In the autumn of 1397 AD, in Samarkand, the capital of the Timurid Empire, the ministers and generals of the Empire were busy nervously, and before Timur had ended his expedition to the Golden Horde, countless booty was transported to Samarkand. Timur, the king of Central Asia at this time, had decided to wage war against the Delhi Sultanate in India, which was richer and had a larger population than the Golden Horde.
The city of Samarkand in Timurid times
In order to ensure the success of the expedition to the Delhi Sultanate, before Timur himself went on the expedition, he ordered his eldest grandson, Pierre Mahima, to lead a cavalry to reconnaissance of the terrain, and Pierre Mahima marched all the way to the Satlej River before returning, after which he reported to his grandfather Timur on the topography of northern India and the deployment of the Delhi Sultanate's army.
Tamerlane was a very cautious conqueror, and it was not until March 1398, after careful preparations, that Timur personally led his army out of Samarkand and began his own conquest of India.
At that time, India was under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate, its monarch was Nasir of the Tucruk family, and the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate was Turks and Afghans from Central Asia, for the indigenous peoples of India, the Delhi Sultanate was a kingdom established by foreigners.
Timur in film and television works
The army of the Delhi Sultanate was not the first time to fight with an army from Central Asia, and during the Chagatai Khanate, the descendants of Genghis Khan made many expeditions to the Delhi Sultanate, but they were defeated on Indian soil, and the army of the Delhi Sultanate repeatedly repelled the invasion of the Chagatai Khanate.
By October of the same year, Timur had arrived in northwestern India with an army of 90,000 men, where his grandson Pierre Mahima had been waiting for a long time, and after rendezvous with the reconnaissance force led by Pierre Mahima, Timur ordered his soldiers to launch an attack on the Punjab region.
The attack on the Punjab region was very smooth, although the army of the Delhi Sultanate had defeated the cavalry of the Chagatai Khanate many times, but in the face of Timur's army, the Mamluk army of the Delhi Sultanate was very weak, they could not resist the attack of the Timurid Empire army, and could only surrender the land of The Punjab. After the conquest of the Punjab region, Timur's army, like the Mongol army of the year, looted and destroyed the conquered lands.
The Delhi Sultanate army equipped with war elephants
After looting and massacres, countless fortunes became the spoils of the Timurid army, and more than 100,000 Indians became captives of Timur, who spared their lives and then ordered them to deliver supplies for Timurid's army. Timur himself liked to emulate the tactics of the Mongols in Genghis Khan's time, but he preferred to slaughter the city more than the Mongol army of that year, and his personality was more ruthless than that of Genghis Khan.
He was very dissatisfied with the way the generals treated the enemy gently, and with their peaceful treatment of the inhabitants of hostile areas. Tamerlane was more inclined to let the enemy bleed into a river, which helped to kill all possible rebel enemies in the cradle.
The first half of the above passage is the record of the court historians of the Timurid Empire, and the second half is the annotation of modern historians, and from this passage we can see the caution and ruthlessness of Timur's personality.
The Timurid Empire army at war
The more than 100,000 Indian inhabitants who were captured in northern India were able to save their lives not because Tamerlane showed mercy, but because Timur felt that these poor people had a use value, and they could help the Imperial army to transport heavy supplies, so that the combat troops could fight with peace of mind.
By December 1398, Tamerlane's army had arrived in Delhi, and the delhi sultanate had assembled in its own capital, and Nasir, the ruler of the Delhi sultanate, decided to fight a decisive battle with Timur.
However, on the eve of the Battle of Delhi, Tamerlane ordered the execution of more than 100,000 Indians who had been captured before, according to the historian Abdusha, who ordered his generals: "The siege of Delhi is very serious, and the prisoners cannot be put together with our supplies, there is no other way but to kill them."
Battle of Delhi
And Timur's reason for doing this is also related to his cautious and suspicious nature, he feared that these Indian prisoners would suddenly defect after the war, after all, they were residents of the Delhi Sultanate, if these Indian prisoners suddenly fell to the Delhi Sultanate, then the rear of the Timurid Empire army would fall into chaos, which was very unfavorable to the war.
So on the morning of the siege of the city of Delhi, at Tamerlane's behest, the massacre began, with Timur demanding that every soldier kill several Indian captives, and more than a hundred thousand Indian captives were brutally executed, their bodies piled up outside the camp.
After disposing of the captives, Tamerlane ordered his soldiers to attack the city of Delhi, which ended in just one day, and on December 18, 1398, Timur entered the city as a victor, and massacres and destruction followed.