June 3rd, 1656
Northern Frontier, Dakshin Bharatiya Empire
It has been a week since the region of Bengal came under the control of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire. Due to this, the Mughal Empire was in chaos.
The various noble families started to have their own thoughts, but since the Imperial Timrode Dynasty still had a very strong chokehold on the regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, their thoughts were temporarily suppressed.
As for the war situation, it had gone from bad to worse. Bengal had been one of the major financial centres of the empire, and with the development of industries, it had also become one of the major weapons-producing regions of the empire. For context, 30% of all the weapons used by the Mughal Empire came from the region of Bengal.
Unfortunately, all these resources now belong to the Bharatiya Empire.
Due to this, the support of logistics for the frontline army immediately decreased. Adding to that, among most weapons produced by different noble families, the weapons produced by the Murshidabad Nawab family of Bengal had been the best. Hence, the weapons produced by the Murshidabad Firearms Company had become very famous and reputable among the army.
But now, with the disappearance of this supply, their guns become useless since the ammunition of other gun companies would not work with their guns.
This subsequently led them to become overwhelmed when facing the Bharatiya Army in recent skirmishes. The generals and soldiers involved in the war were depressed because of this situation as their hope for victory became slimmer and slimmer. However, unlike them, there were some within their own group who were actually happy: the dynasties of Awadh and Asif Khan.
Both these dynasties are entrenched in Nepal, Bhutan, and Lahore, which is located in the northernmost part of the empire, hence theoretically far from the war.
The Asif Khan dynasty and the Awadh Dynasty, who were wholeheartedly contributing to the war efforts in the beginning, began to have second thoughts, and their ambition began to grow. This is because, as the war persisted, they began to gain more wealth due to the sales of weapons, ammunition, and grain.
Initially, these profits were not very considerable as their products were not competitive compared to other noble families entrenched in places like Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, or Jharkhand. But as one region after another began to suffer defeat, the army had no other choice but to buy weapons and ammunition from the forces least affected by the war.
Due to this, both the Asif Khan dynasty in Lahore and the Awadh Dynasty in Himalayan regions like Nepal and Bhutan barbarically started accumulating wealth.
Surprisingly enough, as they accumulated more and more wealth, they realized that the control of the Mughal Empire over their regions had started to weaken. They found that the representatives from the empire, tasked with controlling them, had started to lose their influence, and these people began to fight for their own interests.
In this way, both the regions of Lahore and Himalayan regions like Nepal and Bhutan started to rebuild defences that were destroyed when these regions were conquered.
Without knowing it, the split of the Mughal Empire had already begun, but it was still under control. However, what was a thin hairline crack began to become bigger and wider after the events that transpired in the coming few weeks.
June 13th, 1656
The Bharatiya Empire has managed to capture the strategic locations of Indore and Bhopal in the west and Kolkata and Dhaka in the east, which ended up sandwiching the strategic points of Jabalpur in the eastern Madhya Pradesh region and Ranchi in the Jharkhand region.
Due to this, the pressure on these defensive points increased immensely. The activity area of the Mughal Empire in the eastern Madhya Pradesh region and Jharkhand region had been compressed to a very close area between these two strategic points.
Maybe the Mughal Empire had learned something from the Bharatiya Empire; they started to develop road infrastructure between Jabalpur and Ranchi connected to a road to Patna.
Through the Bharatiya external Pragya, it is also known that infrastructure projects have started all over the regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, trying to fully connect all major strategic points in order to at least put up a struggle.
Shakthi Nagar...
The road between Jabalpur and Ranchi goes through the town of Shakti Nagar. Workers, dried to the bone and as light as a feather, are sweating below the raging sun as they work desperately for a bite to eat.
*Snap!*
Their supervisor, a merciless fellow, would snap at them once in a while with a whip if the intensity of work was reduced even a little bit.
The old and young, with defeated and lifeless expressions, continued to work to their death.
*Bang!*
To their surprise, a muffled gun shot was heard. The workers started looking at their supervisor, whose head had blown up into multiple pieces.
"Deva!"
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The workers exclaimed as they immediately ran away with whatever strength they had. The guards who were supposed to stop these lowly coolies had no time to do their jobs as one after another, their heads bloomed.
A muffled gunshot would come from a distance, and a head would pop. The guards were very scared, not only because of the unknown enemy but because they could not even find where the enemy was. No matter which side they looked, they could not find any enemy.
Twenty minutes later, the whole group of guards were dead.
In foliage 150 meters away...
The shrubs and weeds on the ground, which were supposed to be inanimate, surprisingly got up and started moving. The moving object rose up from the ground and eventually took the shape of a human male.
This man wiped the dust from his face and made a gesture with his hand.
After that, 19 humans similar to the man got up from the ground and left with him.
"Captain, how many more targets do we have to visit today?" a man, who could now be identified as being undoubtedly from the Bharatiya Empire, inquired.
