December 4th, 1655
Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, Vijayanagara State, Capital City - Hampi
Vijay’s mental outlook greatly improved after spending a few days with his family.
However, he could not spend more time as the work that had accumulated in his absence required his attention.
Hence, first thing in the morning, Vijay came to his office in the palace and started to go through the documents, signing the ones that needed his signature and sealing the ones that needed the seal.
Overall, everything in the empire seemed normal except that Vijay began to feel worried about the production capacity of the Empire. It had increased too fast, and now the riverbank industrial zones were almost entirely occupied by the heavy industry of the empire.
Currently, all this production is consumed by the ongoing war and simultaneous construction projects at the northern border, the eastern region of Gujarat, the city of Indore, the region of Balochistan, and the islands of Andaman and Nicobar. As a result, even the export of heavy industry products had significantly diminished compared to the internal consumption of these goods.
All the materials and products produced were immediately consumed by these regions and battle zones like hungry beasts, so there is no immediate trouble. However, what worried Vijay was how the empire would handle the situation when the demand for all these materials suddenly collapsed with the end of the war.
After the last one-year war with the Mughal Empire, when the empire didn’t even have that much production capacity compared to other countries, it still had overproduction and excess capacity of products. Even such a small quantity of industrial goods almost overwhelmed the economic stability of the Empire and almost sent the government into a financial crisis.
Getting to the core of the problem, this issue stemmed from the model of the military-economic system.
In this system, even though the government has full power over everything in the empire’s industry of its choice, it also has full responsibility for everything financial pertaining to such industries, and the individuals who previously owned these industries did not have any responsibility for the losses caused during the military economy system, And the government will have to bear the brunt of these losses.
Fortunately, the Portuguese, who were willing to take over all the industrial products of the empire last time, was a big help in regulating the empire’s economy and providing a buffer in transitioning from a military economy to a market economy.
But now that the production capacity of the empire has already surpassed many European countries, Vijay is not confident that European countries, which are very protective of their local businesses, would want to import such large quantities of industrial goods, especially military supplies.
The sad part is that although two wars are still happening, most of Europe remains relatively silent after the Thirty Years’ War, and the prices of military products are tightly controlled by European countries, hence, they would not want this price to fall and start an arms race.
"I have to think of something," Vijay said to himself with a worried expression on his face.
However, this problem is still something that should be solved in the future because even after the war ends, the demand will not immediately drop for all the industrial products.
The drop in demand will only be for military supplies and not for supplies involved in infrastructure because infrastructure projects would still continue even after the war at the same scale in order to prevent the economy from changing so drastically.
Making a note of this in his mind, Vijay continued the work as he began to sign and review more documents, passing more of his orders to the government and writing a few instructions for Vinod to follow.
Finally, when he was about to sign the last document and take a break, he was caught off guard by the content of the document, or rather a report, a peculiar one at that, as it was written in a very unusual format.
With a frown on his face, Vijay looked at the sender. However, as soon as he saw the name, he did not mind the informal and unusual format in which the report was written because it was from Ganapatra Pillai, the director of Pillai Optics.
"It’s that guy, huh? No wonder," Vijay said to himself in realization.
Vijay knew that Ganapatra was very inexperienced in using the scientific documentation tools of the empire and was previously unaware of basic things like design drawings, diagrams, statistical analysis, scientific writing, version control, project management collaboration layout, etc.
Hence, Vijay gave him some leeway to learn at his own pace since the man, although not able to use these great tools, came up with amazing results. For example, the mirrors produced by Pillai Optics met more than the standard he had hoped for, thereby extending the range of the heliograph a little more than the practical range of 7 km.
With the mass production achieved by the workers trained by Pillai, the communication channel from Narayan at the southernmost tip of Gujarat to the city of Makran has already been established with the production of more Dhristy-class catamarans.
Vijay, being very satisfied with Ganapathra, read the document in detail. But reading the document was quite a surprise for him. He did not know when Ganapatra had gotten into researching optical instruments, but this guy really researched a von Leeuwenhoek Microscope.
Looking at the design and the construction, Vijay was sure of it, but since von Leeuwenhoek hadn’t invented the microscope yet, maybe it should be called the Pillai microscope.
And looking at the details in the document, there should have been a prototype along with the document. Vijay was confused as he did not find any boxes attached to the document. So he searched the room for a while and did not find anything.
