Timur conquers Khwarezm after five campaigns

1374

After years of bloody back-and-forth, Timur finally crushed the Sufi dynasty of Khwarezm and razed the old oasis cities of Urgench and Kath. The irrigation canals that had sustained civilization on the Oxus delta for millennia were deliberately destroyed. Khwarezm's gardens became desert, and its refugees scattered across Central Asia.