Desert Eagle Suletan Khan

"Jiang Cheng Zi: A Thousand-Mile Raid on Bangladesh"

Wildflowers bloom where horses' hooves tread.
Leaving the frontier,
Hunting the Sky Wolf.

Ready for battle at any moment

Show your strength today.

The clueless enemy chieftain has not yet risen.
The blade flashed swiftly.

Blood was like syrup.

This poem was written by Batu Mengke, the Deputy General of the Southern Expedition of the Kingdom of David, the Governor of Ü-Tsang, and the Earl of Jianchang, a First-Class Count, during his campaign towards Bengal. This commander came from a prominent Oirat noble family; his father was Erke, a senior minister and Prince of Longxi in the Kingdom of David. With such a family background, he should have been ennobled long ago. However, the Kingdom of David had just been established, and its rules were extremely strict. To be promoted, one needed sufficient military merit. He had long been stationed in Ü-Tsang, and his occasional participation in campaigns had only been as a subordinate general, making it difficult to achieve significant merit. Therefore, he was only a First-Class Earl. Seeing even a local official like Pala Gesang, who had frequently participated in campaigns and managed to become a First-Class Earl through various means, how could he not feel resentful? Therefore, after discussing the division of troops with Alatan Cang, he didn't waste a moment and immediately led his 40,000-strong army south from Kuchi to Bengal.

According to the poem, the Imperial Guards launched a long-distance raid, and before the enemy general could react, he was swiftly and fiercely killed by the blades. However, poetry often exaggerates, and real warfare was far more brutal.

Although Bengal Governor-General Shasta Khan was ordered by the Emperor to lead a large army to the Deccan to subdue the rebellious Marathas, he still left 20,000 elite troops in Dhaka, the capital of Bengal, under the command of his nephew, Fajidar (local military governor) Muhammad Raza, before departing. In addition, he left over 10,000 troops in Chittagong, southeast of Dhaka, and 5,000 troops in Calcutta and other locations along the southern coast. Therefore, Bengal was not as vulnerable as one might imagine.

With such a major commotion in the north, how could the Mughal commander of Bengal not know? And how could he have been beheaded by the guards without even realizing it? Upon receiving news of the guards' invasion of Kuchihajor, Muhammad Raza immediately ordered the redeployment of troops from the southern coastal regions and Chittagong to Dhaka to strengthen defenses. Simultaneously, he sent messengers to contact British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Danish merchants operating in Bengal, hoping to recruit mercenaries skilled in firearms. At that time, recruiting Western mercenaries was common in the South Asian subcontinent; not only the Mughal Empire, but also Arakan, Bijapur, Golkunda, and Burma had a tradition of recruiting mercenaries. He also sent envoys to Odishasuba (province) to request reinforcements.

These measures had some effect. Kotwar (an official in charge of urban security and market management) Ush, responsible for the defense of the southern coast, arrived in Dhaka with 5,000 soldiers. Simultaneously, a Portuguese captain named Moor, with 1,000 mercenaries from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Denmark, and thirteen Gallieroes, sailed into Dhaka via the Ganges. Subadar (a high-ranking official) Ibrahim Khan of Orissa also sent his general Amit with 9,000 reinforcements to Dhaka. However, Diwan (an official in charge of taxation and finance) Murshid of Chittagong refused Muhammad Raza's order to mobilize troops, not because he was audacious enough to oppose the Mughal royal family, but because Chittagong was in dire straits. After Burma reached a peace agreement with the Kingdom of David, King Sindhodhu Dhamma of Arakan, seeing he could gain no advantage, sent envoys to negotiate peace with Burma, ending the opportunistic Burmese-Arakan War, and instead expanded westward, hoping to reclaim the wealthy port of Chittagong from the Mughals. He appointed his son, Varim, as regent and personally led an army of 50,000 to attack Chittagong. Murshid, with only 13,000 troops, could barely defend himself, let alone reinforce Dhaka. The army defending Dhaka, including the mercenary forces, numbered 35,000, roughly equal in strength to the Mughal army. More importantly, they possessed a highly sophisticated defensive system. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, Dhaka held immense military value. Holding it meant controlling the Ganges' choke point, preventing the enemy from crossing and invading central and southern Bengal. The Mughals had built a series of fortresses centered around Lalbagh Fort, along with the formidable Daxwari Temple, which could be used as a city wall in wartime. Therefore, when he learned that the invading Mughal army numbered only 40,000, Muhammad Raza was reassured, confident that he could defend Dhaka and protect Bengal. Overconfident, he led an expedition out of the city to engage the Mughal army in battle.

This Fajidar underestimated Batu Mengke and his army. The army of the newly established Davidic State was mostly composed of veterans who had fought in many battles. Tibet was located on the frontier, and its garrison belonged to the border army series, whose combat strength was higher than that of the ordinary guards.

At noon on December 21, 1676 (the 33rd year of the Qianyuan era), the two sides met about 100 li north of Dhaka. The vast Ganges Plain allowed the Bhutanese cavalry to fully exploit their advantages. As soon as the battle began, the Bhutanese general Dondrup Norbu and Yang Xianzhu, the commander of the Six Tribes of Tianquan, led 10,000 cavalry into the Mughal central army. Before them, the Mughal cavalry were as fragile as paper, and the war elephants could not withstand the attack of firearms. Seeing the enemy in disarray, Batu Mengke seized the opportunity to lead his troops in a counterattack, annihilating more than 10,000 enemy soldiers and killing more than 60 generals, including the Mughal vanguard officer Amit, while suffering only about 1,000 casualties himself.

Muhammad Raza led his defeated army back to Dhaka. Having witnessed the formidable strength of the Guards, he dared not venture out of the city again, instead choosing to defend it with its gates closed. Having gained absolute initiative, Batu Mumke was not in a hurry. He first eliminated the outer strongholds, taking down castle after castle, even capturing places like the Daxwari Temple, until only Lalbagh Castle remained. However, this castle, built of sandstone and brick, was extremely sturdy. Despite having only ten thousand or so remaining soldiers, the Guards attacked for over a month, suffering over three thousand casualties, yet they could not break through its defenses.

“If every city in Bengal were as fortified as Larbagh Fort, we would probably never be able to conquer Bengal,” Batumongk lamented, seeing the heavy casualties.

“General, do not worry. Our army has captured all the outer fortresses of Dhaka. Even if Lalbagh Fortress is as solid as a rock, it is nothing more than a turtle in a jar. What is there to fear? We only need to surround them and wait for them to run out of food. They will naturally collapse without a fight,” advised the deputy admiral and Bhutanese general, Tenzin Norbu.

"That's the logic, but with this method of fighting, when will I be able to take over Bengal?" Batu Mengke sighed. Although this method was too time-consuming, he couldn't come up with a better solution for the time being. He had no choice but to dig trenches and moats around the city to cut off the garrison's escape route while building ships to prepare for crossing the Ganges and advancing into central and southern Bengal.

Just as he was in a state of anxiety, news arrived that the Arakan army had captured Chittagong, and that King Sindhodhamma of Arakan was willing to submit to David and form an alliance with him to jointly attack the Mughals.

(End of this chapter)