The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.s1.78

v4.c21.s1.78

Malhār Rāo Holkar had hastened to meet Jānkojī and planned with him a campaign to harass the Afghāns in the usual Marāthā style. He crossed into the Dūāb and there received information of a large convoy of supplies and treasure in the Farrukhābād district, which the troops of Ahmad Khān Bangash were escorting to Ahmad Shāh Abdālī’s camp, and which he promptly attacked and plundered. Ahmad Shāh at once sent a force to punish Holkar’s temerity. This force rode from Nārnaul to Delhi, a distance of over eighty miles, in a day and a night, rested for a day at Delhi and marched again in the evening, traversing thirty-three miles and reaching Holkar’s camp at Sikandarābād at dawn. Holkar was completely surprised, and his troops were routed with great slaughter. He escaped with only about three hundred men, mounted on bare-backed horses.