Swords From the East, page 46
We went to look at the observatory of Ulugh Beg the astronomer on the skirts of the hill of Kohik. Near this hill there is a pleasant spot, the Garden of the Plain, with a splendid edifice, the Forty Pillars. The pillars are all of stone, curiously wrought, some twisted, others fluted. In another garden is the China house, the walls of which are overlaid with porcelain.
Samarkand is a wonderfully elegant city surrounded by green meadows. As no enemy has ever stormed it, men have called it the Protected City. It was founded by Sikander.* I directed its walls to be paced around the ramparts and found that its circumference was ten thousand, six hundred paces.
For a few weeks I sat upon the throne of Samarkand. I showed favor to the lords of the city and gave rewards to my followers-Tambal the Moghul, above all others.
My men had taken a deal of booty on first entering the city, but since the city and the outlying districts had yielded voluntarily to me or Sultan Ali, it was impossible to give the country up to plundering. And how could a place be taxed that had been ruined by the Mirzas and sacked by my men?
Samarkand was so stripped of everything that we had to furnish its people with seed-corn to plant the next harvest. How could any contribution be laid upon the exhausted city?
On this account, there remained little to give my soldiers, and many of them began to think of home and desert by ones and twos. All the Moghuls who had joined me at the siege went off, and finally Tambal came to me, saying: "It would be well to give over Andijan and the hill kingdom to your brother, Jahangir."
This I could not do for two reasons. Had Tambal's request been made before the greater part of my men went off, I might have complied with a good grace. But who could bear with a tone of authority? Only about a thousand men, Begs and warriors, remained with me in Samarkand.
Another reason was that my uncle, Mahmud Khan of Tashkent, had expressed a desire to rule Ferghana. He had given me not a particle of aid while I was fighting to keep Andijan; now that I had conquered Samarkand, he asked for Andijan.
When I had explained this to Tambal he also went off and left me.*
Many of the officers joined him and collected all the men who had left me from disappointment. These deserters had been in fear of me until then, but now they went boldly with Tambal into my hill kingdom, and they were good soldiers.
Just at this time I was stricken by severe illness. Worry prevented me from nursing myself rightly, and my efforts to keep the remaining warriors with me brought on a relapse so that for four days I was speechless and the only nourishment I received was from having my tongue moistened occasionally with wet cotton.
This brought about the very thing I had feared. Those who were with me, Begs, cavaliers, and soldiers, began to think I was dying and to look out for themselves. Letters meanwhile had been coming in from my mother in Andijan saying that she was besieged by the rebels and if I did not has ten to her relief, matters would end badly. How could I ride to the hills when I was unable to command the men in the city?
At this crisis a servant of one of Tambal's officers came to Samarkand on some kind of an embassy. The Begs who still attended me very mistakenly brought him into the chamber where I lay and then gave him leave to depart.
In a few days I got somewhat better, but I had a little difficulty in speech. Riders came in from Andijan with earnest requests from my mother and grandmother and the officer I had left in command of the city, begging me to hasten at once to their assistance. I had not the heart to delay. After a reign of a hundred days in Samarkand I marched out of the city, toward Andijan.
Within a week a galloper came to me with word that the very Saturday I had left Samarkand the fortress of Andijan had been surrendered to the enemy.
What had happened was this: The servant who had been suffered to depart during the worst of my illness arrived in Tambal's camp and related all he had witnessed, that the king had lost his speech and was able to take no nourishment, other than having his tongue moistened with cotton. He was made to confirm all this on oath, before my governor who stood at one of the gates of the city.
Dismayed at the news, and lacking heart for further fighting, my officer surrendered the place, although he did not want of either men or weapons or food.
For the sake of Andijan I had lost Samarkand. For my cousin Sultan Ali Mirza had come up as soon as my back was turned. And now I found that I had lost the one without preserving the other.
