Yeah! that was the beauty of the warfare of the Maratha kings and its army.
With the help of proper intel from its spies, at accurate timings the Marathas did so many extraordinary things.
After the death of Chhatrapati Shri Shivaji Maharaj, Mughal emperor Aurangzeb decided to come to Maharashtra himself to crush the Maratha empire with his army of 7 lakh. (According to Alamgir Nama written by a court men of Aurangzeb Shri Ishwar Das).
This humungous army of 7 lakh didn't come alone. It had their wives, servants, horses, bullocks, their drivers, elephants, cannon carriers, traders, and what not. It was like an entire city walking from Agra to Maharashtra.
When Chhatrapati Shri Sambhaji Maharaj got to know about this plan of Aurangzeb, he simply looted Burhanpur, the financial capital of Mughals which was also an bridge between the Mughal territory and the Maratha territory. Here the Mughals also had stored their daily essentials (like food grains and fodder) for their upcoming endeavor to crush the Marathas.
Shri Sambhaji Maharaj looting Burhanpur gave a major setback to the Mughals even before they could commence their march. As a major chunk of their finances for the next 5-7 years was lost and was into the hands of the enemy Marathas.
This loss of money and food grains drew the Mughals crazy. (Just imagine feeding around 10-15 lakh bellies and not having money).
The Mughals had to raise finances from 14 of their provinces to fund a single campaign. They had to import food from several of their provinces to feed the army and the war cattle.
After this attack Shri Sambhaji Maharaj made his army choke the entry points of the Mughals soldiers from where the food was imported. The Maratha army would loot the food or in case of need would simply burn this food. And this continued for several years.
Due to this the Mughals were constantly facing a shortage of food. And this led to such a level of inflation in the Mughal camp that the food prices had shot more than 10 times. (Some references also suggest Maratha army selling food to the Mughals.)
This high inflation completely drained the Mughal treasury leaving the Mughals with very less avenues to experiment on the battlefield or bribe Maratha leaders.
Also, the psychological pressure due to short on finances (one can imagine).
This economic warfare tactics of the Marathas was so effective that Aurangzeb despite having an army of 7 lakh, right in the heartland of the Maratha empire could not destroy it even after 27 long years.
On the contrary the Marathas went on to rule the entirety of India.
Shobhit Mathur ThinkSchool Ami Ganatra Nikhil More Sushant Gangoli
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