3rd January 1657
Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, Vijayanagara State, Capital City, Hampi
"A little lower," Vijay said with a comfortable expression on his face, while the gentle hands of Kavya proceeded to massage him.
Kavya had sweat on her forehead, and she had to give it her all for her massage to take effect on Vijay. But truth be told, she did not have to do this; it’s just that she was a little unwilling for even a maid to massage Vijay. As for a man massaging him, Vijay was even more unwilling; he would rather wait for the pain to go away by itself than allow a man to massage his back.
But looking at Kavya with a tired expression on her face while she was wearing slightly revealing clothes, he got very excited.
"Ahh!"
Kavya screamed as she was pulled forward abruptly, and before she could react, her lips were blocked by the lips of Vijay, and she lost all the strength in her body.
300 words omitted.
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Vijay, who was feeling physically and mentally better, went straight back to work.
However, his enthusiasm after the hearty exercise suddenly died down as soon as he saw more work being accumulated on his table, ranging from political documents, war after-math reports, economic reports, social reports, population reports, infrastructure development reports, promotion lists, merit reports, and most importantly, the reports on the establishment of the new empire and the change of the capital.
Even though he had a group of people assisting him, there were limits to what he could do. Despite his superhuman intellect and ability to work 15 to 18 hours non-stop without rest, he was not immune to fatigue. This inevitable exhaustion was beginning to frustrate him.
Just when he was about to begrudgingly sign a document, a knock was heard.
*Knock!*
*Knock!*
"Come in," Vijay said, reigning in his emotions and putting on an expressionless face.
An agent from the Bharatiya External Pragya entered. "Your Majesty, we have received a classified report from the Andaman and Nicobar." Saying that he handed over Vijay a sealed document With the words confidential written on top of it in Bharati script, After which, the agent gave a respectful salute and withdrew from the room.
Vijay tore off the seal that was meant to keep anything confidential and took out the letter present inside the document.
’Interesting,’ Vijay muttered, as he had not expected the existence of the Vijayanagar Empire to cause so many changes to take place within the region of Southeast Asia.
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For example, the intensity of colonization in Southeast Asia was obviously higher than what he remembered from his last life.
When thinking about why this happened, Vijay quickly came to the conclusion that it was because, in this timeline, the Vijayanagar Empire under his father and grandfather was still strong during the early 17th century, while in the past timeline, it had already weakened and lost a lot of its territory.
The Europeans, seeing the strong South Indian power, chose to be cautious in launching their operations in the subcontinent. However, since India was no longer an immediate option to be taken advantage of, the Southeast Asian countries came into view, containing rich resources both human and material, as well as low strength. This made them the perfect colony for the Europeans.
Additionally, the Europeans may have felt that if they could gain a steady enough foothold in Southeast Asia, they could use it as a springboard to vie for interest in the subcontinent.
Thinking of this possibility that had a large chance of success, Vijay let out a sigh of relief as he unknowingly seemed to have avoided a disaster by strengthening the empire before the Europeans could react.
If he had taken his time unifying the nation as he initially thought, maybe the Swiss mercenaries would not be the only people who came to cause hindrance, but maybe even the main armed forces in the colonies of Spain, the Dutch, and England would come to cause trouble.
Even a brainless idiot could think that a unified Indian subcontinent would be bad for business in Southeast Asia considering the type of business being done. However, the Europeans were extremely cunning and scheming, much less brainless idiots, They obviously knew the importance.
Now that Vijay thought of it, the Swiss mercenaries who came later and the Dutch armed forces who came before were all dispatched from the colony in Southeast Asia, further solidifying Vijay’s hypothesis.
Fortunately, the Mughals were stupid enough to accelerate their demise by themselves, doing a huge favour for Vijay. That’s right, if it weren’t for the Mughal nobles who lost all their sanity and blatantly enslaved people, made them war slaves, and arbitrarily increased the taxes, the war might have gone on longer, making things more complicated.
Fortunately, that did not happen, causing the wealthiest nation in the world to collapse within a few years.
