1819
Battle of Shopian
The setting
Shopian, Kashmir valley
Valley ground below the Pir Panjal passes, reached by a march over high country.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideDurrani governorate of Kashmir
Recorded resultdefeated; Jabbar Khan wounded and the valley lost
Sikh victory. Kashmir passed to Lahore and stayed there until 1846.
How the atlas explains it
The hard part was the approach, not the battle: getting an army with guns over the Pir Panjal in usable condition. Once that was done the engagement itself was short. A previous Sikh attempt in 1814 had failed on exactly the thing that was got right here - the mountain crossing and the supply behind it.
What followed
Kashmir enters the Sikh Empire, and with it the revenue and the shawl trade that funded much of what followed. ⚠ The 1846 Treaty of Amritsar then SELLS Kashmir to Gulab Singh for 7.5 million rupees - the atlas's clearest case of a conquest becoming a line item in someone else's settlement.