Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s1.19

v2.c28.s1.19

The Oudh and Afghan envoys assembled at Mathura were indignant and replied, “If you want us to give up our lands only in order to lease them to the Jat, we shall not surrender them.” The natural result was that the negotiations broke down, the par-Ruhelas, though jealous and afraid of Najib, were antagonized towards Imad, and the titular wazir’s hope of ousting Najib from Delhi entirely disappeared. Suraj Mal bluntly refused to fight Najib single-handed for the sake of Imad. He had a most precious fruit close at hand, ripe for the plucking. On 12th June he captured Agra fort by bribery, after less than a month’s blockade. Najib had come back from Sonepat to Delhi for the Id prayer of 6th May, which he attended seated side by side with the Crown Prince on the same elephant. Now, on hearing of Suraj Mal’s design against Agra, he at first talked of marching out with the prince to the relief of that fort. But after taking a muster of the troops available at Delhi (9th May), he wisely shrank from a war with the Jat myriads, and left Delhi on 14th June with a view to establishing his revenue control over the Sonepat district, now that the country south of Delhi was hopelessly lost to the empire from Suraj Mal’s occupation of Agra fort.