Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/167

 OPPRESSIVE TAXATION 135 itors and among learned men, poets, officials, and office- seekers of all degrees, impoverished the treasury which the tranquil prosperity of his father's brief reign had replenished, and the immense expeditions which the Sultan prepared for visionary foreign conquests com- pleted the ruin of his finances. His project of con- quering Persia kept a huge army standing idle, and another dream of invading China led to a disastrous check in the passes of the Himalayas, where money and blood were spilt like water. The drain on the treasury then Compelled GOLD COIN OF MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK, STRUCK AT DELHI, A. H. 726 (.D. 1326). fresh taxation, and there is no doubt that an oppressive fiscal system in a country where the margin of agricultural profit is minute was the chief rock upon which Mohammad Taghlak's government split. The first project which the Sultan formed (says Barani), and which led to the ruin of the country and the decay of the people, was an attempt to get five or ten per cent, more tribute from the lands in the Doab, the fertile plain between the Ganges and the Jumna. He introduced oppressive cesses and made stoppages from the land returns until the peasants were reduced to beggary. The rich became rebels, and the lands lay untilled. The effects spread to other provinces; the peasants became alarmed, lost confidence, abandoned their lands, burned their stacks, turned their cattle loose, and took