914 TO 925 AH. 1508 to 1519 AD. 351
b. Babur's campaign in Transoxiana begun.
The Mlrza's letter was brought over passes blocked by snow ; Babur, with all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Ab-dara, kept the Ramzan Feast in Barman, and reached Qunduz in Shawwal (Jan. 1511 AD.). Haidar's detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded because he had read Babur's own remark, made in Ramzan 933 AH. (June 1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sikri, he had not since his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330).
c. Mughiil affairs.
Outside Qunduz lay the Mughuls mentioned by Mlrza Khan as come from Merv and so mentioned, presumably, as a possible reinforcement. They had been servants of Babur's uncles Mahmud and Ahmad, and when ShaibanI defeated those Khans at Akhsl in 908 ah., had been compelled by him to migrate into Khurasan to places remote from Mughulistan. Many of them had served in Kashghar; none had served a Tlmurid Mlrza. Set free by Shaibanl's death, they had come east, a Khan-less 20,000 of armed and fully equipped men and they were there, as Haidar says, in their strength while of Chaghatals there were not more than 5,000. They now, and with them the Mughuls from Kabul, used the opportunity offering for return to a more congenial location and leadership, by the presence in Qunduz of a legitimate Khaqan and the clearance in Andijan, a threshold of Mughulistan, of its Auzbeg governors (f. 2O0$). The chiefs of both bodies of Mughuls, Sherlm Taghal at the head of one, Ayub Begchik of the other, proffered the Mughul Khanship to Sa'Id with offer to set Babur aside, perhaps to kill him. It is improbable that in making their offer they contemplated locating themselves in the confined country of Kabul; what they seem to have wished was what Babur gave, Said for their Khaqan and permission to go north with him.
Sa'Id, in words worth reading, rejected their offer to injure Babur, doing so on the grounds of right and gratitude, but, the two men agreeing that it was now expedient for them to part, asked to be sent to act for Babur where their friendship could be maintained for their common welfare. The matter was
