Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 829 For Buddha's sake, lend a hand to the Sultan!
Egypt's economy relied on the Nile River and transshipment trade through the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The latter was undoubtedly heavily influenced by the East. Therefore, while in Egypt, Guo Kang closely monitored the movements of the Yuan army.

Perhaps because Zhu Wenkui and his men were present, Sun Shiwan, though informing them of the movements in India, had actually kept a backup plan. By the time Guo Kang learned of this, the Yuan army had already set off for Bengal. Moreover, their progress there was even faster than Sun Shiwan and his men had anticipated. As soon as the blockade was lifted in Guo Kang's area, news arrived in droves, accompanied by caravans and envoys.

Intelligence indicates that the Yuan army completely crushed the resistance in eastern India in just two months. Moreover, most of that time was spent on marching.

Before the summer rainy season arrived, the main force of the Yuan army quietly set off from Java. They did not pass through Malacca, but instead sailed westward along a newly discovered sea route south of the island.

This sea route was much rougher and more dangerous overall, but over the years, in order to find a wider hinterland beyond the Ming army's attack range, the Yuan people had ventured out to sea to explore, and had figured out many patterns, establishing relatively stable westward, southward, and even eastward routes. This time, they successfully avoided the busy shipping lanes and the crowded and insidious port of Malacca, where Ming spies were very active. Before the Ming army could notice them, they had deployed an elite army to India overseas.

This timing was deliberately chosen to ensure the success of the operation. Through the help of merchants who traveled extensively, the Yuan army had already thoroughly investigated the local Indian population, learned about the hydrographic conditions of several ports, and bribed local port officials and even several nearby military lords. They likely knew the distribution of local naval and military forces even better than the Sultan of Bengal.

The local power structure was extremely complex, providing them with opportunities to exploit. In the 9th century, Bengal was relatively powerful, being one of the core regions of the powerful Pala dynasty in East India. It is said that the dynasty's first ruler, Gopala I, was elected by the local inhabitants who longed to end the chaos in the Bengal region. At its peak, the dynasty rivaled the Rajputs to the north and the Chola dynasty to the south for supremacy, becoming one of the major powers in India.

During this period, Buddhism was still prevalent in the region. The Pala dynasty itself was the last major supporter of Indian Buddhism, known as the "Seven Protectors of Buddhism." While Buddhism in northwestern India had been severely damaged by Islam, they managed to preserve a small corner of the country in the southeast.

They are said to have overseen the construction of Vikramashila, an important center of Tantric Buddhism, and provided long-term support and patronage to Nalanda University. In the local feudal system, the royal family bestowed land upon the recipient, who in turn gained tax, administrative, and judicial power over that land. However, unlike elsewhere, under the Pala dynasty, vassals receiving fiefs were almost exclusively religious groups. Successive kings frequently "donated" large tracts of land to monasteries; conversely, it was very rare for secular officials to receive fiefs.

However, after its zenith, the Pala dynasty rapidly declined and disintegrated. Magadha, the cradle of Buddhism, was occupied by local vassals, plunging the region into further conflict. Soon after, Muslim conquerors from the northwest invaded Bengal, destroying the last remnants of Buddhism and bringing it under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate.

However, the Delhi Sultanate was a foreign conqueror regime entirely dependent on the Ghulam army for its survival. Its centrally controlled territory was very limited, and its rule over various regions was extremely loose. Locally, it initially followed the traditional Islamic system of the "Iqta." Later, this gradually evolved into the "Jajir" system.

Jagir was a military fiefdom, and the recipient was called a "Jagirdar." Theoretically, although it was a feudal system, the Jagirdar system granted them the right to collect land taxes. Land ownership belonged to the central government, hereditary inheritance was prohibited, and sometimes land was deliberately transferred periodically to prevent lords from becoming too powerful. In return, the holder of a "Jagir" was required to support cavalry and war elephants according to the size of the fiefdom, pay a fixed amount of military provisions to the central government annually, and fulfill military obligations.

In practice, many Jagirdar were held by Turkic soldiers who lacked management skills, time, and energy. As a result, the actual tax collection was often handled by tax farmers.

Meanwhile, a series of crises were also occurring in the central government of the Delhi Sultanate. These problems could even be traced back more than two hundred years.

Like the Mamluks in Egypt, the Delhi Sultanate was not exactly "normal" from the start. They were a jihadist army sent to India by the Ghurid dynasty in Afghanistan.

