Blue Horde at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

On the death of Nogai, Tokhta, with the aid of the tribes of the Blue Horde, commanded the capital, but soon Uzbek again united the Horde under western rule. His reign (1312—1342) and that of his son Janibek (1342-1357) mark the apogee of the Horde's power. Late in the 14th century another western chieftain, Mamai, ruled until he and his Genoese allies were defeated first by the Muscovites (at Kultkovo, 1380) and then (1382) by Tokhtamysh, who had seized control of the Blue Horde with the help of Timur.

The Blue and White Hordes. Numerous changes of khans have led scholars to conclude that the Horde was an unstable society. In fact, however, it endured with little political change until Timur's (Tamerlane's) sack of Sarai in 1395. The dynamic of its internal political history was provided by the struggle between its main components, the White (Western) and the Blue (Eastern) Hordes.

Instead of subjugating the White Horde, however, Tokhtamysh allied himself with the western tribes and in effect replaced Mamai. This led to a conflict with Timur, who laid waste the great centers of the Horde from 1389 to 1395. Decline. The collapse of the center and the redirection of trade (due to the rise of Ottoman and Lithuanian power) led to the growth of peripheral successor states (the Crimea, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Muscovy). They coexisted in changing alliances until Muscovy's expansion into the steppe in the mid-16th century.