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According to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318), Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi, had nearly
40 sons, of whom he names 14. When he died, they inherited their father's dominions as fiefs under
the rule of their brothers, Batu Khan, as supreme khan and Orda Khan, who, although the elder of
the two, agreed that Batu enjoyed primacy as the Khan of the Golden Horde (Jochid Ulus). Orda,
along with some of his younger brothers, ruled the eastern wing of the Golden Horde while Batu and
others ruled the western wing of it. These Hordes are known as the "White", "Blue" and "Grey"
(Shaybanid) Hordes in Slavic and Persian historiography. The two main divisions are also known as
Batu's Ulus (district) and Orda's Ulus.
Note: Different authors use 'Blue Horde' and 'White Horde' with opposite definitions. Whenever we
see these terms we must always check which convention the author is using. [1]
Contents
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History[edit]
Main article: Golden Horde
Right wing[edit]
Batu Khan effectively founded the White Horde (or Blue Horde) upon the withdrawal from Europe
in 1242 and by 1245, Sarai, the capital of the Horde had been founded on the lower Volga. At the
same time, the eastern lands of the Golden Horde were administered by Batu's older brother Orda,
and these came to be known as the left wing. Batu asserted his control over the Russian
principalities after sacking the cities of Vladimir in 1238 and Kiev in 1240, forcing them to pay annual
tribute and accept his nominations as princes.
Batu's ulus stretched from the Ural River to the mouths of the Danube and the Carpathian. It exacted
tribute from most of the Russian principalities and carried raids as far west as Poland and as far
south as Iran and Bulgaria.
Starting with the conversion of Berke to Islam, the White Horde (or Blue Horde) made a traditional
alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt against their common rival, the Il-Khans.
From the 1280s until 1299, the White Horde (or Blue Horde) was effectively under the control of two
khans, the legitimate khans and Nogai Khan, a warlord and kingmaker, who made an alliance with
the Byzantine Empire and invaded countries bordering the Blue Horde, particularly in the Balkans.
Nogai's pre-eminence was ended by the assertion of the legitimate Khan Toqta, and the Blue Horde
reached the apex of its power and prosperity during the reigns of Uzbeg Khan (Öz Beg) and his
son Jani Beg in the middle of the 14th century, when it intervened in the affairs of the disintegrating
Ilkhanate.
The White Horde (or Blue Horde) remained strong from its foundation (around 1240) until the 1350s.
Problems in the west of the horde led to the eventual losses of Wallachia, Dobruja, Moldavia and the
western Ukraine and the vassal principalities west of Kiev, losing those lands to Lithuania after being
defeated by its army in the Battle of Blue Waters in 1362, and Poland. The death of Jani Beg led to
the Blue Horde entering into a prolonged civil war, with concurrent khans fighting each other and
holding no real power. At the same time Mamai turned kingmaker in the Blue Horde. In this
time, Muscovy seceded from Mongol overlordship (at least until the early 15th century). It was not
until the coming of Tokhtamysh that the concurrent khans were removed. He briefly united the Blue
Horde with the White Horde in 1380.
Left wing[edit]
Orda's Ulus or more appropriately, the Left wing of the Golden Horde was one of the uluses
within the Mongol Empire formed around 1225, after the death of Jochi when his son, Orda-
Ichen (Орд эзэн, Lord Orda), inherited his father's appanage by the Jaxartes. It was the eastern
constituent part of the Golden Horde.[8][9]
Because Orda and his descendants ruled the left division of the Golden Horde, they were
called Princes of the left wing (also left hand).[10] Initially it covered the western part of the territory
ruled by the Jochids and included western Central Asia and south-western Siberia. The capital of the
White Horde was originally at Lake Balkhash, but later moved to Sygnaq, Kazakhstan on the Syr-
Darya River.[11]
When Batu Khan sent a large Jochid delegation to Hulagu's campaign in the Middle East, it included
a strong contingent under Kuli, a son of Orda. However, suspicious deaths of the latter and other
Jochid princes (c.1259) angered the rulers of the Golden Horde. During the Toluid Civil War over
succession between Kublai and Ariq Böke from 1260 to 1264, the White Horde elites supported the
latter. They also began to support the Ögedeid prince Kaidu because he was supported by the
khans such as Berke and Möngke-Temür.
Since 1280, Orda's successor, Konchi or Köchü, had allied with the Yuan Dynasty and the Ilkhanate,
in return, they rewarded him. According to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's account or H. H. Howorth's
analysis, Kunchi possessed the territory of Ghazna and Bamiyan under the suzerainty of either
the Chagatai Khanate or the Ilkhanate.[12] Kunchi warned the Ilkhan Abagha of the upcoming invasion
of Baraq (Chagatai Khan) in 1268. However, when the Borjigin princes, who operated on the Kublai
Khan's behalf in Central Asia and later rebelled, fought against each other, they appealed to Kunchi
whose response is not clear.
Marco Polo describes the Horde as extremely cold area, saying:
"This king (Köchü) has neither city nor castle; he and his people live always either in the wide plains
or among great mountains and valleys. They subsist on the milk and flesh of their cattle, and have
no grain. The king has a vast number of people, but he carries on no war with anybody, and his
people live in great tranquility. They have enormous numbers of cattle, camels, horses, oxen, sheep,
and so forth."[13]
In 1299, the Left wing Khan, Bayan, was deposed by his cousin, Kobelek, who took assistance from
Kaidu and Duwa.[14] By 1304, Bayan had reoccupied most of his ancestors' lands. His horde began to
herd around Syr-Darya, replacing the Shaybanids. Bayan's troops included the Russian
and Magyar soldiers.
Their khan, Chimtai, sent his brothers to take the Golden Horde throne during the Blue Horde's
period of anarchy, (1359–1380). But they were all murdered before reaching any success. Members
from White Horde (sometimes it is confused with the Blue Horde), Khizr, and his son or relative,
Arab Shaykh, briefly took the throne of the Golden Horde, using their army.[15]
In 1375, Urus Khan, the eighth khan of the Left wing, became a contested khan of both the Blue
Horde and the White Horde.[16] He extruded the members from the House of Khizr.[17] Urus died in
1377, and when his nephew Tokhtamysh wrested control of the White Horde from Urus's son Timur-
Malik in 1378,[18] he regained control of the Blue Horde as well. Thus, Toqtamish consolidated the
two hordes, becoming the Khan of the Golden Horde.
After the defeat of Toqtamish in 1395-96, Kuruichik was appointed head of the White Horde
by Tamerlane.[19] Since then families of Jochi's sons, Tuqa-Timur, Shiban and Orda, began to merge
with each other, establishing Uzbeg and Kazakh hordes. Among them, Kuruichik's
descendant, Borog, briefly asserted the throne of the Golden Horde in 1421.
After Baraq's murder, the Horde divided into two parts with 2 khans - Mohammed and Mustafa.
Mustafa reconquered the Horde, though, in Siberia appeared another threat of Abu'l-Khayr Khan. In
1446 the latter gained the victory over Mustafa, ending the existence of Orda's Ulus (the left wing of
the Golden Horde).
See also[edit]
Mongol invasion of Europe
Political divisions and vassals of the Mongol Empire