Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s3.5

v2.c28.s3.5

By this time it was noon and the Ruhela troopers and their horses, standing in the open, were suffering dreadfully from the Sun (April 1765); they had brought no artillery with them. The village had a mud wall twice the height of a man, all around it, with a dry ditch below. But Najib’s spirit was up. He could not bear the thought that the Amir-ul-umara of the Empire should lay a regular siege to a peasants’ mud fort or retire leaving it untaken. His plan was quickly formed: dismounting all his troopers and even officers, he made a simultaneous assault from all sides, at a given signal, immediately after firing a salvo from his camel-swivels, which had been advanced to the front. A sudden distraction and alarm seized the villagers, and only one camel-gunner and one infantryman on Najib’s side were killed, while the Ruhelas ran forward, jumped into the ditch, and clung to the wall; climbing on one another’s back they entered the village in spite of the shower of bullets. The villagers, losing heart, took to flight. A body of them, who were mounted along with their women, broke through the Ruhela cordon and escaped by the back gate. The leading men of the village took refuge in a house and continued to hold out with their musket fire. The Ruhela soldiers dispersed for plunder and slaughter, and it was an hour before they could be rallied and made to carry this house by assault. Two thousand men were slain and about the same number of women and children were made prisoners, and finally the sacked village was set on fire. "From the massacre at Buānā a great terror spread throughout Hariānā, and all the landlords made submission and paid their revenue." [Nur. 93a-97b.]