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206 The same year the Mahárájá marched against Fateh Khán, the Baluch chief of Sáhiwál, a man of great influence, who had successfully withstood the Bhangi Sirdárs, and had won back from them many conquered districts. The father of the Mahárájá compelled him to pay a small tribute, which, in 1804, Ranjít Singh largely increased. But it was paid with some irregularity; an excuse for annexation, which the Mahárájá readily availed himself of. In 1810, he marched against Fateh Khán and captured his fort by surprise, carrying him to Lahore, where he was given a sufficient jagír and lived for a few years, till tired of a life of inaction he fled from court, and, hunted from one asylum to another, died at Baháwalpur, in exile, in 1820.

Thus all the Mussulman chiefs and nobles fell, one by one, under the supremacy of Mahárájá Ranjít Singh, and by the year 1820 his power may be said to have been consolidated and absolute throughout the whole Punjab proper, from the Sutlej to the Indus. To the south it was opposed by the British Protectorate, and in the north by the Afghán rulers of Kábul, who claimed, by right of conquest and in the name of Ahmad Sháh Duráni and Timúr, the sovereignty of Northern India.

The battle of Haidaru has already been noticed, in which the Sikh army defeated Wazír Fateh Khán and Dost Muhammad Khán, afterwards Amír, under the walls of Attock. Then followed the repulse of Diwán Rám Dyál in Kashmír, with the disastrous