White Horde

The White Horde, or more appropriately, the Left wing of the Jochid Ulus was one of the uluses within the Mongol Empire formed around 1225, after the death of Jochi when his son, Orda-Ichen, inherited his father's appanage by the Jaxartes. It was the eastern constituent part of the Golden Horde (Jochid ulus). Because Orda and his descendants ruled the left division of the Golden Horde, they were called Princes of the left wing or of the left hand. Initially it covered the western part of the territory ruled by the Jochids and included western Central Asia and south-western Siberia. The capital of the White Horde was originally at Lake Balkhash, but later moved to Sygnaq, Kazakhstan on the Syr-Darya River. When Batu Khan sent a large Jochid delegation to Hulegu's campaign in the Middle East, it included a strong contingent under Kuli, a son of Orda. However, suspicious deaths of the latter and other Jochid princes (c.1259) angered the rulers of the Golden Horde. During the succession war between Kublai and Arik Boke from 1260 to 1264, the White Horde elites supported the latter. They also began to support the Ogedeid prince Kaidu because he was supported by the khans such as Berke and Mongke-Temur. Since 1280, Orda's successor, Konchi or Köchü, had allied with the Yuan Dynasty and the Ilkhanate, in return, they rewarded him. According to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's account or H.H.Howorth's analyze, Kunchi possessed the territory of Ghazna and Bamiyan under the suzerainty of either the Chagatayid Khans or the Ilkhan. Kunchi warned the Ilkhan Abagha of the upcoming invasion of Baraq (Chagatai Khan) in 1268. However, when the Borjigin princes, who operated on the Qaghan Kublai's behalf in Central Asia and later rebelled, fought against each other, they appealed to Kunchi whose response is not clear.