The Ghurid dynasty had a strong religious atmosphere, and the Sultan considered himself a defender of the faith, launching several offensives towards India. After occupying the Punjab region, the Sultan's brother, Muhammad Ghur, the governor of the east, led a large army south to Delhi. Near a village called Taran, he fought a decisive battle against a coalition of Rajput princes.

The Rajputs, meaning "descendants of kings," inhabit the central and western parts of North India. They are likely descendants of foreign conquerors who entered India during the period from the eastward migration of the Greeks to the southward migration of the White Huns, hence the name. Because of this background, the Rajputs were among the most warlike people in India at the time, repeatedly holding out near the Khyber Pass against later southward settlers.

In 1191, the two sides clashed for the first time. This time, Prithaviraja III, the leader of the Rajput alliance, assembled an army that is said to number 20. The Rajput infantry were extremely resilient, and the cavalry composed of Kshatriya military nobles were not weak either, but rather highly skilled in various combat techniques. As a result, the Ghurid army failed to win and suffered heavy losses in the head-on confrontation, forcing them to retreat.

Unwilling to give up, Muhammad continued to escalate the conflict, while the Rajputs amassed even more troops, and the following year they returned to Taran to fight again.

This time, the scale of both sides was unprecedented. The Ghurid dynasty was at its zenith at this time, and riding the momentum of its conquest of Khorasan, Muhammad amassed a massive army, reportedly numbering 12, from Central Asia and Afghanistan. Prithvijaya, in turn, leveraged his local advantage to gather 120 Rajput princes, totaling over 30 men, to meet the challenge. However, historians on both sides tend to exaggerate, so the exact numbers are unclear, only that they were likely very large…

This time, Muhammad employed a new tactic: fighting and retreating, using different small detachments to constantly harass the enemy, exhausting the Rajput army and causing chaos in their ranks. Finally, seizing the opportunity, he used the superior cavalry he had brought from Central Asia to launch a surprise attack, decisively defeating the Rajput army. The Indian army was almost completely wiped out, and Prithaviraja himself was captured and killed.

After this battle, there was no longer any substantial resistance in North India. The Rajput princes who were still holding out lost their mobility and were quickly defeated piecemeal. Muhammad did not waste any more time there, leaving his general Qutbdin to lead the army to conquer cities and territories. A year later, Ghurid's army captured Delhi and then continued south and east, sweeping across North India with overwhelming force. When the vanguard reached Bengal, they sent only 18 cavalrymen, yet they frightened the locals into surrendering the city.

But just as the expedition was progressing smoothly, trouble broke out in the Ghurid dynasty's backyard.

After being defeated by the Western Liao, the Seljuk dynasty, the former hegemon of the Islamic world, declined rapidly and disintegrated. In 1194, Khwarazm, with the protection of its suzerain state, the Western Liao, launched an attack all the way to Baghdad, eliminating the Seljuk "general" who was still controlling the Caliph in the city. However, despite this, they failed to gain the hegemony they desired in the subsequent wars, and did not even have stable control over much land. Deeply dissatisfied with this, the Khwarazmian Sultan Muhammad hired a large number of Turkic mercenaries from the steppes to besiege Herat in the south, vying with the Ghurid dynasty for control of Khorasan.

By this time, the previous Sultan had passed away, and Muhammad had succeeded his brother to the throne, wielding even greater power. Due to his remarkably successful conquest of India, his prestige was extremely high; he was even called "Iskander-al-Tani," meaning the second Alexander the Great. In the Islamic world, he also held the title "Sultan-Ghazi," meaning the Sultan of the Jihad. His subordinates bestowed upon him the title of "Greatest Sultan," and no other nation could object to it.

Faced with this momentum, he immediately issued a conscription order to the governors of various regions, and soon assembled an army to meet the enemy.

The Khwarazmian ragtag army was no match for the battle-hardened Afghan army. They couldn't hold out in the first battle and were forced to retreat back to Merv, where the Ghurid army continued their pursuit. The two sides fought all the way, with the Khwarazmian army suffering defeat after defeat. Finally, in the decisive battle on their home soil north of the Amu Darya, the Khwarazmian army failed to win. The Sultan led his army in a hasty retreat to the border, leaving the Ghurid army to besiege the capital.

