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20 years after defeat in America, the British found themselves ruling millions in Asia.
美國獨立戰爭結束20年后，英國已在亞洲統治了數百萬民眾。
They hadn't planned it, they hadn't even dreamed it was possible. Why would they?
這并非預料之中，甚至連英國人自己都不敢想象。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.
自從英國人于十七世紀初第一次踏足印度開始，他們就一心只想做生意。
Their only presence was the East India Company, a commercial body there to make a profit.
英國僅有的就是東印度公司，一家旨在營利的商業機構。
From toeholds on the south-east and western coasts, they bought brilliantly-printed silks and cottons and shipped them home,
他們從東南部和西部海岸的落腳點上，采購印染精美的絲綢和棉布，并將其運回國內，
where the parlours and bodies of the polite classes were suddenly transformed by splashes of Indian colour.
英國國內上層社會人士的衣著和家居中突然間添上了來自印度的光鮮色彩。
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.
商人獲益匪淺，但僅此而已，別無他想，因為當時印度國內已經存在著一個帝國，世界上最輝煌的帝國之一。莫臥兒帝國。
The Moslem descendants of the Mongol conquerors of Asia. At their head was the Emperor in Delhi.
征服亞洲的蒙古人的穆斯林后裔。其首領是居于德里的皇帝。
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.
在其治下是對其盡職盡忠的各省省督"納瓦布"。只有經過他們的允許，東印度公司才能在當地運營。
To the Mughals, the British merchants were just extra pocket money, supplying silver to take Indian goods home.
對莫臥兒人來說，英國商人不過是給他們提供閑錢的，用銀子來交換印度的物品。
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，輕微得宛如皇帝孔雀寶座上的浮塵。
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，這尊寶座在波斯人的入侵中淪陷，入侵者攻入德里，屠殺民眾。
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.
在接下來的幾十年間，其他入侵者，來自西北部的阿富汗人攻入印度核心地帶，戰斗規模之大令人難以想象。
The gorgeous fabric of the Mughal Empire frayed and tore.
曾經輝煌的莫臥兒帝國已經分崩離析。
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，納瓦布趁王權羸弱之際組織自己的軍隊，建立諸侯國。
18th-century Mughal India was not some howling anarchy, begging for the British to come in and stop the rot.
十八世紀的莫臥兒印度并非一片混亂的無政府之邦，乞求英國對其給予援助，平息混亂。
It was a patchwork of successor states, busy, elegant, robust, and vigorous, many of them still using Persian law and Persian court style.
而是諸侯林立，一片繁忙、優雅、充滿活力之狀，多處沿用著波斯律法及宮廷習俗。
And it was these up and coming states, not the decadent or corrupt petty kingdoms which the British always complained about,
正是在這片欣欣向榮的疆土上，而非英國人一直抱怨的蕭條落敗的王國中，
into which the East India Company smashed its way with a ferocious, unstoppable mixture of arrogance, ignorance and political cunning.
東印度公司開始橫行肆虐，舉止野蠻，傲慢無恥，并暗藏政治心機。
No one in Delhi saw it coming, no one in London wanted it, but then enter the French, enter trouble.
德里沒有人預料到這一點，倫敦也沒有人想要這樣，但法國人一插手，問題便接踵而至。
It was the 1740s. Anglo-French rivalry was going global.
18世紀40年代。英法兩國的競爭在全球上演。
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.
法國人在北美廝混于印第安土著人的戰爭與聯盟中，試圖以此挫敗英國，現在他們要在亞洲次大陸重施故伎。
From Pondicherry, their base in the south, the French jumped into Indian politics,
法國從其位于南部本地治里的據點，參與到印度的政治糾葛中，
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.
并意識到可以通過謀劃政變將原本中立的省督換作已被其收買的納瓦布，他們不僅能幫法國人獲得金錢上的利益，還可以將英國人拒之門外。
So the British had little choice but to join in this game of trump the Nawab.
英國別無他法，只得參與到這場收買納瓦布的博弈中。
To act was risky, but failure to act was commercial suicide.
此舉雖有風險，但坐以待斃無異于自斷財路。
