A great king who took the throne at age 12, defeated the Delhi Sultanate, and founded the Mughal Empire. When Babur inherited the throne of Fergana at just 12, surrounded by powerful enemies, even his most loyal followers could scarcely have imagined that this repeatedly exiled young man, often forced to fight alone, would one day lay the foundations for three centuries of Mughal rule on the distant Indian subcontinent. Babur's youth was marked by exile, defeat, and relentless struggle. Inspired by the glory of his ancestor Timur, he captured Samarkand three times, only to lose it each time to powerful foes. At his lowest point, with only a handful of followers left, he sought refuge in the Hindu Kush Mountains. Realizing his ancestral lands could no longer sustain him, he turned his gaze toward the riches of India. Followers came and went, and enemies and friends switched sides. But Babur's hard-won military talent and unyielding will never failed him. At Panipat, he led ten thousand elite troops against an enemy nearly ten times his size and more than a thousand war elephants. With matchlock firearms and cannons never before seen on Indian battlefields, Babur turned the tide, won a legendary victory, and founded an empire that would rule India for more than three hundred years. Beyond his fame as a conqueror, Babur was also an outstanding scholar. His memoirs, the Baburnama, record both his bloody campaigns and the flowers, mountains, and rivers he encountered on his journeys. Throughout his life in foreign lands, he longed for the melons and cool evening breezes of his homeland, and blended Central Asian and Persian cultures with India's ancient traditions, leaving behind a legacy far more enduring than his empire.