History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c74.s4: § 5. Confusion and disorder continue in 1689.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c74.s4
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§ 5. Confusion and disorder continue in 1689.
v5.c74.s4.1
The year 1689 continued to be as bad for the Karnatak as the year before. The roads were unsafe; Mughal and Maratha armies daily plundered the country. Country-made cotton and other goods could not be brought to the English factory at Kunimedu for export, by reason of the constant warfare and robbery in the region from there to Porto Novo and the deepening scarcity. In July the English factory at Porto Novo was withdrawn for these troubles. The situation in the Karnatak was adversely reacted upon by the situation in the Telingana coast immediately north of it, where "a great famine" was raging in the Vizagapatam district and frequent wars were going on between the new Mughal faujdar and the local rajahs. (*Madras Diary*, 25 March 1689).
v5.c74.s4.2
In the February of this year, Shambhuji was captured by the Mughals. When the news of the disaster reached Harji, he imprisoned Kesho Trimbak and his adherents at Trinomali, and made himself free from the chance of his rivalry. But later the reports of Mughal progress and Maratha reverses in the homeland and Rajaram's disappearance into obscurity alarmed him and for a time he seems to have thought of submitting to the Mughals and paying them tribute. (*Madras Diary*, 2 Aug. 1689.) But he wisely decided, instead, to strengthen his army, improve the defences of Jinji, and defy the Mughals from its impregnable shelter. He released Kesho Trimbak on 19th August, but himself died a month afterwards (c. 19th Sep.)* His wife Ambika Bai, (Shivaji's daughter), continued to govern the fort and province on behalf of her minor sons. But the situation at Jinji was unexpectedly reversed by the arrival of Rajaram there on the 1st or 2nd of November, 1689.