Rulers of India: Akbar Part 4

[Footnote 3: The message ran: 'As I was fully a.s.sured of your honesty and fidelity I left all important affairs of State to your charge, and thought only of my own pleasures. I have now determined to take the reins of government into my own hands, and it is desirable that you should now make the pilgrimage to Mekka, upon which you have been so long intent. A suitable jagir out of the parganas of Hindustan shall be a.s.signed to your maintenance, the revenues of which shall be transmitted to you by your agents.' Elliot, vol. v. p. 264.]

[Footnote 4: The motive attributed to the a.s.sa.s.sin was simply revenge. Bairam was stabbed in the back so that the point of the long dagger came out at his breast. 'With an Allahu Akbar' (G.o.d is great) 'on his lips he died,' writes Blochmann in his _Ain-i-Akbari_. His son was provided for by Akbar.]

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CHAPTER XI CHRONICLE OF THE REIGN

The position in India, in the sixth year of Akbar's reign, dating from the battle of Panipat, but the first of his personal rule, may thus be summarised. He held the Punjab and the North-western Provinces, as we know those provinces, including Gwalior and Ajmere to the west, Lucknow, and the remainder of Oudh, including Allahabad, as far as Jaunpur, to the east. Benares, Chanar, and the provinces of Bengal and Behar, were still held by princes of the house of Sur, or by the representatives of other Afghan families. The whole of Southern India, the greater part of Western India, were outside the territories which acknowledged his sway.

There can be little doubt that, during the five years of his tutelage under Bairam, Akbar had deeply considered the question of how to govern India so as to unite the hearts of the princes and people under the protecting arm of a sovereign whom they should regard as national. The question was enc.u.mbered with difficulties. Four centuries of the rule of Muhammadan sovereigns who had made no attempt to cement into one bond of mutual interests the {92} various races who inhabited the peninsula, each ruling on the principle of temporary superiority, each falling as soon as a greater power presented itself, had not only introduced a conviction of the ephemeral character of the successive dynasties, and of the actual dynasty for the time being. It had also left scattered all over the country, from Bengal to Gujarat, a number of pretenders, offshoots of families which had reigned, every one of whom regarded the Mughal as being only a temporary occupant of the supreme seat of power, to be replaced, as fortune might direct, possibly by one of themselves, possibly by a new invader. This conviction of the ephemeral character of the actual rule was increased by the recollection of the ease with which Humayun had been overthrown. Defeated at Kanauj, he had quitted India leaving not a trace of the thirteen years of Mughal sway, not a single root in the soil.

These were facts which Akbar had recognised. The problem, to his mind, was how to act so as to efface from the minds of princes and people these recollections; to conquer that he might unite; to introduce, as he conquered, principles so acceptable to all cla.s.ses, to the prince as well as to the peasant, that they should combine to regard him as the protecting father, the unit necessary to ward off from them evil, the a.s.surer to them of the exercise of their immemorial rights and privileges, the a.s.sertor of the right of the ablest, independently of his religion, or his caste, or his nationality, to exercise command under {93} himself, the maintainer of equal laws, equal justice, for all cla.s.ses. Such became, as his mind developed, the principles of Akbar. He has been accused, he was accused in his life-time, by bigoted Muhammadan writers, of arrogating to himself the attributes of the Almighty. This charge is only true in the sense that, in an age and in a country in which might had been synonymous with right, he did pose as the messenger from Heaven, the representative on earth of the power of G.o.d, to introduce union, toleration, justice, mercy, equal rights, amongst the peoples of Hindustan.

His first aim was to bring all India under one sceptre, and to accomplish this task in a great measure by enlisting in its favour the several races which he desired to bring within the fold. I have thought it advisable for the fuller comprehension of his system to treat the subject in its two aspects, the physical and the moral.

This chapter, then, will chronicle the successive attempts to bring under one government and one form of law the several states into which India was then divided. The chapter that follows will deal more particularly with the moral aspect of the question.

It would be tedious, in a work like this, to follow Akbar in all the details of his conquests in India. It will suffice to record that, during the first year of his own personal administration and the sixth of his actual reign, he re-attached Malwa to his dominions.

