Timur the Lame

Timur the Lame is a very little known figure in history to laymen (but he is much studied among scholars), dispute the fact that his wars killed 5% of the population of the time (he was in the 1400s). Timur the Lame started as a simple sheep raider (he got his nickname "the lame" when he got hit in the leg with an arrow during one of his raids). He then faked his ancestry and claimed to be the descendent of Genghis Khan. He then took major military operations in Persia and Transoxia, which gave him fame and he eventually became the ruler of the new Mongol Empire after defeating his rivals. After several years, he had become the Amir of a new horde known as the Timurid Empire. He warred or waged war in and against the Ottomans, Golden Horde, Indian City-states, the Knights Templar (the only Western army that he fought), Baghdad, Georgia, Russia, all of Central Asia, and attempted on Ming China (Ming China was saved only by his death). Timur has legendary for his cruelty, wiping out entire cities which one work described "inflicting damage like that of a nuclear bomb". He had his enemies' heads piled in pyramids, often with hundreds of thousands of heads. One incident, he had his soldiers bring him each two heads or they would be executed. The soldiers were so terrified that they bought heads from their comrades or behead prisoners that they took. Timur just raided and pillaged, he rarely bothered to replace the political systems that he destroyed. After his death, the Timurid dynasty dissolved into infighting and civil war and was soon was conquered.