiju Noyan, the commander of the Caucasian tamma forces and who brought the Rumi Seljuqs under Mongol rule.    In the turmoil following Ögedai’s death, Batu extended his hold over western Asia. Naturally, this put him on a collision course with the Central Government. When Ögedai’s widow, Törögene tried to hunt down her political rivals, such as the head of the Central Asia Secretariat Mas’ud Beg, Batu gave shelter to him. When her son Güyük took the throne, Batu did not attend his quriltai in person, putting off any meeting due to, Batu claimed, the severe gout he suffered from preventing his travel. Batu and Güyük had been rivals ever since the great western campaign, where Güyük had insulted Batu’s leadership. Güyük hoped to put a cap on the decentralization of power which had occurred during the last years of his father’s reign and during his mother’s regency, and showed a willingness to execute imperial princes, such as the last of Chinggis Khan’s surviving brothers, Temüge. When rumour came to Batu that Güyük was planning a massive new campaign to subdue the west, Batu must have suspected that Güyük planned on bringing him to heel too; either limiting his political freedom, or outright replacing him with Batu’s older brother, Orda, with whom Güyük was on good terms with.    The news of Güyük’s advance came from Sorqaqtani Beki, the widow of Tolui and sister of one of Jochi’s most important wives. Sources like William of Rubruck have Batu preemptively poison Güyük in spring 1248, thus avoiding civil war. Batu and Sorqaqtani then promptly had many of Güyük’s favourites executed and, in a quriltai in Batu’s territory, had her son Möngke declared Khan of Khans in 1250, before an official ceremony in Mongolia the next year. The relationship was an effective one. In being key supporters for Möngke’s otherwise illegal election, Jochid land rights were confirmed across the empire. Transoxania was cleared of Chagatayids and handed over the Jochids, Georgia confirmed for Batu’s younger brother Berke, and travellers who passed through the empire in these years like William of Rubruck basically have the empire divided between Batu and Möngke. Most of western Asia, both north and south of the Caucasus, was overseen by Batu and his men. When Batu died around 1255, the Jochids enjoyed a preeminence second only to the Great Khan himself. The special place of the Jochid leader was recognized by numerous contemporary sources, and it is notable that while the rest of the empire was divided into the great branch secretariats, that the Jochid lands were not placed into one until late in Möngke’s reign, and there is little indication it was ever properly established before Jochid independence.    However, despite even Möngke recognizing Batu’s power, as a part of his wider centralizing efforts he reminded Batu of the leash on him. Batu’s interactions with William of Rubruck indicate that Batu saw his power to conduct foreign diplomacy was limited; the Jochid lands were not exempted from Möngke’s empire-wide censuses, and when Möngke demanded Batu provide troops for Hülegü’s campaigns against the Nizari Ismailis and Baghdad, Batu duly complied. During Batu’s lifetime it was the name of the Great Khan who continued to be minted on coinage in the Jochid lands, and Rus’ princes still had to receive yarliqs, or confirmation, not from Batu but from Qaraqorum. And in 1257, Möngke ordered the Jochid lands to be incorporated into a new Secretariat, and thus bring them better under the control of the Central Government. There is no indication from the sources that Batu or his successors resisted Möngke in any capacity in these efforts   Following Batu’s death, Möngke promptly ratified Batu’s son Sartaq as his successor, but as Sartaq returned from Qaraqorum, he died under mysterious circumstances; in a few sources, the blame falls onto his uncles, Berke and Berkechir. Sartaq’s son or brother Ilagchi was made Khan under the regency of Batu’s widow Boraqchin Khatun, but soon both were dead. Though Ilagchi’s cause of death is unmentioned, for Boraqchin the Mamluk sources note that Berke had her tried and executed for treason. Still, for Sartaq and Ilagchi the tendency for Mongol princes to die at inopportune times can’t be forgotten, and Berke may have simply reacted to a favourable circumstance.  The fact that he stood with the most to gain from their deaths made him the likely scapegoat even to contemporary writers, even if he happened to actually be innocent of the matter. Much like how Batu may or may not have poisoned Güyük, the deaths are a little too convenient for the relevant Jochid princes to be easily dismissed.   Between 1257 and 1259, possibly waiting for Möngke to begin his Song campaign and be unable to interfere, Berke became the head of the Jochid ulus. As the aqa of the Jochids, that is, the senior member of the line of Jochi, he did this with the approval of his fellow Jochid princes and military leaders. But there is no indication that Berke ever received support from Qaraqorum for his enthronement. Given that Chinggis Khan had confirmed upon Batu the right to rule, the shift from brother-to-brother, though common in steppe successions, was still an extreme matter.   Part of the success of Berke’s ascension may have been achieved through an agreement with Batu’s family. According to the fourteenth century Mamluk author al-Mufaddal, the childless Berke designated Batu’s grandson Möngke-Temür as his heir. Some historians like Roman Pochekaev have suggested that Berke’s enthronement may have been leveraged as part of an agreement; that Berke, as the most senior member of the Jochids, could take the throne following the death of Ilagchi Khan. But, the prestige of Batu made his line the designated leaders of the White Horde. Without his own children, on Berke’s death the throne would fall back to the line of Batu, under his grandson Möngke-Temür.  And so it would remain among Batu’s descendants until the 1360s, almost 100 years after Berke’s death.    As you likely know, Berke was the first Mongol prince known to convert to Islam. The exact time of his conversion varies in the sources, but a convincing argument has been put forward by professor István Vásáry. Essentially, that Berke, likely through a Muslim mid-wife that raised him (and not a Khwarezmian Princess, as sometimes suggested) was either in his youth a convert to Islam, or at least extremely influenced by it. By the time of the 1251 quriltai in Mongolia which confirmed Möngke as Great Khan, Berke is attested in independent sources writing at the same time to have sought to Islamize the event; getting the meat to be slaughtered for the feast to be halal, according to Juvaini, and trying to get Möngke to swear on the Quran, according to Juzjani. On his return from Mongolia, he was contacted by a Sufi shaykh in Bukhara, Sayf ad-Din Bakharzi, who is mentioned in a number of sources in connection with Berke’s conversion. Having heard of a prominent Mongol prince’s interest in Islam, the Shaykh invited Berke to Bukhara, and there gave him a formal education in the religion, leading to Berke to make a more official declaration of his faith likely around 1252. Berke’s conversion was accompanied by the conversion of his wives, a number of other princes, members of his family and his generals, though all evidence suggests there was only limited spread of the faith among the rank and file Mongols at the time.    As Khan, Berke sought to ensure Jochid hegemony on frontier regions. His troops crushed a newly independent Ruthenian Kingdom in Galicia, and in 1259 his armies under Burundai Noyan led a devastating raid into Poland. Possibly in this time Bulgaria began paying tribute to the Jochids as well. Berke demanded the submission of the Hungarian King, Béla IV, and offered a marriage alliance between their families. As Hungary was spared any damage in Burundai’s 1259 campaign, it has been suggested that Béla undertook a nominal submission to Berke, sending tribute and gifts in order to spare Hungary from another assault.    