Later in the season his generals repelled an attempt {94} made by the Afghan ruler of Chanar and the country east of the Karamnasa to attack Jaunpur, whilst Akbar himself, marching by way of Kalpi, crossed there the Jumna, and proceeded as far as Karrah, not far from Allahabad, on the right bank of the Ganges. There he was joined by his generals who held Jaunpur, and thence he returned to Agra. The year, at its close, witnessed the siege of Merta, a town in the Jodhpur state, then of considerable importance, beyond Ajmere, and seventy-six miles to the north-east of the city of Jodhpur. This expedition was directed by Akbar from Ajmere where he was then residing, though he confided the execution of it to his generals. The place was defended with great energy by the Rajput garrison, but, in the spring of the following year it was surrendered on condition that the garrison should march out with their horses and arms, but should leave behind all their property and effects.

In the same year in which Merta fell (1562), the generals of Akbar in Malwa, pus.h.i.+ng westward, added the cities of Bijagarh and Burhanpur on the Tapti to his dominions. The advantage proved, however, to be the forerunner of a calamity, for the dispossessed governors of those towns, combining with the expelled Afghan ruler of Malwa, and aided by the zamindars of the country, long accustomed to their rule, made a desperate attack upon the imperial forces. These, laden with the spoils of Burhanpur, were completely defeated. For the moment Malwa was lost, but the year did not expire before the {95} Mughal generals, largely reinforced, had recovered it. The Afghan n.o.ble, whilom Governor of Malwa, after some wanderings, threw himself on the mercy of Akbar, and, to use the phrase of the chronicler, 'sought a refuge from the frowns of fortune.' Akbar made him a commander of one thousand, and a little later promoted him to the mansab (dignity) of a commander of two thousand. He died in the service of his new sovereign. The reader will not fail to notice how the principle of winning over his enemies by a.s.suring to them rank, position, and consideration, instead of driving them to despair, was constantly acted upon by Akbar. His design was to unite, to weld together. Hence he was always generous to the vanquished. He would bring their strength into his strength, instead of allowing it to become a strength outside his own. He would make those who would in the first instance be inclined to resist him feel that conquest by him, or submission to him, would in no way impair their dignity, but, ultimately, would increase it. We shall note the working of this principle more clearly when we come to describe his dealings with the several chiefs of Rajputana.

A tragic event came to cloud the spring of the eighth year of the reign of Akbar. I have referred already to the regard and affection he entertained for the lady who had been his nurse in his infancy, and who had watched his tender years. It was to a great extent upon her advice that he had acted in dealing with Bairam. She had a splendid provision in the {96} palace, and Akbar had provided handsomely for her sons. The eldest of these, however, fired with jealousy at the elevation of men whose equal or superior he considered himself to be, and goaded probably by men of a like nature to his own, a.s.sa.s.sinated the Prime Minister as he was sitting in his public office; then, trusting to the favour which Akbar had always displayed towards his family and himself, went and stood at the door of the harem. But for such a man, and for such an act, Akbar had no mercy. The a.s.sa.s.sin was cut to pieces, and his dead body was hurled over the parapet into the moat below. Those who had incited him, dreading lest their complicity should be discovered, fled across the Jumna, but they were caught, sent back to Agra, and were ultimately pardoned. The mother of the chief culprit died forty days later from grief at her son's conduct.

For some time previously the condition of a portion of the Punjab had been the cause of some anxiety to Akbar. The Gakkhars, a tribe always turbulent, and the chiefs of which had never heartily accepted the Mughal sovereigns, had set at defiance the orders issued for the disposal of their country by Akbar. They had refused, that is, to acknowledge the governor he had nominated. The Gakkhars inhabited, as their descendants inhabit now, that part of the Punjab which may be described as forming the north-eastern part of the existing district of Rawal Pindi. To enforce his orders Akbar sent thither an army, and this army, after some sharp fighting, succeeded in restoring order.

{97} The chief of the Gakkhars was taken prisoner, and died whilst still under surveillance. Akbar caused to be repressed likewise disturbances which had arisen in Kabul, and met with prompt.i.tude a conspiracy formed by the favourite of Humayun, Abul Ma'ali, whose pretentions he had more than once put down, but who was now returning, puffed up with pride, from a pilgrimage to Mekka.

Concerting a plan with another discontented n.o.ble, Abul Ma'ali fell upon a detachment of the royal army near Narnul, and destroyed it.

Akbar sent troops in pursuit of him, and Abul Ma'ali, terrified, fled to Kabul, and wrote thence letters full of penitence to Akbar.

Ultimately, that is, early the following year, Abul Ma'ali was taken prisoner in Badakshan, and strangled.

