Mod: Elvain's Holy Rome 1.7
Era: Late Medieval Age
Minor Goal: Expand as much as possible
Major Goals: - Convert all controlled provinces to paganism
- Destroy the Slavic and Ottoman nations
- Destroy all russian principalities and polish/lithuanian provinces
The Horde
A Golden Horde AAR
At his death, Genghis Khan divided the Mongol Empire amongst his four sons. Jochi was the eldest, but he was already dead and his paternity was in doubt, so the westernmost lands trodden by the Mongol hoof (Western Siberia and Kazakhstan) were given to his sons, Batu, leader of the Blue Horde (West), and Orda, leader of the White Horde (East).
In 1235, Batu moved against the Bashkirs and the Bulgars. By 1237, he had reached the easternmost of the Russian Principalities. His army (Which by now included numerous Mongol princes, not just Jochi's children) then moved southwards against the Cumans, taking the northern coast of the Black Sea. For the next 3 years, his horde succeeded in vassalizing all but the Polotskian principalities of Russia.
Batu's Blue Horde continued west, raiding Poland and Hungary after the Battles of Legnica and Muhi. In 1241, however, the Great Khan Ogedei died in Mongolia, and Batu turned back from his siege of Vienna to take part in disputing the succession. The Mongol armies would never again travel so far west.
On their way back to their Russian territories, in 1242, the Mongol armies moved through Bulgaria, vassalizing it as they had done the russian principalities.
In 1242, Batu established his capital at Sarai, commanding the lower stretch of the Volga River. Shortly before that, the Blue Horde split when Batu's younger brother Shayban left Batu's army to set up his own horde east of the Ural Mountains along the Ob and Irtysh Rivers. Another brother, Toq-Temur established a short lived Khanate on the remains of Volga Bulgaria.
After Batu's death in 1255, his empire slowly but surely consolidated into a state, his vassals no longer nomads but farmers and merchants. One century went by and The Blue Horde became the Golden Horde, the vast moving army became a Khanate.
By 1350 the Khanate of the Golden Horde faced it's greatest threat yet: unbeatable resistance.
The russian principalities had been united under the domain of Muscovy by the dreadfull Ivan and Lithuania was at the height of it's power and, worst of all, the Golden Horde's army had dwindled and it's effective were few.
The Horde had quickly lost its Mongol identity. While the descendants of Batu's original Mongol warriors constituted the upper class of society, most of the Horde's population were Kipchaks, Bulgar Tatars, and many Finno-Ugrian and Turkic tribes.
The rise of the new Khan, Jani Beg, elected by the tribal lords, would change the Horde forever.
Unlike his predecessor, and probably due to his lineage (Jani Beg's father was a Magyar noble of the Khan's court and his mother a Tatar Princess of the Golden Family hence member's of the Khanate ruling class), Jani Beg knew that for the Khanate to survive putting Lithuania and Muscovy at each other's throats would suffice; the East had been pacified by the White Horde and trouble could only come from the rolling European plains.
Jani Beg's idea of how the Khanate should be governed forced even more of the mongol strata of society to flee and the result was a rise from the tatar class to power but with it the further weakening of their military forces. Now the new Khan would be forced to wait and build and gather forces before launching any decisive attack; the time of the nomads had ended, the time for organized warfare had come.