Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Cannons: Firepower That Reshaped the Mughal Empire
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to Fexingo History. I'm Lucas, and as always, I'm joined by Luna. Today we're talking about something we haven't touched on yet in our series on Aurangzeb — his artillery. The cannons that helped him expand the empire and, eventually, contributed to its strain. Luna: I've heard about Mughal cannons, but I didn't know Aurangzeb had a personal connection to them. Lucas: He absolutely did. As a prince, Aurangzeb was fascinated by artillery. When he was governor of the Deccan in the 1640s, he personally oversaw the casting of cannons and even experimented with different gunpowder mixes. Contemporaries like the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier noted that Aurangzeb would inspect foundries and question engineers about metallurgy. Lucas: This wasn't just a hobby — it was strategic. The Mughals had used cannons since Babur's time, but by Aurangzeb's reign, artillery was central to siege warfare. He needed to breach the massive fortresses of the Deccan — Golconda, Bijapur, and later Maratha strongholds like Sinhagad. Luna: So how did Mughal artillery work? Was it just big cannons on wheels? Lucas: Not exactly. The Mughals deployed a variety of pieces. The most famous was the zamburak — a small swivel gun mounted on a camel. These were highly mobile, used to harass enemy formations or defend supply lines. For sieges, they had massive bronze cannons that could fire stone or iron balls weighing up to fifty kilograms. Lucas: But moving those big guns was a nightmare. The maasir i alamgiri, Aurangzeb's court chronicle, describes how hundreds of oxen and elephants were needed to drag a single cannon over the Western Ghats. The terrain was brutal — steep passes, monsoon mud, and Maratha raiders who'd attack the baggage trains. It's a miracle they got them anywhere. Luna: And yet they still used them to conquer Golconda. I remember that siege from a previous episode — the Mughals eventually starved them out, but the cannons must have helped. Lucas: Absolutely. In 1687, Aurangzeb personally supervised the siege of Golconda. The fort was considered impregnable — built on a granite hill with massive walls. Mughal engineers dug trenches and placed heavy cannons at close range. According to Tavernier, who was there, the Mughals fired over one thousand rounds in a single day. The noise was deafening, and the dust choked everyone. Lucas: But Golconda's walls held. It wasn't until a traitor inside opened the gates that the Mughals got in. Still, without the artillery, they couldn't have pressured the defenders into surrender. And after the fall, Aurangzeb seized the Qutb Shahi arsenal, adding hundreds of cannons to his own forces. Luna: That's a lot of firepower. Did the Mughals produce their own cannons, or did they import them? Lucas: Both. The main Mughal foundry was in Lahore, which produced some of the finest bronze cannons in Asia. Aurangzeb also employed Ottoman and European engineers to improve casting techniques. For instance, a Frenchman named M. le Maire helped cast cannons for the Deccan campaign. But they also captured enemy artillery — from the Deccan sultanates and later from the Marathas. Lucas: Speaking of the Marathas — they learned to counter Mughal artillery. At the battle of Sinhagad in 1670, Maratha forces under Tanaji Malusare used guerrilla tactics to scale the fort at night, capturing several Mughal cannons. It was a huge embarrassment for the Mughals. Later, Maratha commanders like Kanhoji Angre developed their own naval artillery, harassing Mughal shipping along the Konkan coast. Luna: Wait, so the Marathas turned Mughal cannons against them? That's poetic. Lucas: It is, and it illustrates a key weakness of Aurangzeb's strategy. Heavy artillery was effective in set-piece sieges, but against a mobile enemy like the Marathas, it was a liability. Cannons slowed down the army, required enormous supply chains, and when captured, gave the enemy firepower they didn't have before. The chronicler Niccolao Manucci noted that by the 1690s, Maratha forts were bristling with Mughal cannons bearing Aurangzeb's own inscriptions. Lucas: If today's episode was useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is through listener support. You can buy me a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It keeps the show going without commercials. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to help us keep digging into these stories. Lucas: So back to the cannons — one of the most interesting aspects is the social impact. The Mughal artillery corps, called the tophkhana, was a mixed group of Muslims, Hindus, and even Europeans. Gunners were well-paid and often rose to high rank. Aurangzeb's chief artillery officer, Nawab Bahadur, commanded thousands of men and was one of his most trusted generals. Lucas: But maintaining the tophkhana was expensive. A single large cannon cost hundreds of thousands of rupees — equivalent to a year's revenue from a medium-sized district. Aurangzeb's constant campaigns drained the treasury, and after his death, the Mughal artillery declined rapidly. By the 18th century, Maratha and Afghan armies often outgunned the Mughals. Luna: So in the end, the cannons that built the empire also helped break it? Lucas: In a way, yes. The financial strain of maintaining a massive artillery train, combined with the guerrilla warfare that made those cannons less decisive, contributed to Mughal overreach. But for a few decades, Aurangzeb's firepower was unmatched. The walls of Golconda, the forts of Bijapur — they all felt the thunder of Mughal guns. Lucas: Next time, we'll look at another aspect of Aurangzeb's military machine. Until then, thanks for listening.