Meanwhile momentous events elsewhere had led to fresh complications. In 1748 Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Viceroy of the Deccan, died, and his death was followed as usual by a quarrel over the succession to his throne. The successor nominated by the dead ruler was his grandson, Murzapha Jung; the rival was his second son, Nasir Jung; and, as was natural, both claimants cast about them for allies. It has already been related how Chunda Sahib, the devoted admirer of the French, had been captured by the Mahrattas in Trichinopoly in 1741. Ever since that time he had been kept in close confinement at Satara; the Mahrattas, who knew him by reputation as the ablest soldier that had been seen for years in the Carnatic, refusing to release him except for an impossible ransom. He had, however, a friend in Dupleix, who throughout his imprisonment had protected his wife and family in Pondicherry, and had contrived further to maintain with him a friendly correspondence. Murzapha Jung while travelling in search of help from the Mahrattas encountered Chunda Sahib at Satara, and at once perceived the value of such a man for an ally. Dupleix was called in, and took in the whole situation at a glance. If the force of the French arms could enthrone Murzapha Jung as viceroy, there would be little or nothing to hinder French influence from becoming predominant in the Deccan, or, in other words, to prevent Dupleix from becoming practically if not nominally viceroy himself. He at once pledged himself to discharge Chunda Sahib's ransom, and immediately after his release allowed him to take into his pay two thousand Sepoys from the garrison of Pondicherry; agreeing also, on receipt of a further cession of territory near the town, to give him the assistance of four hundred European soldiers. With these and with the troops that he had collected, in all some six thousand men, Chunda Sahib joined himself to Murzapha Jung's army of thirty thousand men, and advanced with them against Arcot. The capture of this, the capital town of the Carnatic, would place the resources of that province at their disposal and win for them the first step to the throne of the Deccan. The old Nabob Anwarudeen had collected a force to oppose them, but he could bring forward no troops to match the disciplined infantry of the French. After a sharp action at Amoor he was defeated and slain: the victorious army entered Arcot on the following day, and the Carnatic was won.