Wars with kingdoms in neighbouring countries, India and Tibet Prithvi Narayan Shah’s second son, Bahadur Shah, wanted Nepal to become a pan- Himalayan kingdom and started demanding that kings of all the hill kingdoms in the Himalayas surrender to him. He won all small kingdoms up to Kali River in the west. He turned his attention to kingdoms in neighbouring India across the Kali River and attacked them when they rebuffed him. He defeated some of them in wars and won some areas. However, the next Shah soon lost them to the British East India Company which had come to rule much of north India by then and had become the de-facto ruler of India east of Satluj river in place of the Moghuls, Marathas and other kings, especially after defeating the Marathas in 1803 in Second Anglo-Maratha War. Bahadur Shah also attacked Tibet in 1789-1792 to control the trade routes through the mountains and the trade itself due to a dispute over contaminated silver coins and had initial success but was defeated by the Chinese who intervened in favour of Tibet. The Chinese pushed the Gorkha army back almost to the doors of Kathmandu and a desperate Bahadur Shah appealed to the British East India Company for guns and help in saving his kingdom. Thus Bahadur Shah lost his northwards gambit in Tibet but his successor kings continued their attempts westward towards Kangra and eastward in Sikkim because the Sikkim army under its king Chogyal was not as powerful as the Chinese army...
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:44:40 +0000
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