A large portion of Maratha kingdom was a plateau, full of rocks. The rocky nature of the soil made the people struggle hard for a living and thus made them courageous and sturdy.
The whole area enjoyed every kind of facility for defense including the construction of strong and almost impregnable forts at every hill top.
While it gave strong defense and security to the inhabitants of the land, it made difficult for any foreigners army to get necessary supplies and to arrange for easy movements of large armies in practically unknown land. The land being a plateau also provided good facility for guerilla warfare in which the Marathas turned out to be adepts.
Its location almost in the centre of India provided for the Marathas a convenient approach to extend their power towards the south as well as towards the north. But these were not the only requirement for the building of an empire. These are defensive infrastructure.
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To be an offensive, one has to come out of the forts to fight on the other turfs. It had enough economic and political support to maintain a small kingdom. An empire needs a large standing army, sound administrative structure and lines of visionary rulers.
The nature of the soil was not such as to make the people economically rich. With only a handful of the rich and the generality of the people not living in affluent circumstances, there was a kind of economic equality among them. The absence of clear-cut division of society into the rich and the poor provided a kind of equality among them and infused in them a sense of self-respect and feeling of oneness.
Though the hard nature of the soil prevented the society as a whole from falling prey to a life of indulgence and luxury but at the same time it also became the cause of bad economic infrastructure. The economy was in bad shape. Shivaji destroyed all vestiges of feudalism and established direct contact between the central government and the peasants in the matters of tax collection.
Chauth and Sardeshmukhi were the two instruments used by Shivaji to obtain treasure from the enemy country he invaded. He demanded from the subjects of his enemy’s tribute roughly equivalent to one fourth of the estimated revenue of the province to save themselves from the harassment of his armies.
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He captured the rich people of the enemy territory and compelled them to agree to ransom. According to Jadunath Sarkar Shivaji levied this chauth as early as 1661 and 1670 A.D. He demanded it at the point of the sword as he needed money for his wars.
So the geographical limitation become one of the major hurdles in the march of Marathas to build a paramount power of India Shivaji’s centralised administration and the rotary system broke down during the dark day following Shambuji’s fall. The jagir (saranjami) system was revived in its place.
Rajaram assigned different parts of the Deccan to the different army leaders through formal sands, to subjugate and to realise from them the Chauth and Sardeshmukhi, a part of which they would remit to the king, retaining the rest to defray their expenses. Since the army chiefs had to do this job on their own they exhibited signs of independent and professed only nominal allegiance to the king.
With the release of Shahu, a contest between him and Tara Bai to win over these military leaders to their side began. Balaji Visfiwanath the peshwa, to make his own office hereditary encouraged the chiefs to make similar claims, so as to prevent them from opposing the Peshwa on this score.
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In 1719 A.D. When the Maratha claims to Chauth and sardeshmukhi in the six provinces of the Deccan and similar claims over some other territories which were outside their sway were recognised by the Mughal emperor, the different chiefs were assigned separate areas and were permitted to keep great part of their collections for their expenses.
Further the Peshwa assigned the duty of meeting the expense of the different departments of the king to the different chiefs. This virtually made the king a pensioner depending for his supplies on the feudatory chiefs who naturally become more important.
They now started establishing their control in the distant lands of the Mughal Empire and gradually settled down there as more or less independent chiefs. Of these the families of Gaekwar, Holkar, Sindhia and Bhonsle became prominent.
Baji Rao I being a strong man tried to assert himself and establish his supremacy over all the other chiefs but could riot make much progress in that direction. The feudatory chiefs like Malhar Rao Holkar and Sindhia asserted their authority. They occupied Baroda and Gwalior respectively and carried the Maratha arms to Delhi and the Gangetic Doab. Raghuji
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Bhonsle captured Orrisa and levied chauth in Bengali and Bihar. After the death of Madhava Rao I the office of the Peshwa lost its significance giving way to the supremacy of the feudatory chiefs
Thus the growth of the confederacy eventually turned out to be detrimental to the power of the Peshwa and became a Frankenstien Monster trying to devour its creator. The whole process paved the way for the disintegration of the Maratha power.