Mughal Restoration
The defeat of Hemu at Panipat
It was at Panipat, on the gates of the bountiful Gangetic plain, where the founder of the Mughal Empire, the great Babur decisively defeated the Lodi Sultan in April of 1526 to secure his route towards Delhi. And slightly over thirty years later, a battle of similar scale at almost the same place guaranteed his heirs’ control over the North of India, at least for the time being. What had taken Babur years to achieve had also been quickly lost after his death. Maybe he was himself partly the faulty one, for dividing his lands between his sons according to the Central Asian tradition which was in fact quite foreign to the Indians. Or maybe it was due the fact that he died rather prematurely, leaving the twenty-three year old Humayn, yet young and inexperienced on the throne of the Mughal possessions in India. Soon the young ruler came under attack, by the Sultan of Gujarat, by revolting Pashtun nobles and even by his own brothers. Sher Shah Suri, a Pashtun general, brilliant strategist and great administrator sacked the Mughal treasury at Gaur in Bengal, before marching west to confront Humayn. After a few indecisive battles, in which the Sur troops tricked the Mughals, Humayn was ultimately beaten at Kanauj in 1540. The Mughals fled, and Delhi became the capital of the Sur Dynasty.
Humayn fled, first to Lahore, where a letter from the Sur warrior reached him. "I have left you Kabul. You should go there." Humayn fled further west, through the Thar, while pursued by the Rajputs that had allied with Sher Shah. Finally he reached the safe haven of Umarkot, the ruler of which was a Muslim Rajput appointed by Babur and who owed loyalty to the Mughals, even in their darkest times. Here, in 1542, the future Padishah Akbar was born to Hamida Banu Begum. Humayn left Sindh in 1543, determined to use Afghanistan as a powerbase for rebuilding the Mughal Empire. But his brothers in Kabul and Kandahar refused to offer aid. Thus, without lands and without gold, he was forced to seek refuge in Persia. The Shah Tahmasp embraced him, and provided him with aid and men. With this new-found ally he seized Kandahar from one of his brothers, and Kabul from another. The reconquest had begun.
Sher Shah Suri died in 1545; his son and successor Islam Shah died too, in 1554. With the strongmen gone, the nascent Sur Empire was in a full blown crisis. Three rivals for the throne all marched on Delhi, while in many cities leaders tried to stake a claim for independence. It was the perfect time for the Mughals to march back into India. Bairam Khan led the Mughal army through the Punjab virtually unopposed, the only major battle fought against Sikandar Shah Suri near Sirhind. In July of 1555, Humayn once again sat on the throne of Babur in Delhi. But as the wars against Sur loyalists, Rajputs and independent bands of Pashtun troops were still going on, a disaster befell. Humayn caught his foot in his robe, tumbled down several steps in his library and hit his temple on a rugged stone edge. The Padishah was dead and the new ruler, Akbar, was a minor. In February 14, Akbar was enthroned at Kalanaur, in Punjab. At this time, Mughal rule was confined to Kabul, parts of the Delhi region and bits of Punjab. The Sur general and former governor of Delhi, a Hindu of humble origins named Hemu, saw his chance. Taking control of the Sur fronts and armies, he decisively defeated the Mughals under Iskander Khan Uzbeg at Agra, and quickly marched on Delhi, forcing its governor Tardi Beg Khan to implore for help. Despite of all efforts to direct nearby armies to his aid, the Mughals were defeated by the Indian-Afghan army at Tughlaqabad. Hemu marched to Delhi victorious. But instead of restoring it to the Sur, he made himself Emperor, the first Hindu one in centuries.
But the reign of Hemu would prove to be short. Despite most of Mughal generals and courtiers advising a withdrawal to Kabul, the young Akbar ordered his troops to fight back. From Kalanaur under the Regent Bairam Khan, and accompanied by the new Padishah, they made their way to Panipat, once again the decisive battlefield between Mughals and the armies of Hindustan. The outnumbered Mughal army won due to military expertise and pure luck. The heavy cannons and a trench dug in front of the Mughal center stopped Hemu’s elephants, while a lucky archer hit him in the eye. The elephant of Hemu war cornered, and the wounded Emperor captured by Shah Ali Quli Khan and brought to the Mughal camp where he was beheaded by Bairam Khan. Thousands of the captives were beheaded and towers of skulls were built with their heads, to instill terror among the Hindus and Afghans. Akbar and his men triumphantly returned to Delhi and Agra, and allowed most of the Sur and Hemu era administration to retain their roles, as the backbone of what would maybe once again become a Mughal Empire. But despite of these victories, the Sur forces were still strong. Sikandar Shah Suri held many cities and forts in Punjab, even though many of them laid detached from his army that had been forced to seek shelter in the mountains, while his brother Adil Shah held the rich Jaunpur and Bihar, albeit he had lost Bengal to Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah II, the son of its previous Sur ruler, Shamsuddin Shah who had been killed by Adil Shah just a year before. But quickly his son had gathered an army of loyalists, and ousted the new governor appointed by Adil Shah.
Malwa and a vast track of Central India were held by Bahadur Khan, the son of Shuja’at Khan, a Suri governor. Bahadur had declared himself Sultan following the apparent collapse of Suri authority, but his attempted invasion of Gondwana in late 1556 had ended in a humiliation at the hand of the Gondi queen. The Rajputs of Rajasthan, who had never fully submitted to Babur, also stood fiercely independent, albeit neutral. And two large forts, those of Gwalior and Ajmer were held by members of what had been Hemu’s army, now again loyal to the Sur, while Nagaur was held by another band of Afghans, who had seemingly gone renegade. And the Mughal stronghold of Kabul was under some pressure, as Safavids under the new governor of Khorasan, Ismail the son of Shah Tahmasp, had seemingly occupied Kandahar, while the Timurid Mirza Suleiman of Badakhsan had carved his own domain under nominal suzerainty. But above all, Akbar and his generals had regained at least a vestige of Babur’s realm, and had averted a catastrophe that could have easily thrown the Mughals back to Kabul for good. How the young ruler intended to exploit this victory remained to be seen.
GM NOTE: The in-game date is now 1st of January 1557, and war plans for the spring campaigns (first half of 1557) are due
Friday 15th at 23:59 GMT.
Good luck in the future! ))
