The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.35

v4.c20.35

Harjī died about 29 September, 1689; Rājā Rām arrived at Gingee on 11 November, took peaceful possession of it and established his court there. Zu-’l-Fiqār Khān, as the supreme Moghul commander, reached the environs of Gingee about the middle of September, 1690, with the object of besieging the fort, but the task was too great for his means. The rock-fortress of Gingee consists of three fortified hillocks connected together by strong walls and forming a rough triangle nearly 3 miles in circumference. These hills are steep, rocky and covered with such enormous boulders that they are almost unclimbable. Zu-’l-Fiqār could neither bombard it nor cut off the garrison’s communication with the outside. The activity of the Marāthā roving bands stopped his grain supply, he abandoned the siege, and at his request reinforcements under the *vazīr* Asad Khān and the young prince Kām Bakhsh reached him at the end of December, 1691. He renewed the siege in 1692, ran trenches and bombarded two points without doing any damage. His object was only to make a show, prolong the siege and thereby escape from being sent on campaign elsewhere. Thus, he effected nothing during 1691 and 1692. At the end of 1692 two disasters befell the Mughuls. Two large Marāthā armies raised in western India arrived in the Carnatic under the famous generals Santā and Dhana. The first of these captured ‘Alī Mardān Khān, the imperial commandant of Conjeveram, with all the horses, elephants and other property of his army, near Kāveripāk (23 December). The Khān ransomed himself for 100,000 *hūns*. The other Marāthā division attacked the siege camp round Gingee, and compelled Zu-’l-Fiqār Khān to draw his outposts in for safety, in which operation Isma‘īl Khān Maka was captured with 500 horses and carried off to Gingee.