Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22.s5.3

v2.c22.s5.3

We shall now see what the Government of Delhi had been doing all this time. The news of the Afghan occupation of Lahor (4 October) and the flight of its leading men to Sarhind had been followed a fortnight later by the arrival of the Afghan envoy at Delhi (end of October.) The popular report was that Abdāli himself would follow his vanguard and wreak vengeance on Imād for having insulted and plundered Mughlāni Begam whom the Afghan king used to call his daughter. The danger was great, but Imād did not know what to do. The disbandment of the Sin-dagh risala had left him utterly without troops, except for a few hundred men under Bahadur Khan Baluch. He called to his side Salabat Khan Zulfiqar Jang, ex-Bakhshi of the last Emperor, who had been living in unemployment and disgrace at Agra. But this last great noble of the age of Farrukhsiyar and Muhammad Shah was now an aged phantom only, and sank into the grave on 6 June 1757. Imād next appealed to Najib Khan for help, but the Ruhela demanded the unpaid salary of the troops he had been entertaining for the wazir’s service, and an acrimonious discussion between the two chiefs resulted. On 8th November Najib visited the wazir with a large force, and on his way back at night looted five or six shops in the wazir's camp bazar, "none daring to oppose him." [TALS. 81b.]