Teach me about Timur /his/
>>1128211
Posting stuff that was on a previous thread.
Timur started as a son of a simple noble. He was highly intelligent, spoke at least three languages. Despite getting crippled in his youth (hence “Timur the Lame”), he became a military leader at the head of a small army. Through military and political acumen he distinguished himself and he ended up getting crowned in Balkh. And thus it begins.
He started his conquests by subjugating the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan, not the easiest place on earth to begin if you’re an aspiring conqueror. He followed this up by going into modern-day Iran, slaughtering every city that put up resistance and sparing the cities that surrendered, in the same vein as his hero Genghis. People who were of value were shipped off to his beloved Samarkand. He paused his Persian campaign to retreat to the gorgeous Georgian mountains, where he proclaimed Jihad against the infidel Christians and decimated them. He went back to Persia, killed some more and finished the job.
Afterwards Timur got into trouble with a guy called Tokhtamysh, a competent Mongol khan who burned down Moscow once. As you’d expect, Timur thoroughly beat him and burned down cities all over Russia. Have you ever wondered how the infamous Golden Horde who ruled massive parts of Russia met its demise? Timur.
He then decided to follow in Alexander's footsteps and move eastward towards the Indus river. Again, he thoroughly beat everyone he met, crossed the Indus river and marched on Delhi, thus outdoing Alexander the Great himself. There he faced war elephants for the first time, and like Scipio Africanus he conceived of a successful strategy to defeat them. He succeeded and sacked Delhi, something Genghis and his sons (and grandsons) failed to do. He celebrated this grand achievement by going back to the Caucasus and slaughtering some more infidel Armenians and Georgians.
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>>1128229
Timur followed this up by going to the Levant and sacking cities such as Damascus and Aleppo for vague religiously motivated reasons, thus outdoing even ISIS. Speaking of things ISIS failed to do, Timur then decided to capture Baghdad, where he ordered every single soldier of his to bring him 24 severed heads. Of course there weren’t enough heads to go around, so soldiers resorted to beheading everything in sight, including their own wives apparently.
Meanwhile in Anatolia, a dynasty you might have heard of were on a meteoric rise. The Ottoman emperor Bayezid I managed to get on Timur’s bad side because he apparently liked to talk trash through letters. Talk shit, get hit, and damn did Bayezid I get hit (picture related). Timur destroyed the Ottoman forces at Ankara and was the only one to capture an Ottoman Sultan in battle. Remnants of the Ottoman army were saved by the Genoese and Venetians, because they were scared shitless by Timur and would rather have the Ottomans as a buffer state between them and Timur. This pissed Timur off, but he consoled himself by BTFO’ing the Crusaders at Izmir, thus officially becoming a ghazi.
The Ming emperor, clearly not having heard what happened to Bayezid, also talked shit to Timur, which incited his wrath. Timur started his military campaign and set off in winter, which is the last thing he ever did. He died in modern-day Kazakhstan before reaching Ming territory.
5% of the world’s population killed. Over 4.4 million square kilometers of territory captured in give or take 40 years.
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>>1128211
I have not always been as now:
The fever’d diadem on my brow
I claim’d and won usurpingly —
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Cæsar — this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.
So late from Heaven — that dew — it fell
(’Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light
From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,
Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy,
And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar
Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child! — was swelling
(O! how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!
The rain came down upon my head
Unshelter’d — and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the rush —
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires — with the captive’s prayer —
The hum of suitors — and the tone
Of flattery ‘round a sovereign’s throne.
>>1128265
...
I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,
And donn’d a visionary crown ——
Yet it was not that Fantasy
Had thrown her mantle over me —
But that, among the rabble — men,
Lion ambition is chain’d down —
And crouches to a keeper’s hand —
Not so in deserts where the grand —
The wild — the terrible conspire
With their own breath to fan his fire.
Look ‘round thee now on Samarcand! —
Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies? in all beside
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling — her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne —
And who her sovereign? Timour — he
Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o’er empires haughtily
A diadem’d outlaw!
>>1128211
He got trolled by this nigga
>>1128353
Nigga lucked out on Timur dying before reaching China.
