In the decades after Chaghatai received his ulus from Chinggis, the Mongols of Central Asia remained nomadic. The first khan there to turn to a sedentary lifestyle was Kebeg (d. 1326), who built a palace in Transoxiana.
Kulikovo Pole
One of the Russian chronicles supposedly records the words of a fleeing Mongol after the Russian victory at Kulikovo Pole.
As quoted by Charles Halperin in The Tatar Yoke, the Mongol cried, "No longer, brethren, shall we live on our land, nor see our children. . . and no longer shall we go in battle against the Rus[sians], nor shall we take tribute from the Russian princes." Until recent times, Russians considered Kulikovo one of the greatest moments in their history, when they threw off the "Tatar yoke." In reality, however, Toqtamish punished the Muscovites in 1382 by destroying their city, and the Russians remained under Mongol control for another century.
His brother Tarmashirin (d. 1334) followed him to the throne. Tarmashirin converted to Islam and tried to extend Mongol rule into the borderlands separating his khanate and India. At times the Mongols raided India itself, but they did not control territory there. The khanate’s borders, however, were larger than they had originally been because the Chaghatai rulers had earlier gained control over land in Afghanistan and the eastern edges of Persia.
Tarmashirin’s conversion to Islam angered Mongols of the Ulus Chaghatai, who were loyal to the old nomadic culture. These conservative Mongols were based in the eastern part of the khanate, in southeastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Xinjiang. Their territory was sometimes called Moghulistan, or “land of the Mongols.” The conservatives forced Tar-mashirin from power in 1334. The khans who followed him returned to the old Mongol religion. In the western half of the khanate, Turkic Muslim princes gained influence and they began to choose descendants of Chaghatai and Ogedei as khans, while the princes held the real power. This region, centered in Transoxiana, was still called the Ulus Chaghatai.
The eastern and western halves of the khanate began to drift apart. The western half was largely sedentary, Turkic, and Muslim. Moghulistan also had a Turkic and Muslim influence, but was more nomadic and stayed closer to the Mongols’ cultural roots. Around 1347, however, Islam became the official religion there with the rise of the Muslim leader Tugh-luq Temur (d. 1363). He claimed to have family ties to Chaghatai, and in 1360 he reunited the two halves of the khanate. His rule, however, was brief, as the political situation in the western half of the Ulus Chaghatai was unstable. Various tribes competed for power. Eventually, just as in the days of Temujin before he became Chinggis Khan, one man emerged as the supreme leader and founder of a new empire: Timur-i-leng, or Tamerlane.
World History
