army became far stronger with their major victory in 1779 at Kalpetta (Wynad) where the whole Coorg army of 2,000 was surrounded and decimated by Pazhassi Raja's troops. The destruction of the Coorg army in Wynad enabled Raja to throw a whole new army into the contest at Thalasseri. In 1780, Pazhassi Raja proposed a plan to the East India Company to break the Mysorean siege of Thalassery: he and his men would strike the enemy in the rear from the east as the EIC came out of the fort and struck the Mysorean line in front. Both armies would effect a junction that would split the enemy into two. The Mysorean and allied troops could then be routed easily. But it was only in 1781 that the Company understood the value of this plan and their Bombay authorities agreed to it. An operation was carried out as per Pazhassi's plan; it ended with the destruction of the Mysorean forces. Sardar Khan himself was killed. What followed was a rebellion in Kottayam by the Nayar militia led by Pazhassi Raja. Soon, the Mysoreans were ousted. Rebellion to remove Tipu Sultan (1784–1793) By 1782, Kottayam was once more a free land. But by the Treaty of Mangalore (1784) after the Second Anglo-Mysore War, the Company administration recognised Tipu Sultan's sphere of authority in Malabar. Thus with its only valuable ally lost, Kottayam was ready to become a vassal state of Mysore. Once more, as Sardar Khan did in 1779, Mysore exacted an exorbitant rate of tribute. Although Ravi Varma, the elder brother of Pazhassi Raja agreed to pay 65,000 rupees per year, Mysore demanded 81,000 rupees. The hiked rate of tribute meant greater hardship for the peasantry (largely Thiyyar) who had suffered from years of foreign occupation. So Pazhassi Raja took up this issue and decided to launch a mass resistance struggle once more. What angered Pazhassi Raja even more was that his brother Ravi Varma who paid a visit to Tipu Sultan in 1786 for peace talks was forced to sign a treaty which ceded Wayanad to Tipu Sultan. Pazhassi Raja decided not to let Tipu enjoy Wayanad in peace and kept up a guerrilla warfare that constantly harassed Mysore troops in Wayanad and its neighbourhood. War in Wayanad lasted for seven years – till 1793 – when the last of the Mysorean garrisons were expelled from the soil of