With his victories, Tamerlane held power over all or almost all of the old Mongol khanates. In 1404, he set his sights on the greatest prize: Khubilai Khan’s old empire of China, now ruled by the Chinese Ming Dynasty. Tamerlane began assembling a huge force to march east, but he died the next year before setting out on his conquest. With Tamerlane’s death, the Turko-Mongol princes of the Ulus Chaghatai and their allies competed for power. The foreign conquests ended during this era of civil war, which at times featured different rulers taking control in different parts of the empire. Finally, in 1409, Tamerlane’s son Shahrukh (1377-1447) emerged as the next supreme leader of his father’s lands.
Based in Herat, Shahrukh controlled Khurasan, while his son Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) ruled for his father in Transoxiana. When Shahrukh died in 1447, Ulugh Beg took control of the entire empire. Unlike Tamerlane, Shahrukh did not see the need to claims ties to Chinggis Khan and his descendants. Shahrukh stopped his father’s practice of naming a member of the Mongol family as the supposed leader of the realm, and he took on the Arabic title of sultan, or king.
Once Shahrukh firmly established his control, the empire was relatively peaceful. But soon after Timur’s death, local princes in Azerbaijan and present-day Iraq had won their independence from the Timurids. Tamerlane’s former empire would continue to shrink through the 15th century, although his descendants would form a powerful new state in India. And the Mongol influence would continue throughout Central Asia and in the distant lands that had once come under the Great Khans’ rule.
World History
