Punching Cotton

Robert Peel, who gambled his reputation and career rather than the future of the nation, was truly admirable.

He lived up to the titles of "Chief Architect of the Victorian Era" and "Britain's First Servant." Compared to a mere politician, Franz preferred to call him a statesman.

However, the desperate strike of this great statesman proved to be of little use, as the surging uprisings across the Indian Subcontinent vanished almost overnight.

This all stemmed from the infighting between the Kingdom of Afghanistan and the Sikh Empire. Akbar Khan was a rather wise king; he was willing to bury the hatchet with the Sikh Empire and even make concessions—giving up a portion of the disputed territories—to form an alliance against the British forces.

But Queen Jind Kaur, the de facto ruler of the Sikh Empire at the time, did not trust Akbar Khan. She turned a deaf ear to his requests for supplies, neither agreeing to nor refusing his proposals for joint operations, and even provided him with false intelligence.

Queen Jind Kaur was a shrewd woman who hoped to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. She intended to wait until both sides were severely weakened before stepping in to reap the rewards, replicating the miracles she had performed in court intrigues.

It did not matter if the Afghans lost; the Indian Subcontinent was in chaos anyway, and the British would likely be more than happy to accept a ceasefire if the Sikh Empire proposed one.

The well-rested Sikh Empire could then take the opportunity to annex the Kingdom of Afghanistan, and from there, launch a southward invasion of India to catch the British off guard.

But Akbar Khan was no fool. His father had been a cunning old fox, and he knew such tactics all too