901 AH. – SEP. 21st. 1495 to SEP. 9th. 1496 AD.275
(a. Sult̤ān Ḥusain Mīrzā’s campaign against Khusrau Shāh).
In the winter of this year, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā led his army out of Khurāsān against Ḥiṣār and went to opposite Tīrmīẕ. Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā, for his part, brought an army (from Ḥiṣār) and sat down over against him in Tīrmīẕ. Khusrau Shāh strengthened himself in Qūndūz and to help Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā sent his younger brother, Walī. They (i. e., the opposed forces) spent most of that winter on the river’s banks, no crossing being effected. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was a shrewd and experienced commander; he marched up the river,276 his face set for Qūndūz and by this having put Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā off his guard, sent ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf Bakhshī (pay-master) with 5 or 600 serviceable men, down the river to the Kilīf ferry. These crossed and had entrenched themselves on the other bank before Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā had heard of their movement. When he did hear of it, whether because of pressure put upon him by Bāqī Chaghānīānī to spite (his half-brother) Walī, or whether from his own want of heart, he did not march against those who had crossed but disregarding Walī’s urgency, at once broke up his camp and turned for Ḥiṣār.277
Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā crossed the river and then sent, (1) against Khusrau Shāh, Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and Ibrāhīm Ḥusain Mīrzā with Muḥammad Walī Beg and Ẕū’n-nūn Arghūn, and (2) against Khutlān, Muz̤affar Ḥusain Mīrzā with Muḥammad Barandūq Barlās. He himself moved for Ḥiṣār.
When those in Ḥiṣār heard of his approach, they took their precautions; Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā did not judge it well to stay in the fort but went off up the Kām Rūd valley278 and by way of Sara-tāq to his younger brother, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā in Samarkand. Walī, for his part drew off to (his own district) Khutlān. Bāqī Chaghānīānī, Maḥmūd Barlās and Qūch Beg’s father, Sl. Aḥmad strengthened the fort of Ḥiṣār. Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sl. (Aūzbeg) who some years earlier had left Shaibānī Khān for (the late) Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā’s service, now, in this dispersion, drew off with all their Aūzbegs, for Qarā-tīgīn. With them went Muḥammad Dūghlāt279 and Sl. Ḥusain Dūghlāt and all the Mughūls located in the Ḥiṣār country.
Upon this Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sent Abū’l-muḥsin Mīrzā after Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā up the Kām Rūd valley. They were not strong enough for such work when they reached the defile.280 There Mīrzā Beg Fīringī-bāz281 got in his sword. In pursuit of Ḥamza Sl. into Qarā-tīgīn, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sent Ibrāhīm Tarkhān and Yaq‘ūb-i-ayūb. They overtook the sult̤āns and fought. The Mīrzā’s detachment was defeated; most of his begs were unhorsed but all were allowed to go free.
(b. Bābur’s reception of the Aūzbeg sult̤āns.)
As a result of this exodus, Ḥamza Sl. with his son, Mamāq Sl., and Mahdī Sl. and Muḥammad Dūghlāt, later known as Ḥiṣārī and his brother, Sl. Ḥusain Dūghlāt with the Aūzbegs dependent on the sult̤āns and the Mughūls who had been located in Ḥiṣār as (the late) Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā’s retainers, came, after letting me know (their intention), and waited upon me in Ramẓān (May-June) at Andijān. According to the custom of Tīmūriya sult̤āns on such occasions, I had seated myself on a raised seat (tūshāk); when Ḥamza Sl. and Mamāq Sl. and Mahdī Sl. entered, I rose and went down to do them honour; we looked one another in the eyes and I placed them on my right, bāghīsh dā.282 A number of Mughūls also came, under Muḥammad Ḥiṣārī; all elected for my service.
(c. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā’s affairs resumed).
Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, on reaching Ḥiṣār, settled down at once to besiege it. There was no rest, day nor night, from the labours of mining and attack, of working catapults and mortars. Mines were run in four or five places. When one had gone well forward towards the Gate, the townsmen, countermining, struck it and forced smoke down on the Mīrzā’s men; they, in turn, closed the hole, thus sent the smoke straight back and made the townsmen flee as from the very maw of death. In the end, the townsmen drove the besiegers out by pouring jar after jar of water in on them. Another day, a party dashed out from the town and drove off the Mīrzā’s men from their own mine’s mouth. Once the discharges from catapults and mortars in the Mīrzā’s quarters on the north cracked a tower of the fort; it fell at the Bed-time Prayer; some of the Mīrzā’s braves begged to assault at once but he refused, saying, “It is night.” Before the shoot of the next day’s dawn, the besieged had rebuilt the whole tower. That day too there was no assault; in fact, for the two to two and a half months of the siege, no attack was made except by keeping up the blockade,283 by mining, rearing head-strikes,284 and discharging stones.
When Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and whatever (nī kīm) troops had been sent with him against Khusrau Shāh, dismounted some 16 m. (3 to 4 yīghāch) below Qūndūz,285 Khusrau Shāh arrayed whatever men (nī kīm) he had, marched out, halted one night on the way, formed up to fight and came down upon the Mīrzā and his men. The Khurāsānīs may not have been twice as many as his men but what question is there they were half as many more? None the less did such Mīrzās and such Commander-begs elect for prudence and remain in their entrenchments! Good and bad, small and great, Khusrau Shāh’s force may have been of 4 or 5,000 men!
This was the one exploit of his life, – of this man who for the sake of this fleeting and unstable world and for the sake of shifting and faithless followers, chose such evil and such ill-repute, practised such tyranny and injustice, seized such wide lands, kept such hosts of retainers and followers, – latterly he led out between 20 and 30,000 and his countries and his districts (parganāt) exceeded those of his own ruler and that ruler’s sons,286– for an exploit such as this his name and the names of his adherents were noised abroad for generalship and for this they were counted brave, while those timorous laggards, in the trenches, won the resounding fame of cowards.
Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā marched out from that camp and after a few stages reached the Alghū Mountain of Tāliqān287 and there made halt. Khusrau Shāh, in Qūndūz, sent his brother, Walī, with serviceable men, to Ishkīmīsh, Fulūl and the hill-skirts thereabouts