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As a final try, Vijay called over Butler Ravichandra and asked him about a box around six to 10 inches in length and a few inches in height.
Ravichandran, who heard the question, immediately fell into deep thought, but it wasn’t too long before he replied, "A box, oh yes, Your Majesty, we did receive something like that when it was submitted by the Ministry of Communication," Ravichandra said, as he went into the storeroom and retrieved a package the size of a mobile phone box, while Vijay followed him too.
Vijay, who finally had the box that contained the prototype of the microscope in his hands, Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Because Ganapatra actually sent him the prototype through the post, which left him dumbfounded. Theoretically, Ganapatra could have sent the prototype directly to him along with the report he usually submits, Why did he have to use the post to send him this prototype?
Vijay could not help but feel amused thinking of the faces of the people in the Ministry of Communication, especially in the post department, after seeing the delivery address written on the post. He was sure that this matter would have even reached the Minister of Communication, Kumar.
Anyway, with his amusement, Vijay went back to the office and opened the box, which contained a small mechanical device made of bronze. Vijay picked up the device, around 6 to 7 inches, and inspected it thoroughly. He then brought the microscope near to his eyes and tested out the quality of the lens.
Vijay was surprised, his eyebrows raised because the quality of the lens was more than what he had expected.
"This guy really is a genius," Vijay said to himself with a happy smile on his face.
Then, in order to experiment, he extracted some blood from a goat that had just been cut in the kitchen and put it on the sample holder. Bringing himself to a well-lit room, Vijay slowly turned the sample translator knob, which was a screw mechanism.
As the height of the sample translator rose, the focus knob on the plate was adjusted, and finally, Vijay could see it: hundreds of red blood cells grouped together in a mammal.
Vijay laughed happily as finally the door to the microscopic world and the start of the medical revolution was just right around the corner. Vijay also knew that this microscope could be used in observing white blood cells, sperm cells, and some larger bacteria.
Hence, he did not delay and immediately sent the device to the Bhartiya Academy of Sciences in order for the scientists to learn its mechanism, come up with theories, produce a thesis, and eventually produce textbooks on the microscope.
Vijay further wanted to push the lens and optical technology of the empire to reach or even surpass the Dutch, the undeniable optical superpower in the world.
Hence, as a first step, Vijay outlined a design for the manufacturing of a water-powered lapidary machine, which is a miniature workstation for the glass makers and jewellery crafters of the empire. Since lens-making requires very high craftsmanship and precision, the manufacturing process cannot be fully industrialized like some of the products that are currently being manufactured.
Hence, Vijay chose to enhance the tools of these professionals, arriving at the same result of increased efficiency in lens manufacturing, But while using humans as high-precision machine tools this time.
With the use of this lapidary machine, Vijay could also imagine the workload being divided between multiple skilled craftsmen proficient in one sequence of lens manufacturing, thereby maintaining the quality of the lens and achieving standardization.
Vijay outlined the frame, the water wheel, the main shaft, the grinding wheel, the polishing wheel, the workpiece holder, the speed control mechanism, the clutch mechanism, and the power source mechanism.
Although what Vijay drew was not the finalized design, his outline is enough for the scientists to understand his intent and fill up the rest with details. After that, a prototype could be officially produced.
Next, Vijay started to outline the design of Hans Lippershey’s Hand-Held Telescope with 5X Magnification. This telescope is a refracting telescope formed by one primary lens, and Vijay is looking forward to using this telescope in the naval industry in the hands of the lookout and the captain.
That was not all; Vijay, taking inspiration from the refracting telescope that Isaac Newton presented in 1671, came up with an outline of a smaller and simplified version for use in the naval industry with a magnification of 10X.
In Vijay’s design, this telescope would be the size of a five-kilogram calibre cannon and would be installed on all battleships, further enhancing the naval capabilities of the empire. Additionally, this telescope could reduce errors made during the recording of signals from the heliograph and theoretically could even increase its range.
Vijay finally, after designing the optical instrument for naval use, also wrote down the outline for the original refracting telescope of Isaac Newton with a magnification of 40 times or more, depending on the size of the telescope. But Vijay chose to settle for a 40 times magnification.
Vijay decided to use this telescope in astrological observations and build observatories across the empire, further providing enhanced tools for the empire’s astrologists.