At the time when Ivan Vasilievitch began to reign, the Tatar horde no longer constituted an undivided kingdom; previously it had been sometimes divided and then again reunited, but at this period it was definitively divided into three chief hordes; the Golden, the Kazanese, and the Crimean, at the head of the last of which, during the reign of Vasili the Dark, was Azi Girai. Ivan’s policy consisted in exploiting one horde against the other and one pretender against the other. Of the principal Tatar hordes, the nearest and weakest was the Kazan horde, and it was the first which he attempted to bring under his influence. In 1467 the vassal Kasim, who was in the service of Ivan, was invited by some of the Tatar princes (_mourzas_) to come to Kazan, but the khan Ibrahim met him at the Volga and prevented him from crossing the river; after insignificant mutual devastations in 1469 a great army was sent against Kazan, composed of sons of the boyars and Moscow troops, under the leadership of Constantine Bezzubtiev. The troops marched right up to the town, but beyond ravaging its territory nothing was done. In the summer of the same year, two of the grand prince’s brothers, Iuri and Andrew the Big, marched against Kazan, besieged the town, and Ibrahim hastened to conclude peace “at the entire will of the grand prince and his voyevods,” and liberated the prisoners that had been taken during the preceding forty years. For eight years there was peace, but in 1479 the Kazanese army made a raid on Russian territory (at Ustiug and Viatka). To avenge this, troops were sent from Moscow under the leadership of the voyevod Vasili Obrazets, while from the other side came the men of Viatka and Ustiug and besieged Kazan. Ibrahim again concluded peace “according to the will of the grand prince.” At the death of Ibrahim disturbances arose in Kazan; one of his sons Ali Khan or Alegam, from the younger wife, became khan, and Muhammed Amin, the son of the elder wife, came to Moscow and asked for help against his brother. [Sidenote: [1487 A.D.]]