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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Tamerlane's cavalry, his spies, his elephants, even his chess. But there's a side of his military machine that doesn't get as much attention, and it's the one that actually broke cities. Luna: You mean siege engines? Lucas: Exactly. The trebuchets, the mangonels, the sappers, the towers. When people think of Timur, they picture horsemen on the steppe, but his armies were also masters of siegecraft. And they had to be, because most of his campaigns were about taking fortified cities, not just open-field battles. Lucas: Think about it: Isfahan, Baghdad, Delhi, Aleppo, Damascus. These were massive urban centers with thick walls and garrisoned troops. You can't just ride up and ask them to surrender. You need to physically break those walls or starve them out or trick your way in. Luna: So what was the typical Timurid siege like? Lucas: Well, the first step was usually a formal summons. Timur would send envoys demanding surrender, offering terms. If they refused, the real work began. And that work was often led by a guy you might not expect: an engineer named Mahmud ibn Ishaq. Lucas: He's one of those figures who appears in the chronicles almost out of nowhere, but he was clearly a master of military engineering. The Zafarnama mentions him in the context of building siege engines and directing mining operations. He was the kind of guy who could look at a wall and know exactly where to dig a tunnel or place a trebuchet. Luna: So he was like a medieval combat engineer? Lucas: Exactly. And his tools were the classic ones of the era, but Timur adapted them in clever ways. For instance, they used the trebuchet, a massive counterweight machine that could hurl stones weighing hundreds of pounds over the walls. They'd set these up within range and just pound the fortifications day and night. Lucas: But they also used mangonels, which were smaller and more mobile, firing on a flatter trajectory. And then there were the sappers, guys who would dig tunnels under the walls, prop them up with timber, and then burn the timber to collapse the tunnel and bring down a section of wall. Luna: That sounds terrifying. Did they use those tactics at Isfahan? Lucas: Oh, they did. At Isfahan in 1387, the city actually opened its gates after a short siege, but then a popular uprising led to a massacre of Timur's tax collectors. So Timur came back, and this time he didn't offer terms. He just brought up his engines and started tearing the place apart. Lucas: The chronicles talk about the walls being breached by catapults and the streets running red. And then, of course, you get the infamous skull pyramids. But those pyramids weren't just about cruelty—they were also a psychological weapon that reduced the will to resist elsewhere. Luna: But the skull pyramids are something we've covered before. I want to know more about the actual engineering. Lucas: Right. So one thing that's often overlooked is the logistics of building these machines on campaign. You can't just carry a trebuchet on a horse. They had to source timber from local forests, which wasn't always easy in the steppe or desert. Sometimes they'd dismantle buildings just to get the wood. Lucas: And then there was the problem of transporting the stone balls. Some of them were so heavy that they needed special carts. The Zafarnama mentions that for the siege of Delhi, they had to use elephants to haul some of the larger pieces. It was a massive logistical undertaking. Luna: Did they ever use gunpowder weapons at that point? Lucas: That's a great question. By the late 14th century, gunpowder was starting to appear in Central Asia, but it wasn't yet decisive. Timur's armies did use some early cannon-like devices, but they were mostly for psychological effect rather than practical breaching. The real heavy lifting was still done by trebuchets and sappers. Lucas: Interestingly, the Ottomans a generation later would start using massive bombards, like the one that brought down Constantinople's walls. But Timur was still firmly in the age of mechanical siege engines. He was a transitional figure, but he pushed those old techniques to their absolute limit. Luna: So what made Timur's siegecraft better than, say, the Mongols a century earlier? Lucas: Partly it was the incorporation of Persian and Chinese expertise. The Mongols had learned siegecraft from Chinese and Persian engineers, and Timur inherited that tradition. But he also improved the organization. His sieges were more systematic. He had dedicated engineering units, and he planned multiple approaches simultaneously. Lucas: For instance, at Baghdad in 1401, he didn't just rely on bombardment. He also cut off the city's water supply and used psychological warfare by catapulting severed heads over the walls to spread panic. That combination of engineering and terror was very effective. Luna: That's brutal. But I'm also thinking about the defenders. What could they do against a Timurid siege? Lucas: They could try to counter-mine, dig their own tunnels to collapse the attackers'. Or they could sortie out to try to destroy the siege engines, which was risky. But often, the sheer speed and violence of Timur's attacks left defenders little time to react. Lucas: And let's not forget the role of treachery and betrayal. Sometimes Timur would bribe a gatekeeper or find a weak point through spies. But that's more of a strategy than an engineering detail. Luna: Speaking of spies, I remember you talk about the intelligence network. How did that feed into sieges? Lucas: Oh, it was crucial. Knowing the enemy's supply situation, the morale of the garrison, the condition of the walls—that determined whether you could starve them out, storm the gates, or just sit and bombard. Timur had a network of spies that would often have detailed information about the target months before he even got there. Lucas: At Delhi, for instance, he knew that the Tughlaq army was poorly led and that the city's defenses were not in great shape. So he was able to move quickly and decisively. The siege itself was relatively short. But the aftermath—the massacre and the plunder—was horrific. Luna: So the engineering was efficient, but the brutality was extreme. Is there anything about that we haven't discussed yet? Lucas: Well, one thing that's often overlooked is the treatment of engineers and skilled craftsmen after a successful siege. Timur would often spare them and send them back to Samarkand to work on his building projects. So the same people who built his siege engines might end up building his mosques and palaces. Lucas: That's a bit of a paradox, isn't it? The tools of destruction become the tools of construction. And perhaps that's a good moment to mention something else that keeps this show going. Luna: What's that? Lucas: We've been doing these deep dives into history without any ads, and that's a choice we make because we want you to hear the story uninterrupted. If you find value in that, and if you want to support the show, there's a page: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to keep us going, and it's completely optional. But it does help with the research and the time we put into each episode. Lucas: So, back to the siege engines. Let's talk about the siege of Ankara in 1402, because that's a battle we've covered, but the siege part is often overshadowed by the field battle. Luna: Wait, was Ankara mainly a siege or a field battle? Lucas: It was mostly a field battle, but before that, Timur had to take several Ottoman fortresses in Anatolia. He used his siege engines to quickly reduce castles like Sivas and Kayseri. That campaign showed his ability to adapt his siegecraft to different types of fortifications. Lucas: And it also showed his use of psychological warfare. At Sivas, he famously buried people alive in a ditch after the surrender. That was a message to other cities: resist and face annihilation. Luna: Talk about a deterrent. Lucas: So when we look at Timur's military genius, we often focus on his mobility and his cavalry. But his sieges were just as important, and they required a different kind of expertise. He was a master of both the field and the wall. Lucas: And that's something that the chroniclers like Ibn Arabshah and Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi noted, even if they didn't dwell on the technical details. They were more interested in the drama and the cruelty. But for us, it's worth digging into the mechanics. Luna: Absolutely. I had no idea about the logistics of sourcing timber on campaign. That's the kind of detail that makes history feel real. Lucas: Yeah, and it's those details that show you how much planning went into these campaigns. Timur wasn't just a brute force conqueror. He was a strategist who understood that taking a city required patience, engineering, and a willingness to do whatever it took. Lucas: So next time you see a painting of a medieval siege, think about the sappers crawling under the walls, the engineers directing the trebuchets, and the logistics train bringing up the stones. That was the reality. Luna: I'll never look at a castle the same way again. Lucas: And that's the beauty of history—it's not just about the big events, but about the everyday mechanics that made them possible. Thanks for coming along on this deep dive with us. Luna: Thanks for having me. This was a great one.