In Khwarezm and the Caucasus Berke continued to exercise influence. But tensions were fraying with his cousin Hülegü, who in 1258 sacked Baghdad and killed the ‘Abbasid Caliph. Obviously, as a Muslim Berke was not keen to learn of the Caliph’s death. According to the contemporary author Juzjani, writing from distant Delhi, Berke had been in contact with the Caliph in the years preceding the siege. Much of Berke’s anger though, as gleaned from his letters to the Mamluks and the writing of Rashid al-Din, was at Hülegü’s failure to consult with Berke as the senior member of the family, and as the master of western Asia. Though Jochid troops partook in the siege, and we have no indication from the sources that Berke tried to prevent them taking part, it seems Hülegü did not reach out to Berke regarding the fate of Baghdad, or in the dispensation of loot.   Berke was greatly angered at this, and relations only worsened over the following years, once Hülegü killed the Jochid princes in his retinue on charges of sorcery; it just so happened that these same prince had previously annoyed Hülegü through attempting to enforce Jochid land rights over Iran and Iraq. The final straw came in early 1260 once Hülegü learned of Möngke’s death. Hülegü by then had already set up in the pastures of Azerbaijan, land Berke considered his. As he learned of the fighting between his brothers Khubilai and Ariq Böke which broke out later that year, Hülegü decided to use the interregnum to seize the pastures of the Caucasus, as well as all of the land between the Amu Darya and Syria, for himself. Berke’s officials in these lands were driven out or killed. With no Great Khan to intercede, Berke felt forced to resort to violence to avenge his fallen kinsmen and retake his lands; in 1262 he went to war with Hülegü, and so did the Mongol Empire in the west split asunder.   We’ve covered the Berke-Hülegü war in detail in a previous episode, so we don’t need to repeat ourselves here. The end result was both Berke and Hülegü dead by 1266, and the frontier between them set along the Kura River, where Hülegü’s son and successor Abaqa built a wall to keep out the Jochids- though the jury is out on whether he made them pay for it. The conflict set the border between the newly emerged Ilkhanate and the Jochid state for the next century, and the Jochids would not forget the sting of losing this territory to the Ilkhanids for that time either.    On Berke’s death his coffin was carried back to Sarai.  Berke’s reign, though much shorter than Batu’s, had been a decisive one. For not only did it determine many aspects of the Golden Horde’s diplomacy and character, notably antagonism to the Ilkhans, a predatory view to the Chagatayids who in the 1260s retook control of Transoxiana and killed Berke’s officials, and a cool, distant view to Khubilai Khaan’s legitimacy. He helped begin the alliance with the Mamluk Sultans, which never materialized into any actual military cooperation but uneased the Ilkhans and allowed the Mamluks to continue to purchase Qipchaq slaves from the steppe. This alliance too would survive essentially until the dissolution of the Golden Horde at the start of the fifteenth century.    But it also seeded the kernel for eventual islamization of the Khanate, a slow process which would only be fulfilled some sixty years later under Özbeg Khan. While their father was the true founder of the Jochid ulus in the 1200s, both Batu and Berke could argue for this title. Batu posthumously became the Sain Khan, the Good Khan, while to the Mamluks the Golden Horde rulers ascended to the throne of Berke. With his death, it seems at Sarai a quriltai was held to confirm the enthronement of his grand-nephew, Möngke-Temür, the first true independent ruler of what we can call the Golden Horde, and subject of our new episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon a www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, or giving us a like, comment and review on the podcast catcher of your choice, and share with your friends, it helps immensely. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.   

At the start of the twenty-first century, a study was released which brought the thirteenth century starkly into the present. A 2003 study led by Chris Tyler-Smith published in the American Journal of Human Genetics simply titled “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols,” determined that an alarming number of men across Asia, from China to Uzbekistan, carried the same haplotype on their Y-chromosome, indicating a shared paternal lineage. 8% of the studied group, just over 2100 men from 16 distinct populations in Asia shared this haplotype, which if representative of the total world population, would have come out to about 16 million men. This was far beyond what was to be expected of standard genetic variation over such a vast area. The researchers traced the haplogroup to Mongolia, and with the BATWING program determined that the most recent common ancestor lived approximately 1,000 years ago, plus or minus 300 years in either direction. The study determined that this could only be the result of selective inheritance, and there was only man who fit the profile, who had the opportunity to spread his genes across so much of Asia and have them be continually selected for centuries to come; that was Chinggis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire. Identifying him with the Y-Chromosome haplogroup, the C3* Star Cluster, the image of Chinggis Khan as the ancestor of 0.5% of the world population has become irrevocably attached to his name, and a common addition in the comment sections on any Mongol related topic on the internet will be the fact that he is related to every 1 in 200 men in Asia today. Yet, recent studies have demonstrated that this may not be the case, and that Chinggis Khan’s genetic legacy is not so simple as commonly portrayed. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Inside each human being are the genes we inherit from our parents. Distinct alleles within the thousands of genes of our 23 chromosomes affect the makeup of our bodies, from our physical  appearances to blood type. Each allele is inherited from our parents, who inherited from their parents, and so on, leaving in each human being a small marker of every member of their ancestry. Due to interbreeding and mixing over time, people living in a certain region will share  alleles, given that various members of their community shared ancestors at some point. A collection of these alleles is a haplotype, and a group of similar haplotypes with shared ancestry is a haplogroup. Tracing specific haplogroups attached to the Y-Chromosome, for instance, allows us to trace paternal ancestry of selected persons. It was the haplogroup dubbed the C3*star cluster that the researchers identified as Chinggis Khan’s haplotype, though later research has redefined it to the C2* star cluster. Thus, while you may see it somewhat interchangeably referred to as C3 or C2, depending on how recent the literature you’re reading is. Whoever carried the markers on their chromosome associated with this haplogroup, according to the study, was therefore a descendant of Chinggis Khan. The lineage, it should be noted, does not start with Chinggis Khan; it is detectable in the ancestors of the Mongols dating back at least to the fifth century BCE, to the Donghu people in eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. It is found in high frequencies in populations which had close contact with Mongols from Siberia to Central Asia, as as the Buryats, Udeges, Evens, Evenks, Kazakhs, and in lower frequencies in places conquered by the Mongol Empire. As demonstrated by the 2003 study, a map of these haplogroups lines up rather neatly with a map of the Mongol Empire at the time of Chinggis Khan’s death.        The 2003 study found that 8% of the men sampled had high frequencies of haplotypes from a set of closely related lineages, the C2*  star cluster. With the highest numbers of this cluster found in Mongolia, it was the logical origin point for this cluster. Its frequencies in so many populations of the former Mongol Empire seemed to suggest it spread with Mongol imperial expansion. The researchers therefore identified Chinggis Khan and his close male-relatives as the likely progenitors. While the public has understood this as Chinggis Khan and his family raping a massive percentage of the thirteenth century human population, this was not quite what the study implied. Rather, the selective marriage into the Chinggisid royal family, with each son having high numbers of children, and so on for generations due to prestige associated with the lineage, was the cause for the haplogroup’s spread.        