October 6th, 1656
While preparations for moving the capital are in full swing, the war in the northern parts of the subcontinent has entered a decisive stage.
The province of Bhutan has completely collapsed and was finally liberated from the grasp of the invaders. This victory was led by one of the lieutenant generals assigned by Sarvesh, named Basavanna, a talented young man from the state of Vijaynagara.
As for the battle in the province of Nepal, it has entered the final stages as Sarvesh had already started to seige the city of Kathmandu, the current political capital of the Himalayan Empire. Gurkha heir Mahalaxmi, who was unwilling to stay behind, also joined the army to defeat the murderers of her family.
With the help of Ramayya Senapati, who strategically provided reinforcements for commanders, Yogendra Singh and Narasimha Nayak, the battles in the regions of Rajasthan and Punjab are looking great.
Narasimha Nayak had already begun to siege the two important cities of the region, Jaipur and Jodhpur, the strongholds of the Rathore and Kachwaha families. Surprisingly, both these families sent representatives to apologize for their previous mistakes and were willing to pay compensation in order to spare their lives and not attack their province.
Unfortunately, Narasimha had clear and definitive orders from his majesty Vijay to take out these snakes who always look for advantage and fear any disadvantage. If in the future someone attacks the subcontinent from the West, wouldn’t these nobles immediately switch sides as soon as they feel that their strength is not strong enough?
Hence, for this exact reason, Vijay was not willing to take in these dynasties who changed their faces too fast.
As for Yogendra Singh, his situation was much smoother compared to all of his colleagues since the region he was ordered to capture was previously part of the Maratha Empire.
His task had become much easier because, although the Maratha Empire was defeated, since the time of defeat was not too long ago, there were still some remnant defensive forces lingering within the region waiting for a chance to attack.
The fall of the Mughal Empire was exactly the chance these hidden forces needed, and they suddenly emerged from their shadows with explosive force, making the life of Abdullah Rahman very difficult.
Adding the two forces of reinforcements from Ramayya Senapati and help from the rebellious forces, along with his own army, Yogendra was able to breach the city of Ludhiana and is in the process of taking it over. Not only that, he has successfully started his siege on the city of Amritsar.
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However, since the city is of great historical, cultural, and religious significance, he did not choose to forcefully breach the city as he had previously done.
Yogendra’s plan was to first capture the city of Ludhiana and later put pressure on the city defence forces of Amritsar, making them voluntarily accept defeat.
Another option was to directly use special forces to assassinate Abdullah Rahman, which would directly collapse the resistance within the region.
Although both these options are feasible, their implementation is to be seen in the coming few months.
Overall, reading the reports sent from the battlefield, Vijay was very satisfied with the progress of the campaign.
Then, thinking about something, his face suddenly took on a serious expression as he questioned Roshan,
"Is there any reaction from the Ahom side after we shifted our soldiers from the interior of the Ahom kingdom to its borders?"
Roshan thought about it for a moment, nodded his head, and explained, "There was indeed a reaction, Your Majesty, two kinds to be exact, but the reactions were totally polar opposites to each other."
"Oh!" Vijay was intrigued as he leaned forward, intently listening.
Roshan continued, "Due to our work in propaganda and publicity, we were able to gain a very good impression among the people of the Ahom kingdom. And that was not all; due to our increasing trade ties with the Ahom kingdom, we were able to tie up a lot of wealthy merchants and nobles of the Ahom kingdom.
With this influence, we also inadvertently gave them the idea that it would be better for the Ahom kingdom to join the empire. Initially, we were hoping that with this move, it would be very good if the wealthy class came to know about the benefits of this decision, but as if by fate, this idea spread throughout the kingdom, even among the common people."
Vijay was surprised. This was truly unexpected since he clearly knew that although his intelligence channels were strong, they were not strong enough to convince the citizens of a whole nation that joining another nation would be a good choice. Hence, in doubt, he asked, "How did it happen?"
