Back in India, the samudri started his advance on Cochin in March 1504. He had assembled a vast army, some fifty thousand men, composed of troops drawn from his own territories and those of his vassal cities, comprising a large contingent of Nayars, the military caste of the Malabar Coast, supported by the Muslim community of Calicut, along with the baggage and paraphernalia required: three hundred war elephants, artillery, and a force of some two hundred ships to close the port of Cochin.
