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西贝柳斯的食指2024-06-28阿兹法里的笑话的笑点在于，古拉姆卡迪尔是“受”而不是“攻”的一方，这就确定了他的从属地位，因为在当时“攻”“受”的区别是很重要的。但一些稍晚的史料说得更过分。根据一百年后的1865年编纂的《纳吉布·塔瓦里赫》，卡迪尔相貌美俊，沙·阿拉姆二世皇帝察觉到或者怀疑后宫女眷对他产生了兴趣，于是某天皇帝给这个年轻的宠臣下药，然后命人将他阉割。很多流传甚广的故事支持这种流法。但当时的很多叙述都没有提及此事，而且后来有人说这位罗赫拉王子有胡须，这大概与他被阉割的说法矛盾。不过，如果年轻的俘虏古拉姆·卡迪尔在镀金的莫卧儿鸟笼里当真受过皇帝的性骚扰（这是很有可能的事情），那么这就能够解释几年后时局逆转时他对皇帝施加的极端残酷和疯狂变态的残害。
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西贝柳斯的食指2024-07-03沙·阿拉姆认为，他的最好选择是秘密地与韦尔斯利取得联系，与此同时继续假装服从他的法国和马拉塔主子，毕竟他们仍然驻扎在他的要塞内，充当他的卫队。所以，他一边给宣布他将敌对东印度公司的宣言书（在其中斥责公司“篡夺了整个国家，背弃了对皇帝的效忠誓言”）盖上御玺，一边授权赛义德·礼萨·汗与莱克勋爵再度通信，解释道：“皇帝起草的公开信以及表示将讨伐东印度公司的宣言不是他自愿发出的，而是因为受到强迫，与他本人的意愿截然相反…他说：“我会坚决抵制[马拉塔人]，但因为我被他们控制了，所以我无能为力。’”这不就是慈禧宣战，东南督抚说此乱命也！
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自由的海豹2024-03-14东印度公司的品牌如今被一对来自印度喀拉拉邦的兄弟持有，他们在伦敦西区的一家展销店用这个品牌销售“调味品和美食”。
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自由的海豹2024-03-14此时他已经77岁高龄。他少年时代曾目睹纳迪尔沙闯入德里并抢走镶嵌着璀璨夺目的光之山钻石的孔雀宝座。他躲过了伊玛德·穆尔克的暗杀，与克莱武多次交战都得以幸存。他曾在巴特那和布克萨尔与东印度公司交战，在安拉阿巴德向克莱武授予孟加拉、比哈尔和奥里萨的财政管理权，并不顾东印度公司的阻挠，长途跋涉返回德里。尽管面对千难万险，他还是和米尔扎·纳杰夫·汗一起披荆斩棘，差一点就重建了他祖先的帝国。然而，在最后一位伟大的莫卧儿将军出师未捷身先死之后，光复帝国的梦想如海市蜃楼般消散。最后，在皇帝的人生最低点，他遭到自己曾经的宠臣、疯狂的古拉姆·卡迪尔的攻击，被刺瞎双目。如今得到了韦尔斯利的保护和公司发放的年金，他至少可以在祖先的宝座上，在他心爱的红堡，舒适而安全地度过风烛残年，并且过得相对来说比较有尊严。
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自由的海豹2024-03-14蒂普苏丹得知英军发动总攻后，立刻抛下宫殿里的午餐，率领他的精锐“真主之狮”近卫营骑马冲向突破口。但他抵达的时候，东印度公司军队已经闯进城里。他只能攀上城堞，为了自己的生命而奋战。虽然寡不敌众，但他还是勇敢地与蜂拥而上的公司印度兵厮杀，没过多久就被刺刀戳了两刀，左肩被一发子弹擦伤。他的部下建议投降，他答道：“你们疯了吗？闭嘴！”在水门与要塞内层城墙之间的地方，蒂普苏丹做了“英勇的最后抵抗”。即便最敌视他的英国人也承认他很英勇。”一群红衣军冲进了两扇大门之间的地域，一名英国掷弹兵看到负伤的苏丹腰间闪闪发光的黄金带扣，伸手去抓，但被苏丹一剑砍死。几秒钟后，另一名英军士兵在近距离向蒂普苏丹开枪，射穿了他的太阳穴。在三十二年里与东印度公司打了四场战争的迈索尔之虎终于倒地，手握利剑，倒在成堆的死尸和垂死的人中间。
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自由的海豹2024-03-13仍然有很多人嫉妒这个什叶派移民的平步青云。为了解释米尔扎·纳杰夫·汗为什么不公开露面，有人造谣说他沉溺于享乐，成天和德里的舞女们在床上厮混。海尔·丁·安拉阿巴迪在《警世书》中说，这位伟大的将军被一个心怀歹意的宦官引入歧途了。安拉阿巴迪写道：“一个叫拉塔法特·阿里·汗的宦官骗取了米尔扎·纳杰夫的信任，将他玩弄于股掌之间。”
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自由的海豹2024-03-10于是门罗写信给加尔各答方面：“为了避免皇帝或者帝国的贵族对我们的权势产生愤怒或嫉妒，我们做任何事情都应当借助皇帝的权威，始终打着他的旗号，让世人觉得我们是从他那里得到我们的战利品，我们是在他的指挥下作战的。”
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自由的海豹2024-03-10这位诗人和圣人问舒贾有何指教，纳瓦布兼维齐尔兴高来烈地答道：“我已经下定决心要向基督徒开战，在真主的佑助下把他们逐出印度斯坦！”舒贾原以为会得到诗人的祝福。但胡须花白的谢赫只是微微一笑，然后说：“你的绝大多数士兵还没有学会如何把剑收回鞘中，也不会正确地使用盾牌，他们从来没有在血肉横飞的现代战场上近距离观察战争。你打算用这样的乌合之众去对抗这个国家有史以来经验最丰富、纪律最严明的军队？你还问我有什么建议？我告诉你，你的想法是可耻的愚行，必败无疑。英国人是策略大师…除非他们突然间四分五裂、丧失纪律，否则你永远不可能胜利。”纳瓦布兼维齐尔一点也不喜欢对方的意见，但他出于对这位年高德劭的学者和苏非派圣人的尊重，没有反驳他。他们起身告辞时，谢赫叹息道：“愿真主佑助这支骆驼队，它的领导者根本不知道什么是好，什么是坏！”“
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西贝柳斯的食指2024-07-01在世界的其他地方，英国人在1780年还蒙受了其他一些重大挫折，这些挫折造成了影响深远的后果。在北美，“爱国者”开始反对英国国王，部分原因就是英国政府企图将东印度公司卖不出去的茶叶卖到北美，并征收相应的赋税。在引发了美国独立战争的波士顿倾茶事件当中，重9万磅、价值9659英镑（超过了今天的100万英镑）的东印度公司茶叶被倒进了波士顿港的大海。北美“爱国者”之所以这么做，部分原因就是他们害怕英国政府会让东印度公司去盘剥北美十三个殖民地，就像公司之前榨干孟加拉那样。
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lowai2020-07-21Intermarriage, he [Abdul Latif Shushtari] wrote, was common, though the Indian women who took European partners were, he maintained, rarely respectable: ‘The women of people with no future, of corrupt Muslims, of evil Hindus, who of their own desire enter into the bonds of wedlock with the English, they do not interfere with their religion nor compel them to leave purdah veiling; when any son born of the union reaches the age of 4, he is taken from his mother and sent to England to be educated.’
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lowai2020-07-21Egged on by the Company, ministers had now become alarmed at the level of force the French were building up in India and the fact that the British could not begin to match it. This was a matter of personal concern for many MPs, as a large number had invested their savings in East India stock.
