Sikh Misls became divided and fought each other. A sort of 'Cold War' broke out with the Bhangi, Nakkai, Dalelwala and Ramgharia Misls verses Sukerchakia, Ahluwalia, Karor Singhia and Kaniyeha. The Shaheedan, Nishania and Singhpuria also allied but did not engage in warfare with the others and continued the Dal Khalsa. The Phulkian Misl was excommunicated from the confederacy. Rani Sada Kaur of the Kanhaiya Misl rose in the vacuum and destroyed the power of the Bhangis. She later gave her throne to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Empire The formal start of the Sikh Empire began with the unification of the Misls by 1801, creating a unified political state. All the Misl leaders, who were affiliated with the army, were the nobility with usually long and prestigious family backgrounds in Sikh history. The main geographical footprint of the empire was from the Punjab region to Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north, Sindh in the south, and Tibet in the east. In 1799 Ranjit Singh moved the capital to Lahore from Gujranwala, where it had been established in 1763 by his grandfather, Charat Singh. Hari Singh Nalwa was Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Khalsa Army from 1825 to 1837. He is known for his role in the conquests of Kasur, Sialkot, Multan, Kashmir, Attock and Peshawar. Nalwa led the Sikh army in freeing Shah Shuja from Kashmir and secured the Koh-i-Nor diamond for Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He served as governor of Kashmir and Hazara and established a mint on behalf of the Sikh empire to facilitate revenue collection. His frontier policy of holding the Khyber Pass was later used by the British Raj. Nalwa was responsible for expanding the frontier of Sikh empire to the Indus River. At the time of his death, the western boundary of the Sikh Empire was the Khyber Pass. Geography The Sikh Empire spanned a total of over at its zenith. Another more conservative estimate puts its total surface area during its zenith at 100,436 sq mi (260,124 km sq). The Punjab was a region straddling India and the Afghan Durrani Empire. The following modern-day political divisions made up the historical Sikh Empire: Punjab region, to Mithankot in the south Punjab, Pakistan, excluding Bahawalpur State Punjab, India, south to areas just across the Sutlej river Haryana, India Himachal Pradesh, India, south to areas just across the Sutlej river Jammu Division, Jammu and Kashmir, India