"About three more. It should be possible to complete the task within the day," the man who was the first to stand up and also the sergeant of the team immediately replied.
"Well, of course it is possible, Captain. We have not come into contact with anyone who is able to track us down yet," the ranger said with a proud expression.
The sergeant frowned as he warned, "Don’t be complacent. The reason why we are able to move undetected is partly because of our gear and partly because we are using new weapons that can operate from longer distances, keeping us safer."
"So don’t forget we are deep in enemy territory and don’t become arrogant," the sergeant scolded in a low voice, warning the ranger.
The ranger immediately shut his mouth and stayed silent.
That day, three more road construction groups were eliminated, effectively stalling the construction progress of the Mughal Empire.
---
This operation was naturally launched by the military of the Bharatiya Empire. They know how infrastructure can impact the war because they have already tasted the benefits. Hence even though the Mughal Empire was only laying down gravel road infrastructure for the war, the Bharatiya Empire would not sit still and watch.
For this purpose, the new unit of special forces, the Bharatiya Rangers, who were trained with the new sniper rifles and formed to operate in forest terrain, were dispatched to disrupt the construction of infrastructure, to assassinate Mughal military leaders from afar, and to gather as much information as possible.
The new sniper rifles were the secret weapons that had been under development by Vijay with the help of the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences.
There were two versions of the sniper rifles, that were developed and manufactured in limited quantities: one was the Shikari C70, and the other was the Shikari C50.
Unknown to anyone, Vijay actually developed these rifles from the design of the German Jaeger rifle, arguably the first long-range rifle developed in the world.
Oddly enough, this rifle was not even developed by gunmakers but by hunters in Germany who utilized this gun to hunt their prey. This is the reason the gun was called Jaeger, meaning hunter in German. This was also the reason Vijay decided to name the rifle Shikari, as it meant hunter in Hindi.
Vijay took this weapon that was produced in the late 17th century and early 18th century and manufactured it in 1656. It had a single-shot muzzle-loading weapon with a caliber of 0.70, a length of 28 inches, and was made up of an octagonal-shaped high-quality carbon steel barrel with rifling of 10 grooves. It was equipped with a flintlock ignition system and a single-stage trigger.
In order to enhance the optics, it was equipped with the new 5X magnification telescope from the Pillai Optics Company.
It had an overall length of 54 inches, a weight of 4.54 kilograms, and a range of 91.44 meters.
This rifle is very suitable for jungle warfare due to its short barrel, ease of use, ease of maintenance, and reliability. Hence, the Rangers were primarily equipped with this weapon to complete their missions.
As for the other variant, Vijay designed it after the successor of the Jaeger rifle, the Kentucky Long Rifle, which was prominently used in the American Civil War.
Shikari C50, which was the Bharatiya version of the Kentucky long rifle, was equipped with a single-shot muzzle-loading action with a 0.50 calibre, a length of 137.16 centimetres (54 inches) longer than the Jaeger rifle, equipped an octagonal-shaped high-quality high carbon steel barrel, rifling of 15 grooves (five grooves more compared to the Jaeger rifle), flintlock ignition system, single-stage trigger, and the same 5X zoom from Pillai Optics.
Its overall length is 177.8 centimetres (70 inches), longer than the Jaeger rifle, weight 4.08 kilograms, actually a little lighter than the Jaeger rifle, and its range is 182.88 meters (200 yards), nearly double that of the Jaeger rifle. It has higher accuracy than the Jaeger rifle due to deeper rifling; however, it has a lower fire rate compared to the Jaeger rifle.
This weapon, which could actually be considered a real sniper rifle, is currently being equipped for the Bharatiya commandos for future missions.
----
Back to the progress of the war: after being overwhelmed on all three fronts, Shahzad Khan, who was holding eastern Madhya Pradesh, had no choice but to retreat after the city defences collapsed.
With heavy difficulty, he managed to retreat back to Chitrakoot.
As for Amar Ul Pasha, who was defending the fort of Ranchi, under the same circumstances, he also made the same decision as Shahzad, but unfortunately, he was not as lucky as the former. He was successfully assassinated by a hidden squad of commandos equipped with Shikari C50 rifles.
With the assassination successful, the army that was marching north immediately collapsed and scattered in various directions. In this live-action episode of Assassin’s Creed, 25 Mughal major generals and four lieutenant generals were successfully assassinated, Causing the army to immediately disperse.
It was June 15th, 1656. The regions of eastern Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand had fallen, and the Mughal Empire suffered yet another defeat.
The Mughal Empire, which was originally more than three million square kilometres, had shrunk to 1.68 million square kilometres, while the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, which was only around 600,000 square kilometres during the time of the Vijayanagar Empire, had grown to roughly 2.415 million square kilometres.
The population unknowingly reached nearly 90 million, while the Mughal Empire still had control over 60 million or so. In order to avoid chaos, each of the conquered regions is relatively kept isolated until proper steps are taken to integrate the land.
P.S. Final Push, Lets Goo