Up to the spring of 1564 Akbar had not put into execution the designs which he cherished for establis.h.i.+ng the Mughal power in the provinces to the east of Allahabad. Chanar, then considered the key of those eastern territories, was held by a slave of the Adel dynasty. This slave, threatened by one of Akbar's generals, wrote a letter to the Emperor offering to surrender it. Akbar sent two of his n.o.bles to take over the fortress, and to them it was surrendered. The possession of Chanar offered likewise an opening into the district of Narsinghpur, governed by a Rani, who held her court in the fortress of Chauragarh. Against her marched the Mughal general, defeated her in a pitched battle, and added Narsinghpur and portions of what is now styled the district of {98} Hoshangabad to the imperial dominions. In the hot weather of the same year, Akbar, under the pretext of hunting, started for the central districts, when he was surprised by the advent of the rainy season, and with some difficulty made his way across the swollen streams to Narwar, then a flouris.h.i.+ng city boasting a circ.u.mference of twenty miles. After hunting for some days in the vicinity of that city he pushed on towards Malwa, and pa.s.sing through Rawa and Sarangpur, proceeded towards the famous Mandu, twenty-six miles south-west of Mhow. The Governor of Mandu, an Uzbek n.o.ble placed there by Akbar, conscious that the Emperor had grounds for dissatisfaction with him, and placing no trust in a rea.s.suring message sent him by his sovereign, abandoned the city as Akbar approached, and took the field with his followers. Akbar sent a force after him which pursued him to the confines of Gujarat, and took from him his horses, his elephants, and his wives.

The reception accorded to Akbar in Mandu was of the most gratifying character. The zamindars of the neighbouring districts crowded in to pay homage, and the King of distant Khandesh sent an emba.s.sy to greet him. Akbar received the amba.s.sador with distinction. It deserves to be mentioned, as a characteristic feature of the customs of those times, that when Akbar honoured the amba.s.sador with a farewell audience, he placed in his hand a firman addressed to his master, directing him to send to Mandu any one of his daughters whom he might consider worthy {99} to attend upon the Emperor. The native historian adds: 'when Mubarak Shah,' the ruler of Khandesh, 'received this gracious communication, he was greatly delighted, and he sent his daughter with a suitable retinue and paraphernalia to his Majesty, esteeming it a great favour to be allowed to do so.' After a short stay at Mandu, Akbar returned to Agra, by way of Ujjain, Sarangpur, Sipri, Narwar, and Gwalior. During the ensuing cold weather he spent a great part of his time hunting in the Gwalior districts.

There can be but few travellers from the West to India who have not admired the fortress, built of red sandstone, which is one of the sights of Agra. At the time of the accession of Akbar there was at Agra simply a citadel built of brick, ugly in form and ruinous from decay. Akbar had for some time past resolved to build on its ruins a fortress which should be worthy of the ruler of an empire, and in the late spring of 1565 he determined on the plans, and gave the necessary orders. The work was carried on under the direction of Kasim Khan, a distinguished officer whom Akbar had made a commander of three thousand. The building of the fortress took eight years of continuous labour, and the cost was thirty-five lakhs of rupees. It is built, as I have said, of red sandstone, the stones being well joined together and fastened to each other by iron rings which pa.s.s through them. The foundation everywhere reaches water.

The year did not close without an event which afforded Akbar the opportunity of displaying his {100} decision and prompt action in sudden emergencies. I have shown how, on his visit to Mandu, the Uzbek governor of that city had taken fright and rushed into rebellion; how Akbar had caused him to be pursued and punished. The treatment of the rebel, though not unduly severe, had spread in the minds of the Uzbek n.o.bles at the court and in the army the impression that the Emperor disliked men of that race, and three or four of them combined to give him a lesson. The rebellion broke out in the autumn of the year at Jaunpur, the governor of which the Uzbeks had secured to their interests. Akbar was engaged in elephant-hunting at Narwar when the news reached him.

He immediately despatched his ablest general with the troops that were available to aid his loyal officers, whilst he should collect further troops to follow. He marched about ten days later, reached Kanauj, received there the submission of one of the rebel leaders, remained there ten days, waiting till the river, swollen by the rainfall, should subside. Learning then that the chief who was the head of the rebellion had proceeded to Lucknow, he promptly followed him thither with a small but chosen body of troops, and marching incessantly for four-and-twenty hours, came in sight of that city on the morning of the second day. As he approached, the rebels fled with such speed that the horses of the Emperor and his retinue, completely knocked up with their long march, could not follow them. The rebel chief then fell back rapidly on Jaunpur, and joining there his colleagues, quitted that place with them, and {101} crossing the Gogra at the ford of Narhan, forty miles west-north-west of Chapra, remained encamped there. Thence they despatched agents into Bengal to implore the aid of the king of that country.

