Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c38.s4.5

v3.c38.s4.5

On 14th July Shafi was formally received in audience.* But no post was given to him for a month, as he would not agree to the high price at which the Court had put the regency up to sale. The other two lieutenants of Mirzā Najaf had been summoned to the capital. One of them, Muhammad Beg Hamadāni, was a partisan of Shafi, and had at a hint from Shafi, patched up a truce with the Jat Rajah and then crossed into the middle Doab for plundering Gosāin Himmat Bahadur’s jagirs. This Gosāin was Afrāsiyāb’s right hand man, and Afrāsiyāb’s own jagir in Aligarh was now threatened with invasion. The other, Najaf Quli Khan, marched from the Jaipur border towards Delhi, apparently to join Shafi; but Afrāsiyāb intercepted him at Gurgāon (17 July), won him over by personal entreaty, and brought him to Delhi the next day. The rival forces were thus marshalled:—Afrāsiyāb, Najaf Quli and Latāfat Ali, with the helpless Abdul Ahad in one camp; Shafi, Khadija Begam and all the personal retainers of Mirzā Najaf, with the absent Muhammad Beg Hamadāni in the other. The capital was once more threatened with a civil war to be fought out in its streets. All this time the soldiers were starving and distracted, not knowing who was the lawful authority and not caring to follow any general with fidelity. "Every one wishes to make himself dominant, and great disturbance prevails." [Hingane's report, *DY.* i. 84.]