February 30th, 1656
Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, Gangapuri State, Cuttack
"Idiot! Those Bharatiya bastards conquered the whole of Gujarat in just over a week," Salim’s face was livid as he screamed at the man. "And because of you people from the logistics department, a week has passed and only now have I seen the city wall of the capital. Are you not ashamed? What reason do you have to say for yourself?"
Salim was really angry. No matter how he understood the situation back in the empire, he could not come to terms with the slow logistic supply. He and his army conquered the city of Bhadrak nearly three days ago, and they only received the logistic supply yesterday.
After a few days wasted sitting in the city doing nothing, what made him even more annoyed was that, even with proper road channels, their logistic supplies arrived unusually late. Were these guys trying to kill him?
The logistics chief, Bashir Ali Pasha, was helpless as he stood there taking all the abuse the general dished out. It was not that he deliberately slowed down the logistic supply, but back in the empire, even if he asked for the war supplies, the warehouses controlled by nobles would only delegate the supplies after a long delay. Those bastards, who are the dogs of nobles, are all white-eyed wolves.
They don’t have loyalty at all. Eating their master’s food, they dare to backstab the master by embezzling as much as they can. Unfortunately, Bashir, only being a logistics chief, had no power or right to do anything about it. He could only endure.
"Sigh." Seeing His Excellency Salim finally stop scolding, Bashir couldn’t help but feel relieved. He already knew that His Excellency understood the situation back in the empire, but what could he do? His Excellency had to have a vent somewhere, so Bashir, being a low-profile logistics chief, ended up being verbally abused by the general to relieve his frustration.
Hence, even though he was wronged, he did not let out a sound. He stood there with his head down, not daring to look up.
Salim finally calmed down. Thinking of a workaround, he ordered, "Request the logistic supplies a few days in advance."
Bashir, with a wry smile, couldn’t help but voice out, "It won’t work, Your Excellency. I’m sorry."
Salim was confused and at the same time curious. "Oh? Why is that?"
"The warehouse managers assign supplies only after the current supplies are finished or in case we are going to besiege another city. Hence, in the rest of the cases, they are very unlikely to allocate the supplies."
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"Damn it."
Salim clenched his fist, his expression turning livid once again.
Fortunately, he recovered quickly. After calming down for a few minutes, he was ready to start the battle once again.
They were currently in the town of Jagatpur, which is perpendicular to the city of Cuttack, with the Mahanadi River separating both places. Connecting both places is a bridge, which, from the looks of it, was made of cement.
Hence, it is strong and can endure the weight of multiple elephants.
Ramayya Senapati observed the enemy a few kilometres away with a calm expression. Despite the enemy having nearly eight times as many troops, he remained unperturbed. In fact, he eagerly awaited the enemy’s approach. However, he hadn’t always been so eager. When Ramayya first learned of Vijay’s plan, he was very unwilling and disappointed by the strategy.
Although he had come to terms with the plan and could maintain a calm demeanour now, his initial reaction had been far less composed.
Why should they kite the enemy inland and, even after that, reduce their numbers little by little when they can fully crush the enemy without any chance for resistance? Isn’t the strategy proposed by His Majesty only a way of destroying the enemy while, at the same time, hurting oneself by abandoning all the development done in the region over the past few years?
Unfortunately, despite his various pleas, Vijay did not listen and stuck to his strategy. As a result, Ramayya had to follow the orders, even though he did not fully agree with the plan. His opinion only changed after he learned about additional considerations from His Majesty, which occurred just yesterday after he received further orders.
Of course, the reason why Vijay ordered this is not really that complicated; it all comes down to numbers. The usable population in their empire, excluding the newly conquered lands of Gujarat and Balochistan, is estimated to be around 50 million or more. This would already make it one of the most populated countries if it were in Europe.
Unfortunately, even after losing those regions, the Mughal Empire still has a population of 90 to 100 million. At a time when all these populations are mobilized for war, Vijay is convinced that if the Bharatiya Empire engages in soldier-to-soldier combat, it is already a lost cause.
Hence, the strategy was designed to save as much strength as possible in the early stages of the war, so that the trump cards of the Bharatiya Empire could be revealed only in the later stages, ensuring a more decisive victory.
As for the loss of development, Vijay is not too worried since the actual development in the border regions like the frontier of Gangapuri State is all meant for the purpose of war. And since the enemy is also utilizing this infrastructure for war, they would not destroy it; on the contrary, they might even maintain it better than themselves.
