The Moguls had long sought an excuse to interfere in the affairs of Ahmednuggur; so Murad Mirza, son of the Emperor Akbar, marched thither with great expedition, being joined on his road by several rajahs and generals with their troops. But Meean Munjoo, having suppressed the rebellion, in place of surrendering the fort, resolved to defend it in case he was called upon by the Moguls to fulfil his promise. After laying in a store of provisions, he gave the command to the Princess Chand Beeby, daughter of a former King of Ahmednuggur, and departed with the young Prince Ahmed towards the Bijapur frontier. Chand Beeby was one of the ablest Indian politicians of her time. She had been for some years queen and dowager-regent of Bijapur. She now took the entire direction of affairs into her own hands; in a few days she had raised her own nephew, Bahadur Nizam Shah, to the throne, though he was at this time a prisoner in a distant fortress, and seemed likely to stay there. The Moguls, seeing that it was useless to conceal their hostile intentions, prepared openly to besiege Ahmednuggur. On the 14th December, 1595, the first shots were exchanged. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigour. Mounds were raised, trenches opened, battery after battery erected, mines sunk; and on the morning of February 17th, 1596, eighty feet of wall were blown down by the explosion of a mine. Chand Beeby, though many of her principal officers had taken to flight, was not dismayed. She put on armour, covered her face with a veil, and, grasping a drawn sword in her hand, rushed to defend the breach. This intrepidity shamed the fugitives, and re-animated the panic-stricken soldiers. Recovering from their first terror, the soldiers calmly awaited the approach of the Mogul storming-party. An obstinate conflict ensued at the foot of the breach. Again and again did the Moguls press onward--again and again they were driven back by a galling fire of shot and rockets. The ditch was soon more than half filled with dead and dying warriors. Although fresh storming parties succeeded one another from four o'clock in the afternoon till dark, they were all repulsed with fearful slaughter. At last the Moguls withdrew, discomfited, to their camp. Deccan traditions say that, during the storm, the shot of the garrison having become exhausted, Chand Beeby ordered the guns to be loaded, first with copper coins, then with silver, and at length with gold; and all the coins being likewise used up, she fired away her jewels. The valour of Chand Beeby formed the chief subject of conversation round the camp-fires and in the tents of the Moguls; and, after this memorable day, her title of Chand Beeby, "the Lady Chand," was changed by common consent to the grander one of Chand Sultana.