Meanwhile, one imperial army, led by a general anxious for a bloodless termination to the dispute, had arrived in front of them, whilst another, commanded by a fiery and resolute leader, was marching up from Rajputana. The negotiations which the peaceful general had commenced had almost concluded, when the fiery leader arrived, and, declaring the negotiations to be a fraud, insisted upon fighting. In the battle which followed the imperial forces were defeated, and fled to re-a.s.semble the day following at Shergarh.

Before this battle had been fought Akbar had confirmed the peace negotiations with the rebels, and he was not moved from his resolution when he heard of their victory over his army. He said: 'their faults have been forgiven,' and he sent instructions to his Amirs to return to court. He then marched himself to Chanar, alike to plan works for the strengthening of the fortress; to hunt elephants in the Mirzapur jungles; and to await the further action of the rebels he had pardoned with arms in their hands. The experiment was not one to be repeated, for, flushed with their success, the rebel chiefs broke out anew. Akbar, however, by a skilful disposition of his forces, compelled their submission, and received them back to favour. In the course of this year the imperial generals had {102} taken the fortress of Rotas, in Behar, and amba.s.sadors, sent on a mission to the king of Orissa, had returned laden with splendid presents.

The spring of the year 1566 found the Emperor back at Agra. The native historians record that in these times of peace his great delight was to spend the evening in the game of chaugan. Chaugan is the modern polo, which was carried to Europe from India. But Akbar, whilst playing it in the daytime in the manner in which it is now played all over the world, devised a method of playing it on the dark nights which supervene so quickly on the daylight in India. For this purpose he had b.a.l.l.s made of palas wood--a wood which is very light and which burns for a long time, and set them on fire. He had the credit of being the keenest chaugan-player of his time.

From this pleasure Akbar was roused by the news of successful rebellions at Kabul and at Lah.o.r.e. He marched with all haste towards the close of the year in the direction of the Sutlej, reached Delhi in ten days; thence marched to Sirhind; and thence joyfully to Lah.o.r.e. Thence he despatched his generals to drive the rebels across the Indus. This they accomplished, and returned. The troubles at Kabul were at the same time appeased: but, as a counter-irritant, the absence of the Emperor so far in the north-west brought about rebellion at Jaunpur. It was clear that up to this time--the end of 1566--Akbar had been unable successfully to grapple with the important question how to establish a permanent {103} government in Hindustan. The eleventh year of his reign, counting from the battle of Panipat, was now closing, and he had fixed so few roots in the soil that it was certain that, should a fatal accident befall him, the succession would again be decided by the sword. The beginning of the year 1567 found him still at Lah.o.r.e, engaged in hunting and similar pleasures. He was roused from these diversions by the intelligence that the Uzbek n.o.bles whom he had pardoned, had taken advantage of his absence to break out again. Accordingly he quitted Lah.o.r.e on the 22nd of March, and began his return-march to Agra. On reaching Thuneswar, in Sirhind, he was greatly entertained by a fight between two sects of Hindu devotees, the Jogis and the Suniasis, for the possession of the rich harvest of gold, jewels, and stuffs, brought to the shrine of the saint by pious pilgrims. Another sign of the instability of his rule awaited him at Delhi, for he found that a state prisoner had eluded the vigilance of the governor, and that the governor, apprehensive of the imperial displeasure, had quitted the city, and broken into rebellion.

Nor, even when he reached Agra, did more rea.s.suring tidings await him. The country about Kanauj was in a state of rebellion, and it was clear to him that many of his n.o.bles could not be trusted. In this emergency he marched to Bhojpur, in the Rai Bareli district, thence to Rai Bareli. There he learned that the rebels had crossed the Ganges with the object of proceeding towards Kalpi. There had been heavy {104} rains and the country was flooded, but Akbar, eager for action, despatched his main forces to Karrah whilst he hastened with a body of chosen troops to Manikpur, midway between Partabgarh and Allahabad. There he crossed the river on an elephant, pushed on with great celerity, caught the rebels at the village of Manikpur, and completely defeated them. The princ.i.p.al leaders of the revolt were killed during or after the battle. From the battle-field, Akbar marched to Allahabad, then called by its ancient name of Pryaga.

After a visit to Benares and to Jaunpur, in the course of which he settled the country, he returned to Agra.

