They now quarrelled with one another and with the
prime minister Khan Muhammad for the division
of power.[1] To aggravate the evil, Aurangzib
intrigued with them, and succeeded in corrupting most of them. "I am trying my utmost,"
he writes to Mir Jumla, "to win the Bijapur
army over, for then the chiefs of that country
will join us of their own accord." Randaulah
Khan's son and several other leading men of
the Court promised their adhesion and prepared to desert to the Mughal territory with their troops. After they had reached him Aurangzib hoped to seduce the others withOfficers seduced by Aurangzib the aid of Mir Jumla. So, he sent Rs. 20,000 to Multafat
Khan, the governor of Ahmadnagar, the nearest
point on the Mughal frontier towards Bijapur,
with instructions to distribute it among the deserters: every Bijapuri captain who brought a
hundred men to the muster was to get Rs. 2,000
out of the local treasury, (evidently after the
above sum had been spent). The governor was
ordered to welcome and conciliate every arrival
from Bijapur, even when he w^as not a captain
of known position and importance.[2] An envoy
from Shivaji waited on Aurangzib proposing the
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