the disintegration of the empire 97
When the seljuk sultan became an ilkhanid vassal, this brought hülegü
control of the asia minor routes which the golden horde had used to
exchange goods with their trading partners in the near east. friar William
also records the impressive volume of trade on the north-south route
crossing the Black sea and anatolia.160
the climax of the trade war was the ilkhanid attempt to block the
straits. this all-out assault aimed to cut off the golden horde completely,
in response to a similar attempt by the ilkhan’s enemies, set in motion at
the cairo conference of summer 1263. Under pressure from hülegü, the
Byzantine emperor detained egyptian envoys on their way to the horde.
the damage that michael viii thereby did to the interests of the sultan
in cairo and the Khan at sarai provoked these two rulers into responding
vehemently to this act of betrayal from an ally: although Baybars did not
have the military reach to affect Byzantium, and had to restrict himself
to protests and to having the head of the melkite church excommunicate
the emperor, Berke was by contrast able to take massive reprisals, and
in the winter of 1264/5 the mongol army and their Bulgarian auxiliaries
devastated thrace and reached the walls of constantinople. this punitive
expedition proved a salutary warning, and the situation was redressed, the
straits were opened once more and Berke’s successors took good care to
preserve this freedom.161
the khan’s success in breaking the ilkhanid blockade, at least at its
Western end, was doubtless vitally important for the future of the steppe
state, rescuing it from total isolation, which would have been fatal. from
now onward, the golden horde had a lifeline in the trade route through
the straits—a vital chance which, naturally, it used to the full.
Berke’s victory in the Black sea, however, was only a limited success in
the confrontation with hülegü: the ilkhanid blockade maintained its full
force in asia minor162 as in the caucasus, where—for lack of satisfactory
documents—it is impossible to know whether the blockade prevailed in
the decades to come, as a semi-permanent reminder of strained relations
160 “soldaia [.. .] looks across towards sinopolis, and there land all the merchants who
come from turkia and wish to visit the northern regions, as also those who come from the
opposite direction, from russia and the north and wish to cross over to turkia. these lat-
ter carry squirrel and miniver [varium et grisium] and other valuable furs; the others bring
lengths of cotton or wambasium, silk cloth and fragrant spices” (ibid. pp. 62–64).
161 see chapter 4.3.1.
162 for the chinggisids of persia, there was a separate motive to block the route that
connected the cuman steppe to the fertile crescent via the Black sea and asia minor: this
was the route that had brought and would continue to bring the slaves from north of the
Black sea which formed the invincible mamluk army; see chapters 4.1.2, 4.1.3.