Deeming his eastern territories now secure, Akbar turned his attention to Rajputana. The most ancient of all the rulers of the kingdoms in that large division of Western India was Udai Singh, Rana of Mewar, a man possessing a character in which weakness was combined with great obstinacy. His princ.i.p.al stronghold was the famous fortress of Chitor, a fortress which had indeed succ.u.mbed to Allah-ud-din Khilji in 1303, but which had regained the reputation of being impregnable. It stands on a high oblong hill above the river Banas, the outer wall of the fortifications adapting itself to the shape of the hill. It was defended by an army of about seven thousand Rajputs, good soldiers, and commanded by a true and loyal captain. It was supplied with provisions and abundance of water, and was in all respects able to stand a long siege.

{105} Akbar himself sat down before the fortress, whilst he sent another body of troops to make conquests in the vicinity, for the Rana, despairing of success, had fled to the jungles. But if he pressed the siege vigorously, the Rajputs defended themselves with equal courage and obstinacy. Never had Akbar met such st.u.r.dy warriors. As their pertinacity increased, so likewise did his pride and resolution. At length the breach was reported practicable, and on a night in the month of March, Akbar ordered the a.s.sault. He had a stand erected for himself, whence he could watch and direct the operations. As he sat there, his gun in his hand, he observed the gallant Rajputs a.s.sembling in the breach, led by their capable commander, prepared to give his troops a warm reception. The distance between his stand and the breach was, as the crow flies, but short, for the river alone ran between the two.

By the light of the torches, Akbar easily recognised the Rajput general, and believing him to be within distance, he fired and killed him on the spot. This fortunate shot, despatched whilst the hostile parties were approaching one another, so discouraged the Rajputs, that at the critical moment they made but a poor defence. They rallied indeed subsequently, but it was too late, and though they then exerted themselves to the utmost, they could not regain the lost advantage. When the day dawned, Chitor was in the possession of Akbar. In grat.i.tude for its victory Akbar, in pursuance of a vow he had made before he began the siege, made a pilgrimage on {106} foot to the mausoleum of the first Muhammadan saint of India, Ma'inu-i-din Chisti of Sijistan, on the summit of the hill of Ajmere. He had not then emanc.i.p.ated himself from his early training. He remained ten days at Ajmere, and returned thence to Agra by way of Mewat.

Akbar spent the spring and rainy season at Agra. He then designed the conquest of the strong fortress of Ranthambor in Jaipur, but whilst the army he had raised for this purpose was on its march, disturbances in Gujarat, followed by an invasion of Central India from that side, compelled Akbar to divert his troops to meet that danger. He then decided to march in person with another army against Ranthambor. This he did early in the following year (1569). As soon as he had compelled the surrender of the fortress, he returned to Agra, stopping on the way a week at Ajmere, to visit once again the mausoleum of the saint.

This year he founded Fatehpur-Sikri, the magnificent ruins of which compel, in the present day, the admiration of the traveller. The story is thus told by the author of the Tabakat. After stating that Akbar had had two sons, twins, neither of whom had lived, he goes on to say that Shaikh Salim Chisti, who resided at Sikri, twenty-two miles to the south-west of Agra, had promised him a son who should survive. Full of the hope of the fulfilment of this promise, Akbar, after his return from Ranthambor, had paid the saint several visits, remaining there ten to twenty days on each {107} occasion; eventually he built a palace there on the summit of a rising ground; whilst the saint commenced a new monastery and a fine mosque, near the royal mansion. The n.o.bles of the court, fired by these examples, began then to build houses for themselves.

Whilst his own palace was building one of his wives became pregnant, and Akbar conveyed her to the dwelling of the holy man. When, somewhat later, he had conquered Gujarat he gave to the favoured town the prefix 'Fatehpur' (City of victory). The place has since been known in history by the joint names of Fatehpur-Sikri. Towards the end of the year his wife, whom he had sent to reside at Sikri, gave birth to a son at the house of the saint, who is known in history as the Emperor Jahangir, though called after the saint by the name of Salim. His mother was a Rajput princess of Jodhpur. To commemorate this event Akbar made of Fatehpur-Sikri a permanent royal abode; built a stone fortification round it, and erected some splendid edifices. He then made another pilgrimage on foot to the mausoleum of the saint on the Ajmere hill. Having paid his devotions he proceeded to Delhi.

