It is known that in 1376 Tamerlane was visited in Samarkand by a Genghis Khanid on the Jochi line, named Toktamysh, who asked for help in the fight against his overlord Uruskhan, Khan of the White Horde clan, who, as we know, ruled in the north of the lower reaches of the Syr Darya in the steppes of Sarysu and the foothills of Ulutau. [1182]
As we have already mentioned, we do not know whether Toktamysh was Uruskhan’s nephew or just a distant relative. [1183]
Very pleased that the Genghis Khanid prince turned to him, who could help him in carrying out his plans, Tamerlane, as we know, gave the latter the cities of Otrar, Chabran and Sygnak on the northern shore of the middle reaches of the Syr Darya near the borders of the steppes of the White Horde. Toktamysh was twice expelled from this small domain by Khan U Rus, and each time he turned to Tamerlane in Samarkand. According to Zafer-nameh, Urus demanded his extradition. Ignoring this request, Tamerlane went to the defense of the Syr Darya line. He defeated Urus between Sygnak and Otrar and pushed the latter back into the steppe (early 1377). [1184]
Urus died in the same year and was successively succeeded on the throne, first by Tokhtakiya, and then by Timur-Melik. When Tamerlane returned to Transoxiana, Timur-melik once again defeated Toktamysh. Once again, Tamerlane returned power to him in Sygnak, sent him reinforcements, with which Toktamysh surprised his enemy, who was wintering in Karatal county, which is mentioned in the Zafernam, [1185] and won a decisive victory, which allowed Toktamysh to stand at the head of the White Horde (winter 1377-1378). [1186]
According to the chronicle of Zafername, Toktamysh did not seem to have shown any personal virtues until that time, and his rise was only due to Tamerlane. But after becoming the khan of the White Horde, it seems, on the contrary, he unexpectedly showed incredible activity. As soon as he became the leader of the White Horde, he attempted to subjugate the Golden Horde or the Kipchak Khanate, i.e. the Mongol Empire of southern Russia. As we know, in 1380 he defeated the master of the Golden Horde, Mamai, in the decisive battle of Kalka or Kalmius in the Mariupol region near the shores of the Sea of Azov. He was recognized as the Khan of the Golden Horde, thus uniting the Golden and White Hordes. In short, almost the entire former Juchida territory, having now established dominance from the lower reaches of the Syr Darya to the Dniester, from Sygnak and Otrar to the city of Kiev. In his capital, Sarai, on the lower reaches of the Volga, he now embodied one great ruler of his era. Continuing the traditions of his Genghis Khanid ancestors, he resumed the great Mongol raids, captured Christian Russia, burned Moscow on August 26, 1382, devastated Vladimir, Yuriev, Mozhaysk and other Russian cities, defeated even the Lithuanians near Poltava, who wanted to intervene, and condemned Muscovy to Mongol citizenship for a century.
As a result, he felt dizzy from the successes. Who was Tamerlane to him, a rootless Turkic upstart with no clear legal rights, who was he in front of him, who represented the most authentic Genghis Khanid legitimacy? After all, all the indisputable Genghis Khanids now relied on the alliance of the northwestern hordes, on the incalculable human resources of the steppe expanses. For him, who was the leader of the nomads of the north, Tamerlane, the ruler of Transoxiana, now seemed to be nothing more than a simple Tajik. Like every Mongol, he felt towards this Turkish builder and three-quarters sedentary man something like the hidden disdain that Tamerlane felt towards the inhabitants of Isfahan and Shiraz… Active, full of energy, beautifully built (as the anonymous Iskander paints him), respected by the Mongols for justice, tired to be in the shadow of a Turkic upstart who called him his son. Of course, he forgot, with ingratitude, that he owed his career to Tom. He made a mistake, especially in underestimating the formidable force that Tamerlane was.
Like all his predecessors, the khans of Kipchakia, starting from Berke, Toktamysh encroached on Azerbaijan. By the way, let us recall that from 1260 and 1330, the lords of Sarai never directly accepted the fact that Transcaucasia and the north-west of Persia were not subordinate to their ulus. Note that on the contrary, in 1385, before Tamerlane entered Azerbaijan, which belonged to Sultan Ahmed Jalair, Toktamysh took it on his way from Shirvan, then captured Tauris and plundered the city (winter 1385-1386). [1187]
However, he left with the loot, as the Mongols did, while Ahmed Jalair regained control of the province. As we know, under such circumstances, he subjugated Persia and annexed Azerbaijan to his empire (1386).
