Chapter 1261: End of WW1 (2)
A paratrooper named Suresh Agarwal, one of the most experienced paratroopers in the empire, took responsibility as the pilot.
When the engine roared into action, and the plane moved forward at a high speed, with it finally taking off into the air, deafening applause rang out at the first airfield of the empire. Vedanth and the other researchers were practically bawling out, and Vijay looked at the sky with a look of nostalgia and contentment.
On that day, Suresh Agarwal created a legend and became the first man to take powered flight. The photograph that came out of the test became one of the most important pieces of human history for hundreds of years.
Subsequently, after the test was declared a success, the mass production of the Vamana B20 began in full force.
In order to carry the Vamana B20 to the front lines, the modification of the military transporter vessels also started with great fanfare.
Surprisingly enough, the manufacturing of the plane wasn’t that difficult since most of its outer body was made up of wood with very few metal components in order to reduce its weight as much as possible, so the bottleneck in producing the plane ended up being its power plant, the Garuda Aero Engine Mark One.
Thankfully, in order to quickly produce the Garuda engine, several production lines of older engines were put aside, and the mass production of the Garuda engine was put on track. Subsequently, the Raya Power Company became extremely busy.
It was September of 1709.
Portugal became the second European country to surrender. King Alfonso IV took his own life in shame, while his son, the heir of the Portuguese kingdom, Miguel de Berganza, was taken into military custody of the Bharatiya Empire.
The city of Salamanca fell, and the campaign immediately shifted towards the capital of Spain, Madrid.
Paris was finally under attack, and Louis XIV was doing everything in his power to retain the capital of the kingdom, the single most important city for the French.
After months of onslaught, Frankfurt fell, and the Bharatiya Army, which received another million troops from the empire, started a fresh round of campaigns, their targets being Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich, and Nuremberg.
Noticing the worsening situation, the Nordic countries, namely Denmark-Norway and Sweden, decisively cut off logistics connections with the rest of the countries in the European Union and declared that they would be joining the non-alignment movement headed by Russia, Ming, Josong, and Nippon.
Seeing as how the Bharatiya Empire did not react negatively to the declaration, the Doge of Italy, Leandro Contarini, tried to do the same, but sadly, the result was not what they expected at all.
The long-awaited naval campaign of the Bharatiya Empire immediately started, with the Mediterranean Navy that was slowly accumulating strength being launched all at once, their single target being the Italian Federation.
Witnessing the strong reaction of the Bharatiya Empire, Russia immediately declared that it would not accept the Italian Federation joining the non-alignment movement. The Nordic countries, which had joined the alliance and heaved a sigh of relief, were too excited since this was an opportunity to completely cut off their relationship with the European Union in order to appease whatever resentment the Bharatiya Empire might have.
Denmark-Norway and Sweden were second only to Russia when it came to preventing the Italian Federation from joining the non-alignment alliance.
Leandro Contarini was desperate, but in the end, he still refused to give in. It is said that a lion is the most dangerous when it is injured, and perhaps a similar situation was unfolding, because Italy actually counterattacked in a desperate fashion, blasting thousands of long-distance torpedoes they had invented from the shore, not allowing the Bharatiya warships to get close at all.
And it was not only Italy that showed signs of fighting back. The Spanish used everything at their disposal and came up with their own war tank by attaching a locomotive engine onto a huge truck-like object, with its bed carrying a single large 42-pounder cannon.
The bloody thing, thanks to its weight, moved at a snail’s pace, but since it was still an artillery piece that could move, it gave the Spanish a chance to breathe.
In France, Louis XIV put most of the remaining resources into developing rapid-fire cannons, the first of their kind, so when it was successfully developed, the 32-pounder cannon could shoot several rounds of artillery shells within a minute, catching the Bharatiya Army off guard. The range of this cannon was very low, and the velocity of the projectile was limited, but this new weapon system still gave France a chance to breathe.
In England, Steward used the strategy of evacuating the cities and occupying the villages to fight against the Bharatiya Empire, forcing the Bharatiya Army to tirelessly deal with every single village one at a time, which bought England a chance to breathe.
