Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/353

CHAP. XIII.] without a single friend or sympathiser by his side.

The honest minister having been removed from the path, the reign of lying flatterers and eunuchs began. Murad was enlisting troops in large numbers and needed money badly. So he sent an eunuch named Shahbaz Khan with 6,000 troopers and war material to levy contribution from the rich port of Surat. The detachment easily occupied the town which had no wall around it at this time, and began to plunder the citizens (early in November). But the Imperial treasury, enriched with the custom duties of the greatest Indian port of the age, was situated within the fort, where the chief merchants had also deposited their wealth for safety. As the sea flanked the fort of Surat on three sides and its walls bristled with guns and swivels at every yard's interval, its capture was no easy task.