the new governor of Malwah followed in 1563. He was an Uzbek-a tribe which had furnished many officers and men to the emperor's army. All these formed a confederation which, at one time, assumed very formidable dimensions, and will be noticed hereafter. The emperor Hindoo prin cess of Sum bhul, 1561. In the year 1561, the emperor being in Rajpootana, visited Sumbhul, the rajah of which territory gave him his daughter in marriage, and, with his son, was enrolled marries an among the nobles of Akbur's court. It is evident from this act, what turn the emperor's policy was taking. No fanatical attacks upon Hindoo States are perceptible; no wanton destruction of Hindoo temples and idols; but, on the contrary, a policy of conciliation and regard, which, to the Hindoo princes, was perhaps at first incomprehensible, but which, in the sequel, secured the attachment of the greater part of them. Some, however, of the Hindoo princes did not submit; and while the emperor, with six attendants, rode from Ajmere to Agra, a distance of 200 miles, in three days, an officer was sent against the fort of Mairta, which was captured, but not till after a long siege. Soon after his return from Rajpootana, the emperor had a narrow escape from assassination-an arrow shot at him by a slave penetrated his shoulder deeply; but he bore its extraction without a murmur. In the year 1564 Asof Khan Uzbek had been employed against the Hindoo principality of Guna. He had defeated the Ranee, who had stabbed herself on the field of battle rather than be captured, and following up his success, had obtained a vast booty in jewels, gold and silver coin, and bullion. A few indifferent elephants were alone sent to the emperor, and Asof Khan retained the rest for his own purposes. For this he was called to account; and immediately rebelled, in concert with the other Uzbek officers of his tribe. The first force sent against the Uzbek confederates in Bengal was defeated: a second was dispatched, which made no impression on them; and the emperor followed in person, in April 1566, when some of the rebel chiefs submitted. But the rebellion was by no means at an end, when the emperor was obliged to proceed to the Punjab, to check a formidable combination in favour of his half-brother, Mahomed Hakeem Mirza, who, expelled from Kabool, sought to establish himself in the Punjâb, and was encouraged by several of the local commanders. On this occasion, however, Akbur's energy averted serious consequences. In the course of a few days he was in the Punjab, whence his brother fled to Kabool, and local tranquillity ensued. The emperor now turned once more against his rebellious Uzbek chiefs, who, during his absence, had made much progress, and had gained the greater part of Oude. He crossed the Ganges, though much swollen, on his elephant, at night, and with only his body-guard attacked the Defeat of the insurgents on the morning of June 6, 1566. Khan ZuUzbek chiefs, mán, one of the chief rebels, was killed; Bahadur Khan was taken prisoner, and the rest dispersed, most of them being afterwards taken prisoners, and executed. The rebellion had lasted for more than two years, had resisted some of the emperor's best generals, and was put an end to only by the personal energy and bravery of Akbur himself; and it is evident from its details, which are amply given by Ferishta and other writers, that the Uzbeks were not only strengthening themselves in the eastern provinces, but were identifying themselves with the former Mahomedan parties there-an obviously appropriate course for them, and which added much strength and importance to their rebellion. The slight hold which the emperor possessed upon his Moghul chiefs will also have been apparent to the reader from the rebellions of his officers in Malwah, Guna, the Punjab, and Bengal, the danger of which was increased by the transactions in Afghanistan and Mooltan; and it is impossible to withhold a tribute of high admiration of the ability, firmness, and personal activity which Akbur displayed. Never during these exciting occurrences does he appear to have hesitated as to his mode of action, and never to have thrown away a chance of success. He had now subdued his military aristocracy, and had defeated their formidable combinations. He had checked, if not entirely broken up, the Afghan party in Bengal; he had annexed a large portion of that country to his dominions, and had extended them to Malwah, and the frontiers of Khandesh and the Deccan. Yet it does not appear that his original means as to troops had been augmented. Kabool