Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 613 The Enemy Reacts
The current emperor of the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan, is not in Delhi, the nominal capital of the empire.
About 40 kilometers southeast of Delhi, on the banks of the Yamuna River, is Agna, the de facto capital of the empire for the past thirty years. On the other side of the river in this city is the Taj Mahal, which the Mughal are building with the whole country's strength and will be known as the most perfect building of the Star and Crescent religion in the future in the historical plane.
This emperor was also a troublemaker when he was young, and once rebelled against his father. However, for the king of the Star-Moon World, a son who has the courage to rebel may not be a potential to become a wise ruler in the future. Therefore, after defeating his usurpation, Shah Jahan's father Jahangir did not kill him, but just let him live a hard life of wandering for a few years, and finally let him inherit the throne.
After ascending the throne, the emperor, who had been in the lower class and knew the sufferings of the people, worked hard to govern the country, greatly improving the people's livelihood at home and effectively expanding the territory of the empire. In the historical plane, he even took advantage of the opportunity of Persia's decline after the death of Abbas the Great of Persia and snatched Afghanistan from the Persians in one fell swoop.
However, this emperor was a romantic man. After his wife Mumtaz Mahal passed away, he was heartbroken and his hair turned white overnight. His personality also changed dramatically: he became less and less interested in government affairs, and his previous simple life compared to other emperors disappeared. He handed over government affairs to his sons, and spent a lot of time and energy on personal enjoyment and endless grief for his deceased wife.
Of course, no matter how "depressed" he had been in recent years, he was still the emperor of a great empire after all. After receiving the urgent report from Governor Sayid and learning about the invasion of the Zhendan people, he quickly walked out of the deep palace and summoned his princes and ministers to discuss matters.
"I didn't expect that what that brat Ghazi (Aurangzeb) said was actually true. The Zhendan people in the northeast actually invaded, but..." The emperor raised the so-called report in his hand: "That idiot Sayyid didn't even know how many people the other side had. How can I make a decision?"
"Father, although Governor Sayyid did not know the size of the enemy, the enemy was not discovered by our people until they appeared in Asansol Town. It can be inferred that the enemy should have landed near the Hooghly River. In this season, landing at the swollen river mouth, roughly speaking, the size of the Zhendan people is not very large."
"Haha, my clever Shujia, you can always find key information from clues. So, can you be more specific and tell me how many invading Zhendan people there are?"
"This..." Shuja, the second son of Shah Jahan, had both ability and insight. But it was really difficult to infer the specific strength of the enemy with extremely limited intelligence.
However, this embarrassment was soon alleviated because at this time, a new emergency report was sent to Agner.
"… Bastard! This Sayid is really a loser! Thirty thousand men, including five thousand standing troops, and they were defeated after just one day of fighting? Now they are surrounded in Patna? How shameful!"
"Father, I request to lead the army to Patna to defeat the Chinese."
"Hmm." After a moment's silence, Shah Jahan glanced at his eldest son Shukoh, who had remained silent beside him. Then he turned to his second son Shuja and said, "Okay, my son, how many troops do you need?"
"According to Governor Sayyid's latest report, it is roughly estimated that the enemy's strength will not be less than 10,000. Perhaps there will be more enemies coming in an endless stream. Therefore, if you agree, please give me 50,000 troops. Among this army, equipped according to the standards of the previous Vijayanagar Kingdom's army, there should be no less than 10,000."
In the 17th century of the historical plane, the Mughal Empire had frequent dealings with the Portuguese, the Dutch, and a small number of British. From these Europeans, they also came into contact with hot weapons such as muskets and muzzle-loading cannons. The empire's army also gradually changed from a pure cold weapon army to a mixed cold and hot weapon army.
This process was originally very slow. However, a few years ago, Datar's violent attacks caused the imperial army to suffer huge losses in the early stages of the war. After learning from the painful experience, the imperial high-level officials, after stabilizing the front line, also began to find ways to obtain weapons such as five-shot rifles, heavy machine guns, and breech-loading cannons.
The source of these weapons was captured on the battlefield in the early stage and purchased from Persia in the middle stage: for this reason, the empire gave up the fight with Persia in Kabul. Now, Aurangzeb went to Andhra Pradesh, took over the local factory, and resumed production there. The empire finally had some production.
Of course, Datar's own foundation was not solid, and the production capacity of these factories was limited. Therefore, in the short term, most of the 400,000 standing troops of the Mughal Empire had not completed the replacement.
As a general, Sayyid was a rubbish. But as a bureaucrat, the Governor of Bihar was still qualified. In order to cover up his incompetence, Sayyid exaggerated the equipment advantages of the Ming army in his report, saying that each of the enemy had a rifle that could fire continuously, and there were so many cannons that the shells covered the entire battlefield...
This exaggerated report had a positive effect on Agnar. At least from Emperor Shah Jahan onwards, no one looked down on the Ming army.
"Shuja, my son, I will first give you the 50,000 guards stationed near Agna. Among them, 20,000 are newly equipped with breech-loading rifles, machine guns and breech-loading cannons."
"Thank you for your generosity and trust, Father."
"Shuko."
"Waiting for your instructions, Father."
"According to Ghazi, the Cathay people are invading with the goal of destroying our empire. Although I still don't understand why the emperor of Cathay would make such an arrogant move. However, Cathay is a powerful country that defeated our relatives in East Asia more than 200 years ago and recently annexed Japan and Siam. So, Shuko, you go to Balochistan and Punjab and gather the troops there. Well, as for the quota, mobilize 50,000 people first."
"As you command, Father."
"Also send an urgent message to my Ghazi, telling him that the invasion of the Cathaysians has come true. Ask him to guard the factory in Andhra and do his best to deliver new equipment to Agnar as soon as possible."
As an empire established by Turkified Mongols in India, the military power of the Mughal Empire blended the characteristics of Mongolia, Persia, Central Asian ethnic groups and India.
In the traditional imperial army, infantry is the largest and lowest-ranking cannon fodder: from the founding of the country to the demise of the empire, the Mughal Empire had almost no heavy infantry - all light infantry. Although it is very puzzling that the Indian peninsula, as a major agricultural country, has never developed a strong infantry. But it must be admitted that with the development of the times, especially after the popularization of matchlock guns, the status of the infantry of the Mughal Empire is still slowly rising.
Above the light infantry is the artillery: the empire used to be able to forge muzzle-loading cannons independently, and they were quite powerful. In order to ensure that this important national weapon would not fall into the hands of outsiders, the royal family placed the only artillery factory between Delhi and Agnar.
In general, battles were basically resolved by cavalry . The cavalry of the Mughal Empire was the core of the empire's military strength. Whether it was the light cavalry tactics from Mongolia or the heavy cavalry tactics from Persia, the Mughal Empire was able to use them to a high standard.
The last part is a feature of the Indian Peninsula: the war elephant army. Elephants are not suitable for fighting because they are not as easy to train as war horses. Moreover, compared with war horses, they eat too much.
However, elephants are much better than war horses in breaking through the enemy's formation in certain situations, such as when they are frightened or furious and charging. Therefore, although the number of war elephant troops in the military force of the Mughal Empire is small, they always exist.
In short, on September 10, 1632, the second prince of the empire, Shuja, led 50,000 imperial troops to Bihar. This was a mixed force of 20,000 new troops equipped with modern weapons and 30,000 traditional imperial troops.
