A History of Assam c16.36

c16.36

During the last forty years of the seventeenth century the Ahoms were fully occupied with Muhammadan invasions and internal troubles, and had neither the time nor the power to interfere with the Kachāris. The latter gradually forgot the defeats which the Ahoms had formerly inflicted on them, and became more and more self-confident. At last Tāmradhvaj, who was ruling when Rudra Singh ascended the Ahom throne, boldly proclaimed his independence. Rudra Singh was not the man to brook such an insult. In December 1706 two armies, numbering in all over 70,000 men, were despatched to invade the Kachāri country, one force marching up the bank of the Dhansiri and the other proceeding *viâ* Rahā and the valley of the Kopili. The Kachāris offered but little resistance to this overwhelming force, and their capital at Maibong was occupied without much difficulty. Tāmradhvaj fled to Khāspur in the plains of Cachar, whence he sent an urgent appeal for help to Rām Singh, Raja of Jaintia. In the meantime disease had effected what the arms of the Kachāris had been unable to accomplish, and the Ahoms, decimated by fever and dysentery, after demolishing the brick fort at Maibong, returned to their own country.