and Budukshán were too unstable and precarious to afford supplies of men; and admiration for his character is increased by the consideration of the accurate judgment by which his military operations must have been directed, in the employment of such troops as he possessed, amidst such serious distractions, and in so widely divided provinces. CHAPTER IX. OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR AKBUR (continued), In July 1567, after arranging the government of the provinces which had been held by the rebel Uzbek chiefs, the emperor returned to Agra, and thence proceeded on a tour through Malwah-of which province he changed the governor-to Chittore, the rajah of which had refused to acknowledge him. This place was the stronghold of Hindoo independence; Rana Oody Singh was the head of the Rajpoot clans, and must be subdued before he could expect a general acknowledgment of his authority as emperor. The Rana left 8,000 picked men as its garrison, and retired to an inaccessible part of the country to wait the issue, and the fort was regularly invested. Ferishta gives a minute and spirited account of the siege; but what is especially noticeable in the detail, is the scientific mode of approach and attack, which, it is questionable, could have been exceeded in Europe at the period. Akbur does not appear at this time to have possessed, or to have in any form used, artillery. No mention is as yet made of it in his battles. A fort was to be taken by sabats, or zigzag approaches formed by gabions and trenches, thrown up to reach a part of the wall selected to be breached, by mining. In the case of Chittore, there were two principal sabats, carried under two separate bastions, ending in mines. Both were loaded with gunpowder, and were to have exploded simultaneously; but while one succeeded, the other hung fire till the storming party was near it, and blew up, causing much loss to the besieged as well as to the storming party. This attack, therefore, failed; and another one was in progress, when the emperor chancing to see Jugmul, the governor of the place, directing the repair of one of the breaches by torchlight, seized a matchlock from an attendant and shot him in the forehead. The Rajpoots now became desperate; they performed the ceremony of Jowhur-put their women and children to death, and burned them with their leader's body; they then retired to their temples, and awaited the Mahomedans' approach. The emperor, seeing the walls deserted, entered the place at daylight; the Chittore temples were stormed, and the brave garrison, reject- captured, ing his offers of quarter, perished to a man. The capture of Chittore conduced in a great degree to the pacification of Rajpootana, and to the eventual co-operation of the Hindoo princes, which was a leading feature in the emperor's policy; and it does not appear that the Rajpoots, on any other occasion afterwards, repeated their rebellion. 1567. 1569. In the year 1569, the strong fort of Runtunbhore, so frequently in the alternate possession of the Hindoos and Ma- Runtunhomedans, was taken; and on September 2 the em- bhore taken, peror's first child was born, and named Selim. Kalinjer, which had lapsed again into Hindoo possession, was surrendered; and in 1570 a second son was born, who was named Moorád. In this year also the emperor married the daughter of Rajah Kullian Mul, of Bhikanere, and enrolled him with high rank among the nobility. Both his sons having been born in the town of Sikry, Futtehpoor Sikry founded, 1571. Guzerat campaign, 1572. Affair of the emperor laid the foundation of a city, to be called Futtehpoor -a name which the town still bears. The year afterwards, the affairs of Guzerat, as will be elsewhere related, having fallen into confusion, the emperor marched thither, and on the road received the intelligence of the birth of his third son, the Prince Daniel; and as he approached Ahmedabad, the capital, Mozuffer Shah, the king, came out to meet him, and submitted, laying down his crown and being enrolled among the nobility. The emperor's cousins, however, sons of Soliman Mirza of Budukshán, were at the head of considerable forces in Guzerat, where they had retreated from Malwah, and their reduction occupied some time. One affair with them is remarkable as showing Akbur's personal bravery. A body of the rebels, under his cousin Ibrahim Mirza, intending to march into the Punjab and continue their insurrec tion there, was endeavouring to pass the royal forces, when the emperor heard of its position, and marched upon it at once with