评论
打印
20 years after defeat in America, the British found themselves ruling millions in Asia.
美国独立战争结束20年后，英国已在亚洲统治了数百万民众。
They hadn't planned it, they hadn't even dreamed it was possible. Why would they?
这并非预料之中，甚至连英国人自己都不敢想象。怎么能相信？
Ever since the British had first come to India, early in the 17th century, they thought of nothing but trade.
自从英国人于十七世纪初第一次踏足印度开始，他们就一心只想做生意。
Their only presence was the East India Company, a commercial body there to make a profit.
英国仅有的就是东印度公司，一家旨在营利的商业机构。
From toeholds on the south-east and western coasts, they bought brilliantly-printed silks and cottons and shipped them home,
他们从东南部和西部海岸的落脚点上，采购印染精美的丝绸和棉布，并将其运回国内，
where the parlours and bodies of the polite classes were suddenly transformed by splashes of Indian colour.
英国国内上层社会人士的衣着和家居中突然间添上了来自印度的光鲜色彩。
A nice little business, but anything more ambitious was out of the question, for there already was an empire in India, one of the most spectacular in the world. The Mughals.
商人获益匪浅，但仅此而已，别无他想，因为当时印度国内已经存在着一个帝国，世界上最辉煌的帝国之一。莫卧儿帝国。
The Moslem descendants of the Mongol conquerors of Asia. At their head was the Emperor in Delhi.
征服亚洲的蒙古人的穆斯林后裔。其首领是居于德里的皇帝。
Across the land, a network of governors loyal to him, the Nawabs. They had to give their permission for the East India Company to be there at all.
在其治下是对其尽职尽忠的各省省督"纳瓦布"。只有经过他们的允许，东印度公司才能在当地运营。
To the Mughals, the British merchants were just extra pocket money, supplying silver to take Indian goods home.
对莫卧儿人来说，英国商人不过是给他们提供闲钱的，用银子来交换印度的物品。
No more than a gnat on the elephant's rump, specks of bothersome dust on the Emperor's peacock throne.
渺小得如同大象臀部上的蚊蚋，轻微得宛如皇帝孔雀宝座上的浮尘。
But in 1739, that throne disappeared in the plunder taken by Persian invaders when they sacked Delhi and slaughtered its inhabitants.
但在1739年，这尊宝座在波斯人的入侵中沦陷，入侵者攻入德里，屠杀民众。
In the decades that followed, other invaders, Afghans from the north-west, rode deep into the Indian heartland waging war and fighting battles on an unimaginable scale.
在接下来的几十年间，其他入侵者，来自西北部的阿富汗人攻入印度核心地带，战斗规模之大令人难以想象。
The gorgeous fabric of the Mughal Empire frayed and tore.
曾经辉煌的莫卧儿帝国已经分崩离析。
Left to their own devices, the Nawabs took advantage of Delhi's weakness, raising their own armies, creating their own mini-states.
王室衰微，纳瓦布趁王权羸弱之际组织自己的军队，建立诸侯国。
18th-century Mughal India was not some howling anarchy, begging for the British to come in and stop the rot.
十八世纪的莫卧儿印度并非一片混乱的无政府之邦，乞求英国对其给予援助，平息混乱。
It was a patchwork of successor states, busy, elegant, robust, and vigorous, many of them still using Persian law and Persian court style.
而是诸侯林立，一片繁忙、优雅、充满活力之状，多处沿用着波斯律法及宫廷习俗。
And it was these up and coming states, not the decadent or corrupt petty kingdoms which the British always complained about,
正是在这片欣欣向荣的疆土上，而非英国人一直抱怨的萧条落败的王国中，
into which the East India Company smashed its way with a ferocious, unstoppable mixture of arrogance, ignorance and political cunning.
东印度公司开始横行肆虐，举止野蛮，傲慢无耻，并暗藏政治心机。
No one in Delhi saw it coming, no one in London wanted it, but then enter the French, enter trouble.
德里没有人预料到这一点，伦敦也没有人想要这样，但法国人一插手，问题便接踵而至。
It was the 1740s. Anglo-French rivalry was going global.
18世纪40年代。英法两国的竞争在全球上演。
What the French had been doing with native North American tribes, getting mixed up in their wars and alliances to steal a march on their rivals, they would now do in the Asian subcontinent.
法国人在北美厮混于印第安土著人的战争与联盟中，试图以此挫败英国，现在他们要在亚洲次大陆重施故伎。
From Pondicherry, their base in the south, the French jumped into Indian politics,
法国从其位于南部本地治里的据点，参与到印度的政治纠葛中，
learning that a well-engineered coup could replace a neutral local governor with a tame Nawab, one who would not just help their business prospects, but shut out the British.
并意识到可以通过谋划政变将原本中立的省督换作已被其收买的纳瓦布，他们不仅能帮法国人获得金钱上的利益，还可以将英国人拒之门外。
So the British had little choice but to join in this game of trump the Nawab.
英国别无他法，只得参与到这场收买纳瓦布的博弈中。
To act was risky, but failure to act was commercial suicide.
此举虽有风险，但坐以待毙无异于自断财路。
