The ghosts of yesterday.
With the blood of his brother and the last Amir Ali Shah still on his hands, Ayub Shah now knew his position well. The Barakzai and the various outlying tribes had supported him during his coup. Now he was in their debt. And what a debt it was !
Now everyone concerned with his brother's killing expected rewards, rich rewards, one petty chief in the mountains even went as far as demanding half of the treasury, laughable as it was, you never knew who had friends in which places or who had married off his sister where or who was a son-in-law of whom. And speaking of the treasury was laughable as well, there was hardly any actual wealth in it. That traitor Shah Shujha had even carted off the one greatest achievement of his forefather Ahmad Shah Abdali, the famed Kohinoor diamond.
And then there was of course Dost Mohammed, the devilish cunning Barakzai who was steadily planting the seeds of discontent against Ayub's rule while steadily increasing his own influence. Rumours even said that he had more money than the imperial treasury !
Dost Mohammed Khan.
Ayub Shah now knew that his position was as precarious as his late brother's and so he decided to gather up whatever money was left in the treasury and attempt to reassert his position. In a place like Afghanistan, the best way to go about that particular job was a show of power. And Ayub had the best possible opportunity to do exactly that.
Chitral, a most beautiful part of the Hindu Kush, why, it was even more beautiful than Kashmir, but presently the ruler of Kashmir held the area by bribing the local Pashtun warlords for support with money extorted from poor peasants, speaking of peasants, the area, with its flowing hills and rolling medows also had a much better agricultural produce than any to be found in Afghanistan except for the major cities.
And of course, like every other land in the vicinity it was once part of the Durrani Empire.
So Ayub set about emptying whatever last dime he could find in the depleted treasury to fund the campaign.
A quarter went to the Inam of Kabul for declaring the Jihad against the local Hind ruler of Kashmir.
Another quarter went to Dost Mohammed for his support.
The rest of the money went to actually pay the standing army in Kabul.
But now there remained the question, what of the various levies of the chieftains?
Afghanistan depended on a levy system for the organization of troops. The various chieftains, Inams, Amirs and Khans all had to maintain a strict number of levies which they would offer to the emperor's service in return for money. This Mughal era practice ensued that the ruler had a bigger army to rely upon apart from his personal armies.
While the practice was good on paper, there was much corruption in the system. Ghost payrolling ensued wherein a smaller amount of troops than those paid for were actually sent, the rest accounted for as casualties by raiding mountain tribes, since such raiding was like second nature to every Afghan, there was little way for most rulers to verify such claims.
Now Ayub had no money to call on the levies on the inside, on the other hand, if he allowed to let them remain idle inside the country while he was out campaigning in Chitral, they would attempt some mischief.
This proved to be a major dilema for him.
The only choice now was to take a loan, and of course, this completed the vicious circle of evil, for the only man rich enough to loan the Emir of Afghanistan was none other than Dost Mohammed Khan, and of course he would demand a lot more than interest in return.
