96 chapter three
these conflicts, based on trade considerations and aiming at commer-
cial victory conditions, to a great extent developed in ways typical for
trade wars. likewise, both conflicts led to fundamental shifts in the eur-
asian long-distance trade networks, with highly beneficial consequences
for the Black sea region, creating branch lines from the silk road and the
iraqi spice route that linked the Black sea to the asiatic long-distance
trade network.
3.4.1 The Jochid Branch: Urgench-Sarai-Tana/Caffa
placed into the context where they naturally belong, the fragments of the
trade war reveal the existence of a coherent scheme of economic blockade
in the Jochid-mamluk camp as in the ilkhanid camp.
as soon as the destruction of the mamluk sultanate seemed a real possi-
bility, hülegü, first mongol ruler of iran, realised that the coalition ranged
against him aimed, even before the war began, to choke the ilkhanate’s
economy by intercepting its trade routes to the mediterranean and the
Black sea: Berke’s and Baybars’ plan to bring the seljuk state in asia minor
under their control, by means of ‛izz al-dīn Kaikāwuz and his party, was
the most obvious proof of this intention.157 the chronicler Waṣṣāf records
that hülegü ordered that “Berke’s merchants [.. .] who had come to tabriz
to trade [.. .] and had great and innumerable riches, all be killed, and that
all the goods they had with them be seized for the exchequer [.. .]. many
of them kept their money and their goods with esteemed men of note in
tabriz. after they had been killed, their wealth remained in the hands of
those who had been safeguarding it. Berke [.. .] seeking in turn to revenge
this deed, put to death the merchants from the khan’s realm [= hülegü’s]
and did the same with their possessions. the roads in and out and the
merchants’ journeys were much reduced, once the devils of enmity had
leapt from the jar of time.”158
the persian author was clearly referring to the road connecting sarai,
the Jochid capital, to the great commercial silk road metropolis of azer-
baijan, tabriz, via the caucasus—a road much-used by muslim mer-
chants, as the missionary friar William of rubruck had attested less than
a decade earlier.159
157 see chapter 4.3.1.
158 Waṣṣāf/hammer-purgstall, p. 94.
159 on the derbent pass, the iron gate of the caucasus, rubruck writes “here lies the
route taken by all the saracens who come from persia and turkia” (rubruck/Jackson,
p. 127).