The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.26

v4.c20.26

The *morale* of the imperial army was utterly gone; the famine grew worse than before; and a pestilence broke out which nearly depopulated Hyderābād and caused havoc in the camp. “At night heaps of dead bodies used to accumulate. After some months, when the rains ceased, the white piles of skeletons looked from a distance like hillocks of snow.” But Aurangzīb held on with grim tenacity and called up reinforcements. Golconda was completely enclosed by him with a wall of wood and earth and ingress and egress from the fort stopped. At the same time he annexed the Qutb Shāhī kingdom by proclamation and set up his own officers in all places in it, so as to stop supplies and succour from coming to the fort.