As for Prussia, they developed a miniature locomotive engine and a whole new generation of locomotive engines, not only giving them the ability to transport more troops through locomotives, but also finally giving them the ability to build smaller vehicles similar to Naya Samrat.
The invention of these two engines immediately let them see the hope of resistance, so all the resources were poured into manufacturing the cars, which they called New Hope, a sharp weapon for skirmish warfare, buying them time and breathing space.
As time went on, the European Union, which pretty much existed in name only, began to show signs of being revived once again.
Make no mistake, the Bharatiya Empire was still winning, but the sudden development of various technologies gave the Europeans a chance to resist longer and showed them a glimmer of hope to end the whole ordeal on better terms for themselves.
Unfortunately, throughout the whole year, the empire had done nothing but manufacture Vamana B-20.
Flying thousands of metres in the sky, much more versatile and controllable than hot air balloons, the Vamana B-20s flew over cities like Paris, Manchester, Edinburgh, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Florence, and Rome, and started dropping bombs like no one’s business. Soon, only a week after the bombings, like dominoes, nations started to wave the white flag, surrendering one after another. In the end, only the British, whose forces were too scattered to aim for a concentrated attack, and the Italian Federation, which still had quite a few cities, were left standing against the empire.
Unfortunately, that too did not last long.
March 1710.
The Bharatiya Empire invited various important people from across Europe to a desolate location in the Sahara Desert.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you Trinitrotoluene, or simply TNT," Manoj Reddy, who had been working underground under the eyes of everyone for decades, finally declared with pride and motioned towards a mountain in the distance.
"Boom!"
An earth-shaking explosion was heard. In the next moment, a mountain dozens of metres tall shook violently and collapsed.
The old man looked at the Europeans, not planning to explain anything, as what he had shown was already self-explanatory.
The Europeans immediately understood what he wanted to convey, what would happen if such an explosive were dropped on their cities, and how many people would die.
Goosebumps ran through their skin. They immediately turned back and set off back to their nations, informing the people of what they saw, but when they came to the port, there was another shock waiting for them, a gigantic battleship bigger than they had ever seen before. In fact, it did not look like a battleship at all; it looked like a steel island floating on the sea.
"Oh, this? Look at my memory, I almost forgot to introduce it to you all. This is the newest battleship of the Bharatiya Empire, the Maharaja Ramachandra class, a colossal war machine displacing over 30,000 tonnes, powered by four state-of-the-art turbine engines, capable of sustained speeds exceeding 20 knots. Armed with an all-big-gun main battery of heavy-calibre naval artillery mounted in heavily reinforced rotating turrets, each capable of delivering devastating long-range fire with unmatched precision, supported by a formidable secondary battery for close engagements, and guided by advanced fire-control systems that allow coordinated salvos across vast distances, it is built for absolute naval dominance, a vessel designed not merely to fight, but to dictate the outcome of wars upon the seas."
"It’s the progenitor of a whole new class of battleships, where any other warships built before it are rendered ineffective."
The person who was introducing it was the admiral of the Bharatiya Navy himself, each of his words emanating with pride.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we simply call it....The Dreadnought."
What they were seeing in front of them was the monstrosity that had erased all hope in their hearts. Their nations had already surrendered, but resistance was everywhere, yet now they no longer wanted to resist; they wholeheartedly surrendered to the Bharatiya Empire.
The news eventually reached the stubborn people at the Italian Federation and Britain, but they did not believe it, chalking it up to a load of nonsense by the losers.
But when several towns where the English and Italian military concentration was high went up in flames in both Britain and Italy, Steward was forced to surrender, and the members of the parliament in Italy actually put Leandro Contarini to the guillotine as a way to surrender while attempting to appease the Bharatiya Empire’s wrath.
Nearly three decades after the conflict started, the First World War finally came to an end.
P.S. I will be honest, I could have extended these Chapters even more and could have written it in my normal slow-burn, lengthy way, but honestly, I’m tired.
