The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c23.4

c23.4

If the guns were not too numerous, it was often the practice to post them behind the clay walls of the houses in some village; or to take up a commanding position on the top of an old brick-kiln; or a temporary entrenchment might be formed out of the earthen bank and ditch which usually surround a grove of mango trees ¹. A discharge of rockets from the artillery position generally began the action. Then the guns were brought into play. The fire never became, I expect, very rapid. Orme, for example, “Mil. Trans.”, i, 74, referring to as late as the middle of the 18th century, speaks of their firing once in a quarter of an hour. Khūshḥāl Chand’s remarks, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1016*b*, show that in 1721 the usual rate of fire of the heavy guns was one shot every three hours (one *pās*). He praises Ḥaidar Qulī Khān’s men for the energy with which they cooled their guns, loaded them, and fired them at intervals of three-quarters of an hour (*do-gharī* = 44 minutes). In Bābar’s time the rate of firing must have been very slow. In his battle near Kanauj, he says (P. de C., ii, 337) “Ustād Qulī Khān” (his *mīr ātash*) “made very good use of his artillery. The first day he discharged eight projectiles, the second he shot sixteen, and so continued for three or four days”. He used for this the piece called “the Cannon of the Conqueror”, the same that he had used in the battle against Sankā (i. e. the Rānā of Chitor), and to this it owed its name of *Ghāzī*. He had also mounted in a battery a still larger piece; but it burst at the first discharge.