Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c15.s12.10

v1.c15.s12.10

This delay in achieving a military decision ruined the Emperor’s finances. The cost of the huge army (80,000 men at least) gathered round him and idly standing under arms month after month exhausted his treasures, jewels, gold plate, all his mother’s hoards, the property in the imperial stores and factories, and the spoils of the daily sack of Safdar Jang’s followers and suspected partisans in the city. Almost every day some regiment or other of unpaid soldiers left their trenches and rioted in the streets of Delhi. The imperial council was divided by the increasing jealousy between the wazir and the Bakhshi. All the credit of the organisation of the armed opposition to Safdar Jang and the actual fighting with him went to Imād, whose prestige grew apace, while the timid wazir, hiding in his closet, suffered an eclipse in public estimation and power. Intizām, therefore, tried his utmost to spoil Imād’s plans and brought the senseless Emperor and his mother to accept this policy. A peace at any price with the rebel was also urgently necessary for the Emperor if he was not to die of starvation. But on this question, too, there was a clash of interest and policy between Intizām and Imād. The Bakhshi wanted to crush Safdar Jang totally and take away his provinces for himself, while the wazir dreaded such an issue as the creation of a stronger rival to his pre-eminence than Safdar Jang and therefore wished to save the ex-wazir and preserve him as a friend in his future contest with Imād!