Seeing the situation was dire, Muhammad, in desperation, disregarded his status and wrote to Muhammad Ghur, offering to become his godfather. However, Muhammad Ghur completely disregarded him and ignored the offer. Left with no other option, Muhammad turned to the Western Liao Dynasty for help. Fortunately, he persuaded Emperor Tianxi of the Western Liao, Yelü Zhilugu, to agree to assist and dispatch an army of 10,000 men to the front lines.

Upon hearing that the Western Liao army had been mobilized, the Ghurid dynasty immediately responded: Muhammad Ghur, a powerful ruler who had spent his life taking pride in fighting against Qafir, chose to turn tail and run when faced with an infidel army that was only one-fifth the size of his own.

He decisively abandoned the siege and led his army south in a frantic march, planning to escape back south of the Amu Darya River and then hold out in the well-supplied stronghold of Ghazni. In order to speed up the march, he even disregarded the local troops, preferring to scatter them rather than stop.

However, even so, the main force of the Western Liao was faster than him. They only allowed the Khwarazmian army to make a show of pursuing from the rear, while the Khitan army, as the core, had already crossed the river ahead of time, detoured to the south bank of the Amu Darya River, and controlled the crossing point for the Gur army's southward escape.

Discovering that the crossing had been blocked, the morale of the Ghurid army completely collapsed. Under the siege of the Western Liao and its allied forces, they were almost entirely annihilated. Muhammad Ghur, with only a few attendants, fled to a nearby castle for refuge. Fortunately, the Western Liao did not want to completely eliminate him and allow Khwarazm to grow stronger. Therefore, through the mediation of Osman, the ruler of the Western Karakhanid Khanate, Muhammad Ghur paid a large ransom and was subsequently released by the Western Liao.

Although he survived, his prestige suffered a severe blow. Not long after, while suppressing rebellions, he was assassinated by a Shia assassin. The Ghurid dynasty, which had only recently reached its zenith, subsequently collapsed.

Meanwhile, the Ghurid army in Delhi suddenly found themselves unwanted... So, their country was essentially created by picking up scraps. The legitimacy and authority of the monarch were frequently questioned. It could be said that from the very beginning, there were a host of problems.

Later, as the central dynasty declined, several semi-independent sultanates formed in eastern India, nominally vassals of the Delhi Sultanate.

Later, Timur launched a "holy war" against the Delhi Sultanate, defeating the central army and further destroying Delhi's authority over the region. Several small sultanates in the area essentially became independent. However, without Delhi's control, these people did not enjoy much power and immediately began a civil war.

The core area of ​​the Sultanate of Bengal is located in the delta region of the Ganges River. Their center of power is Chittagong, located next to the river mouth. Bengal has always been one of India's trade and economic centers, and the development of maritime trade over the centuries has made it increasingly wealthy, transforming it into an important commercial base.

Conversely, the military strength of the Sultanate of Bangladesh is not very impressive.

The military strength of this string of sultanates was almost entirely maintained by their Central Asian compatriots. The Delhi Sultanate was able to maintain its fighting capacity for a long time by strictly refusing all Indian enlistment and insisting on recruiting Turkic Ghulams. Therefore, even after nearly a century of rule and with the dynasty itself becoming unstable, it was still able to defeat the Mongols who were then dominating the continent. In India, this is nothing short of a military miracle.

However, after the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate, this region, perhaps the furthest from Central Asia, faced significant challenges in acquiring Turkic slave soldiers. Consequently, the Sultan's small court, despite its wealth, was beset by internal and external troubles. Externally, they were no match for the neighboring Jaipur Sultanate; internally, the Sultan could only barely suppress the local powerful nobles. Therefore, they remained in a very awkward position.

Therefore, the local rulers chose a somewhat unconventional, but not entirely unexpected, strategic approach: seeking external assistance.

In the history that Guo Kang knew, the Sultan of Bengal chose to seek help from the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, in their quest for support from the "Celestial Empire," Bengal went to extreme lengths—when the Ming envoys arrived, they even suddenly remembered Buddhism, which had long been destroyed by their ancestors, the "Ghazi." They then declared their territory a Buddhist holy site, claiming it was next to the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, and offered to take the Ming delegation there for sightseeing. They hoped to gain the Ming Dynasty's favor and, in the name of Buddha, have the Ming Dynasty lend the Sultan a hand…

It's safe to say that surviving is no easy feat...

(End of this chapter)