This turn of events caused a rift between the two former allies, or rather provoked Toktamysh to launch a surprise attack against his benefactor, who was almost caught off guard.
Tamerlane wintered in 1386-1387 in the north of Azerbaijan in the province of Karabakh and was still there when in the spring of 1387. Toktamysh crossed the Derbent Strait without any special preparations and moved his army against it in the direction of Karabakh. Tamerlane, who was stationed in Bardaa in the south of the Kura, only managed to send reinforced advanced units forward in the northern direction of the river. A small army engaged Toktamysh and lost the battle, and at that moment Prince Miranshah, Tamerlane’s third son, arrived with reinforcements, restored the previous situation and put Toktamysh to flight. Tamerlane’s behavior in connection with these events was very significant. Numerous soldiers of the defeated army, who were captured, were brought to him. It is known what consequences usually followed in such cases. This time, on the contrary, he not only freed his prisoners, but returned them to Toktamysh, providing them with food and everything necessary. At the same time, as stated in the Video, he addressed Toktamysh, whom he continued to «regard as his son,» with a reproachful tone, which was more sincere chagrin than irritation. [1188]
If we compare such behavior with the extreme intransigence and contempt and with the most cruel revenge of the conqueror towards his Turkic or Persian enemies, we can assess the weight that the legitimate right to inherit the Genghisids had in his eyes. Of course, Tamerlane was actually destroying the cause of Genghis Khan, or at least replacing him with himself. Theoretically, he might not have dared to admit this directly to himself, he was deceitful, giving his new Turkic empire features of a Mongol appearance, and he showed unexpected respect, perhaps involuntarily, to those descendants of Genghis Khan who showed some initiative. Apparently, there was also a subconscious fear here, which was inherent in the Transoxians when it came to the northern hordes.
Toktamysh not only turned a deaf ear to this appeal, but went further, and when Tamerlane stayed in Persia, he took advantage of his absence to attack even the heart of his empire, Transoxiana. By the end of 1387, he violated the Syr Darya border from Sygnak, besieged Chabran, then, considering this insufficient, devastated the country. Omar Sheikh, Tamerlane’s second son, tried to stop him, but lost the battle of Otrar and was almost captured. [1189]
The attack had such serious consequences that Transoxiana, which turned out to be defenseless, was attacked from the rear by the nomads of Moghulistan from Ferghana. Toktamysh’s detachments scattered throughout Transoxiana, plundered all unprotected settlements and even dared to lay siege to Bukhara. The outskirts of Karsha and even the shores of the Amu Darya were subjected to devastating raids. [1190]
Tamerlane returned urgently from Persia (early February 1388). Toktamysh, without waiting for him, returned to the steppes of the White Horde, and at the end of 1388, having created a powerful army, which the Chronicle says was attended by soldiers from Muscovy, Toktamysh again moved his troops to Transoxiana, this time passing through the east, from Khojent in Ferghana. Tamerlane went to meet him with a small army, which he managed to assemble, in snowy weather, with terrible cold, he engaged in battle and drove the enemy back to the north of the Syr Darya (in January 1389). [1191]
Toktamysh nevertheless continued military operations in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya, besieged Chabran, and plundered Yasi (present-day Turkestan). But when Tamerlane crossed the Syr Darya, the enemy army retreated into the steppe. [1192]
This experience proved to be instructive. Tamerlane was unable to continue his victorious campaigns in the Near East, leaving Transoxiana unprotected from the invasions of Toktamysh. He decided to wage war on the territory of his opponent, in the steppes of the White Horde. After leaving Tashkent in January 1391, [1193] he received the envoys of Toktamysh, who tried to avert the threat by offering him horses and a falcon. «He put the falcon on his arm, looked at it, but did not show the messengers any other signs of a good meeting.» Tamerlane from the experience of 1387-1388. He was able to assume that Toktamysh deployed his forces in the places that belonged to him by inheritance, in the steppes of the White Horde, in the basin of the Sarysu River, the Ulutau mountain range and the basin of the Turgai River. Tamerlane moved in that direction. From Yassa (the current city of Turkestan), he moved northwest, through the deserted expanses of the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, then the Ulutau mountains (Ulugtag), which separated the basin of this river from the Turgai. «He climbed to the top of the mountain,» says the prayer, «and began to gaze with admiration at the wide valleys, which, with their space and abundance of greenery, resembled a boundless sea» (end of April 1391). [1194]
