With the death of Sultan Ibrahim in 1826, Selangor fell on evil days - Sultan Muhammad, the next ruler, was unable to control his chiefs. Between intervals of comparative quiet, said Swettenham, in his book 'British Malaya', the "normal state of Selangor was robbery, battle and murder". When Sultan Muhammad died in 1857, there was a disputed succession, and Abdul Samad, who eventually became Sultan, had all but given up the struggle to maintain order.

A key factor in the outbreak of the Selangor civil war was the feudal system where the Sultan granted parts of the State, usually river valleys, to kinsmen and nobles to be ruled by them. The key chiefdoms were the valleys of the Selangor river, the Klang river, Lukut and Bernam - the Sultan himself held the Langat river valley. The grant was limited to the life of the holder and on their death, this frequently resulted in their kinsmen or even other chiefs fighting over the chiefdom. The landless nobleman was also often tempted to raise an army, oust a weak rival and then negotiate with the Sultan for recognition of his conquest.

A key economic factor in the Selangor Civil War was the growth of the tin mining industry. For several centuries, the wealth of Selangor had lain in its exports of tin. However, output from these mines was low. This all changed when, in 1857 Raja Abdullah bin Raja Jaafar, the ruling chief at Klang, introduced Chinese miners into what was to become the Kuala Lumpur tin-field. By 1871 there were 12,000 Chinese in Selangor. The recruitment of Chinese tin-miners by many of the Malay chiefs had brought new and more efficient techniques, a large labour force and vastly increased production . The now vastly increased revenues of the tin trade became a bone of contention between the Malay chiefs and the various clans of Chinese miners also quarrelled over control of the tin-fields.

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<>Sultan Abdul Samad (seated on the chair in the centre) and his retinue.
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Another factor that led to the outbreak of the Civil War was the discontent that had been simmering over decades between the Bugis rulers of Selangor and the Malays of Sumatran descent, such as the orang Rawa, Mandailing and Minangkabau, whose ancestors had bitterly fought the Bugis during the long wars of the 18th century. Raja Abdullah, like the Sultan and the other chiefs, was a Bugis and his men occupied the coast and most of the estuary as far as his headquarters at Klang. Beyond this point the river was controlled by Sumatran Malays under their headman the Dato Dagang. The Sumatran Malays made a living as merchants in the interior or by transporting goods up and down the river and they bitterly resented the import and export duties levied on them by their Bugis rulers.

This discontent had been made worse when the Sultan canceled a betrothal of marriage between his only daughter, 'Arfah, with Raja Mahadi and instead married her off to the younger brother of the Sultan of Kedah, Tunku Zia'u'd-din, usually known as Tunku Kudin (seated left in the picture). The Sultan also made Tunku Kudin his Viceroy and Tunku Kudin had with him a force of 500 Kedah Malays and an army of Bugis, Arab and European mercenaries to impose his will. The presence of this Kedah interloper and his army of 'foreigners' caused great resentment among many of the Selangor chiefs.

In 1866, fighting broke out between the armies of Raja Abdullah and Raja Mahadi for control of Klang, beginning almost ten years of warfare. It started with a quarrel between a Bugis and a Sumatran Malay, which resulted in the Sumatran being murdered. As was the custom, the Dato' Dagang demanded blood money as compensation from Raja Abdullah. Raja Abdullah did nothing to settle the grievance and the Dato' Dagang appealed to Raja Mahadi for assistance. Raja Mahadi used this a pretence to attack Klang with 200 of his men, using junks that converged on the town from both directions, upstream and downstream.Raja Mahadi occupied the fort on the hill overlooking Klang and Raja 'Abdullah fled to Malacca as soon the fighting began, leaving his son Isma'il to continue the battle. Some time later, Raja Abdullah returned and attempted to re-take Klang, having borrowed enough money from Chinese merchants to èquip an expedition. He had fitted out two ships as war vessels, with cannon and sailed up the river, taking position just below the fort.

Raja Abdullah's attack on Raja Mahdi failed miserably as he was unable to elevate the guns in his war boats sufficiently high enough to bombard Raja Mahadi's fort and the shots fell short, either landing in the river or on the river bank. Raja Abdullah withdrew his forces and left with his relatives and followers for Malacca, and subsequently, Singapore. The fighting had lasted for about five months and Raja Mahadi had attained his ambition of making himself the ruler of Klang. But the matter was by no means closed.

Raja Abdullah's son, Raja Ismail, gathered another force to re-take Klang, consisting of about 100 Ilanuns from Riau, kinsmen from Lukut and Bugis mercenaries. In August, 1869, he reached the estuary of the Klang River under cover of darkness and attacked the first of Raja Mahdi's forts at Kuala Klang. The attack was a complete surprise - though the fort was occupied by 30 of Raja Mahdi's men, none of its guns were manned and no one was on watch. Some of the defenders were killed but most fled back to Klang, bringing news of the defeat. Ismail's force suffered one casualty - a man slashed by his own brother who mistook him for an enemy as he wriggled through a gun embrasure to get inside the fort.

Raja Ismail then proceeded to Klang. However, he only had 100 men, which was not sufficient to overpower Raja Mahadi's fort in Klang and he appealed to Tunku Kudin for assistance. Tunku Kudin and 500 Kedah Malays joined the attack. The two forces now settled down for a long siege, with Raja Mahdi's forces entrenched in the fort on the hill and Tunku Kudin's forces camped in the fortified stockade that had been build around Gedung Raja Abdullah just half a kilometre below. Both sides dug in their fortified defences, content only to bombard each other's positions with their cannon or use their muskets to snipe at exposed enemy soldiers. Tunku Kudin only occasionally launched sorties against the fort's ramparts, using his Bugis mercenaries - more to harry and worry its defenders than to overwhelm them.

Tunku Kudin was a determined, single-minded man with a deep perseverance that
none of his rivals possessed - rather than risk a failed frontal assault, his army just sat down before Raja Mahadi's fort, blockading the river so efficiently that neither food nor tin entered the town. He did not attempt to carry it by assault but simply threatened it and worried it for eighteen weary months, starving it of supplies and ruining its trade with the interior. The theatrical valour of Raja Mahadi was no match for Tunku Kudin's persistence - Raja Mahadi's storehouses lay empty, his money ran out and his followers began deserting him. In March 1870, Raja Mahdi was forced to abandon Klang and retreated to Kuala Selangor.

At Kuala Selangor, we now meet another towering figure in the Selangor Civil War - Syed Mashhor bin Syed Muhammad Ash-Sahab, known as Che Soho to his Chinese allies. Syed Mashhor (centre in long head dress) was from Pontianak in Borneo, a Malay of Arab descent and already known as a fearless fighter. Early in 1870, he had been sent by Tunku Kudin to take charge of the fort at Kuala Selangor. However, shortly after he arrived, he recieved news that his brother had been killed at Langat by Raja Yaakob - a son of the Sultan and Tunku Kudin's brother-in-law. He vowed vengeance and from that moment on became a sworn enemy of the Sultan and his Viceroy Tunku Kudin, abandoning the fort to Raja Mahadi and joining with him in his war against Tunku Kudin in the years to come.

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