Early the following year Akbar marched into Rajputana and halted at Nagaur, in Jodhpur. There he received the homage of the son of the Raja of that princ.i.p.ality, then the most powerful in Rajputana, and that of the Raja of Bikaner and his son. As a tribute of his appreciation of the loyalty of the latter, Akbar took the Raja's daughter in marriage. He {108} amused himself for some time at Nagaur in hunting the wild a.s.ses which at that time there abounded, and then proceeded to Dipalpur in the Punjab. There he held a magnificent durbar, and then, with the dawn of the new year, proceeded to Lah.o.r.e.

After settling the affairs of the Punjab, he returned to Fatehpur-Sikri with the intention of devoting the coming year to the conquest of Gujarat.

The province of Gujarat in Western India included, in the time of Akbar, the territories and districts of Surat, Broach, Kaira, Ahmadabad, a great part of what is now Baroda, the territories now represented by the Mahi Kantha and Rewa Kantha agencies, the Panch Mahas, Palanpur, Radhanpur, Balisna, Cambay, Khandeah, and the great peninsula of Kathiawar. This agglomeration of territories had for a long time had no legitimate master. Parcelled out into districts, each of which was ruled by a Muhammadan n.o.ble alien to the great bulk of the population, it had been for years the scene of constant civil war, the chiefs grinding the peasantry to obtain the means wherewith to obtain the supreme mastery. Sometimes, fired by information of the weakness of an adjoining province, the chiefs would combine to make temporary raids. The result was that Gujarat had become the focus of disorder. The people were oppressed, and the petty tyrants who ruled over them were bent only on seeking advantages at the expense of others. Akbar had long felt the results of this anarchy, and he resolved now to put an end to it for ever.

{109} The expedition of Akbar to Gujarat is the most famous military exploit of his reign. He was resolved that there should be no mistake either in its plan or in its execution. For the first time since he had become ruler of the greater part of India he felt secure as to the behaviour, during the probable duration of the expedition, of the conduct of his n.o.bles and his va.s.sals. He set out from Fatehpur-Sikri at the head of his army in September, 1572, and marching by Sanganer, eighteen miles south of Jaipur, reached Ajmere the middle of October.

There he stayed two days to visit the mausoleum of the saint, then, having sent an advanced guard of ten thousand horse to feel the way, followed with the bulk of the army, and marched on Nagaur, seventy-five miles to the north-east of Jodhpur. On reaching Nagaur a courier arrived with the information that a son, later known as Prince Danyal, had been born to him. He spent there fourteen days in arranging for the supplies of his army, then pus.h.i.+ng on, reached Patan, on the Saraswati, in November, and Ahmadabad early in the following month. In the march between the two places he had received the submission of the chief who claimed to be supreme lord of Gujarat, but whose authority was barely nominal. At Ahmadabad, then the first city in Gujarat, Akbar was proclaimed Emperor of Western India.

There remained, however, to be dealt with many of the chieftains, all unwilling to renounce the authority they possessed. Amongst these were the rulers of Broach, of Baroda, and of Surat. No {110} sooner, then, had the Emperor arranged matters at Ahmadabad for the good order of the country, than he set out for Cambay, and reached it in five days. There, we are told by the historians, he gazed for the first time on the sea. After a stay there of nearly a week, he marched, in two days, to Baroda. There he completed his arrangements for the administration of the country, appointing Ahmadabad to be the capital, and nominating a governor from amongst the n.o.bles who had accompanied him from Agra. Thence, too, he despatched a force to secure Broach and Surat. Information having reached him that the chief of Broach had murdered the princ.i.p.al adherent of the Mughal cause in that city, and had then made for the interior, pa.s.sing within fifteen miles of Baroda, Akbar dashed after him with what troops he had in hand, and on the second night came in sight of his camp at Sarsa, on the further side of a little river.

