6th September 1656
One month has passed since the battle against the Mughal Empire ended, and since then, many things have happened.
For starters, the million-soldier army recruited due to the intensity of the war against the Mughal Empire has not been reduced in size but continues on to their next mission to take on the remnants of the Mughal Empire.
The battlefields nearest, Specifically, Punjab and Rajasthan were the first to bear the brunt of the attack, followed by Nepal and Bhutan.
Yogendra Singh, who was responsible for taking the region of Punjab, immediately split his troops consisting of 150,000 soldiers into two units and was successful in taking the city of Panipat, which is only around 90 kilometers from Delhi. Later, he was also successful in taking Patiala, which is around 208 kilometres from Delhi.
Narasimha Naik, in the past month, was successful in capturing the fortress city of Alwar in the northern part of Rajasthan and Kota in the southern part of Rajasthan. He used a similar method of splitting his troops to achieve this result.
Naturally, due to splitting the troops, the problem of insufficient force did arise. However, that was fortunately covered by Ramayya Senapati, who was equipped with 160,000 soldiers.
Ramayya Senapati’s actual targets are Lahore and Sindh. Unfortunately, due to these regions not being directly connected to the mainland of the Bharatiya Empire, a direct attack through land was not possible.
Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.
An alternative method of attack through the ocean is also not feasible because, ever since the Port of Karachi located in Sindh was compromised, the local rulers completely blocked the city of Hyderabad, which is in close proximity to the port. Also, due to the existence of the Sindhu River, troops from Baluchistan find it hard to approach the region of Sindh.
Hence, Ramayya’s only viable option was to go through either Rajasthan or Punjab.
For this reason, taking advantage of Yogendra Singh and Narasimha Naik’s attack, he decisively split his troops into two units and sent them to the two battlefields.
Even though this strategy might be detrimental to his own task due to a tight deadline, it is not actually the case because, once the regions of Rajasthan and Punjab fall ahead of schedule, Ramayya will have extra manpower provided by Yogendra and Narasimha to complete his own mission.
Additionally, after the fall of Rajasthan and Punjab, the regions of Sindh and Lahore would be isolated, enabling an easier victory.
As for Sarvesh, the first thing he did after taking command of 200,000 soldiers and the special forces was to completely cut off the logistical supply between the Nepal province and the Lahore province of this new empire. This was naturally done with the help of the special forces, who are more suited to small-scale group operations.
Additionally, the main area where the logistical exchange takes place between the western and eastern sides of the empire is located in a very hidden, cold, and snowy terrain, which is very harsh for large-scale operations. Therefore, utilizing the army had become inefficient and risky.
With the special forces playing the role of cutting off the logistical supply between the east and west of the empire, he officially split his forces of 200,000 soldiers into two units: a western unit composed of 125,000 soldiers and an eastern unit composed of 75,000 soldiers dispatched to the regions of Nepal and Bhutan, respectively.
With this strategy, Sarvesh was able to take over the city of Birgunj in Nepal and the city of Thimphu in Bhutan.
Overall, within the month, six cities were captured, and there was nothing the new Himalayan Empire could do about it.
Yusuf Khan Asif, Hydar bin Awadh, Abdullah Rahman, Rathore, and Kachwaha were all overwhelmed with their own battles and had no opportunity to support their neighbouring provinces. They deeply regretted their actions now.
Initially, they were very confident in their defence since they had considered that the Bharatiya Empire would quickly disband the army and resume the agricultural production that had been stagnant.
This assumption was naturally made after witnessing their own circumstances, where the agricultural output immensely shrank due to the war, and they had expected that the Bharatiya Empire would encounter the same situation. Even though they knew the innovation capabilities of the Bharatiya Empire, they did not think that there was any way to innovate in agriculture.
Sadly, their decision hit them right in the face, as with the production of ox-powered harvesters increasing, the need for manpower within the Bharatiya Empire for agriculture had been greatly reduced.
