Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s14.10

v2.c27.s14.10

When the rainy season fully set in (during July), Abdāli removed from the neighbourhood of Aligarh to the high ground on the west bank of the Ganges at Anupshahar and cantoned there. The swollen river and rain-soaked plains made the movement of troops impossible before next October, and Abdāli, wishing to lessen the pressure on the food and fodder supply of his neighbourhood, allowed the Ruhelas to go back to their homes beyond the Ganges for two months (August and September.) Throughout these two months peace talks went on between Shujā and the Bhāu, but nothing resulted from them, as the Bhāu's head had been turned by his capture of Delhi and he refused to agree to any reasonable compromise. The intelligence he was receiving from the Afghan camp during the rainy season confirmed his belief that the invading army would be starved into surrender or dissolve through internal dissension. For, during these two months and a half Abdālī was really in a difficult and alarming position. His army was saved from disaster only by his iron will and influence over his troops, Najib’s unfailing loyalty and resourcefulness, and the safe strategic position which the invaders had chosen in the upper Doāb with no enemy left near them on the land side, their western flank protected by the raging Jamunā and eastern flank bordering on the fertile and friendly countries of the Ruhelas and Shujā. But he needed money for feeding his troops. Famine prices were then raging, and, as a Maratha officer wrote, it cost Rs. 200 to maintain a trooper and his horse for a month. The Doāb had been ravaged by almost unceasing war and rebellion ever since 1756, and large tracts of fertile country had lapsed into the jungle. The provisions for the Afghan army had to be bought in distant places like the Ambālā and Karnāl districts and Rohilkhand and Oudh, and transported at heavy cost to Anupshahar. The few lakhs paid by Najib were soon exhausted, and Ahmad Shah had to press the Indian Ruhelas for contribution, saying that he had come not to found an empire for himself, but to rescue them from the Marathas. They pleaded poverty.