I now became a prey to melancholy, for since I had been a ruling prince I had never been separated from my country and adherents. With Kasim Beg and two or three hundred who still clung to me, I went to the summer pastures in the hills, after failing repeatedly to win back any city of Ferghana. Kasim Beg, who was never disturbed by misfortune, went among the wild tribes and the wanderers of the hills and persuaded many to join me.
In the lifetime of my father I had been betrothed to Aisha Sultan Begum, a distant cousin. Her father having died, she came with a small fol lowing into the southern hills to join me. In the month of Shahan I married her.
In the first stage of my being a married man, though I had no small affection for her, yet from bashfulness, I went to visit her only once in ten or twenty days.
My affection afterward grew less, and my shyness increased, so that my mother the Khanum used to fall on me and scold me with great fury, sending me off like a criminal to see her once in a month or so.
My mother and my grandmother had been sent to me in exile, with the families of the officers who remained faithful. And some of my old men began to desert from Tambal and the rebels and make their way back to me. My falcons diverted me from my troubles. The goshawks seldom failed to bring down pheasants and quail; and we hunted fowl with twoheaded arrows.
Yet, longing for conquest, I was not willing on account of one or two defeats to sit down and look idly around me. I had heard that the Reverend Kwajah Yahia at Samarkand was attached to me, and from time to time I sent persons to talk with him.
The Kwajah did not send me any message, but he went about forwarding my cause silently in Samarkand.
And then came tidings that Shaibani Khan and the Uzbek horde were invading the Moghul kingdoms.*
Chapter II
The Tiger Cub
Shaibani Khan had taken Bokhara and was marching on Samarkand. I went to the south of the city, beyond the hills. A week or two after my arrival news was brought that my cousin Sultan Ali Mirza had delivered up Samarkand to Shaibani Khan, the lord of the Uzbeks.
It happened as follows: The mother of All was led by her stupidity and folly to send a message secretly to Shaibani Khan, proposing that if he would marry her, her son should surrender Samarkand into his hands.
Shaibani Khan, advancing as had been arranged with the princess, halted at the Garden of the Plain. About noon Sultan Ali, without informing any of his nobles or cavaliers and without holding any consultation, left the town, accompanied only by a few insignificant attendants, and went to Shaibani Khan at the Garden of the Plain.
Shaibani did not give him a very flattering reception; and, as soon as the ceremony of meeting was over, made him sit down lower than himself. My cousin's chief councilor, the Kwajah Yahia, on learning that Ali had gone out, was filled with alarm. But, seeing no remedy left, he also went out of the town and waited on the Uzbek, who received him without rising.
So, that weak and wretched woman, for the sake of getting herself a husband, gave the family and honor of her son to the winds.
Nor did Shaibani Khan heed her a bit, or value her even as much as his handmaids. Sultan Ali was dismayed by the situation in which he now found himself, and deeply regretted the step he had taken.
Perceiving this, several young cavaliers about him formed a plan for escaping with him; but he would not consent.
As the hour of fate was at hand, he could not shun it. He had quarters assigned him, near one of the Uzbek leaders. Three or four days afterward they put him to death in the meadow of Kulbeh. From his over-anxiety to preserve this transitory and mortal life, he had left a name of infamy behind him; and, from following the advice of a woman, struck himself from the list of those who have earned for themselves a glorious name.
After the murder of Ali, the Uzbek Khan banished Kwajah Yahia with his two sons. They were followed by a party of Uzbeks who martyred the Kwajah and both his sons.
Shaibani Khan denied all participation in the Kwajah's death, saying that it was the act of his men. This is only making the matter worse, according to the saying, "The excuse is worse than the fault."
I was without town or territory, without any spot to which I could go; I was only eighteen and had neither seen much action nor been improved by great experience; I had opposed to me an enemy like Shaibani Khan, a man of skill, of deep experience, and a man in the prime of life. No per son came from Samarkand to give me any information though the townspeople were well disposed toward me, yet from dread of Shaibani Khan none of them dared to think of such a step.
At this time Shaibani Khan had gone out of the city a ways accompanied by three or four thousand Uzbeks and as many allies. My men, good and had, amounted only to two hundred and forty.
