Tokhtamysh
Tokhtamysh reunited the Golden Horde, burned Moscow, and then destroyed his own state by attacking the man who had made him. He was a Genghisid prince of the eastern half of the Horde who took refuge with Tamerlane after failing twice to seize power, and Tamerlane backed him with troops on the third attempt. Mamai's defeat at Kulikovo in 1380 opened the west to him; Mamai's army changed sides rather than fight a man of the true line, and by 1381 Tokhtamysh held both halves of the Horde for the first time in a generation. He turned immediately on Moscow, which had stopped paying tribute and had just proved the Horde could be beaten. He arrived in 1382 too fast for a defence to be organised, found the walls held, and took the city by having Suzdal princes swear that he wanted only to negotiate. The gates were opened. He killed some twenty-four thousand people, burned the city, and restored the tribute - which is why Kulikovo changed less than it is remembered as changing. Then he made his mistake. Between 1385 and 1395 he invaded Tamerlane's territory repeatedly, in Azerbaijan and Transoxiana, on the reasoning that the Horde's claim to the Jochid inheritance outranked his patron's. Tamerlane beat him at the Kondurcha and then at the Terek in 1395, and then did what he always did: he destroyed the cities. Sarai, Astrakhan and the whole Volga trade network were levelled, and the Horde never economically recovered. Tokhtamysh died a fugitive in Siberia.
- Lived: 1342 CE – 1406 CE
- Nationality: Mongol
- Roles: ruler, military
