This was practically the beginning of Nâdir's reign, but he refrained from assuming the title of King until many victories over the Turks and Russians had strengthened his hold on the Persians. Then, covered with glory, he assembled all the dignitaries, civil and military, to the number of about one hundred thousand in a sort of mutual admiration conference, when, no doubt by previous arrangement, they offered him the crown, which, after some display of surprise and reluctance, he was pleased to accept. Now this was all very deep-laid, very diplomatic; but Nâdir's cleverness was at times too clever. In some of his campaigns he had deliberately changed his religion--or rather his denomination--becoming Sunni instead of Shiah, in order to gain over a warlike tribe which was obdurately troublesome; now, hoping to stamp out any sentimental attachment to the dynasty which he had just deposed, and whose claim to kingship rested entirely on its championship of the Shiah tenets, he changed the national denomination, and declared Persia henceforward a Sunni country. It was a mistake; for though the Sunni section was pleased, the Shiahs felt themselves alienated from their new king. In another way Nâdir showed more sense. It was his greatness as a general which had won him sovereignty, and he recognised that it must be kept by the same means; so he gathered together an army of eighty thousand men and set off to conquer Kandahâr. _L'appetit vient en mangeant_. India lay just over the barrier of the Koh-i-Suleiman hills, and the tribes who had hitherto been subsidised by the Moghul Government to keep the peaks and passes, were now sulky over their failure for some years past to squeeze anything out of the bankrupt Government of Delhi. But even Nâdir required some excuse for bald, brutal invasion. He therefore peremptorily demanded the expulsion of some Afghâns who had fled from punishment to shelter in Indian territory. At all times it would have been difficult to lay hands on a band of wandering Pâthâns amongst the frontier hills, but Delhi was at this time distracted by fear of the Mahrattas, and still all uncertain whether to acknowledge Nâdir-Shâh's claim to kingship. The hesitation suited the latter; he was over the border, had defeated a feeble resistance at Lahôre, and was within 100 miles of Delhi before he found himself faced by a real army. There must surely be some malignant attraction about the wide plain of Pâniput! Surely the Angel-of-Death must spread his wings over it at all times, since bitter battle has been fought on it again and again, and its sun-saturated sands have been sodden again and again with the blood of many men.