But there were no traces of the White Horde. Toktamysh left only empty spaces in front of Tamerlane, as the Huns and Tukyu did in their time. Moving forward in the steppe expanses, the Timurid warriors hunted along the way to feed themselves and reached the Gilanchik River (Ilanjik according to Petit de la Croix), which flows into the Jaman Ak-kol, [1195] then the Kara-Torgai river, along the Govart, Atakarogai, Zafernama, Anakarga, (along Petya’s opinion). [1196]
Tamerlane’s army advanced in the desert area for four months after it left Tashkent. The soldiers staged a grand hunt to stock up on game (May 6-7), [1197] and then Tamerlane, in order to inspire his soldiers, staged a solemn passage of the army with the same pomp and pedantry as was typical of similar demonstrations in the central square of Samarkand. [1198]
In fact, things could have turned out tragically for Tamerlane. If Toktamysh had really retreated north all the time, he would have been able to exhaust the Timurid army, which he could have crushed, exhausted from hunger and cold. Tamerlane, believing that the enemy was running away from him, went deeper and deeper in the direction of Siberia. From Turgai, he reached the Tobol River in the area of present-day Kostanay. [1199]
On the other side of Tobol, the scouts finally discovered the fires from the campfires. Tamerlane crossed the river and found nothing. «All the scouts who were sent ahead roamed like vagabonds in the boundless expanses, not finding the slightest human trace, knowing nothing about the intentions of the enemy.» Finally, Tamerlane learned from one prisoner that Toktamysh was somewhere in the Urals. Immediately, the army headed west, crossed the Yaik or Ural River, no doubt in the Orsk region, and reached the Sakmara tributary. As Govart calls him, and Zafer-nameh –Semmur. [1200]
Toktamysh apparently concentrated his army near Orenburg. Tamerlan finally managed to «hook» him. The decisive battle took place on June 19, 1391, in a place that Govart says was located in the direction of Kondurchinsk on the Kandursha, a tributary of the Soka River near Samara or Kunduzche, according to Bartold. [1201]
After a one-day battle, Toktamysh lost the battle and fled. Sandwiched between the victorious Transoxians and the Volga River, Toktamysh’s warriors were almost completely destroyed or captured. [1202]
Some of the defeated, who managed to escape, as evidenced by Zafername, fled to the Volga Islands. Timurid messengers captured them. Zafer-nameh describes with obsequiousness the celebrations that the Timurid army staged in the steppes of Urtupa on the banks of the Volga: «This area of the Volga was the center of the empire of Jochi, the son of the great Genghis Khan, which his successors chose as a headquarters. Tamerlane took great pleasure in taking their place on the throne. The most charming beauties of the seraglio surrounded him, and nearby stood important dignitaries with a glass in their hands, and beautiful women accompanying them. The entire army took part in the entertainment that overshadowed the hardships of the war. For almost a whole month, they indulged in the pleasures they deserved.» [1203]
It is noteworthy that after so many incredible efforts and such a hard-won victory, Tamerlane, satisfied that he had defeated the enemy, having reached the very heart of the White Horde, did nothing to properly organize the post-war period. Undoubtedly, he gave the Kipchak Khanate to many Genghis Khanids, opponents of Toktamysh, among them Timur Kutlug, grandson of the late Khan Urus. [1204]
Timur Kutlug immediately began to look for his allies, and after gathering a certain part, he immediately went to the steppes with his dissident allies, instead of joining Tamerlane with them. [1205]
Another Jochid prince, Idiku, who also enjoyed Tamerlane’s patronage until a certain period, did the same. He was given a task by the conqueror to restore order in the Kipchak hordes, and as soon as he had freedom of action, he began to act only for his own benefit. [1206]
Tamerlane did nothing to bring them back under his command. Satisfied that he had accumulated vast wealth and the spoils of his warriors, he returned to Transoxiana through the current Russian-Turkestan province of Aktobe.
