Page 130 - Lohgarh

130 w Lohgarh : The World’s Largest Fort

the Mughals were supposed to fight 52 battles before reaching just the
foothills of Lohgarh Fort.

Why Did Banda Singh leave Lohgarh?
After months of struggle made by the Mughals, Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur realized that Mughal forces are confused and now they were
trying to achieve only one objective i.e capturing of Sikh leaders and
that they were no more interested in capturing Lohgarh. Moreover, like
a game of chess, as a part of the strategy the players try to make the
opponent concentrate the power at a particular point and once the
power is concentrated at one point, the better player shifts the attack
on the opponent’s king from the other side. The same thing happened
at Lohgarh Fort. When the Mughal forces got accumulated at Lohgarh
Fort, under the banner of Emperor Bahadur Shah, and the forces failed
to control and capture the Lohgarh Fort, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur
very tactfully shifted the theatre of war from Lohgarh to Lahore.
Understanding as stated above, we may conclude that within one or
two days the Mughals forces could not have reached even near the
advance fortress of Lohgarh. After his escape through the territory of
Nahan (as stated by Mohammed Qasim Aurangabadi) Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur, along with his 20 Sikh generals and army of 40000 armed
horsemen, planned to attack Lahore, report 22 March 1711. 61

Situation following the (so-called) ‘Capturing’ of the One or Two Hills
of Lohgarh

In this false “victory”, the royal army captured five elephants, three big
cannons, seventeen small cannons, seven carriage vehicles (on which
guns are carried), one tent and a few silver poles from Lohgarh Fort,
and about eight lakh rupees and a few ashrafis were recovered from
62
Kundan, the zamindar of Lohgarh. On the first of December all these
things were brought to the Kampo village to be presented before the
Emperor. 63
The Emperor appreciated the role of Jamadat-ul-Mulk and Zulfiqar
Khan Bakhshi-ul-Mulk in this battle; similarly, Zorawar Khan, Ranbaz