Chapter 612 The War Begins

Sir Henry Hardinge was the governor of the British Indian colony at that time. He participated in the Napoleonic Wars and defeated the main force of the French army commanded by Soult with 7,000 remnants in the Peninsular War.

In the Battle of Ligny, Sir Henry Hardinge found that the Prussian army was too dispersed, but both Blücher and the Prussian Chief of Staff Gneisenau refused to listen to the crazy words of a young man in his early twenties.

As a result, the Prussian army was directly defeated by Napoleon and had to evacuate the battlefield first.

Sir Henry Hardinge lost his left arm in this battle, but he did not surrender or withdraw from the battle. Instead, he endured the pain of the broken arm and caught up with the Prussian army and urged the other side to return to the war.

Blücher paid great respect to this brave young man. In the end, the Prussian army arrived at Waterloo as planned and dealt the final blow to Napoleon and his empire.

The Duke of Wellington called him the bravest British man. In recognition of his achievements, the Duke of Wellington presented Napoleon's sword to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hardinge.

However, this brave soldier never participated in any war after the Napoleonic Wars, but instead devoted himself to politics.

He was not recommended as the Governor-General of India until the eve of the Sikh War.

Because the war against the Sikh Empire was well received at home, but no one was sure that they could defeat this powerful enemy.

The Sikh Empire once ruled by Gilant Singh was definitely worthy of the title of a powerful enemy.

To give a more intuitive example, the fiscal revenue of the Sikh Empire in 1839 was as high as 50 million rupees, close to half of the Austrian Empire in the same period of history.

The exchange rate between the florin and the rupee was very close, about 1 to 1.09.

At that time, the defense expenditure of the Sikh Empire was as high as 45%, so the weapons and equipment of Gilant Singh's new army could be called "luxurious".

The 80,000 new troops had more than 600 French artillery pieces and 70,000 Delvigne-1826 rifles. The literacy rate of the soldiers was as high as 60%, far exceeding that of the European army of the same period.

There was also a French instructor group of 300 people, including many senior officers who participated in the Napoleonic Wars, and even directly hired French people as commanders of the army.

In addition, Gilant Singh could recruit about 35,000 tribal armed forces and nearly 10,000 fanatics.

However, all these glories disappeared with the death of Gilant Singh. The continued turmoil in the country made the tribes that were previously subdued by him begin to obey in public but disobey in private.

Local landlords and officials began to unite to enrich themselves, and the national finances declined rapidly. Ethnic and religious conflicts also broke out at the same time, with a large population loss, barren land, bandits everywhere, and business shrinking.

On the other hand, the status of the army continued to rise, and the financial support required continued to increase. By 1843, the emperor wanted to take 400,000 rupees to repair the garden without money.

The military association organization "Kasar" controlled the national politics to a certain extent and purged a large number of officers loyal to the royal family.

However, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. At this time, the Sikh Empire could still gather an army of 60,000 people.

Although Henry Hardinge was brave, he was not a reckless man. He refused to accept London's order to advance directly to Punjab, but chose the relatively safe approach of building high walls and storing grain.

This was partly because of Henry Hardinge's personal caution, and partly because the two war advocates in history had died in battle.

An old general died on the way to quell the rebellion, and Hugh Gough lost his life on the island of Kalimantan.

Without the interference of these two local power groups, Henry Hardinge chose a completely different way of fighting from history. He planned to surround the Sikh Empire and use fortresses and bunkers to advance step by step.

The French staff in the Sikh army discovered the British intentions at the first time, but due to the chaos within the Sikh Empire at that time, it was not until a few months later that the top leaders discovered that Henry Hardinge had already surrounded them.

The Sikh Empire fell into chaos again, and finally the faction of the regent queen Jinda prevailed.

Then they hastily declared war on Britain, led by Dega Singh and Lal Singh. It was very confusing that the two of them served as commanders-in-chief at the same time and commanded the teams separately.

But in fact, the two came from different factions, so they wanted to kill each other more than the British.

On the other hand, Henry Harding also lamented the poor combat power of the Indians. He even suspected that the Indian soldiers in front of him were not as good as the Spaniards.

This further strengthened Henry Harding's strategy of retreat, but what made him depressed was that he waited in the fortress for almost a month without seeing a shadow of a Sikh soldier. Instead, many locals risked their lives to sell goods and work as coolies.

Because the Sikh Empire had been levying heavy taxes and extortions for many years, the people had long been living in poverty. Compared with working as coolies for the Sikh army, working for the British was much more rewarding, and at least they could have a full meal.

There were many people waiting to watch the fireworks, but a month was indeed too long.

Both Dega Singh and Lal Singh hoped that the other side would fight to the death with the British and then reap the benefits, so neither of them wanted to be the first to come out.

Historically, Lal Singh's troops collided with Hugh Gough's vanguard, but now the latter has turned to ashes.

Henry Harding was determined to stay put because he felt that it was not a wise move to rashly lead a group of Indians into the heart of the enemy country.

So the two sides fought like this, but soon the Sikh Empire's supplies could not keep up. Dega Singh and Lal Singh had to agree to attack the British army at the same time.

Finally seeing the army of the Sikh Empire, the British soldiers in the fortress were still quite excited, because as long as the battle was over, they could return to their respective areas to be local tyrants.

But soon this excitement disappeared, because the firepower of the Sikh army far exceeded the British army's imagination.

Historically, the British army was stunned by the Sikh artillery. At that time, Hugh Gough used experience to judge that bringing 20 to 30 artillery pieces would be enough to defeat the opponent.

As a result, the opponent brought more than 200 artillery pieces, which were directly crushed by the British Indian colonial army and the employees of the East India Company.

Although Henry Harding ordered the construction of city walls and fortresses at this time, the Indian construction level could only build some superficial things.

As soon as the war started, the British army fell into a great disadvantage, and the city walls and fortresses they relied on could not provide them with much protection.

In fact, French goods were quite scary at the time. Although there were many antiques from the French Revolution, they were not blocked by the old-fashioned walls built temporarily by the Indians.

In fact, Henry Harding did not think of this. He just hoped to reduce some losses.

He did not expect the opponent's firepower to be so fierce. Fortunately, he specially transported some siege cannons, at least he did not lose much in power.

The Sikhs had a clear advantage in the artillery battle between the two sides, so Dega Singh and Lal Singh became a little inflated.

The two ordered to prepare for the siege at the same time. Whoever defeated the British first would be the future leader of Kasar.