Akbar had then with him but forty hors.e.m.e.n, and, the river being fordable, he endeavoured to conceal his men until reinforcements should arrive. These came up in the night to the number of sixty, and with his force, now increased to a total number of a hundred, Akbar forded the river to attack ten times their number. The rebel leader, instead of awaiting the attack in the town, made for the open, to give a better chance to his preponderating numbers. Akbar carried the town with a rush, and then dashed in pursuit. But the country was intercepted by lanes, {111} bordered on both sides by cactus hedges, and the hors.e.m.e.n of Akbar were driven back into a position in which but three of them could fight abreast, the enemy being on either side of the cactus hedges. The Emperor was in front of his men, having by his side the gallant Rajput prince, Raja Bhagwan Das of Jaipur, whose sister he had married, and the Raja's nephew and destined successor, Man Singh, one of the most brilliant warriors of the day. The three were in the greatest danger, for the enemy made tremendous efforts to break in upon them. But the cactus hedges, hitherto a bar to their formation, now proved a defence which the enemy could not pa.s.s. And when Bhagwan Das had slain his most prominent adversary with his spear, and Akbar and the nephew had disposed of two others, the three took advantage of the momentary confusion of the enemy to charge forward, and aided by the desperate gallantry of their men, roused by the danger of their sovereign to extraordinary exertions, to force them to flight. The followers of the rebel chief, sensible that they were engaged in a losing cause, displayed nothing like the firmness and persistency of the soldiers of Akbar. They dropped off as they could find the opportunity, and the rebel chief himself, abandoned by his following, made his way, as best he could, past Ahmadabad and Disa to Sirohi in Rajputana.

Broach meanwhile had fallen, and there remained only Surat. Against this town, so well known to {112} English traders in the days of his son and grandson, Akbar marched in person on his return from the expedition just related. Against the breaching material employed in those days Surat was strong. But the Emperor pressed the siege with vigour, and after a patient progress of a month and seventeen days, the garrison, reduced to extremities, surrendered. He remained at Surat long enough to complete the settlement of the affairs of the province of Gujarat, and then began his return-march to Agra. He arrived there on the 4th of June, 1573, having been absent on the expedition about nine months.

Whilst Akbar had been besieging Surat, the rebel chief whom he had defeated at Sarsa, and who had fled to Sirohi, had been bestirring himself to make mischief. Joined by another powerful malcontent n.o.ble he advanced against Patan, met near that place the Emperor's forces, and had almost beaten them in the field, when, his own troops dispersing to plunder, the Mughal forces rallied, pierced the enemy's centre, and turned defeat into victory. The news of this achievement reached Akbar whilst he was still before Surat. The rebel leader, still bent on doing all the mischief in his power, made his way through Rajputana to the Punjab, encountering two or three defeats on his way, but always escaping with his life, and plundering, as he marched, Panipat, Sonpat, and Karnal. In the Punjab he was encountered by the imperial troops, was defeated, and, after some exciting adventures, was wounded by a party of {113} fishermen near Multan, taken prisoner, and died from the effect of his wound. He was a good riddance, for he was a masterful man. It may here be added that during this year the Mughal troops attempted, but failed to take the strong fortress of Kangra, in the Jalandhar Duab. The besiegers had reduced the garrison to extremities when they were called off by the invasion of the adventurer whose death near Multan I have recorded. Kangra did not fall to the Mughal till the reign of the son of Akbar.

Akbar had quitted the province of Gujarat believing that the conquest of the province was complete, and that he had won by his measures the confidence and affection of the people. But he had not counted sufficiently on the love of rule indwelling in the hearts of men who have once ruled. He had not been long at Agra, then, before the dispossessed lordlings of the province began to raise forces, and to hara.s.s the country. Determined to nip the evil in the bud, Akbar prepared a second expedition to Western India, and despatching his army in advance, set out, one Sunday morning in September, riding on a swift dromedary, to join it. Without drawing rein, he rode seventy miles to Toda, nearly midway between Jaipur and Ajmere. On the morning of the third day he reached Ajmere, paid his usual devotions at the tomb of the saint; then, mounting his horse in the evening, continued his journey, and joined his army at Pali on the road to Disa. Near Patan he was joined by some troops collected by his lieutenants, {114} who had awaited the arrival of their sovereign to advance.

His force was small in comparison with that which the rebel chiefs had managed to enlist, but the men who formed it were the cream of his army. The celerity of his movements too had served him well. The rebels had not heard that he had quitted Agra when he was amongst them. They were in fact sleeping in their tents near Ahmadabad when Akbar, who had made the journey from Agra in nine days, was upon them.

That there was chivalry in those days is shown by the remark of the native historian, the author of the Tabakat-i-Akbari, 'that the feeling ran through the royal ranks that it was unmanly to fall upon an enemy unawares, and that they would wait till he was roused.' The trumpeters, therefore, were ordered to sound. The chief rebel leader, whose spies had informed him that fourteen days before the Emperor was at Agra, still declared his belief that the hors.e.m.e.n before him could not belong to the royal army as there were no elephants with them. However he prepared for battle. The Emperor, still chivalrous, waited till he was ready, then dashed into and crossed the river, formed on the opposite bank, and 'charged the enemy like a fierce tiger.' Another body of Mughal troops took them simultaneously in flank. The shock was irresistible. The rebels were completely defeated, their leader wounded and taken prisoner.