Roshan had a smile on his face as he replied, "Your Majesty, the process was not too complex or elaborate, and we did not even have anything to do with it.
Apparently, someone engaged in the timber trade with the Bharatiya Empire, after visiting our empire on a casual business trip, was very impressed with the various facilities and amenities available to even the most common people, not to mention the developed business infrastructure that couldn’t be hidden even with the influence of the military economy system.
After going back, he happened to inadvertently mention how good it would be for him to be a citizen of the Bharatiya Empire."
"Since this businessman was among the rich class of society and had a big influence within the elite class, his friends also came to our empire to visit. When these elites went back, they spread their experience in Ahom, which made word of mouth about the Bharatiya Empire organically spread throughout the kingdom.
Adding to this, the fact that we voluntarily took back our forces, indirectly showed our intention not to attack the Ahom kingdom by force, as many of the military elites feared, which further amplified our good image within the Ahom kingdom."
Vijay, who heard this trail of events, couldn’t help but smile. ’God must be helping Bharat,’ he thought to himself.
Then, remembering that Roshan mentioned there was another set of reactions, he quickly asked about it.
Roshan nodded his head and proceeded to explain with a doubtful expression on his face, "Your Majesty, this second set of reactions is very unusual. With our current high reputation within the Ahom kingdom, it is not surprising if the royal family notices it and takes measures to curb this blatant glorification of a foreign country.
But the surprising thing is His Majesty Jayadwaj Singha does not seem intent on curbing these rumours. On the contrary, he was seen at some social occasions praising the Bharatiya Empire himself."
Vijay, who heard about the situation, was also confused as he could not guess what Jayadwaj was thinking.
As for the chances of Jayadwaj not realizing the Bharatiya Empire’s act of spreading propaganda, that was even more impossible since Vijay knew that Jayadwaj was a smart and capable ruler from his experience of dealing with him during the war against the Mughal Empire and also due to the knowledge he had about this king from his past life.
Suddenly a thought hit him, ’Was Jayadwaj Singha willing to join the Bharatiya Empire all along?’ Although this thought of his was crazy and most likely to be untrue, considering the recent actions of Jayadwaj, everything makes sense if it were true. ’In that case, why wait? Let’s have a chat,’ he said to himself.
Taking action as soon as he thought, Vijay immediately summoned Vinod and ordered for him to draft an invitation to the king of the Ahom kingdom for a friendly and strategic discussion.
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The construction of the San Marco class warships and the La Serenissima class armed merchant ships for the Venetians has started in full force.
The order from the Venetians was so important for the Bharatiya Empire that Vijay had to halt some of the construction for their own navy and immediately start construction for the Venetians.
This was naturally done in order to meet the tight deadline they had promised. As for whether this decision would cause any harm to the Bharatiya Navy, the answer is no. Because, Since there is no dominant navy in the Indian Ocean in the current situation, the need for top-end naval power for the Bharatiya Empire is temporarily alleviated.
On the contrary, the Bharatiya Navy is constantly replenishing its low-end naval power composed of frigates and clippers to deal with occasional pirates and customs duties.
These ships are currently being manufactured in the smaller shipyards of the empire, Hence abruptly stopping the naval construction for the Bharatiya Navy didn’t cause too much harm, on the contrary, constructing the ships for the Venetians brought too many benefits.
The workers in various shipyards across the empire were surprised as the ships they were constructing suddenly changed in parameters. However, the surprise did not last long since the majority of the ship construction was something they were very familiar with, so it did not take long for these shipbuilders to get familiar with the new design.
Even the supporting industries, after noticing the change in requirements for processing parts, were momentarily taken aback. However once they thoroughly checked the requirements, they found that it was not too harsh.
Since the order was also huge, they immediately revamped their production lines, came up with a new construction schedule within a few hours, and got started by the morning of the next working day.
The advanced military infrastructure capabilities of the Bharatiya Empire have begun to show its edge.
P.S. Thank you, Indian_Painter for Ice cola X2