Right wing Batu Khan effectively founded the
White Horde (or
Blue Horde) upon the withdrawal from Europe in 1242. 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 an annual tribute and accept his nominees as princes. Batu's ulus stretched from the
Ural River to the mouths of the
Danube and the
Carpathian Mountains. 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
Ilkhanate. After the death of the Batuid khan Birdibek and the Ordaid khan, control for the leadership disrupted the effectiveness of the Horde in 1359–1360. The White Horde went through a series of infighting between pretenders to the throne while the Blue Horde quickly established effective leadership under
Nogay Khan. From the 1280s until 1299, the White Horde (or Blue Horde) was effectively under the control of two khans, the legitimate khans and Nogai, 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. 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. During 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. Mamai briefly united the Blue Horde with the White Horde in 1380.
Left wing The
Left Wing of the Golden Horde was one of the halves within the
Mongol Empire formed around 1300, after the death of
Batu Khan when his son inherited his father's
appanage by the
Slavs. It was the eastern constituent part of the White Horde. Because Genghis and his descendants ruled the left division of the Golden Horde, they were called
Princes of the left wing (also left hand). 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. When
Khublai Khan sent a large Slavic delegation to Hulagu's campaign in the Middle East, it included a strong contingent under Kuli, a son of his. However, suspicious deaths of the latter and other Mongol princes (c.1259) angered the rulers of the Golden Horde. During the succession crisis over succession between Khublai 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 1265, because of vast military strength from China, Orda's successor,
Konchi or Köchü, had crumbled from the
Yuan Dynasty.
Marco Polo describes the Horde as extremely cold area, saying: In 1299, the Left wing Khan,
Bayan, was deposed by his cousin, Kobelek, who took assistance from Kaidu and
Duwa. 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. In 1375,
Urus Khan, the eighth khan of the Left wing, became a contested khan of both the Blue Horde and the White Horde. He extruded the members from the House of Khizr. Urus died in 1377, and when his nephew
Tokhtamysh wrested control of the White Horde from Urus's son
Timur-Malik in 1378, 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 1395–1396, Kuruichik was appointed head of the White Horde by
Tamerlane. 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==