Walī was another, the younger, full-brother of Khusrau Shāh. He kept his retainers well. He it was brought about the blinding of Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā and the murder of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. He had an ill-word for every-one and was an evil-tongued, foul-mouthed, self-pleasing and dull-witted mannikin. He approved of no-one but himself. When I went from the Qūndūz country to near Dūshī (910 AH. -1503 AD.), separated Khusrau Shāh from his following and dismissed him, this person (i. e., Walī) had come to Andar-āb and Sīr-āb, also in fear of the Aūzbegs. The Aīmāqs of those parts beat and robbed him256 then, having let me know, came on to Kābul. Walī went to Shaibānī Khān who had his head struck off in the town of Samarkand.
Shaikh ‘Abdu’l-lāh Barlās257 was another; he had to wife one of the daughters of Shāh Sult̤ān Muḥammad (Badakhshī) i. e., the maternal aunt of Abā-bikr Mīrzā (Mīrān-shāhī) and of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān. He wore his tunic narrow and pur shaqq258; he was a kindly well-bred man.
Maḥmūd Barlās of the Barlāses of Nūndāk (Badakhshān) was another. He had been a beg also of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā and had surrendered Karmān to him when the Mīrzā took the ‘Irāq countries. When Abā-bikr Mīrzā (Mīrān-shāhī) came against Ḥiṣār with Mazīd Beg Tarkhān and the Black Sheep Turkmāns, and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went off to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand, Maḥmūd Barlās did not surrender Ḥiṣār but held out manfully.259 He was a poet and put a dīwān together.
(i. Historical narrative resumed).
When Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā died, Khusrau Shāh kept the event concealed and laid a long hand on the treasure. But how could such news be hidden? It spread through the town at once. That was a festive day for the Samarkand families; soldier and peasant, they uprose in tumult against Khusrau Shāh. Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg and the Tarkhānī begs put the rising down and turned Khusrau Shāh out of the town with an escort for Ḥiṣār.
As Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā himself after giving Ḥiṣār to Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā and Bukhārā to Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, had dismissed both to their governments, neither was present when he died. The Ḥiṣār and Samarkand begs, after turning Khusrau Shāh out, agreed to send for Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā from Bukhārā, brought him to Samarkand and seated him on the throne. When he thus became supreme (pādshāh), he was 18 (lunar) years old.
At this crisis, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān (Chaghatāī), acting on the word of Junaid Barlās and of some of the notables of Samarkand, led his army out to near Kān-bāī with desire to take that town. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, on his side, marched out in force. They fought near Kān-bāī. Ḥaidar Kūkūldāsh, the main pillar of the Mughūl army, led the Mughūl van. He and all his men dismounted and were pouring in flights of arrows (shība) when a large body of the mailed braves of Ḥiṣār and Samarkand made an impetuous charge and straightway laid them under their horses’ feet. Their leader taken, the Mughūl army was put to rout without more fighting. Masses (qālīn) of Mughūls were wiped out; so many were beheaded in Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā’s presence that his tent was three times shifted because of the number of the dead.
At this same crisis, Ibrāhīm Sārū entered the fort of Asfara, there read Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā’s name in the Khut̤ba and took up a position of hostility to me.
(Author’s note.) Ibrāhīm Sārū is of the Mīnglīgh people;260 he had served my father in various ways from his childhood but later on had been dismissed for some fault.
The army rode out to crush this rebellion in the month of Sha’bān (May) and by the end of it, had dismounted round Asfara. Our braves in the wantonness of enterprise, on the very day of arrival, took the new wall261 that was in building outside the fort. That day Sayyid Qāsim, Lord of my Gate, out-stripped the rest and got in with his sword; Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal and Muḥammad-dost T̤aghāī got theirs in also but Sayyid Qāsim won the Champion’s Portion. He took it in Shāhrukhiya when I went to see my mother’s brother, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān.
(Author’s note.) The Championship Portion262 is an ancient usage of the Mughūl horde. Whoever outdistanced his tribe and got in with his own sword, took the portion at every feast and entertainment.
My guardian, Khudāī-bīrdī Beg died in that first day’s fighting, struck by a cross-bow arrow. As the assault was made without armour, several bare braves (yīkīt yīlāng)263 perished and many were wounded. One of Ibrāhīm Sārū’s cross-bowmen was an excellent shot; his equal had never been seen; he it was hit most of those wounded. When Asfara had been taken, he entered my service.
As the siege drew on, orders were given to construct head-strikes264 in two or three places, to run mines and to make every effort to prepare appliances for taking the fort. The siege lasted 40 days; at last Ibrāhīm Sārū had no resource but, through the mediation of Khwāja Moulānā-i-qāẓī, to elect to serve me. In the month of Shawwāl (June 1495 A.D.) he came out, with his sword and quiver hanging from his neck, waited on me and surrendered the fort.
Khujand for a considerable time had been dependent on ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s Court (dīwān) but of late had looked towards Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā on account of the disturbance in the Farghāna government during the interregnum.265 As the opportunity offered, a move against it also was now made. Mīr Mughūl’s father, ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb Shaghāwal266 was in it; he surrendered without making any difficulty at once on our arrival.
Just then Sl. Maḥmūd Khān was in Shāhrukhiya. It has been said already that when Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā came into Andijān (899 AH.), he also came and that he laid siege to Akhsī. It occurred to me that if since I was so close, I went and waited on him, he being, as it were, my father and my elder brother, and if bye-gone resentments were laid aside, it would be good hearing and seeing for far and near. So said, I went.
I waited on The Khān in the garden Ḥaidar Kūkūldāsh had made outside Shāhrukhiya. He was seated in a large four-doored tent set up in the middle of it. Having entered the tent, I knelt three times,267 he for his part, rising to do me honour. We looked one another in the eyes;268 and he returned to his seat. After I had kneeled, he called me to his side and shewed me much affection and friendliness. Two or three days later, I set off for Akhsī and Andijān by the Kīndīrlīk Pass.269 At Akhsī I made the circuit of my Father’s tomb. I left at the hour of the Friday Prayer (i. e., about midday) and reached Andijān, by the Band-i-sālār Road between the Evening and Bedtime Prayers. This road i. e. the Band-i-sālār, people call a nine yīghāch road.270
One of the tribes of the wilds of Andijān is the Jīgrāk271 a numerous people of five or six thousand households, dwelling in the mountains between Kāshghar and Farghāna. They have many horses and sheep and also numbers of yāks (qūtās), these hill-people keeping yāks instead of common cattle. As their mountains are border-fastnesses, they have a fashion of not paying