324 HISTORY OF AURANGZIB. [CHAP. XIII. Surat fort be- sicged Shahbaz Khan first tried to corrupt the commandant of the fort, Syed Tayyib, through his friend Mirza Kamran, by saying that the astrologers had predicted the throne for Murad, and therefore to resist him was two court one's own ruin. The honest qiladar held firmly to his duty, and when Shahbaz advanced with his force to attempt an assault, he drove him back by a smart discharge of artillery. So Shahbaz had to encamp at a safe distance and begin the slow and tedious work of cannonading. But his guns being light pieces, no harm was done to the fort walls, and the siege* dragged on for weeks. Four or five big guns sent from Junagarh were too long in arriving. Success could be secured only by other means. Under the guidance of some Dutch artificers, he ran mines. The vast size. In front of the castle is the maidan [or esplanade]." and b;
- For the siege of Surat Fort, Isardas, 11a
Tavernier, i. 328-329; Faiyaz-ul-qawanin, 421, 422 (mine fired on 20 Dec.), 423, 459, 461, 462; Khafi Khan, ii. 7; Alamgirnamah, 134 (meagre). In a letter to Shaista Khan, Murad pretends that he had merely sent his men (-six thousand troopers with guns!) to draw his salary assigned on the Surat treasury as usual, when the qiladar, acting in Dara's interest, shut the fort gate in their face and opened fire on them; and that at the same time a letter from the qiladar's son at Court was intercepted reporting the death of Shah Jahan. Murad claims to have acted merely in self-defence. (Faiyas, 454). Digitized by Microsoft Ⓡ