The study decided that, since the haplogroups showed up in high frequencies among the Hazara of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as they were deemed to be direct descendants of Chinggis Khan, then this must have meant no one else other than the Great Khan himself was the most recent common ancestor for this haplogroup. The high frequencies across Asian populations, an origin point in Mongolia, an estimated common ancestor approximately a thousand years ago, and association with the supposed Chinggisid Hazaras was the extent of the evidence the study had to make Chinggis Khan the progenitor.       When released, this study made headlines around the world. You’ll find no shortage of articles stating that “Genghis Khan was a prolific article,” with the underlying, thought generally unstated, assumption that these genes were spread by a hitherto unimaginable amount of rape, “backed up” by the medieval sources where Chinggis is described taking his pick of conquered women after the sack of a city. It’s a useful addition to the catalogue of descriptions to present the Mongols as mindless barbarians, with this study being essentially the scientific data to back up this presentation.  It’s now become one of the key aspects of Chinggis Khan’s image in popular culture.       However, as more recent studies have demonstrated, there are a number of problems with this evidence presented in the 2003 study. Firstly, later researchers have pointed out how indirect the evidence is for the connection of Chinggis Khan to the C2 lineage. The estimates for the most recent common ancestor can vary widely depending on the methods used; while some estimates can place a figure within Chinggis Khan’s epoch, other estimates put the most recent common ancestor for the C2* cluster over 2,000 year ago. Even going by the 2003 study, it still gives a 600 year window for the most recent common ancestor, who still could have lived centuries before or after Chinggis Khan.   One of the most serious assumptions in the study was that the Hazara of Afghanistan were direct descendants of Chinggis KhanThis is an assumption which rests more on misconception than medieval materials. In fact, the thirteenth and fourteenth century sources indicate that Chinggis Khan spent only a brief time in what is now Afghanistan, only from late 1221 and throughout much of 1222, which he largely spent campaigning, pursuing Jalal al-Din Mingburnu and putting down local revolts before withdrawing. There is no indication that a Mongol garrison was left in the region by Chinggis, and it is not until the 1230s that Mongol forces returned and properly incorporated the region into the empire. Still, it was not until the end of the thirteenth century were Chinggisid princes actually staying in the region, when Chagatayid princes like Du’a’s son Qutlugh Khwaja took control over the Negudaris. The sources instead describe waves of Mongol garrisons into Afghanistan which began almost a decade after Chinggis Khan’s death, from the initial tamma garrisons under Ögedai Khaan’s orders to Jochid troops fleeing Hulegu to Afghanistan in the 1260s. Later, from the late fourteenth century onwards, Afghanistan was the heart of the Timurid realm, and while the Timurids shared some descent from Chinggis through marriage, it’s not exactly the process which would have led to high percentages of Chinggisid ancestry.Together, this strongly suggests that the Hazara would not bear Chinggisid ancestry in any considerable quantity.   Perhaps most prominently, there is little evidence that connects the C2* star cluster to known descendants of Chinggis Khan. The fact that no tomb of Chinggis Khan or any other known members of his family has been found, means that there is no conclusive means to prove what haplogroups he possessed. Without human remains which undeniably belong to one of his close male relatives or himself, Chinggis Khan’s own haplogroup can not ever be reliably identified. Most royal Chinggisid lineages in the western half of the empire, such as that of the Ilkhanate or Chagatais, disappeared long before the advance of genetic sciences. You might think that looking in Mongolia, you’d find a lot of Chinggisids running about, but this is not the case. Even during the empire, many members of the Chinggisid family were spread across Asia, leaving by the end of the fourteenth century largely lines only from his brothers, and of his grandsons Ariq Böke and Khubilai. In the fifteenth century, a massive massacre of the royal family was carried out by the leader of the Oirats and the true master of Mongolia, the non-Chinggisid Esen Taishi. Mongolia was reunified some fifty years later under the Khubilayid prince Dayan Khan, and it was the descendants of his sons who made up the Chinggisid nobility for the next centuries. Then, in the 1930s Soviet supported purges resulted in the near annihilation of the Chinggisid princes, Buddhist clergy and other political enemies. From 1937-1939, over 30,000 Mongolians were killed, and the Dayan Khanid nobility nearly extinguished.   While it is true that today in Mongolia, you can find many people who claim the imperial clan name of Borjigin, this is largely because after democratization in Mongolia in 1990, Mongolians were encouraged to take clan names- a fact that, as many commenters have pointed out, historically the Mongols did not do, unless they were actually members of the Chinggisid royal family. While the 1918 census in Mongolia recorded only 5.7% of the population as being Borjigid, during the recent registering of clan names some 50% chose, of course, the most famous and prestigious name for themselves. Therefore, it’s rather difficult to find a lot of a Chinggisids today.   The 2003 study relied on a random selection of people from across Asia, rather than looking specifically for individuals who claimed Chinggisid descent. Other studies which have sought out people who claim Chinggisid ancestry do not support the C2* Star cluster hypothesis of the 2003 study. A 2012 study by Batbayar and Sabitov in the Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy of Mongolian individuals who could trace their lineage back to Chinggis Khan’s fifteenth century descendant, Dayan Khan, found none of them matched the Star cluster proposed by the 2003 study. To overcome the previously mentioned issues about finding Chinggisids, to quote Batbayar and Sabitov, “In this study, seven patrilineal descendants of [...] Dayan Khan and two of Chinggis Khan’s brothers’ descendants were chosen for Y-chromosome DNA sequencing. Rather than testing a multitude of subjects, for the sake of accuracy, the most legitimate and proven descendants of Dayan Khan were selected. The DNA donors were selected based upon their official Mongol and Manchu titles and ranks, which were precisely recorded in Mongolian, Manchu, and Soviet documents.” Essentially, as close as you can get to a definite, unbroken paternal line from Chinggis Khan, given the 800 years since his death. When they compared the Dayan Khanid descendants, the descendants of Chinggis’ brothers, and those who could reliable claimed ancestry from Chinggis’ son Jochi, Batbayar and Sabitov demonstrated that essentially each lineage bore different haplogroups, and none, except for a small branch of the Jochids, bore the C2* star cluster of the 2003 study.    Study of the bodies of medieval Mongol burials have likewise yielded contrasting results when their DNA has been examined.  One of the most notable burials which has been studied is the Tavan Tolgoi suit, from eastern Mongolia. Essentially it was a burial of an extremely wealthy family, dated to the mid-thirteenth century. Adorned with jewelry and buried in coffins made of Cinnamon, which would have had to be imported from southeastern Asia, the researcher suggested due to such obvious wealth and power that they must have been Chinggisid. Their bodies showed haplogroups associated, interestingly enough, with western Asia populations, with effectively no descendants in modern Mongolian populations, and most definitely, not the C2* star cluster. This led to the 2016 study by Gavaachimed Lkhagvasuren et al., titled “Molecular Genealogy of a Mongol Queen’s Family and her Possible kinship with Genghis Khan,” to suggest Chinggis must have borne this haplogroup, and possibly, western Asian ancestry. He also pointed to supposed descriptions of Chinggis Khan having red hair as possible supporting literary evidence.    