Unknown to the Company factors, however, just three miles beyond Patna, the fleeing Governor ran into a large body of reinforcements, consisting of four platoons of Mir Qasim’s New Army. These the Nawab had sent from Monghyr by forced marches under General Markar, one of his senior Armenian commanders, as soon he was alerted by his spies to the preparations for the imminent coup. ‘They marched as fast as they could,’ wrote Ghulam Hussain Khan, ‘and taking their route by the waterside they reached the city’s Eastern gate,
