your bridge home
True Valor
She did not wait to be besieged and did not meet him on open ground. She made him come to her through hill passes his cavalry could not fight in.
Muhammad of Ghor's first campaign into India did not go the way the histories usually imply.
And the reason is a woman with a child on her lap.
The Chaulukya (Solanki) kingdom of Gujarat was one of the wealthiest states in India.
Anahilavada was its capital. The Somnath coast was its seaboard. And the western sea trade was its revenue. Its king had just died. The heir, Mularaja II, was a small boy.
His mother, Naiki Devi, a daughter of the Kadamba ruling house of Goa, was regent.
Ghor came south through Multan and the Thar, aiming at Gujarat's wealth. A minor on the throne and a woman holding the regency is precisely the moment an invader picks.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.