But this is not reliable evidence. Firstly, none of the graves conclusively can be identified as Chinggisid.  The Chinggisid’s known preference for burials on Burkhan Khaldun seems unlikely to make the Tavan Tolgoi burials a close relation.  Further, the “red hair” description of Chinggis Khan comes from a mistranslation of a phrase from Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles, where Chinggis remarks that young Khubilai lacked his grandfather’s ruddy features, indicating not red hair, but a face red in colour; hardly uncommon for a man who spent his lifetime in the harsh winds of the steppe. Therefore, the Tavan Tolgoi burials seem more likely to represent a family, possibly of Qipchaq origin, taken from western Asia, incorporated into the Mongol military and gaining wealth and power- hardly unusual in the Mongol army, but revealing nothing of Chinggis’ haplogroups. Other wealthy burials of nobility from the Mongol Empire in Mongolia and northern China have revealed differing chromosomal haplogroups, providing no answer as of yet to the question of the Great Khan’s own genetic lineage.   Much like the 2003’s study erroneous identification of the Hazaras as direct descendants of Chinggis Khan, a more recent study demonstrates the pitfalls of attempting to connect historical figures to genetic data. A 2019 study by Shao-Qing Wen et al. in the  Journal of Human Genetics looked at the y-chromosomal profiles of a family from northwestern China’s Gansu-Qinghai area, who traced their ancestry back to Kölgen, a son of Chinggis Khan with one of his lesser wives. Importantly, this family also backed up their claims in genealogical records, and had inhabited the same region for centuries. After the expulsion of the Mongols, they had been made local officials [tusi 土司] by the succeeding Ming and Qing dynasties. This family, the Lu, did not match the C2* Star Cluster, but actually showed close affinity to other known descendants of Chinggis Khan, the Töre clan in Kazakhstan. The Töre  trace their lineage to Jani Beg Khan (r.1473-1480), one of the founders of the Kazakh Khanate and a tenth generation descendant of Chinggis Khan’s first born son Jochi. Jochi, as you may recall, was born after his mother Börte was taken captive by Chinggis Khan’s enemies, and was accused, most notably by his brother Chagatai, of not being their father’s son. Chinggis, for the record, always treated Jochi as fully legitimate. As the Lu family in China traced themselves to Kölgen, who shared only a father with Jochi, then the fact that the Lu and the Töre belong to the same C2 haplogroup, with a  genealogical separation of about 1,000 years, would suggest that if this is in fact the Y-chromosomal lineage of Chinggis Khan, then Jochi’s uncertain paternity could be laid to rest, and that he was a true son of Chinggis Khan.   This theory is comfortable and convenient, but other scholars have noted that the connection of the Lu to Toghan, the descendant of Kölgen, is very tenuous. The sources connecting the Lu clan to Kölgen’s family were not compiled until the late Qing Dynasty, some four to five centuries after Toghan’s death. The sources more contemporary to Toghan’s life do not match the description of his life described in the histories used by the Lu clan, leading scholars to argue that, while the Lu clan does have Mongolian origin, and likely did have an ancestor with the very common medieval Mongolian name of Toghan, it seems likely that at some point the Lu clan’s family compilers decided to associate their own ancestor with the more well known Chinggisid of the same name, and therefore claim for themselves Chinggisid ancestry and prestige- hardly an unknown thing by compilers of Chinese family trees. Therefore, the matter of Jochi’s paternity still remains uncertain.       Perhaps the final nail in the coffin comes in the 2018 study by  Lan Hai-Wei, et al. in the European Journal of Human Genetics. Compiling data from previous studies that found issue with the 2003 hypothesis, they looked at groups with high frequencies of the C2* Star clusters like the Hazara or the Daur, a Mongolic-speaking people from Northeastern China who, based off of historical records, make no claims of Chinggisid descent. Newer estimates also suggest the most recent common ancestor for this lineage was over 2,600 years ago. In the most recent hypothesis then, it seems more likely that the star cluster identified by the 2003 study does not represent the lineage of Chinggis Khan, but was simply an incredibly common paternal lineage among ordinary inhabitants of the Mongolian plateau. Its presence in other peoples across Asia was not evidence of selective breeding into the Golden Lineage, but simply the movement of Mongolian troops into a region, and intermixing with the local population. In the case of the Hazaras, this is the exact scenario demonstrated by the historical sources, with waves of Mongol troops rather than a host of Chinggisids descending into the Hazarajat. The possibility cannot be excluded however, that while C2* was a dominant haplotype in thirteenth century Mongolia, that before 1200 it had already been spread across Central Asia by earlier nomadic expansions of Mongolia-based empires like the Göktürk Khaghanates or the Uighur. The Mongol expansion in the thirteenth century, then, would only be another wave of the spread of C2* across Eurasia.       While it is possible that Chinggis Khan and his close male relatives did in fact, carry the C2* star cluster, there is no evidence which directly or conclusively connects him to it. His known descendants through the line of Dayan Khan are of a different Y-chromosomal haplogroup. The descendants of Dayan Khan, himself a descendant of Chinggis Khan’s grandson Khubilai, and the Kazakh Töre, descendants of Chinggis Khan’s son Jochi, bear haplotypes so distant that their most recent common ancestor is estimated to have lived 4,500 years ago, which does not fair well for the likelihood of Jochi being Chinggis’ son. A third known and tested branch, of the Shibanids in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, does match the C2* star cluster, but has less than 1,000 known members and again, are descended from Chinggis Khan via Jochi. Chinggis Khan then cannot be said to be the ancestor of 0.5% of the world’s population, since his y-chromosomal marking remains unknown. Any attempts at identifying it conclusively can never be more than mere assumptions without finding the bodies of either the Khan or any of his close-male relatives- a prospect highly unlikely, given the Chinggisids’ preference for secret graves. Thus, it seems that his haplotypes are but one more secret that Chinggis will keep with him.       Our series on the Mongols will continue, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this, and would like to help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, or sharing this with your friends. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.  -SOURCES- Abilev, Serikabi, et al. “The Y-Chromosome C3* Star-Cluster Attributed to Genghis Khan’s Descendants is Present at High Frequency in the Kerey Clan from Kazakhstan.” Human Biology 84 no. 1 (2012): 79-99.   Adnan, Atif, et al. “Genetic characterization of Y-chromosomal STRs in Hazara ethnic group of Pakistan and confirmation of DYS448 null allele.” International Journal of Legal Medicine 133 (2019): 789-793.   Callaway, Ewen. “Genghis Khan’s Genetic Legacy Has Competition.” Scientific American. January 29th, 2015.   Derenko, M.V. “Distribution of the Male Lineages of Genghis Khan’s Descendants in Northern Eurasian Populations.”  Russian Journal of Genetics 43 no. 3 (2007): 3334-337.   Dulik, Matthew C. “Y-Chromosome Variation in Altaian Kazakhs Reveals a Common paternal Gene Pool for Kazakhs and the Influence of Mongolian Expansions.” 