The Nāṣirī Generations 263.2.2

263.2.2

Shaikh Khan, and the Hajib, Aghul, made no stay, and retired to the Dasht-i-Khurz, upon which the Turkmans chose Ikhtiyar-ud-Din as their head and ruler, entered into a covenant with him, left the service of the Majir-ul-Mulk, and contemplated taking the city out of his hands. He, however, got information of it, and prepared to defeat their design, upon which they, being hopeless of surprising Marw, went and pitched their camp on the banks of the river of Marw. They then began to plunder the villages around, and the suburbs of the city, up to its very walls, and to appropriate place, he martyred every person in Nishapur, desolated it, everything they could lay their hands upon. In the meantime, Tuli Khan, having drawn a levy of 70,000 men from Sarakhs, Nisa, Abiward, and other towns of Khurasan, which had submitted to the Mughal yoke, and incorporated them into his army, moved towards Marw. Having arrived in the vicinity, he sent in advance — so say the pro-Mughal historians — a body of 400 horse — much more probably 4000 — to reconnoitre, so that, in the night, they reached the banks of the Marw river, close to the khels of the Turkmans, and there they halted. There were 12,000 men there assembled for the purpose of making a raid in the vicinity of the city; and, in that dark night, each detachment of Turkmans, as they came up, totally unsuspecting the presence of such foes, were attacked unawares, in detail, and slaughtered;