Rise of Maharana Pratap, bloody intrigue, brother betraying brother and a lot of dramaĪkbar went back to Delhi thinking there was peace in his eastern territories. It must be pointed out here that Maharana Udai Singh II survived the battle, and lived out the rest of his life in Gogunda. To look at historical parallels, this is kind of similar to what some Gallic tribes did against Caesar, the Teutons and Cimbri took it to another level with the women killing any retreating soldier and in the end killing themselves. They chose to make one last sally - every able man - against the numerically overwhelming Mughals while the women after exhorting the men to not return jumped onto mass funeral pyres. but not the Sisodia's of Mewar - the clan Maharana came from.
Akbar was a giant in the league of Caesar or Napoleon when it came to military and administrative skills, and when he took to the field, his opponents mostly fled. In 1568, Akbar grew tired of his generals failing and led his armies himself, crushed all opposition and sieged Chittorgarh. Many guerrilla leaders, from Shivaji to Scottish kings including Bruce and William Wallace to Fidel Castro and Che Guevera, all adopted pretty much the same tactics. This kingdom of Mewar had a history of producing great leaders (Rana Kumba, Rana Sangha, Udai Singh, among others) who had a habit of holding out repeatedly against invasions, retreating into the hills and coming back stronger than before. There is another reason he wanted to crush this resistance movement. In terms of scale, think about the little Gaulish village of Asterix and Obelix holding out against mighty Caesar. Akbar, who was a brilliant military commander, was quite annoyed at this pesky little kingdom holding out against his forces. In Rajasthan almost all major kings/chieftains had accepted Mughal suzerainty except Udai Singh (Maharana Pratap's father and the founder of. It was either a direct rule or vassals ruled on behalf of the Mughal court. In the year 1568, all of Rajasthan (and almost all of what we now know as Punjab, Pakistan, Central India all the way to Bengal) had been conquered by the Mughals led by Akbar.