It is obvious that Tamerlane had a goal to cause terror among the Golden Horde in order to protect his possessions from new attacks from them. Having completed his task, as he believed, Tamerlane lost all interest in Kipchakia. As a result of this indifference on his part, Toktamysh quickly regained his power. In a letter dated May 20, 1393, addressed to the King of Poland, Jagiellon, found in Tana (Azov, and examined by Barthold, Toktamysh personally explains the reasons for his defeat and triumph: «Tamerlane was called by the enemies of the Khan. Toktamysh found out about it too late. At the beginning of the hostilities, these conspirators abandoned him, and his empire was thus brought to turmoil, and now everything has fallen into place. Jagiellon is obliged to pay the required tribute.» At the same time, Toktamysh was negotiating an alliance against Tamerlane with the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, Barkuk (1394-1395). In 1394, he regained enough strength to launch an offensive in the south of Derbent in the province of Shirvan, which was part of the Timurid Empire, but this attack stopped however at the first approach of Tamerlane’s troops. [1207]
This new aggression forced Tamerlane to make a decision: to organize a new campaign against Kipchakia in 1395. Wise by experience, Tamerlane rejected the unpleasant and exhausting route through the Turkestan-Siberian steppes and chose the road through the Caucasus, which led directly to the heart of the «capitals» of the Golden Horde, Sarai and Astrakhan. In Samur, in the south of Derbent, he was met by Toktamysh’s envoys, whose explanations were considered insufficient and crossed the Derbent Strait, and on April 15, 1395 [1208] attacked Toktamysh’s army off the coast of the Terek. Tamerlane, who fought like an ordinary warrior, was almost captured and killed himself, «as he had few arrows left, his short spear was broken, and he swung his saber right and left.» As a result, Toktamysh lost the battle and fled towards Bulgaria in the Kazan area. According to Zafer-nameh, he disappeared into the forests of those lands before the advanced troops of the Timurids, who rode after him, could overtake him. They returned after robbing the country. «A lot of gold, silver, furs, rubies and pearls, young boys and girls of indescribable beauty were captured.» Tamerlane personally advanced north and reached the Russian city of Iletsk in the upper reaches of the Don River on the border of the Mongol Khanate of Kipchak and Slavic Russia. Contrary to what Zafername claims, he did not attack Moscow, but after reaching Iletsk, he turned south on August 26, 1395. [1209]
At the mouth of the Don River, he entered Tana (Azov), a shopping center frequented by numerous Genoese and Venetian merchants, who sent delegations to him with rich gifts and showed naivety, believing in his promises. Subsequent events have shown how they were deceived. Tamerlane showed leniency only to the Muslim population. All Christians were enslaved, and their shops, churches, and representative offices were destroyed. Trade between the Genoese trading posts of the Crimea and Central Asia was dealt a terrible blow.[1210]
Next, Tamerlane moved to the Kuban and plundered the Circassian country. And then in the Caucasus, in the thick of forests and in inaccessible gorges, he devastated the state of the Alans or Ases (Akhod in Mongolian), the ancestors of modern Ossetians. [1211]
In the winter of 1395-1396, at the mouth of the Volga, he razed the city of Khadjidzhitarkhan, present-day Astrakhan, and burned Sarai, the capital of the Kipchak Khanate. Barthold believes that the headless skeletons, without arms and legs, found by Tereshchenko in Tsarev’s graves on Akhtuba, testify to the atrocities committed by Tamerlane at that time. The Zafer-nam simply mentions that the surviving inhabitants of Sarai, while their city was burning in that terrible winter, «were driven by the army like a flock of sheep.»[1212]
In the spring of 1396, Tamerlane returned to Persia via Derbent.
Tamerlane devastated Kipchakia; caused irreparable damage to trade between Europe and Central Asia, destroying Tanu and Sarai, and blocked ancient routes connecting different continents. Described by Marco Polo, he nullified what brought favorable results for the development of culture, starting from the period of the Genghis Khanid conquests. In Kipchakia, as, by the way, and in other places, having destroyed everything that was possible, he did not restore anything. [1213]
Upon his return to Persia, Toktamysh once again became the ruler of the White Horde. The memoirs of Ibn Ajr Askalani, discovered by Bartold, describe his wars between September 1396 and October 1397 against the Genoese trading posts in the Crimea. However, his rival Timur Kutlug also claimed this throne. He also competed with another local ruler named Idiku, and Ibn Arabshah describes to us the vicissitudes of a new war, which was devastating for the country. [1214]
Of all the contenders for the throne, Timur Kutlug emerged victorious, at least for a few years. However, he considered himself prudent and wished to become under the protection of Tamerlane: he sent a delegation to him, which Tamerlane accepted in August 1398. Toktamysh, having lost the rivalry, hid with Vytautas, Prince of Lithuania, who completely sided with him, but lost the battle to Timur Kutlug on Vorskla, a tributary of the Dnieper on August 13, 1399.
Toktamysh, forced to lead the life of a wandering mercenary, tried to curry favor with Tamerlane, who received his envoys in Otrar in January 1405. Tamerlane, who favored this ungrateful friend, promised to support him, but death prevented him from doing so. As for Timur Kutlug, his brother Shadibek (1400-1407) succeeded him as Khan of Kipchakia. Russian sources indicate that Toktamysh was killed by Shadibek’s soldiers in 1406 in Tyumen in Siberia, where he was hiding.