Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/227

CHAP. IX.] Shah Jahan raised the stipend of each trooper to Rs. 20 a month, and the order about muster and branding was apparently dropped.

Keen on securing military efficiency, Aurangzib first of all assured that financial support without which an army cannot be kept up to the mark. About his own immediate followers he wrote to the Emperor, "Your Majesty well knows that I seldom make useless expenditure. What I get from you, I spend in supporting the army. Now, as my men are paid in cash, my contingent will decrease in the same proportion as my cash allowance is reduced."

The Deccan being far away from the centre of the Empire, the officers posted there used to embezzle the public money and to neglect their duty, without fear of inspection and detection. We have seen how one governor, Islam Khan, used to make money by selling the stores of the forts dear and afterwards buying fresh provisions cheap. Fifty years afterwards the Venetian traveller Manucci noted the utterly decayed and neglected condition of the Mughal forts in these parts. But in 1650 Mir Khalil, a very able and energetic officer, was appointed