Kafur on an expedition to plunder Devagiri, the capital city of the Seuna kingdom By 1318 the Seuna kingdom had been subjugated. The Hoysala capital Halebidu was besieged and sacked twice, in 1311 and 1327. By 1336, the Sultan had conquered the Pandyas of Madurai, the Kakatiyas of Warangal and the tiny kingdom of Kampili. The Hoysalas were the only remaining Hindu empire who resisted the invading armies. Veera Ballala III stationed himself at Tiruvannamalai and offered stiff resistance to invasions from the north and the Madurai Sultanate to the south. Then, after nearly three decades of resistance, Veera Ballala III was killed at the battle of Madurai in 1343, and the sovereign territories of the Hoysala empire were merged with the areas administered by Harihara I in the Tungabhadra River region. This new Hindu kingdom resisted the northern invasions and would later prosper and come to be known as the Vijayanagara Empire. Economy The empire consisted of the valleys of three main rivers, the Krishna, the Tungabhadra, and the Kaveri, whose systems facilitated the growth of crops and generated an agricultural output that was immense. The highlands (malnad regions) with its temperate climate was suitable for raising cattle and the planting of orchards and spices. Paddy and corn were staple crops in the tropical plains (Bailnad). As agricultural land was scarce, forests, waste land and previously unfarmed land was reclaimed, and new settlements were established. Large areas of forest were cleared to bring lands under cultivation and build villages. The Hoysala kings gave grants of land as rewards for service to the heads of families, who then became landlords (gavunda) to tenants who worked on the land and in the forests. The praja gavunda ("the gavunda of the people") had a lower status than the wealthier prabhu gavunda ("of the lord") The Hoysala administration supported itself through revenues from an agrarian economy. Land was assessed as being wet land, dry land or garden land for the purposes of taxation, and judged according to the quality of the soil. Taxes on commodities (gold, precious stones, perfumes, sandalwood, ropes, yarn, housing, hearths, shops, cattle pans, sugarcane presses) as well as produce (black pepper, betel leaves, ghee, paddy, spices, palm leaves, coconuts, sugar) are noted in village records. The Hoysalas encouraged people to move to newly-built villages by means of land grants and tax concessions. Taxes, collected in the form of cash,