Having consulted with all my Begs and officers, we were agreed that as Shaibani Khan had taken Samarkand so recently, the men of the place had probably formed no attachment to him, nor he to them. If anything ever was to be done, this was the crisis. Should we succeed in scaling the fort by surprise and making ourselves masters of it, the inhabitants of Samarkand would certainly declare in our favor; if they did not assist me, at least they would not fight for the Uzbeks.
At all events, after the city was once taken, whatever God's will might be, be it done!
Having come to these conclusions, we mounted and left the camp after noon prayers and rode rapidly the greater part of the night. At midnight we reached the bridge of the public park whence I detached forward seventy or eighty of my best men with instructions to fix their scaling ladders on the wall opposite the Lovers' Cave. After mounting by the ladders and entering the fort, they were to advance at once against the guard at the Firozeh Gate, to take possession of it, and then to let me know of their success by a messenger.
They accordingly went, scaled the walls opposite the Lovers' Cave, and entered the place without giving the least alarm. Thence they proceeded to the Firozeh Gate, where they found a merchant of Turkestan* serving under Shaibani Khan. They instantly fell upon him and put him and a number of his retainers to the sword, broke the lock of the gate with axes, and threw it open.
At that very moment I came up to the gate and instantly entered.
The citizens in general were fast asleep, but the shopkeepers, peeping out of their shops and discovering what had happened, offered up prayers of thanksgiving. In a time the rest of the citizens were informed of the event, when they manifested great joy, and most hearty congratulations passed on both sides between them and my followers. They pur sued the Uzbeks in every street and corner with sticks and stones, hunting them down and killing them like mad dogs; they put to death about four or five hundred Uzbeks in this manner. The governor of the city was in Kwajah Yahia's house, but contrived to make his escape and rejoined Shaibani Khan.
On entering the gate I had instantly proceeded toward the college and the convent serai, and on reaching the latter I took my seat under the grand Tak, or arched hall. Till morning the tumult and war-shouts were heard on every side. Some of the chief people and shopkeepers came with much joy to bid me welcome, bringing such offerings of food ready dressed as they had at hand, and breathed out prayers for my success.
When it was morning, information was brought that the Uzbeks were in possession of the Iron Gate and were maintaining themselves in it. I immediately mounted my horse and galloped to the place, accompanied only by fifteen or twenty men; but the rabble of the town, who were prowling about in every land and corner, had driven the Uzbeks from the Iron Gate before I could come up.
Shaibani Khan, on learning what was passing, set out hurriedly, and about sunrise appeared before the Iron Gate with a hundred or a hundred and fifty horse. It was a noble opportunity; but I had a mere handful of men with me. The Khan, soon discovering that he could accomplish nothing, did not stop, but turned back and retired.
The men of rank and consequence now came and waited on me, offering their congratulations. For nearly a hundred and forty years Samarkand had been the capital of my family. A foreign robber-one knew not whence he came-had seized the kingdom, which dropped from our hands. Almighty God now restored my plundered and pillaged country to me.
At this time, Shaibani Kahn's wife and family with his heavy baggage arrived from Turkestan. He had remained until now near one of the suburbs; but, perceiving such a disposition in the inhabitants to come over spontaneously to my side, he marched off from his encampments toward Bokhara.
By divine favor, before the end of three months most of the fortified places around Samarkand had come under my allegiance. My affairs went prosperously everywhere. About this time I had a daughter by Aisha Sultan Begum, my first wife. She received the name of the Ornament of Women. This was my first child, and at the time I was just nineteen. In a month or forty days she departed to the mercy of God.
