1 NADIR SHAH. 199
2 monarch was greatly irritated by the disingenuous and insidious conduct
3 of the emperor of Hindostan, and considered it a direct insult to his sove-
4 reign authority. About the same time letters were received by the Shah
5 from Nizdm-ul-Milk and Saddat Khan, the disaffected Omerahs of the
6 Moghal court, inviting him to maich to India, extirpate the family of
7 Tymir, and assume the reins of government himself. To redeem the honour
8 of his empire, and encouraged by the representations he received from
9 India, Nddir Shah resolved upon an invasion of that céuntry, and, with an
10 army of 1,25,000 horse, Kazil-bishis, Georgians, Turks, Khorasdnis, Balkhis,
11 &c, all inured to fatigue and hardships,-he set out from Kandahar in
12 May 1788 A.D. (about the vernal equinox of 1149 Hijri). He passed the
13 rivulet called the Mdakhur, which was then the boundary between the
14 Persian and Indian empires, and took the road to Ghazni, the capital of
15 Zabulistin. The governor of that city, with the chief residents, came out
16 to meet the king, with rich presents, and offered his submission. The
17 Persian army advanced like the waves of an angry sea, which the governor
18 thought it beyond his power to resist. The gates of the city were opened
19 or the Persian king, who, having garrisoned it with his own men, continued
20 his march on Kabul. Sherdil Khan, an amir, 70 years of age, was the Moghal
21 governor at Kabul at the time. His assistant, Ndsir Khan, had left Kabul
22 for Peshdwar before the arrival of Nadir Shah. The principal inhabitants
23 of Kabul came out to salute the king in a body, and gave him a reception
24 suitable to his dignity, but the governor, Sherdil Khan, offered an obstinate
25 resistance, and closed the gates of the city against him. Neither fair
26 promises nor threats could induce the wily old man to open the gates. The
27 town was closely besieged by the Persian troops for six weeks. The besieged
28 made a gallant and desperate defence, and old Sherdil Khan, with his two
29 sons, maintained his position with great firmness and resolution. A general
30 assault made by the Persians was unsuccessful. Recourse was now had to a
31 stratagem which succeeded, and Sherdil came out of the city to enter into a
32 compact with a supposed friend who had given him to understand that he
33 was at the head of an army against Nadir. The traitor seized Sherdil and
34 put him in confinement. His sons still gallantly held the town, but the
35 garrison being struck with terror and confusion, deserted their posts on the
36 ramparts of the city. Nadir Shah, taking advantage of the panic, forced
37 open the gates and took possession of the city, the inhabitants of which
38 were put to the sword. One of Sherdil’s sons was killed, while defending
39 the gates, and the surviving son, with the gallant old man, his father, was
40 inhumanly put to death by the avenging Nadir.
41 The victor found in the Kabul treasury two million five hundred thou-
42 sand rupees and effects to the value of two millions more, in which were
43 included four thousand complete suits of armour, inlaid with gold, four
44 thousand of polished steel, four thousand coats of mail for horses, and a great
45 quantity of fine tissue and dresses, which had been deposited there by the
46 Emperor Shab Jahan. :
47 The king remained at Kabul for seven months, the whole of which time
48 was occupied by him in maturing his plans for the invasion of Hindostén
49 on the basis of intelligence furnished him by the treacherous Omerahs in
50 the Court of the Moghal, and his emissaries in other places of importance
51 in India, .west of the Jamna. In the meanwhile another envoy, who
52 had.been sent with several Kabul chiefs to the court at Delhi, with an
53 ultimatum to the great Moghal, was killed, on his way to India, by Mir
54 Abbas, the governor of Jallalabad, and the chiefs were compelled to
55 Indignation of
56 Nadir Shah,
57 He is invited to
58 invade India,
59 Sets out from
60 Kandahar, 1738,
61 Submission of
62 Ghazni,
63 Nadir Shah marches
64 on Kabul,
65 Resistanco of the
66 governor, .
67 Unsnecessful
68 assault.
69 Seizure of the
70 govornor by stratagem,
71 Capture of tho
72 town.
73 Treasure found in
74 Kabul.
75 The kiug remains in
76 Kabul seven months,
77 Murder of the
78 eee ons Bru Radic highly eb Seged at this, manchar breed tetra ikem: outlet tea