6 PLoS One no. 3 (2011)   Gavaachimed Lkhagvasuren et al. “Molecular Genealogy of a Mongol Queen’s Family and her Possible kinship with Genghis Khan.” PLoS ONE 11 no. 9 (2016)   Kherlen Batbayar and Zhaxylyk M. Sabitov. “The Genetic Origins of the Turko-Mongols and Review of The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols. Part 1: The Y-chromosomal Lineages of Chinggis Khan.” The Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy 4 no. 2 (2012):    Lan-Hai Wei, et al. “Whole-sequence analysis indicates that the  Y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khan.” European Journal of Human Genetics 26, (2018): 230-237.   Lan-Hai Wei et al.  “Genetic trail for the early migrations of Aisin Gioro, the imperial house of the Qing Dynasty.” Journal of Human Genetics 62 (2017): 407-411.   Shao-Qing Wen et al., “Molecular genealogy of Tusi Lu’s family reveals their apternal relationship with Jochi, Genghis Khan’s eldest son.” Journal of Human Genetics 64 (2019): 815-820.   Ye Zhang et al. “The Y-chromosome haplogroup C3*-F3918, likely attributed to the Mongol Empire, can be traced to a 2500-year-old nomadic group.” Journal of Human Genetics 63 (2018): 231-238.   Yi Liu. “A Commentary on molecular genealogy of Tusi Lu’s family reveals their paternal relationship with Jochi, Genghis Khan’s eldest son.” Journal of Human Genetics 66 no. 5 (2020): 549–550.    Zakharov, I.A. “A Search for a “Genghis Khan” Chromosome.” Russian Journal of Genetics 46 no. 9 (2010): 1130-1131.     Zerjal, Tatiana, et al. “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols.” American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (2003): 717-721.  

The podcast explores the shift in Mongol Khans' approach towards Europe, seeking cooperation in wars against the Mamluks. It discusses diplomatic interactions, including a Mongol embassy sent to King Louis IX of France, and the decline of interest in crusading in the Holy Lands. The chapter also examines the relationships between factions during the Mongol era and the futility of crusades with the Mongols.

    November, 1335. The Khan of the Ilkhanate, Abu Sa’id Bahadur, is dead. Allegedly poisoned by a spurned wife, Baghdad Khatun, his death was the unravelling of the Ilkhanate. Facing an invasion by the mighty Ozbeg of the Golden Horde, and a succession crisis due to Abu Sa’id’s failure to produce an heir, the Ilkhanate rapidly, and violently, tore itself to pieces. Today, we look at the disintegration of the Mongol Ilkhanate, the stories of two men named Hasan, and the history of the region up until the arrival of Emir Temur, fearsome Tamerlane, at the end of the fourteenth century. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Abu Sa’id had not been an incompetent monarch by any stretch of the means, and his rule was remembered as a golden age, at least in comparison to the mess that followed. A great-great-grandson of the Ilkhanid founder Hulegu, Abu Sa’id’s reign had seen the consolidation of the islamization of the Mongol state, as well as the end of the long war with the Mamluks of Egypt. Il-Khan since 1316, Abu Sa’id had been controlled by the emir Choban, until he nearly eradicated the house of Choban in the late 1320s in an effort to marry Baghdad Khatun, one of Choban’s daughters. For a few years Abu Sa’id had enjoyed a comparatively quiet majority, pursuing art, culture, poetry, building and architecture, as well as efforts to produce an heir. Baghdad Khatun, despite her beauty and the violence he had undertaken to acquire her- which included, among others things, killing her father, brothers and forcing her to divorce her husband- simply did not provide him his much desired son. When Abu Sa’id’s eyes fell upon her niece, Dilshad Khatun, the Il-Khan basically forgot about his current wife, wed her niece and soon enough got her pregnant. For Baghdad Khatun to be humiliated like this, after suffering through the destruction of her family, this was the last straw. The widespread belief was that she had him poisoned in some manner- in Ibn Battuta’s account, this was administered via a handkerchief that she used to clean themselves after sexual intercourse. So did Abu Sa’id die, aged 30 years old, in what is now Azerbaijan while marching north to repel an invasion by the Khan of the Golden Horde, Ozbeg.       With Abu Sa’id’s death, the line of Hulegu became extinct- or at least, the line through Hulegu’s son Abaqa, which had provided most of the Il-Khans. Abu Sa’id uncle, Ghazan, had done much to prune the lineage during his reign, and it seems alcoholism took care of much of the rest. The fact that few Il-Khans lived past 35, with fewer and fewer heirs each generation, has led many to search for underlying causes beyond just alcohol. Scholars such as Charles Melville and Anne F. Broadbridge have pointed to possible consequences of consanguinity among the Il-Khans: that is, essentially inbreeding, given the Il-Khan’s preferences for marrying into the same families, like the Oirats, over generations. The combined effects of rampant alcohol abuse among both men and women and the consanguinity may be the answer behind the alarming drop off in fertility of the Ilkhanid elite over the last decades of the thirteenth century. While Hulegu had produced quite the brood of little Chinggisids- at least 25 sons and daughters-, by the end of the century Ghazan had only a daughter survive childhood, while his brother Oljeitu Il-Khan had an alarming amount of children stillborn or died young. From his twelve wives, Oljeitu only had three children ever reach marriageable age; Abu Sa’id and two daughters, Sati Beg and Dawlandi: the last of whom still died before her father. For Abu Sa’id himself, despite considerable efforts, by his death he had only succeeded in getting his widow Dilshad Khatun pregnant. With no surviving brothers, sons or clear male figure to step into the role, the Ilkhanate suddenly faced a new problem; no clear monarch of the line of Hulegu to head the state.       The explanation of Abu Sa’id’s death without heir directly causing the fall of the Ilkhanate has been, in the opinion of scholars like Charles Melville, somewhat overstated. The image of the Ilkhanate falling without a decline -a counter to the model popularized by Edward Gibbon so long ago- encourages us to overlook problems which had developed. Essentially, Melville notes, a gap had widened between the military elite, the noyad, and the Il-Khan, which accompanied a lack of respect for the Chinggisids. The death of a monarch with no clear heir was hardly a new issue in the Mongol Empire- in fact, the quriltai system wherein a candidate put his name forward and was confirmed by the princes served to supply new khans at need. Additionally, neither were regents unheard of within the empire’s history. The 1240s had seen two regencies, with Ogedai’s widow Torogene and Guyuk’s widow Oghul Qaimish steering the empire in the absence of a Khan- Oghul Qaimish of course, doing this much less successfully than her predecessor. In the form of Baghdad Khatun the Ilkhanate certainly had a powerful woman who could have stepped into the role. Well connected and from a prestigious family, she could have called upon connections established by her late father, Choban. Baghdad Khatun was described as an intimidating, intelligent and proud woman, who openly walked around with a sword strapped to her waist and greatly influenced matters of state. In the opinion of some, Abu Sa’id was bossed around by her. In a more classic Mongolian system, Baghdad Khatun would have guided the state until an heir could have been selected.       But as Melville argues, the actions of the Khans from Ghazan onwards had alienated the military elite. More or less, they must have felt disenfranchised from the government and that the old Mongolian way of life was being abandoned. Certainly Islamization was the most obvious demonstration of this. Ghazan and Oljeitu both abandoned the traditional secret burials of Mongol Khans in favour of massive, expensive and very public mausoleums. The quriltai as a means of choosing the next ruler and affecting major decisions was abandoned, and even the end of the war with the Mamluks- not by conquest, but by diplomacy- must have felt like a betrayal of Mongol imperial ideology. Recall how the contemporary Chagatai Khan Tarmashirin was accused of abandoning the yassa as well- specifically by no longer continuing the annual assembles with the noyad in the eastern half of the Chagatai realm, and thus making them feel they no longer had a role, or a stake, in the Khanate’s government. Tarmashirin was overthrown by a rebellion in 1334, a year before Abu Sa’id’s death, which precipitated the descent of the Chagatai ulus into open war.       