No sooner had I gained Samarkand than I repeatedly dispatched messengers to all the Khans and Sultans, Amirs and chiefs on every hand. Some of the neighboring princes, although men of experience, gave me all unceremonious refusal; others who had been guilty of injuries to my family remained inactive out of apprehension. The Khan, my elder uncle, sent four or five hundred men from the mountain country of Moghulistan; from my brother, Jahangir, the younger brother of Tambal brought a hundred men to my assistance.*
This winter my affairs prospered, while those of Shaibani Khan were at a low ebb. At the taking of Samarkand I had with me in all only two hundred and forty men. In five or six months they had so much increased that I could venture to engage so powerful a chief as Shaibani Khan in battle at Sir-i-pul, as shall be mentioned.
In the month of April I marched out of the city to meet Shaibani Khan, and fixed my headquarters at the New Garden for the purpose of collecting the troops and getting ready the necessaries of war.
Setting out from the New Garden, I proceeded by quick marches to Siri-pul-The Bridgehead-after passing which I halted and camped, strongly fortifying our camp with a palisade and ditch. Shaibani Khan moved forward from the opposite direction to meet us. There were about four miles between his camp and mine.
Every day parties of my men fell in with the enemy and skirmished with them. One warrior-who had a standard-behaved ill, ran off, and took refuge in the trench. There were persons who said the standard was Sidi Kara Beg's; and, in truth, Sidi Kara, though most valiant in speech, by no means made the same figure with his sword. One night Shaibani Khan attempted to surprise us, but we were so well defended by our ditch and chevaux-de-frise that he could achieve nothing. After raising the war shout on the edge of our ditch and giving us a few discharges of arrows, they drew off.
I now turned my whole attention to the approaching battle. Kamber Ali, the Skinner, assisted me. Two thousand men had arrived in Kesh and would have joined me in two days; fifteen hundred additional men who had been sent by the Khan, my uncle, would have come up next morning. Such was our situation when I precipitated matters and hurried on the battle.
The cause of my eagerness to engage was that the Eight Stars* were on that day exactly between the two armies; and if I had suffered that day to pass, they would have continued favorable to the enemy for fourteen days. This was all nonsense, and my haste was without the least excuse!
In the morning, after the warriors arrayed themselves in their armor and caparisoned and covered their horses with cloth of mail, we marched out and moved toward the enemy, having drawn up the army in order of battle, with right and left wing, center and advance. In the center were Kasim Beg and some of my inferior nobility and their adherents. In the advance was the Skinner with a number of my best-armed men and most faithful partisans.
We marched right forward to the enemy, and they appeared ready, drawn up to receive us.
"He who draws his sword with impatient haste, will afterward gnaw his fingers with regret! "
When the lines of the two armies approached each other, the extremity of their right wing turned my left flank and wheeled upon my rear. I changed my position to meet theirs. By this movement my advance, which contained most of my veteran warriors, was thrown to the right and scarcely any of them were left with me.t
In spite of this, we charged and beat off the forces that came to attack us in front, driving them back on their center. Several of his oldest officers represented to Shaibani Khan that it was necessary to retreat and that all was over. He, however, remained firm and held his ground.
The enemy's right, having meanwhile routed my left, now attacked me in the rear. My front was left defenseless. The enemy began to charge us in front and rear, pouring in showers of arrows. The Moghul forces that had joined me recently, instead of fighting, dismounted and betook themselves to plundering my people.
The Uzbeks made several onsets against the nucleus around me. They were worsted and driven back, they rallied again and charged. Surrounded and attacked on all sides, my men were driven from their ground. My advance guard was nowhere to be seen. Only ten or fifteen persons were now left with me. The river was near at hand. We made the best of our way to it and no sooner gained its banks than we plunged in, armed at all points, both horse and man.
For upward of a bowshot we were forced to swim our horses, loaded as they were. Yet they plunged through it. On getting out of the water on the south bank we cut off our horses' heavy furniture and threw it away. The wretches of Moghuls were most active in unhorsing and stripping stragglers-a number of excellent soldiers were unhorsed and put to death by them.
"Though the Moghul name were writ in gold, it is base-and false is the fruit of the Moghul seed! "*
Between the time of afternoon and evening prayers I reached one of the gates, and entered the citadel of Samarkand.
