Jani Beg

""No one has ever used biological weapons like Jani Beg""

- Mankind: the Story Of All Of Us,History Channel Jani Beg (died 1357) was a Khan of the Golden Horde.

After putting two of his brothers to death, Jani Beg crowned himself in Saray-Juk. He is known to have activiely interfered in the affairs of Russian principalitiesand of Lithuania. The Grand Princes of Moscow, Simeon Gordiy, and Ivan II, were under constant political and military pressure from Jani Beg.

Jani Beg commanded a massive Crimean Tatar force that attacked the Crimean port city of Kaffa in 1343. The siege was lifted by an Italian relief force in February. In 1345 Jani Beg again besieged Kaffa; however, his assault was again unsuccessful due to the outbreak of the Beubonic Plague among his troops. It is thought that Jani Beg's army catapulted infected corpses into Kaffain an attempt to use the Black Death to weaken the defenders. Infected Genoese subsequently sailed from Kaffa to Genoa, introducing the Black Death into Europe.

In 1356, Jani Beg conducted a military campaign in Azerbaijan and conquered the city of Tabriz, installing his own government there. He also incerted Jochid dominance over the Chagatai Khanate, attempting to unite the three khanates of the Mongol Empire. After accepting the surrender of Shaikh Uvais, Jani Beg boasted that that three uluses (districts/nations) of the Mongol Nation under hid control. Soon after this, Jani Beg faced an uprising in Tabriz resulting in the power of the Jalayirid Dynasty, an offshoot of Illkhanate and, ultimately, in the death of the Khan.