a slight escort. At Surtál he found he had but forty troopers with him; but a reinforcement arrived of seventy men under Rajah Man Singh, Soorjun Rái, Bhugwundas, and some other officers. The whole party amounted to only 156 men in all. With these, the emperor determined to attack his cousin's force, which was dispersed after a sharp skirmish, in which his cousin escaped. This affair shows what trust the emperor now placed in his Rajpoot friends, and how heartily it was reciprocated; for the Rajpoot chiefs fought side by side with him in the affray, and one of them lost his life; nor, though otherwise blamable for the reckless exposure of his person, could such events fail to cement a personal affection and respect. Akbur left Guzerat before the monsoon set in, and reached Agra on June 4, 1573. His cousin, Ibrahim Hoosein Mirza, who had escaped from him at Surtál, had proceeded to Sumbhul, in the Punjâb, but was pursued and killed; and his head sent to the emperor by the governor of Mooltan. The emperor had little time to rest. In July he reGuzerat, July ceived advice by express from Guzerat, that the officers of the Guzerat kingdom had united in a formidable insurrection, taken several districts, and were then besieging Ahmedabad. The rainy season had set in, and the transport of a large force was impossible. Two thousand picked horsemen were Akbur'a therefore pushed on, and the emperor and his retinue, march from about 300 persons, followed by double marches on Guzerat. camels. When he reached his advanced troops at Paitun, the whole, Ferishta states, did not exceed 3,000 men. They had marched 450 miles in nine days. With this small force the emperor marched direct on Ahmedabad, ordering the Rebellion in 1573. Agra to insurgents Ahmedabad. in Bengal. Akbur pro royal kettledrums to beat as he approached the enemy's camp. Mahomed Hoosein Mirza, the king's cousin, and brother of Ibrahim, rode out to the river to reconnoitre, and perceiving one of the emperor's officers examining the ford, asked whose army was approaching, and was told it was Akbur in person. 'Impossible!' he exclaimed; it is only fourteen days since one of my spies saw him at Agra.' 'It is only nine days since he marched,' Attack on the was the reply. In the battle which followed outside before the walls of the city, the emperor led several charges in person; and in one of these directed his own body-guard against his cousin, broke through his troops, and Mahomed Hoosein Mirza was captured. The beleaguered governor was now able to sally from the city, and the enemy's rout was completed. Who are Akbur did not stay in Guzerat. Bengal required his defeated. immediate attention; Dáwood Khan Kirany had taken up arms, and the whole of the eastern part of the province was Dawood yet unsubdued. The emperor loaded a thousand boats Khan rebels with soldiers, and sailed down the river in the heaviest part of the monsoon. Hajypoor was occupied without ceeds thither. resistance. Dáwood Khan wished to treat, but the emperor insisted on his unconditional submission. 'Tell Dáwood Khan,' Ferishta records of him, 'I have a thousand men as good as he, and if disposed to put the point to an issue in single combat, 1 will myself meet him.' But Dáwood Khan fled: and the emperor, perhaps despising his antagonist, left the war to be finished, as was his custom, by his commander, Moonjim Khan. Rajah Toder Mul, subsequently the famous minister of finance, pursued Dawood Khan into Orissa, and was defeated by him; but reinforcements arriving under Moonjim Khan, the war was renewed, and Dawood Khan, in a final arrangement, being per- Bengal and mitted to retain Orissa and Kuttack, surrendered all Behar anpretensions to Bengal and Behar, which, in the year 1575, became incorporated with the empire. It was after the conclusion of this campaign, that the emperor lost his faithful Death of servant and able commander, Moonjim Khan. He had Khan at endeavoured to establish Gour as the metropolis of Ben- Gour, 1575. gal, but died there of its unhealthy climate, on October 12, 1575. On hearing of this event, Dáwood Khan endeavoured to repossess himself of Bengal; but in an action fought Khan taken on July 23, 1575, he was defeated, taken prisoner, and executed after the battle. His son, Jooneed Khan, died of the wounds he had received, and thus the last of the Patán dynasties of Bengal became extinct, while Orissa and Kuttack reverted to the emperor. Several subsequent revolutions nevertheless followed, which will be hereafter noticed. nexed, 1575. Moonjim Dawood and executed. |