By removing their stake in government, and not replacing it with a new loyalty to adhere to in the replacement system, the Ilkhans had gradually removed the need of the various noyans to maintain their loyalty to the Chinggisid ideology. When Abu Sa’id came to the throne in 1317, he was but a 12 year old boy. The long period of Choban’s regency further reduced the khan’s authority and increased that of the military elite. Abu Sa’id largely accepted and seems to have went along with Choban’s oversight up until Choban denied him Baghdad Khatun, at that time married to Shaykh Hasan Jalayir. Only from the very end of the 1320s, after Choban’s death, did Abu Sa’id really rule in his own right. While he did face minor rebellion, there is indication of resentment as efforts undertaken by the central Ilkhanid government. Abu Sa’id’s vizier, Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, the son of the former vizier Rashid al-Din Hamadani, sought to enforce tax reforms that in effect, would have restrengthened the hand of the central government towards the regional princes and their appanages. As Melville notes, the details are poorly known but it seems to have been an ineffective measure that angered these military princes. Per Melville’s theory, the only outcome of such failed measures would only have been widening the gap between the Il-khan and the military elite.       On Abu Sa’id’s death at the end of November 1335, it fell to the vizier Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad to try and steer the ship in the face of Ozbeg’s invasion. Only five days later, on December 5th, Ghiyath al-Din orchestrated the enthronement of a successor, a man named Arpa Ke’un. Arpa was a Chinggisid, and a member of the house of Tolui… but of the line of Ariq Boke, Hulegu’s younger brother who had fought their brother Khubilai for the throne in the 1260s. Plucked from obscurity by Ghiyath al-Din, it seems he was chosen for his ability to lead the army, for all indication is that Arpa Khan was a man of military background, a “old school Mongol,” in the words of every secondary source that mentions him. Arpa was given command of the Il-Khanid army, and in the snows of the Caucasus he forced back Ozbeg in winter 1335, who once again retreated to the Golden Horde.        Arpa Khan returned triumphant, and Ghiyath al-Din must have had high hopes for his new protege. Arpa was a competent commander who was militarily proven in his defence of the Ilkhanate- a promising figure to rally the Mongols around. Apparently he had little taste for court procedure or niceties, and it is unclear if he was a Muslim. One anonymous Armenian chronicler asserts Arpa was a Christian, and at the very least he was very proud of the “old ways.” At best, he was a Muslim with little care for the specifics of the faith.  We might wonder if Ghiyath al-Din was deliberate here too, choosing a man who would be more palatable to the noyad due to his distaste of courtly life. In the opinion of Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, it was shortly after Arpa’s ascension that Ghiyath al-Din ordered the commission of the Great Mongol Shahnama, a wonderful illustrated version of the Persian national epic, the Shahnama of Firdausi. An undertaking of massive expense, given the large and lovingly detailed artwork, it certainly indicates that the top levels of the Ilkhanid elite did not imagine they were entering into a crisis anytime soon.       Arpa Khan was not on solid footing though. The fact that he was not of the line of Hulegu certainly hurt his legitimacy. The fact that Abu Sa’id’s widow, Dilshad Khatun, was pregnant and had fled to Abu Sa’id’s uncle, ‘Ali-Padshah, the governor of Diyarbakir, was unnerving too. ‘Ali-Padshah’s sister, Abu Sa’id’s mother Hajji Khatun, also opposed Arpa’s enthronement. Thus, his position needed to be shored up. A marriage was arranged to Abu Said’s sister, Sati Beg; commanders who had been alienated or jailed by Abu Sa’id were given expensive gifts or freed from prison. And the blame for Abu Sa’id’s death was laid squarely on Baghdad Khatun, who had never had the chance to assume the regency. Accused not just of poisoning Abu Sa’id, but of being in correspondence with Ozbeg Khan and inviting him to attack the Ilkhanate, Baghdad Khatun was found guilty and executed, supposedly beaten to death by a Greek slave with a club while she was in the bathhouse. A number of other executions followed of potential rivals.        But Arpa Khan looked for enemies in the wrong direction. ‘Ali-Padshah, the Oirat governor of Diyarbakir, was becoming something of a rallying point for those unhappy with Arpa’s placement as Khan- or unhappy with an energetic man on the throne who might reduce their privileges. Dilshad Khatun had finally given birth to Abu Sa’id’s only child, a girl, but this did not stop ‘Ali-Padshah’s maneuvering. At the start of 1336 he raised his own candidate, Musa, as Il-Khan. Supposedly a grandson of Baidu, who had only held the throne for a few months before Ghazan’s rise, Musa was, unlike Arpa, entirely a puppet of ‘Ali-Padshah. In alliance with Hajji Khatun and Shaykh Hasan Jalayir, who had once been forced to give up his wife Baghdad Khatun to Abu Sa’id and now knew Arpa killed her, ‘Ali-Padshah in the name Musa Il-Khan armed a revolt against Arpa Il-Khan. In the April of 1336, Arpa’s army was defeated in the field. He and Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad fled to Sultaniyya, where they were captured and killed later that month. So ended the reign of Arpa Khan, the final Il-Khan to wield any individual authority.       Arpa’s death in many ways can be considered the true end of the Ilkhanate, for it seems to have removed any attachment the regional commanders held to the Ilkhanid state. ‘Ali-Padshah’s enthronement of Musa Khan gave all of them the realization that each, too, could rule through his own puppet Chinggisid, if he happened to believe hard enough and have one on hand. From 1335 until 1343, no less than 8 Chinggisids were to be declared Il-Khan by these commanders. Little is known of most of them beyond their names and who controlled them. Shortly after Arpa’s death Shaykh Hasan Jalayir announced his own puppet khan, a young boy named Muhammad, and attacked ‘Ali-Padshah. By July 1336, ‘Ali-Padshah was dead and Musa Il-Khan sent running. Shaykh Hasan married Abu Sa’id’s widow, Dilshad Khatun.   At the same time in the far east of the Ilkhanate, the noyans of Khurasan elected their own Il-Khan, Togha-Temur. Togha-Temur was not even a descendant of Chinggis Khan, but his brother Jochi-Qasar! But he came with military backing, and at the end of 1336 Togha-Temur’s armies had overrun Iran and pushed into Iraq and Azerbaijan, forcing Shaykh Hasan Jalayir to flee before him. Even the wandering Musa found his way into Togha-Temur’s employment, and it seemed that the Ilkhanate’s period of disunity would soon be ended… only for Togha-Temur to suddenly withdraw back east in spring 1337. Musa was left with an army to attempt to crush Shaykh Hasan, but Hasan defeated and killed him in July 1337. Though he would threaten Iraq and the Caucasus again on occasion, Togha-Temur mostly contented himself with mastery over Khurasan and Mazandaran for the next 16 years, until his death in 1353 at the hands of the Sarbadars of Sabzavar.   With Togha-Temur’s withdrawal, Shaykh Hasan now faced a new challenger in the form of a different Shaykh Hasan. Our first Shaykh Hasan was of the Jalayirid lineage, a descendant of one of Hulegu’s top generals. Often you’ll see him called Hasan-i Buzurg, or “Big Hasan.” Hasan-i Kuchik, or “Little Hasan,” was meanwhile a grandson of Choban, via his son Temur-tash. Temur-tash had been governor of Anatolia and revolted twice against Abu Sa’id, before being killed by the Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad when seeking support from him. Yet, Temur-tash’s name still carried weight in Anatolia. While the other Ilkhanid claimants fought for power in the Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia, Little Hasan and his brother Malik Ashraf brought his father back to life, so to speak, in the form of a slave who looked a lot like him. Rather young, the boys lacked the experience or prestige to rally an army around themselves, and so required a puppet dead father.  