An hour later, another hostile body, about five {115} thousand strong, appeared in sight. These too were disposed of, and their leader was killed. In the battle and in the pursuit the rebels lost about two thousand men. Akbar then advanced to Ahmadabad, rested there five days, engaged in rewarding the deserving, and in arranging for the permanent security of the province. He then marched to Mahmudabad, a town in the Kaira district, and thence to Sirohi. From Sirohi he went direct to Ajmere, visited there the mausoleum of the famous saint, thence, marching night and day, stopped at a village about fourteen miles from Jaipur to arrange with Raja Todar Mall, whom he met there, one of the ablest of his officers, afterwards to become Diwan, or Chancellor, of the Empire, regarding the mode of levying the revenues of Gujarat. From that village the Emperor proceeded direct to Fatehpur-Sikri, where he arrived in triumph, after an absence of forty-three days.

His plan of bringing under his sceptre the whole of India had so far matured that he ruled now, at the end of the eighteenth year of his reign, over North-western, Central, and Western India, inclusive of the Punjab and Kabul. Eastward, his authority extended to the banks of the Karamnasa. Beyond that river lay Behar and Bengal, independent, and under certain circ.u.mstances threatening danger. He had fully resolved, then, that unless the unforeseen should occur, the nineteenth year of his reign should be devoted to the conquest of Bengal and the states tributary to Bengal. Before setting out on the {116} expedition, however, he paid another visit to the tomb of the saint on the hill of Ajmere.

I have written much in the more recent pages of the marches of Akbar, and the progress of his armies, but up to the present I have not referred to the principle on which those movements were made. There have been warriors, even within the memory of living men, who have made war support war. Upon that principle acted the Khorasani and Afghan barbarians who invaded India when the Mughal power was tottering to its fall. But that principle was not the principle of Akbar. Averse to war, except for the purpose of completing the edifice he was building, and which, but for such completion, would, he well knew, remain unstable, liable to be overthrown by the first storm, he took care that neither the owners nor the tillers of the soil should be injuriously affected by his own movements, or by the movements of his armies. With the object of carrying out this principle, he ordered that when a particular plot of ground was decided upon as an encampment, orderlies should be posted to protect the cultivated ground in its vicinity. He further appointed a.s.sessors whose duty it should be to examine the encamping ground after the army had left it, and to place the amount of any damage done against the government claim for revenue. The historian of the Tabakat-i-Akbari adds that this practice became a rule in all his campaigns; 'and sometimes even bags of money were given to these {117} inspectors, so that they might at once estimate and satisfy the claims of the raiyats and farmers, and obviate any interference with the revenue collectors.' This plan, which is in all essentials the plan of the western people who virtually succeeded to the Mughal, deprived war of its horrors for the people over whose territories it was necessary to march.

Whilst Akbar is paying a visit of twelve days' duration to the tomb of the saint at Ajmere, it is advisable that we examine for a moment the position of affairs in Behar and Bengal.

The Afghan king of Bengal and Behar, who sat upon the joint throne at the time of the Mughal re-conquest of the North-western Provinces, had after a time acknowledged upon paper the suzerainty of Akbar. But it was, and it had remained a mere paper acknowledgment. He had paid no tribute, and he had rendered no homage. During the second expedition of Akbar to Gujarat this prince had died. His son and immediate successor had been promptly murdered by his n.o.bles, and these, const.i.tuting only a fraction, though a powerful fraction, of the court, had raised a younger brother, Daud Khan, to the throne.

But Daud was a man who cared only for pleasure, and his accession was the cause of the revolt of a powerful n.o.bleman of the Lodi family, who, raising his standard in the fort of Rohtasgarh, in the Shahabad district of Behar, declared his independence. A peace, however, was patched up between them, and Daud, taking {118} advantage of this, and of the trust reposed in him by the Lodi n.o.bleman, caused the latter to be seized and put to death. As soon as this intelligence reached the Mughal governor of Jaunpur, that n.o.bleman, who had been directed by Akbar to keep a sharp eye on the affairs of Behar, and to act as circ.u.mstances might dictate, crossed the Karamnasa, and marched on the fortified city of Patna, into which Daud, distrustful of meeting the Mughals in the field, had thrown himself. Such was the situation very shortly after the return of Akbar from Gujarat.