The horse rider who had freed Chanakya from the guards of Dhanananda was none else but Chandragupta. Taxila was now totally under the control of the aliens. Gandhara king Ambhi was already with Alexander. Then king Puru of Kaikya had also fallen in line and was now a satrap of Alexander.
Chandragupta had then decided to leave Taxila and made his way to Patliputra in search of Guru Chanakya because he himself was still too immature to be able to chart his course. He needed someone to guide him with unity of purpose.
He had come in the nick of the time at the court of Nanda otherwise Chanakya would have been lost for ever. It was a great relief for Chanakya also to find the favourite pupil again. He too needed someone to put his plans in action.
Chandragupta revealed, “Sir, Alexander has taken over both Gandhars, Kaikya, Katha, Shudraka and Agreya states. Now he is trying to conquer the southern part of Vaheek which has states of Ambashta, Vasati, Kuchikarna etc. It is just a matter of time that those states also would fall to the alien conqueror.”
The news anguished Chanakya. He cursed the narrow-minded rulers who only knew how to quarrel amongst themselves. They were deaf to the wise counsel and blind to see the alien danger. To make matters worse the way Dhanananda had acted shocked him. He was still feeling humiliated and wanted to fulfil his vow. There no more was any scope of Magadha ruler paying heed to the reasoning.
The duo left Patliputra and began creating an opinion against the rulers amongst the common folk. In certain situations public support proved more useful than army. They collected funds from people for the overthrow of the corrupt regime. Some enthusiastic young people had joined them and a rebel force was building up. Later recruitment of paid soldiers too was taken up.
Chandragupta had served in Gandhara army for some time and had gained valuable experience in the working of a fighting force. He knew all about raising army units, training them, procurement or making of basic weapons, disciplinary codes and the internal structure cum functioning.
In Mahakantara region, spread from south of Kaushambi-Prayaga to Vindhyachala hill there lived several forest tribes. They were fighters by nature and were always unfriendly to the administrations of the kings. Chanakya preached to them a new order where there would be no place for royal tyranny. His rebellious idea found favour with the tribal folk who were born rebels. A large force of the tribals was raised and equipped with weapons.
Chanakya and Chandragupta now had a regular paid army and volunteer forces of tribals. Chandragupta was the commander of this new force. He led his force to launch an attack of the capital city of Magadha. Guru Chanakya was getting very impatient to gain control of Magadha to build up an empire around it by merging into it all the small states.
Chanakya used diplomacy and political manipulation as well. He contacted minister Shaktar and asked him to join forces with Chandragupta. He promised all help although he did not favour openly aligning with them which looked risky. Shaktar kept up his promise and won over support of several high ranking officials and courtiers for them.
Chandragupta raced to Patliputra with his force and laid a siege to the city.
Patliputra fort city had 64 huge iron gates for the entries. The walls were too high to be scaled over. Around the fort there was a formidable moat that was 600 arm lengths wide and 45 arms deep. It ever remained full of water, was infested with crocodiles, water snakes and other creatures. So, the fort could be reached by over bridges aligned to the gates.
At the command of the fort commander the over bridges had been lifted off the moat. From the parapet holes of the fort defenders were raining arrows at the rebel attackers.
The rebels had been able to lay boat bridges across the moat at some places and had reache the gates of the fort walls. They tried ramrods to open the gates. The gates were too strong to yield easily but the rebels kept up the pressure. For once it appeared the daredevil act of Chanakya and Chandragupta was going to succeed.
Then as the message of the siege was sent around the border forces of Magadha rushed to the capital and reached just in time. It attacked Chandragupta force from behind. The rebel forgot about the gates and battled with Magadha frontier guards. It was evenly matched struggle.
Then, provincial armies of Magadha began to arrive. It was beyond the capacity of the rebels to fight against so many armies.
The rebel force disintegrated. The survivers fled. So did the commander Chandragupta. And Chanakya too ran away to save his life. Their first attempt at Patliputra had ended in a fiasco.
Chanakya mulled over their failure and analysed the reasons of defeat. Inexperience was one of them. Chanakya was merely an academic theoretician with no practical experience of any actual warfare. Chandragupta too was short on battle experience. The two learnt a bitter lesson that directly attacking the capital of a large kingdom was a foolish idea. The large kingdoms kept its armies in different areas and provinces. Only the small kingdoms kept their armies in the capital forts or near the capital in camps.
To move against a large kingdom like Magadha it was essential to defeat frontier guards and the provincial units before moving on to the capital. The frontier states had to be won first.
The guru and the pupil decided to make another attempt by starting from a scratch. They moved to Sruhan district of Magadha in its western region which was situated close to the Vaheek region.
When Alexander had attacked Malva, Bhadraka and Katha states, fierce battle were fought. Many soldiers of those states had taken refuge there in break away groups. They had seen the cruelty and barbarism of Greek soldiers let loose upon the natives. They had grown intense hatred for alien invaders and thirsted for revenge.
Chanakya and Chandragupta took full advantage of that factor. They offered the soldiers a chance to settle scores with Greeks by joining their force that would ultimately challenge the aliens to drive them out of the land of India.
A new force soon came up. It was made up of trained soldiers who had valuable battle experience of fighting against a superior force.