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lowai2020-07-22Throughout 1773, Hastings worked with extraordinary energy. He unified currency systems, ordered the codification of Hindu laws and digests of Muslim law books, reformed the tax and customs system, fixed land revenue and stopped the worst oppression being carried out on behalf of private traders by the local agents. He created an efficient postal service, backed a proper cartographical survey of India by James Rennell and built a series of public granaries, including the great Gola at Patna, to make sure the famine of 1770–71 was never repeated
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lowai2020-07-22Fortune seems determined to accompany me to the last ... Every object, every sanguine wish is upon the point of being completely fulfilled, and I am arrived at the pinnacle of all that I covet, by affirming the Company shall, in spite of all the envy, malice, faction and resentment, acknowledge they are become the most opulent company in the world.
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lowai2020-07-22The Moors are indolent, luxurious, ignorant and cowardly beyond all conception … The soldiers, if they deserve that name, have not the least attachment to their Prince, he can only expect service from them who pays them best; but it is a matter of great indifference to them whom they serve; and I am fully persuaded that after the battle of Plassey I could have appropriated the whole country to the Company and preserved it afterwards with as much ease as Mir Jafar, the present Subah [governor] now does, through the terror of English arms and their influence...
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lowai2020-07-21...weak Indian rulers of fragmented post-Mughal states offered large blocks of territory, or land revenue, to the different European Companies in return for military support. The warfare that followed, which usually involved very small Company armies, was often incoherent and inconclusive, but it confirmed that the Europeans now had a clear and consistent military edge over Indian cavalry, and that small numbers of them were capable of altering the balance of power in the newly fractured political landscape that had followed the fall of the Mughal Empire.
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lowai2020-07-21Peace, however, now proved more elusive: the dogs of war, once let slip, were not easily brought to heel. Rather than disbanding his new sepoy regiments, Dupleix decided to hire them out to his Indian allies, and to use them to gain both land and political influence.
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lowai2020-07-21In the absence of firm Mughal control, the East India Company also realised it could now enforce its will in a way that would have been impossible a generation earlier...The Company’s emissary, Venetian adventurer Niccolao Manucci, who was now living as a doctor in Madras, replied that the EIC had transformed a sandy beach into a flourishing port; if Da’ud Khan was harsh and overtaxed them, the EIC would simply move its operations elsewhere. The losers would be the local weavers and merchants who earned his kingdom lakhs of pagodas each year through trade with the foreigners. The tactic worked: Da’ud Khan backed off. In this way the EIC prefigured by 300 years the response of many modern corporates when faced with the regulating and taxation demands of the nation state: treat us with ind...
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lowai2020-07-21At that time England was a relatively impoverished, largely agricultural country, which had spent almost a century at war with itself over the most divisive subject of the time: religion. In the course of this, in what seemed to many of its wisest minds an act of wilful self-harm, the English had unilaterally cut themselves off from the most powerful institution in Europe, so turning themselves in the eyes of many Europeans into something of a pariah nation. As a result, isolated from their baffled neighbours, the English were forced to scour the globe for new markets and commercial openings further afield. This they did with a piratical enthusiasm.