In the winter of 1390 AD, the ancient city of Samarkand in Central Asia was very lively, countless soldiers crossed the Syr Darya River from the bridge near Samarkand, and the bridge was full of people who sent soldiers on the march, and everything that happened here was self-evident, and the king of Central Asia, Timur, was about to start a war. The target of Timur's expedition this time was the Golden Horde located in the north of the Timurid Empire, not long ago, the Golden Horde Lost had led the army to invade the Timurid Empire many times, in order to retaliate for the disrespect of the Lost, Timur decided to punish his ungrateful righteous son.
Samarkand in timurid times
After learning that his righteous father Timur led a large army to attack, he was panicked, and he did not have the confidence to defeat Timur's army, because the tactics of the detachment and the war were learned from Timur, and he was able to become the ruler of the Golden Horde only because of Timur's strong support. In order to avoid war with Tamerlane, the Lost sent timur a falcon and nine warhorses, and in a letter to Timur, he stated that he had not forgotten the favor of his righteous father, hoping that the righteous father would forgive him for his disrespect.
But Tamerlane did not appreciate it, and he put the falcon in his hand according to the custom, without showing a smile on his face, as a way to express his disdain for the gift sent by the detachment. Tamerlane's overtures did not prevent the outbreak of war, and Timur used the envoys sent by the Detachment as a guide, and then continued to march to the Golden Horde, reaching the steppes of the Golden Horde in April 1391.
The army of the Timurid Empire
After entering the steppes of the Golden Horde, Timur ordered people to commemorate the expedition by carving inscription on a stone, which was found in Kazakhstan at the end of the twentieth century, and the stele was carved in Arabic and ancient Chagatai, which roughly means as follows: "In the name of God, in 1391 AD, The Sultan Timur of Turan led an expedition of 200,000 men to the Golden Horde Khan to get rid of it..."
However, when Timur confidently entered the steppe hinterland, there was a crisis, and this crisis almost led to the total annihilation of Timur's army. Just as the so-called soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first, before preparing for the expedition to the Golden Horde, Timur had realized that it was difficult to find food in the steppe.
So before he went out, he ordered the inhabitants of the empire not to make bread, bread, buns and other foods that required flour, and most of the flour in the residents' homes was given to the minister in charge of the logistics of the army to support the rations of the 200,000 troops.
Wild goats
Timur, who had thought that the army was well fed, did not ask the soldiers to save food on the early march, and when the soldiers of the Empire marched in the steppe for more than four months, they still did not find the main army that had escaped and lost, and at this time, their food was almost exhausted. The lack of logistics made Timur worried, and he ordered his soldiers not to make bread anymore, and to eat only a noodle soup made with a small amount of flour and a large amount of wild vegetables every day, a cheap food called "we Drushi" by the Central Asians.
But even so, the flour in the army was soon exhausted, and the morale of the soldiers began to decline, and they had to march hungry every day, and some of the soldiers who could not bear the hunger even disobeyed military orders and began to slaughter their own war horses. Just as these soldiers were struggling with hunger, a turnaround occurred. According to the author of the Timur Martial Arts, Sherifudin:
"Just when Tamerlane was worried that his army was about to be completely destroyed, and suddenly many wild goats and some animals that had never been seen in his hometown appeared on the steppe, Tamerlane immediately ordered the army to organize a hunt, which provided the soldiers with plenty of meat and saved the hungry soldiers, and the large hunt in which almost all the army participated began on May 6, 1391 A.D., and lasted for a full week."
Tamerlane defeated the soldiers of the Golden Horde
After this large-scale hunt, Tamerlane's army was well stocked with meat, and after the soldiers had eaten enough, Timur sent his grandson Mahemu to lead a vanguard force to scout out the main army that had escaped from the lost army. Mahemu did not live up to his grandfather's trust, and he soon found the lost army near the Terek River and engaged them in battle, and when he heard the news, Timur immediately led his army to support and defeated the lost army at the Battle of the Terek River.
After the Battle of the Terek River, Timur led an army to capture the capital of the Golden Horde, Belgosalai, and set fire to the city after looting it. And the logistical problems encountered by Timur during his expedition to the Golden Horde also made him aware of the importance of meat supply.
It is said that during his expedition to the Ming Dynasty, he did not carry much flour, but let the soldiers drive a large number of sheep, wanting to graze while marching, using mutton and goat's milk to provide food for the soldiers, but these sheep lost more than half of them after crossing the Syr Darya River due to a rare snowstorm.