The slave, named Qarajari, in Mamluk accounts was the true leader of the uprising, while in Jalayirid and Temurid sources it was Little Hasan and his brother Malik Ashraf.  At the very least, it indicates the level of friction in the movement was apparent.With an army composed of urban militias, nomadic cavalry and military slaves, it was a bit of a motley force, but the return of the Chobanids undermined Big Hasan Jalayir.   Big Hasan’s problem was the fact he just had so many members of Choban’s family in his entourage. His new wife, Dilshad Khatun, was a granddaughter of Choban; one of his most important supporters, Oljeitu’s daughter Sati Beg, had been married to emir Choban, and had a son by him, Surghan. With their help, and the help of a grandson of Choban named Pir Husayn, Big Hasan had overcome Musa Khan and retaken Tabriz, which had long been the capital of the Ilkhanate. But the rise of new Chobanid claimants made Big Hasan unsure of his own Chobanid supporters. Antagonizing his Chobanid followers, Sati Beg and her son Surghan fled to join Little Hasan, who forced Big Hasan from Tabriz in 1338, forcing him to retreat to Baghdad. In the process, Little Hasan succeeded in killing Big Hasan’s puppet Chinggisid, the young Muhammad Khan. But seizing Tabriz weakened the bonds between Little Hasan and his fake father; the Fake Temurtash decided he wanted real power and stabbed Little Hasan, who survived and escaped, then publicized the news that Fake Temurtash was actually, well, a fake. “You’re not my real dad!” We may imagine Little Hasan screamed as he ran out of the palace of Tabriz, blood dripping from a wound.   Little Hasan fled to Georgia, meeting with Sati Beg and his cousin Surghan, while the isolated fake Temurtash was pushed from Tabriz by Big Hasan, who in turn was pushed out again by Little Hasan. Still, it was felt a non-Chinggisid could not rule yet in his own right, especially since Little Hasan had, in the eyes of most, simply been serving his “resurrected” father. So, Little Hasan made the nearest Chinggisid the new Il-Khan. And the nearest Chinggisid was none other than his grandfather Choban’s widow, Sati Beg, daughter of the late Il-Khan Oljeitu, sister of Abu Sa’id and also widow of Arpa Khan. For the first time, late in 1338, a Chinggisid woman became Khan- not regent, not khatun,  but Khan. Coins were minted in her name bearing the title, the khutba was read in her name and she was officially the ruler of the Ilkhanate, such as it was.  But Sati Beg Khan, the only Chinggisid female Khan, held no real power, and largely was a tool through which Little Hasan maintained his power. A scheming, cruel man, Little Hasan offered Sati Beg to be the bride of a rival, solely in an effort to lure the rival into a trap. He also sought to portray himself as a restorer of the Ilkhanate and its protector by commandeering symbols and persons associated with it, such as appointing descendants of Rashid al-Din and other Ilkhanid viziers to chief posts, while continuing to promote Tabriz as the capital in an effort at continuity with the Ilkhanate. Little Hasan himself, along with Sati Beg’s son and two other top figures, took the titles of the ulus emirs, the commanders of the realm, but there could be no question of who was actually in charge…   … or could there be? Restoring a Chinggisid monarchy in place of their fake father Temurtash meant, in effect, the demotion of Little Hasan and his brother Malik Ashraf. Making Little Hasan but one of the ulus emirs further divided his power. Coins in the name of Sati Beg Khan are found even outside of territory the Chobanids directly controlled in this period, suggesting Sati Beg’s enthronement had wider support. Rumours circulated that Sati Beg was in contact with Big Hasan Jalayir in Baghdad, and plotting to kill Little Hasan. Worse still, Togha-Temur, the “eastern Il-Khan,” returned to western Iran at the very start of 1339, having been invited to take the throne by Big Hasan.    Togha-Temur’s great army seemed poised to wash away Little Hasan’s state. Sati Beg Khan and her soon fled west, leaving Little Hasan alone to face Togha-Temur. But the lil’ guy had one last card play. Knowing he faced no chance of overcoming Togha-Temur Khan in battle, instead Little Hasan sent messengers to Togha-Temur offering his submission, and that he would gladly come to submit to Togha-Temur in person, but could not dare leave Tabriz yet due to the danger posed by Big Hasan, at that time in Baghdad. Togha-Temur accepted this gladly, happy to take the former Ilkhanid capital without trouble. He promised to keep Little Hasan in power, and sent a letter describing how he would rid them of Big Hasan… which Little Hasan promptly forwarded to Big Hasan. The latter had already allied with Togha-Temur and was naturally unhappy to find his new overlord so willing to remove him from the scene, so Big Hasan abandoned Togha-Temur Khan. Losing face, his local allies and commanders unsatisfied with the process, Togha-Temur withdrew back east.   The entire incident served to strengthen Little Hasan’s little hands. A few months later in July 1339, he forced Sati Beg Khan to marry another of Little Hasan’s allies, a descendant of Hulegu’s son Yoshmut, who took the throne name of Sulayman, and became Sulayman Khan, though the Mamluks suspected his ancestry was fictive. So ended Sati Beg’s nine month tenure as Khan, losing whatever little authority she held and subsequently disappearing from the sources, though coinage in her name continued to be minted in Georgia well into the 1340s. Her final fate remains uncertain.    In the meantime, Big Hasan down in Baghdad had another ploy to employ. His requests to the Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad for miltiary aid in recognition of Mamluk overlordship did not materialize into any actual support, in addition to the failure of the affair with Togha-Temur. Taking matters into his own hands, he appointed a grandson of Geikhatu Il-Khan, Jahan-Temur, as Il-Khan, then marched north to face Little Hasan in battle.    In June 1340, the two Hasans, each with their khans, met on the field. Little Hasan had the better of the engagement, forcing Big Hasan to flee back to Baghdad. Angered at the turn of events, Big Hasan deposed his puppet Khan Jahan-Temur, and ruled in his own name- the official start of the independent Jalayir Dynasty. Ruling from Baghdad, the Jalayirids oversaw most of modern Iraq to the border with Syria. The Chobanids kept their puppet Chinggisid only a little longer. Sulayman Khan actually outlasted Little Hasan: the little trickster finally met his end when murdered by his own wife in December 1343.  With no heir, he was succeeded by his brother, Malik Ashraf, who soon after deposed Sulayman and appointed another puppet monarch, a non-Chinggisid called Anushirvan, from an epithet for the ancient Sassanian shahanshah, Khosrow I. It was an interesting dabble in movement away from legitimacy associated with the house of Chinggis Khan, harkening even back to pre-Islamic Iran. What sort of lineage he was supposed to represent is unclear, as the Mamluks thought that he had essentially crowned a stable boy and then locked him in a gilded cage. Coins were minted in Anushirvan’s name until 1353, the year of Togha-Temur’s death.   Little Hasan had been unpopular in Tabriz and Azerbaijan, but Malik Ashraf was widely hated. Paranoid, violent men, their oppressive tendencies alienated many supporters: both found it easy to be cruel to their families and vassals on the slightest hints of disloyalty- such cruelty was the certain cause of Little Hasan’s wife preemptively murdering him. Mongol allies were angered with the movement away from Chinggisid legitimacy or by the enfranchisement of non-Mongols. The cities of the Caucasus felt exploited as tax sources due to wild expenditure by both Little Hasan and Malik Ashraf, who built large public works in efforts to boost their images and to fund their standing army.  