War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

Sir Henry Harding was the governor of the British Indian colonies at this time. He participated in the Napoleonic Wars and defeated the main French army commanded by Soult with 7,000 remaining soldiers in the Peninsular War.

During the Battle of Ligny, Sir Henry Harding found that the Prussian army was too scattered, but neither Blücher nor the Prussian Chief of Staff Gneisenau refused to listen to the arrogance of a young man in his early twenties.

As a result, the Prussian army was directly defeated by Napoleon, and he could only withdraw from the battlefield first.

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

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

The Duke of Wellington called him the bravest Englishman, and in recognition of his achievements, the Duke of Wellington presented Napoleon's sword to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Harding.

It's just that this brave soldier never participated in a war after the end of the Napoleonic War, but devoted himself to politics.

It was not until the eve of the Sikh War that he was recommended as the Governor-General of India.

Because the war launched against the Sikh Empire at that time was well received in the country, but no one was sure that this powerful enemy could be solved.

The Sikh Empire once ruled by Kirant Singh can definitely be called a powerful enemy.

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

The exchange rate between the florin and the rupee is 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 Kirant Singh's new army could be called "luxury".

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

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

In addition, Kirant Singh can also recruit about 35,000 tribal armed men and nearly 10,000 fanatic believers.

However, all these glories disappeared with the death of Gillant Singh. The continued turmoil in the country caused the tribes that he had previously subjugated to begin to obey him.

Local landowners and officials began to work together to line their own pockets, and national finances declined rapidly. Ethnic and religious conflicts also broke out here, with a massive loss of population, desolate land, bandits everywhere, and shrinking business.

On the other hand, the status of the army continued to improve, and the financial support it requested continued to increase. By 1843, the emperor wanted to get 400,000 rupees to repair the garden, but he had no money.

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

However, a skinny camel was bigger than a horse. At this time, the Sikh Empire could still muster an army of 60,000 people.

Although Henry Harding was brave, he was not a reckless man. He refused to accept London's order and advance directly into Punjab. Instead, he chose the relatively safe strategy of building high walls and hoarding grain.

This is partly because of Henry Harding's personal caution, and partly because both of the two warring factions in history have died in battle.

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

Without the interference of these two local powerful factions, Henry Harding chose a completely different style of play from history. He prepared to encircle the Sikh Empire, using fortresses and bunkers to build a camp step by step.

The French staff officers in the Sikh army discovered the British intentions immediately. However, due to the chaos within the Sikh Empire at that time, it was not until a few months later that the top brass discovered that Henry Harding was trying to surround them.

The Sikh Empire once again fell into chaos, and eventually Queen Regent Jinda's faction gained the upper hand.

Then they hurriedly declared war on Britain, led by Degar Singh and Lal Singh. The two men served as commander-in-chief at the same time, and the operation of commanding the troops separately was very confusing.

But in fact, the two men 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 even as good as the Spanish.

This strengthened Henry Harding's strategy of shrinking, but what made him depressed was that after waiting in the fortress for almost a month, he did not see a single Sikh soldier. On the contrary, many locals risked their lives to sell goods and serve as coolie.

Due to the excessive expropriation of the Sikh Empire over the years, the people have long been in dire straits. Compared with working as a coolie for the Sikh army, the reward for working for the British is much more generous, and at least they can have enough to eat.

There are many people waiting to see the fireworks, but a month is indeed too long.

Both Degar Singh and Lal Singh hoped that the other party could fight to the death with the British and then reap the benefits, so they were unwilling to be the first person.

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

Henry Harding was determined not to leave, because he felt that it was not a wise move to lead a group of Asan rashly into the enemy's hinterland.

As a result, both sides were exhausted, but soon the Sikh Empire's supplies could not keep up. Degar Singh and Lal Singh had no choice but to agree to attack the British army at the same time.

Finally seeing the army of the Sikh Empire, the British troops in the fortress were quite excited, because as long as the battle was over they could return to their respective areas and become local overlords.

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

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 was enough to defeat the opponent.

As a result, the other party brought more than two hundred artillery pieces, which were directly smashed to pieces by the British Indian colonial army and employees of the East India Company.

Although Henry Harding ordered the construction of city walls and fortresses at this time, Asan's architectural skills could only create some superficial things.

The British army was at a huge disadvantage as soon as the war began. The 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 could not be blocked by the old-fashioned city walls temporarily built by the Indians.

In fact, Henry Harding did not think of this. He just hoped to reduce the loss a little.

I didn't expect the opponent's firepower to be so fierce. Fortunately, he specially brought some siege artillery, at least it didn't fall too far in terms of power.

In the artillery battle between the two sides, the Sikhs clearly had the advantage, so Deja Singh and Lal Singh became a little swollen.

The two men simultaneously ordered preparations to attack the city. Whoever defeated the British first would be the future leader of Kasar.