The Gunpowder revelation.
Babur spends his time ruling Kabul, never forgetting Samarkand and his home of Ferghana. He will never go back to these cities ever. Little does he know his destiny lies south, in the land beyond the Hindukush. He receives a secret message from the Afghan nobles at the court of the Delhi Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, an unworthy son of a successful father, Sikandar. Ibrahim Lodi is in his ninth year of reign when treachery strikes his legacy.
He rides to meet the Timurid army his informants have told him about. It is reported to be 12,000 strong. Ibrahim is confident. He has numbers on his side. He outnumbers the enemy by at least 9:1, with an army of reportedly 100,000. This is not including his roughly 300 war elephants. Terrorizing creatures on the battlefield, enough to send the enemy scattering in fear.
Zahiruddin meets the Lodi army at Panipat. The year is 1526. He forms a tulguhma formation. His army follows tactics borrowed from the Ottomans. It is divided into flanks and into smaller units best suited to surround the enemy from all sides effectively. However, the tactics aren’t the only thing the Timurids have brought to the Indian subcontinent from the Ottomans.
Little does Ibrahim know; he is in for the scare of his life. He is going to experience the brutality of the miracle that is gunpowder. Never before seen in this part of the world. He engages with the front of the Timurid file and charges confidently, knowing he will be able to break ranks and decimate the foe. As his army draws nearer, the front file of the Timurids starts growing wider, parting in the middle. To expose a line of mounted artillery that uses gunpowder and canons. The tide of the war changes suddenly.
The bullets fly and the artillery tear into the Lodi ranks and the sound of the cannons booming scare the Elephants so badly that they turn and start crushing their own soldiers in the chaos. Babur has half his work done for him. The Gurkani flag prevails. The long history of the Sultanate in Delhi ends.
Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur finally establishes an empire worthy of his lineage. Though he doesn’t feel very strongly about the place he has conquered. He complains of the weather frequently; hardly likes the fruits that grow in this country and accuses the gardens of India of being too drab to be even called gardens. Despite all this, he lays the foundation of what will come to be the most prosperous empire in medieval times. Shaping a continent and its culture, forever.