As for the only thing that is of concern, it is nothing more than the displacement of people, the destruction of invested artillery and communication channels, and the total destruction of local industries. Make no mistake, these are all devastating losses, but they can all be rebuilt within no time once the war ends.
On the contrary, the people saved after giving up these cities temporarily are the real gain of the empire.
coming back to the battlefield
Looking at the approaching enemy through the bridge, Ramayya still kept the same expressionless face, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
The vanguard of the Mughals finally reached the endpoint of the bridge. Surprisingly, they encountered no firepower. They had expected their deaths when they took this position, but now that no bullets were flying at them, they couldn’t help but be pleased.
Looking up at the city wall, they saw a man with an imposing aura staring at them like they were just dead bodies in his eyes, simultaneously, a torch-lit with flames was thrown at them.
They could not understand, but the next second, they wished that bullets had flown at them instead of the fire that, for some reason, spread throughout the bridge.
"AHHHH!"
Ramayya, seeing the visual of thousands of people burning at once in front of him, still kept the same expressionless face. It was his idea to burn the enemy, and to make it happen an oil tank was placed on a five-story building, with metal pipes arranged to pass through the bridge and then turn on the gate wall when the enemy was in place.
The oil poured through these pipes, soaking the upper layer of the bridge, and at that moment, all he did was throw a torch to ignite it.
His eyes reflected thousands of dead bodies writhing in the inferno of flames.
When he came back from the expedition of Baluchistan, he heard all about the Indore massacre that the Mughal Empire had committed. When he heard that, he was so angry that he was ready to march into the Mughal Empire and behead all the culprits. Unfortunately, he came to his senses quickly enough.
However, he still had to take revenge. Hence he chose this cruel method: where he would burn the enemy without giving them a chance to fight back, just as the poor people of Indoor were burnt to death.
The flames turned red as the smell of burnt flesh permeated the air. Salim Khan, who witnessed this, had his eyes widened. Even though he did not care much for the kafirs who died, he still felt that it was too cruel a way to die. He was angry; this time, he was fuming.
"Put out the fire, we build our own bridge!" Salim ordered.
The Mughals acted swiftly, extinguishing the fire by fetching water from the river. Unfortunately, due to the fire being fueled by oil and floating on top of the water, pouring water to extinguish it caused more casualties. Seeing this, Salim frowned and considered another method: ’’Douse it with sand.’’ Fortunately, this method worked, although the casualties were indeed high.
As for the bridge, soldiers promptly cut down trees to construct one adjacent to the cement structure. Fortunately, with the support of the cement bridge’s pillars as a foundation, the wooden bridge proved sturdy enough. Despite its hastily built construction, it served its purpose, and attempts to pump oil onto the bridge failed to reach the wooden section.
Having the bridge in place allowed them to extinguish the fire promptly. Additionally, the bridge was positioned in such a way that if targeted by the artillery of the Bharatiya Empire, there was a high chance it would also hit the cement bridge, which both parties wished to avoid.
Despite the cost of nearly 20,000 lives to construct the bridge, the constant fire suppression from the enemy atop the city wall made it worthwhile. Now their troops could advance without fear of fire.
With the bridge constructed, the battle started. The Bharatiya cannons took the initiative and began launching a fury of fire, but the Balochi cannons, with the sheer advantage of numbers alone, quickly overwhelmed the Bharatiya cannons when the Mughal cannons reached their firing range.
Simultaneously, as expected, the Bharatiya soldiers rained down fire on the enemy vanguard for a short time until the absolute human tide tactics took the upper hand, and casualties on the Bharatiya side began to mount.
Ramayya knew that he could not fully stop this army of 340,000 soldiers with only 20,000 soldiers that he had. Hence, reluctantly, he also chose to withdraw from the city after the city wall was overwhelmed.
Fortunately, he had taken nearly 50,000 enemy lives and captured nearly half of their artillery in exchange. As for his side? The casualties amounted to only 2,000, a remarkable figure given their total strength of 20,000. The enemy casualty rate was 25 times higher. What does this mean?
It means that each soldier of the Bharatiya Empire was effective enough to eliminate 25 Mughal enemies, with a ratio of 1:25, constituting an absolute massacre.
Overall with only 4,400 casualties and 8,900 injuries, the Bharatiya Empire was able to take away the lives of 110,000 Mughal soldiers, making it one of the most significant strength disparity events in the world.
Hence, it is safe to say Vijay’s plan is working well so far, even though the data on resources invested in the war is equally horrific.