The latter of which they struggled to fund, resulting in troops attempting to supply themselves by raiding Chobanid subjects from Azerbaijan, Georgia to eastern Anatolia. At one point at the very start of his reign, Malik Ashraf was locked out of Tabriz, the city barring its gates against him in reaction to his exploitative money grabbing.    All of this was worsened by rounds of Plague- as in, Black Plague. The trade cities of the Caucasus which the Chobanids so relied upon were struck repeatedly and made the situation even more unstable, as the economy was disrupted, trade slackened and key demographic centres depopulated. To distract from troubles and bring in some glory- or share the suffering, Malik Ashraf decided to attack Baghdad in 1347, but the Jalayirids repulsed him. Either through order, or because he no longer had control over his troops, the Chobanid army then ravaged much of the Chobanid kingdom. Facing revolts and rebellions across his kingdom, somehow he managed to maintain his post into the 1350s, when faced with an overwhelming, ultimate threat: the new Khan of the Golden Horde, Jani Beg, son of Ozbeg Khan.  Just as this episode began with the threat of a Jochid attack by Ozbeg, so this episode ends with his son coming to finish the job.    The Jochids never forgot Hulegu’s seizure of the Azerbaijani pastures, and repeated attempts to regain were met with failures. Even great and long-reigning Ozbeg Khan had failed to seize them. Jani Beg, in all things, was determined to outdo his father, and in 1357 his messages arrived in Tabriz, bearing a clear ultimatum to Malik Ashraf:   “I am coming to take possession of the ulus of Hulegu. You are the son of Choban whose name was in the decree of the four uluses. Today three realms are under my command, and I also wish to appoint you commander of the ulus; get up and come to meet me.”       Malik Ashraf put on a brave face, dismissing the messenger and replied that Jani Beg only had claim to rule within the lands of Jochi, while Malik Ashraf was the protector of the lands of Hulegu. Malik Ashraf’s sudden claim to support the Toluids, not surprisingly, did not convince Jani Beg, or anyone else. His decision to then imprison Jani Beg’s ambassador did not help matters either. But Malik Ashraf’s defiance was hollow, and he was well aware of the danger he was in. We are told by the Azerbaijani writer al-Ahri, writing about 1360, that Malik Ashraf in fear turned to his attendants and admitted, “This is the son of Khan Ozbeg. He is of the family of Chinggis Khan and has an overwhelming army of three hundred thousand men. I cannot hold out against him.” Ashraf planned to flee to a fortress and hold out there  until Jani Beg withdrew or, failing that, flee to Anatolia. News of his cowardice elicited a loud response from the elite and people of Tabriz, who cried out for resistance and claimed that Jani Beg’s only strength was his numbers, and in terms of equipment the Chobanid troops would have the better. Only once it seemed that government was breaking down in the face of the Golden Horde attack, reluctantly Malik Ashraf summoned the troops and rode out to face the approaching Jani Beg Khan. Promptly, his men fled when they caught sight of Jani Beg’s host. Years of mistreatment had generated no loyalty to the person of Malik Ashraf or his office, and none were willing to put their lives on the line in a doomed fight. His army disintegrated and looted his own coffers. Finally Malik Ashraf was betrayed, captured, and paraded through the streets of Tabriz and handed over to Jani Beg. Supposedly Jani Beg would have let him live, if the people of Tabriz had not demanded his death- though it should be said, mercy was not a quality Jani Beg ever had in abundance, so we might wonder about this detail.         Malik Ashraf, son of Temur-Tash and brother of Little Hasan, grandson of Choban Noyan, was thus put to death on Jani Beg Khan’s orders in 1357. The Chobanid state, after a tumultuous two decades, was dismantled, its few surviving representatives scattered to the winds. Jani Beg Khan succeeded where no Jochid Khan had before, in occupying Tabriz and the pastures of Azerbaijan, Arran and the Mughan Plain. Many of the other regional powers, including the Jalayirids recognized Jani Beg’s overlordship. Jani Beg left his son Berdi Beg to govern Azerbaijan, then returned to the Qipchaq steppe- only to soon die, of sickness or, as some accuse, of being poisoned by Berdi Beg. This caused a general withdrawal of the Jochid troops as Berdi Beg left to assume the position of Khan, leaving one of Malik Ashraf’s former deputies in charge on behalf of the Golden Horde.       Finally, it was time for the Jalayirids to return to Tabriz. Big Hasan’s son with Dilshad Khatun was Shaykh Uvays, who succeeded his father to the throne in 1356. Having accepted Jani Beg’s overlordship, the Jalayirids had managed the storm of the Jochid assault well. With their long time Chobanid enemies annihilated, it was now time to seize the Azerbaijani pastures. In summer 1358 Shaykh Uvays successfully retook Tabriz twenty years after his father had last been pushed from the city. In the historical sources, Jalayirid rule is contrasted heavily with the Chobanids. Where the Chobanids appear as scheming, violent and oppressive men, the Jalayirids in contrast are presented as benevolent, respectful to Islamic and Chinggisid norms, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity after years of upheaval. Ruling from the Caucasus across Iraq, the Jalayirids were mighty, and deserved a new title for it. So did Shaykh Uvays begin to style himself Sultan. It was not an easy task, for many former supporters of the Chobanids had to be hunted down, and indeed, in 1359 Uvays was pushed out of Tabriz by another Ilkhanid successor state, the Muzaffarids, albeit briefly. But by the next year Uvays had retaken Tabriz, killed Malik Ashraf’s still resisting son and properly secured Jalayirid control. The Jalayirid Sultanate saw a brief renaissance in art and culture, a restoration of economy and trade following the post-Ilkhanid disruptions. While respect was paid to the house of Chinggis Khan and certain norms associated with the Ilkhanate, this was no Chinggisid state. No Chinggisid puppet was maintained, and neither Uvays nor his sons based their rule on their Chinggisid ancestry, even though they could trace their lineage to a daughter of  Arghun Il-Khan. Chinggisid legitimacy as the basis for governance did not long survive Abu Sa’id, and the Ilkhanid successors at most portrayed themselves as protectors of the Il-Khanid dynasty, rather than its continuators.       Thus by the end of the fourteenth century, most of the western portion of the former Ilkhanate, that is the Caucasus, northwestern Iran and Iraq, was ruled by the Jalayirid Dynasty. Iran itself was largely divided between regional forces, the most prominent being the Muzaffarids and Injuids and Sarbadars of Sabzavar. None were of Mongol origin, but were rather local Persian dynasties which had emerged out of the Ilkhanid political structure. In rare cases, pre-existing dynasties like the Kartids of Herat simply reasserted themselves. A few Turkic nomadic confederations, of unclear political origins, emerged in the second half of the fourteenth century, most notably the Black Sheep Turkomans, the Qaraqoyunlu. In Anatolia, a number of Turkic beyliks rose out of the splintered ruins of the Ilkhanid government there, including one on the western end of the peninsula founded by a ghazi named Osman. You may know them better as the Ottomans. The Mamluks maintained their hold on Egypt, with al-Nasir Muhammad enjoying a very long third reign until his death in the 1340s, which then saw a rapid succession of his numerous sons and grandsons on the Mamluk throne, preventing any Mamluk expansion at the expense of the weak post-Ilkhanid states.       Such was the more situation of the late fourteenth century post-Ilkhanid world, soon to be turned over by the rival of a powerful emir from the western Chagatai Khanate named Temur, or Tamerlane. But that’s a story for another day, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast for more. If you enjoyed this and would like to help up continue bringing you great content, then consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.