Currently, even in a village, if a farmer wants help in harvesting his crops, he can go to the nearest town, rent the harvester for a single day, and complete the harvest within 24 hours. This greatly saves both time and resources for the small farmer while also increasing his income.
Due to this reason, the harvester has become very popular in the Bharatiya Empire, leading to a gradual increase in yield.
The new Himalayan Empire leaders, upon learning about this information, regretted their decisions immensely. Sadly, neither an arrow that had been released could be brought back nor could time be turned back, and most of the provinces of this new empire are experiencing the outcome of the bad decisions taken.
As for the only two provinces that were not immediately involved in the war, Lahore and Sindh, Although they could avoid direct war on their doorstep, they were not better off, since due to there being no immediate threat, they had to send their troops into Rajasthan and Punjab to resist the Bharatiya Army.
Not only that, but they also had to become the industrial centres for the empire and produce weapons and equipment nonstop for the frontline.
Unfortunately, with the disappearance of the Mughal Empire, the acquisition of raw materials became next to impossible since inherently the Himalayan Empire had fewer iron ore resources. Even if there are some present in certain areas, the ore is of low quality or very hard to mine.
Hence, even though the Himalayan Empire learned from the mistakes of the Mughal Empire and standardized military production throughout the empire, due to resource constraints, too many weapons could not be produced.
Against the Bharatiya Empire, whose morale is at an all-time high and whose troops are adequately battle-tested, this army did not stand a chance.
---
6th September 1656
Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, Vijayanagar state, capital city Hampi
Vijay is currently having a discussion with his brother-in-law, Aditya Bhonsle.
Aditya Bhonsle had been staying in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands all this time, as he is theoretically the governor of those islands and responsible for overseeing the administration of that region in his stead.
Vijay had read reports about the development of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was very satisfied with the progress so far.
The reason he had summoned Aditya though, was not to inquire about Andaman and Nicobar but to assign a task to him.
"Brother Aditya, putting the matters of Andaman and Nicobar Islands aside, I want you to do something," Vijay said as he reached into a folder and took out a document.
With doubtful eyes, Aditya received the document and proceeded to read it.
"This document contains all the nations that are being colonized and controlled by the Europeans to our southeast."
"The Spanish Empire controls Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao of the Philippines, and the Dutch control Java, Bali, northern parts of Sumatra, and part of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The British control Ben Coolen in the southwestern part of Sumatra and the Maluku Islands, which they won from the Dutch in their English-Dutch war that took place a few years ago.
As for the Portuguese, they own Timor in the eastern part."
Aditya intently looked at Vijay, waiting for his instructions after seeing all the details of the occupied regions in the document. After hearing the seriousness in Vijay’s voice, Aditya already knew that his task would be something of great importance, so he was not willing to take it lightly.
"Aditya, what I want you to do is utilize your close proximity to these regions and infiltrate them. Find out about all the resistance forces that are present, which had previously fought or are still fighting against these European invaders."
Aditya’s eyes became serious, as he had expected. This was indeed very big news. ’I did not expect His Majesty to put his attention to the southeast after unifying the subcontinent,’ he thought to himself. ’But coming back to the assignment His Majesty assigned me, let’s see... it should be possible, but...’
"Your Majesty, I have no objection to the task, and I will do my best to fulfil it. However, the problem is that I have no talents that are proficient in intelligence gathering, nor do I have the power to command the empire’s intelligence agencies."
Vijay fell into deep thought, as it was indeed the case, but this problem was not too hard to solve. "I will let Roshan and Aditya train you a batch of intelligence agents according to the agency’s standards."
"However, since we do not have deep information and familiarity with the Southeast Asian countries, we can only accumulate this knowledge and familiarity over time. So this task is left to you."
"I will have the agents ready in two months, and I expect you to make connections with these resistance forces within four months. Alright?"
Aditya was relieved that he was getting some help. "Leave it to me, Your Majesty. I will not disappoint you."