Editing Golden Horde (section)

=== General peace (1299–1312) ===
{{Mongol Empire in 1300|right}}
From 1300 to 1302, a severe drought occurred in the areas surrounding the [[Black Sea]].{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=189}} However, the troubles were soon overcome and conditions in the Golden Horde rapidly improved under Toqta's reign. After the defeat of [[Nogai Khan]], his followers either fled to [[Podolia]] or remained under the service of Toqta, to become what would eventually be known as the [[Nogai Horde]].{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=190}}

Toqta established the [[Byzantine-Mongol alliance]] by marrying [[Maria Palaiologina]], an illegitimate daughter of [[Andronikos II Palaiologos]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Vásáry|first=István|title=Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7DJWyg97IggC&pg=PA91|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-44408-8|page=91}}</ref> A report reached Western Europe that Toqta was highly favourable to the Christians.<ref>Ptolemy of Lucca ''Annales'', p. 237</ref> According to Muslim observers, however, Toqta remained an [[Idol worship|idol-worshiper]] ([[Buddhism]] and [[Tengerism]]) and showed favour to religious men of all faiths, though he preferred Muslims.<ref>{{cite book|last=DeWeese|first=Devin|title=Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba TŸkles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ut77eAbMUHoC&pg=PA99|year=2010|publisher=Penn State Press|isbn=978-0-271-04445-3|page=99}}</ref>

He demanded that the Ilkhan [[Ghazan]] and his successor [[Oljeitu]] give Azerbaijan back but was refused. Then he sought assistance from Egypt against the Ilkhanate. Toqta made his man ruler in [[Ghazna]], but he was expelled by its people. Toqta dispatched a peace mission to the Ilkhan [[Gaykhatu]] in 1294, and peace was maintained mostly uninterrupted until 1318.<ref>{{cite book|last=Boyle|first=J. A.|author-link=John Andrew Boyle|title=The Cambridge History of Iran|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=16yHq5v3QZAC&pg=PA374|year=1968 |editor-last=Boyle |editor-first=J. A. |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-06936-6|page=374|chapter=Dynastic and Political History of the Il-Khans}}</ref>

In 1304, ambassadors from the Mongol rulers of Central Asia and the Yuan dynasty announced to Toqta their general peace proposal. Toqta immediately accepted the supremacy of Yuan emperor [[Temür Öljeytü]], and all [[yam (route)|yams (postal relays)]] and commercial networks across the Mongol khanates reopened. Toqta introduced the general peace among the Mongol khanates to the Russian princes at the assembly in [[Pereslavl-Zalessky|Pereyaslavl]] (Pereslavl-Zalessky).{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}} The Yuan influence seemed to have increased in the Golden Horde as some of Toqta's coins carried [['Phags-pa script]] in addition to Mongolian script and Persian characters.<ref>Badarch Nyamaa – The coins of Mongol Empire and clan tamgna of khans (XIII–XIV) (Монеты монгольских ханов), Ch. 2.</ref>
[[File:Bulgaria Theodore Svetoslav.png|thumb|left|The [[Second Bulgarian Empire|Bulgarian Empire]] was still tributary to the Mongols in 1308.{{sfnp|Jackson|2014|p=204}}]] As the head of the [[Mongol Empire]], the Mongol Great Khans of the Yuan sent 100 dings of silver and 300 bolts of silk to the Golden Horde every year<ref>Kim, Hodong. "Formation and Changes of Uluses in the Mongol Empire", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 62, 2-3 (2019): 269-317, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341480, p.306</ref> and the Jochid ruler Toqta was given additional fiefs in China for his diplomatic and military assistance to the Great Khan.<ref>Юрченко А.Г., Хан Узбек. Между империей и исламом. Структуры повседневности (Евразия, 2012)</ref> Unlike the early years of the Mongol Empire, only the Great Khan's agents governed Chinese fiefs on the behalf of the Yuan and the Golden Horde until the collapse of the Mongol rule in China.<ref>https://spb.hse.ru/data/2013/03/15/1291891310/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%20-%20%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B08%20(%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%82).pdf</ref>

On his southwestern borders, Toqta arrested the Italian residents of Sarai and [[Genoese–Mongol Wars|besieged Caffa]] in 1307. The cause was apparently Toqta's displeasure at the Genoese slave trade of his subjects, who were mostly sold as soldiers to Egypt.{{sfnp|Spuler|1943|p=84}} In 1308, Caffa was plundered by the Mongols.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=191}}

During the late reign of Toqta, tensions between princes of Tver and Moscow became violent. [[Daniel of Moscow]] seized the town of [[Kolomna]] from [[Principality of Ryazan|Ryazan]], which turned to the local ''[[basqaq]]'' for protection.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}} However, this did not deter Daniel, who defeated the Ryazan and Mongol troops in 1301, and then seized [[Mozhaysk]] in 1303 and then Pereslavl-Zalessky, which threw off the already weak balance of interprincely relations.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}} Daniel may have been motivated to round out his appanage, which in terms of the modern administrative divisions of Russia, was not larger than [[Moskovsky Uyezd]] before 1917.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}} His tenacity laid the pattern for his successors to become the rulers of all of Russia proper.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}}

Toqta organized a new conference for the princes in Pereslavl-Zalessky in the autumn of 1304, which was attended by leading princes including [[Andrey of Gorodets|Andrey of Vladimir]], [[Mikhail of Tver]], and [[Yury of Moscow]], Daniel's eldest son who succeeded him after his death in March 1304.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=193}} [[Maximos, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus'|Maximos]], the metropolitan of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], was also in attendance.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=194}} Toqta possibly intended to completely transform the political organization of his Russian ulus, though there is little information about the last years of his reign, with there only being accounts in the Russian annals of the interrelations among the princes, while Arab and Persian chroniclers focused on the Golden Horde's relations with Egypt and Iran.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=195}} Toqta probably intended to eliminate the special status of the grand principality of Vladimir, and to place all the Russian princes on the same level as his vassals with a definite appanage assigned to each one of them.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=195}} Toqta decided to personally visit northern Russia to settle the conflict between the princes, but he fell ill and died while crossing the Volga in 1312, according to the writer who continued [[Rashid al-Din Hamadani|Rashid al-Din]]'s ''History''.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1953|p=195}}