The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c13.43

v4.c13.43

Mīrzā Haidar's plan for capturing Kashmīr was sound in every way. His previous experience in 1533, when he had raided the country as a general of the king of Kāshghar,¹ had shown him what little resistance could be expected in a country torn by faction, and he knew and pointed out that a determined force holding it could repel any army of men from the plains, hampered by the difficulty of travel and the absence of supplies. He was, moreover, sure of support from one of the parties in the state. It had been arranged that he should enter Kashmīr from Naushahra and he marched in advance of Humāyūn. When the emperor followed him and reached Bhera, where he hoped to obtain the assistance of the local governor, he found that Kāmrān had already preceded him and forestalled his hopes. Once more he was urged to assert himself and brush Kāmrān from his path, but refused as he had done at Lahore. A proposal that he should retreat through Kābul to Badakhshān was rejected by Kāmrān, whose treacherous nature led him to suspect that Humāyūn might dispossess him from Kābul and advance no farther. The road to Naushahra being blocked and it being impossible for Humāyūn to stay between an envious and unscrupulous brother on one hand and the victorious Sher Khān who was pressing on from Lahore, he decided to abandon the hope of Kashmīr and to follow Hindāl to Sind (end of 1540). He had hardly started when again a collision with Kāmrān was imminent. Their forces met in a defile of the Salt Range near Khushāb, at the end of which the roads towards Sind and Kābul diverged, and a dispute arose as to which should pass through it first. Kāmrān’s thinly veiled intention of assuming the headship of the family appeared more clearly than ever when he asserted his own right of precedence, and for once Humāyūn’s pride was stung and battle seemed inevitable. It was averted only by the remonstrances of a man of saintly reputation in the train of Kāmrān.