...the two armies approach each other near Alcazarquivir, “The Great Fortress,” camping on opposite sides of the Loukkos, or Lucus, River.

The Emir, although he has obvious superiority in numbers, again attempts to negotiate a peace, but without success.

Sebastian's army is low on provisions and in a poor tactical position as the Moors have occupied all the surrounding high ground, but he will not be persuaded to temporize or withdraw, even by Mulay Mohammed.

The Portuguese troops are drawn up in battle array on August 4, and Sebastian rides around encouraging the ranks.

The Moors advance on a broad front and encircle his army.

The Emir has ten thousand cavalry on the wings, and in the center he has placed Moors who had been driven out of Spain and thus bear a special grudge against Christians.

The Emir leaves his litter despite his illness, and leads his forces on horseback.

The ensuing battle ends in the total defeat of the Portuguese, with eight thousand dead, including the slaughter of almost the whole of the country’s nobility, and fifteen thousand taken prisoner; perhaps a hundred survivors escape to the coast.

Stukley, commanding the Portuguese center, is killed early in the day after a cannonball cuts off his legs.

Tradition asserts that he had been murdered by his Italian soldiers after the Portuguese had been defeated.

The body of King Sebastian, who had led a charge into the midst of the enemy and was then cut off, is never found.

The Emir Abd Al-Malik also dies during the battle, but from natural causes (the effort of riding had been too much for him), and the news is concealed from his troops until total victory has been secured.

Mulay Mohammed attempts to flee but is drowned in the river.

For this reason, the battle is known in Morocco as the Battle of the Three Kings.

Abd Al-Malik is succeeded as Emir by his brother Ahmad al-Mansur, also known as Ahmed Saali, who obtains great wealth for his lands through the ransoms of the Portuguese prisoners.

Ahmad al-Mansur is the sixth ruler of the Sa'di dynasty, which he has raised to its zenith of power by his policy of centralization and astute diplomacy.

Also called Al-dhahabi (the Golden), al-Mansur has resisted the demands of his nominal suzerain, the Ottoman sultan, by playing off the European powers, namely, France, Portugal, Spain, and England, against one another in order to preserve Moroccan independence.

During the early years of his rule a largely mercenary army had been trained and led by Ottoman Turks.

The administrative system of the government had been centralized, and important state officials had been given land assignments and exempted from taxation.

A survey of property had been made, and land revenue collected directly.

Agriculture and the sugar industry have been developed.

Marrakech, the capital city, has been restored to its former grandeur.

Al-Mansur establishes trade and diplomatic relations with Spain, effectively breaking the monopoly held since 1585 by the Barbary Company, which had been formed by British merchants to control foreign trade.

The Songhai had been the dominant force in West Africa for more than a century, controlling the Western Sudan from the headwaters of the Senegal River to what is now Niger and Nigeria.

A rivalry for succession after the 1583 death of Askia Daoud has left the Empire in a weakened state, however.

Many of Ahmad’s advisors warn of the dangers of crossing the Sahara, but he maintains that any path that merchants can travel can surely be used by soldiers as well.

He dispatches in October 1590 a force of fifteen hundred light cavalry and twenty-five hundred infantry, many of whom are equipped with arquebuses.

The command he entrusts to the eunuch Judar, a former Christian Spaniard who had been forcibly converted to Islam after being kidnapped as a baby and castrated before puberty.

The army travels with a transport train of eight thousand camels, one thousand packhorses, one thousand stablemen, and six hundred laborers; they also transport eight English cannons.

Judar, who Ahmad I had made a pasha in advance of this expedition, has assembled eighty Christian bodyguards for his personal detail.

The Sa’di Sharifate of Morocco is at the height of its power, after having annihilated a Portuguese army at the Battle of Ksar el Kebir in 1578, at which time Sultan Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi had died in battle.

Ahmad al-Mansur, named his brother's successor, had begun his reign amid newly won prestige and wealth leveraged from the ransom of Portuguese captives, the collection of which had filled the Moroccan royal coffers.

He began construction shortly after on the great architectural symbol of this new birth of Moroccan power and relevance; the grand palace in Marrakesh called Al Badi, or "the marvelous".

The coffers have begun to run dry due to the great expense of supporting the military, extensive spy services, the palace and other urban building projects, a royal lifestyle and a propaganda campaign aimed at building support for his controversial claim to the Caliphate.

In reality, Morocco's standing with the Christian states is still in flux.

The Spaniards and the Portuguese are still popularly seen as the infidel, but al-Mansur knows that the only way his regime will survive is to continue to benefit from alliances with the Christian economic powers.

To do this, Morocco has to control sizable gold resources of its own.

Accordingly, al-Mansur is drawn irresistibly to the trans-Saharan gold trade of the Songhai in hopes of solving Morocco's economic deficit with Europe.

Judar Pasha had reached Songhai territory after a four-month journey, with his forces largely intact.

After seizing and razing the salt mines of Taghaza, he advanced on the Songhai capital of Gao.

Songhai ruler Askia Ishaq III, in response to the Moroccan incursion, raises a large army that includes some ninety-seven hundred to thirty thousand infantry infantry and twelve thousand five hundred to eighteen thousand cavalry.

Aksia Ishaq also brings along a herd of one thousand cattle, which he plans to use as a screening force for his infantry.

The Songhai army awaits Judar's force near Tondibi, a village just north of Gao.

Though the Songhai have a powerful cavalry, they lack the Moroccans’ gunpowder weapons, which will turn the tide of the battle.

The armies meet in March of 1591.

After an initial cavalry skirmish, Judar maneuvers his arquebusiers into place and opens fire with both arquebuses and cannons.

The noise and tremendous initial damage begins a cattle stampede behind the Songhai position.

Faced with gunfire ahead and a stampede behind, the Songhai army flees, ending the battle.

Judar continues on to Gao and sacks the city but, finding little in the way of riches, soon moves on to ...

...the richer trading centers of Timbuktu and ...

...Djenné.

The looting of the three cities marks the end of the Songhai Empire as an effective force in the region.

However, Morocco proves likewise unable to assert a firm control over the area, due to the difficulties of communication and resupply across the Saharan trade routes, and a decade of sporadic fighting begins.

Moroccan sultan Ahmad al-Mansur meanwhile develops friendly relations with England in view of an Anglo-Moroccan alliance.

He sends his Secretary Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud as ambassador of the Barbary States to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600 to negotiate an alliance against Spain.