Up until this very point, the Mongol Empire was divided yet united at the same time. Each of the Chinggisid princes were to take over a portion of the Empire. Ogedei was ruling out of northern China, Chagatai was in central Asia, and per Mongol tradition, Tolui was given the original lands of the Mongols in the steppes. This left Jochi who had actually passed away and so Ogedei gave an army to Batu (Jochi’s son) in the year 1235 with the intention of expanding west and assigning that territory to Batu.

At the very end of the year 1241 during Batu Khan’s invasion of Europe, news had reached the Mongol army in their western campaign; the Great Khan Ogedei had passed away. Batu had to retreat into the steppes and head back to the Mongol Kurultai to partake in the elections of the next leader of the Mongol Empire.

Batu and his cousin Guyuk (the son of Ogedei) both believed they should be the next leader, and it turned them into rivals. Unfortunately for our friend Batu, Guyuk had returned to the court more quickly and began preparations for his election. Batu’s response? Boycott the Kurultai. Without his vote, he could not ascend to the throne. In this situation we see the regency of Ogedei’s wife, Toregene; however, she was advocating for her son to be Great Khan, and eventually she was successful in doing so. In the year 1246, Guyuk was crowned Great Khan at the Mongol Kurultai.

Batu was quite bitter and never voted for Guyuk, but as a traditional Mongol leader he respected that Guyuk was now Great Khan. In the year 1248, Guyuk had had enough of Batu and summoned him to Mongolia. Batu was no fool, he knew that he was summoned for punishment and so he brought his army with him. Guyuk had prepared his army as well, and as these 2 armies approached each other, Guyuk had died.

All of this political tension is important because it caused a sort of ‘alienation’ of Batu and the Golden Horde in general.

With the support of Batu, Mongke was to be elected as the next Great Khan of the Mongol Empire in the year 1251. Mongke had sweeping policy changes in Mongol imperial lands and he also continued Mongol expansion in China and the Middle East bring the Empire to its Zenith.

Batu Khan had passed away in the year 1255 and was succeeded by his son Satark who died shortly after himself (around 1256-7), who then was succeeded by his uncle Berke. Batu and Mongke had an arrangement that did not extend to Berke, and Berke was not happy about this. Batu had increased autonomy for supporting Mongke’s succession to the throne.

In the middle of 1259, Mongke had died and the ensuing succession crisis caused a massive civil war known as the Toluid Civil War which lasted between 1260-1264. Things became extremely heated between Berke and his relative to the south (Hulagu) who was ruling in the middle east.

The post-dissolution period saw the Golden Horde being a state that left a few Mongols ruling over a majority Turkic state. This is the reason it is often referred to as the Kipchak Kaghanate and although this state was perfect geographically speaking since it gave the Mongols a monopoly on the local slave trade as well as the Silk Road, and a massive state that had steppe territories, the alienation of the Golden Horde from the other Mongol states had deprived the Jochids from a very specific tool: engineers.

The Mongols were never good at sieging early on, and they in fact didn’t even like to siege cities down. With the addition of Chinese engineers early into the empire, it gave the Mongols the perfect solution to one of their main problems. The Golden Horde couldn’t even ask their Mongol relatives to the south in the Ilkhanate for Persian engineers since they specifically had a terrible relationship with them. And the Yuan dynasty of Kubilai Khan was too far away and for him to care about his relatives that don’t consider him the true ruler of the Empire.

Berke passed away in 1266 giving rise to Mongke-Temur who continued business as usual in the Golden Horde; war and the continued development of Sarai as a center of trade. Mongke-Temur was an effective ruler for stability; firstly, the Russian sources seem to favor him much more than his predecessor Berke, and he even managed to reach a peace agreement with Abaqa in the Ilkanate to the south.

Alongside the fact that the Golden Horde was receiving no technological support from the other Mongol states, the problem that caused the Mongol Empire to disintegrate to begin with was ever-present in the Golden Horde. Though Berke and especially Mongke-Temur were able to keep unity in the Golden Horde, there was no shortage of people scheming to obtain power. This is ever evident after the death of Mongke-Temur where the Mongol general Noghai had gained significant power.

The consistently increased autonomy of the Golden Horde from the other Mongol states deprived it of valuable technology and information from the far east and the continued disunity within the state caused the Golden Horde to be nothing more than a giant trading state. Most of their campaigns in eastern Europe were nothing more than glorified raids in comparison to the terrifying army that had initially descended upon the Russian lands under the control of Batu and Subutai.

If you’re interested in the great western expansion, I write about the specifics of Mongol sieges west in this post here.