Putting these thoughts aside, Vijay went on to read about the potential forces that had been contacted, and he had to say he was very satisfied since there was at least one or more partners in each region of Southeast Asia.
Looking through the various names and organizations and their strength, Vijay resolutely signed the trade agreement with the currency being the barter system.
Resistance Leader Tamblot in Luzon, Spanish Philippines, will be the main partner of the Bharatiya Empire, who will buy firearms and trade spices and rice in exchange.
Leader Juan Ponce Sumuroy will be the main trading partner in the region of Visayas, Spanish Philippines, who will trade abaca, sugar cane, fish, and seafood for firearms.
Hidden descendants of the Sultanate of Sulu and the Sultanate of Maguindanao will be the main trading partners of the Bharatiya Empire, trading pearls, tropical hardwoods, rice, and corn in exchange for firearms.
Surapati, the former slave resistance leader of Java, Dutch Indonesia, will be the main trading partner of the Bharatiya Empire, trading spices, rice, sugar, and tobacco in exchange for firearms.
Gusti Panji Sakti, the only living descendant of the Buleleng Dynasty, a defeated royal family in the region of Bali, is the main trading partner who will exchange rice, spices, livestock, and coconut in exchange for firearms.
A slave uprising has taken place in Johar, Dutch Malaysia, near the city of Malacca, and these slaves will be the main recipients of the firearms in exchange for rice, tropical fruits, and spices.
A local chief has been contacted near the British stronghold in Bengkulu (Bencoolen), who will exchange pepper, raisins, gums, and a small amount of gold for the firearms.
According to the deal concluded with the Sulawesi Confederation, the Confederation will act as the centre of operations for the Bharatiya Empire, conducting missions in the Southeast Asian region.
In exchange, not only will firearms from the Bharatiya Empire be provided at a 30% discounted price, but the Bharatiya Empire also signed a deal to help the Sulawesi Confederation take back the island of Maluku, which used to be their territory.
With one last check, Vijay finally passed his orders to Vinod in order to formalise the trade agreement formally.
At first glance, the monetary benefits gained from this trade are negligible at best, since there is no actual gold or silver involved. However, on top of there being no loss, the strategic gain is immeasurable. Even though the Bharatiya Empire is a large producer of food and can be self-sufficient, that was before the war started.
Now, with a lot of the northern part of the empire in disarray and grain production dropping sharply, finding this cheap source of food could alleviate the pressure on the southern side of the empire in food production.
Not only that, these new customers can be used to slowly phase out overcapacity in the military industry, providing a way for workers in factories to avoid losing their jobs immediately until new civilian industries are set up. Not to mention the security of the empire that could be highly improved if there is no European involvement towards the east of the empire.
Hence, although at face value this deal looks like a profitless business, it is actually a great gift from God to the empire.
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Having dealt with Southeast Asian affairs, Vijay went back to his work as a typical 9 to 5 office worker. However, looking at the increasing number of documents hour by hour, he grew impatient.
"This can’t go on," he said, his eyes bloodshot. He immediately fell into deep thought to figure out if there was something he could do. Fortunately, he immediately came up with a solution.
"Ganesh!" Vijay called out.
Ganesh, who was dealing with paperwork, was taken aback by the call from His Majesty and left his room.
Seeing Ganesh’s bloodshot eyes, Vijay felt a little sorry for him, but thinking about his own situation, he no longer felt sympathy.
"Ganesh, you can put aside what you are doing currently. I need you and your team to take up the task of forming the event committee."
"I need all 20 of you to be responsible for all the planning and inspection concerned with moving the capital and establishing the new empire."
"Here, take this. This is an outline I made for the events, and these are my plans for 4 to 5 events. Following this template, complete the rest of the planning and implementation within two weeks."
With his workload suddenly increasing, Ganesh did not know how to react. However, since his Majesty had relieved him of his previous duties, he felt that the task was doable, despite the tight deadline. Understanding that the event was on the 26th of January, he recognized the urgency and vowed to complete the task.
That’s right—Vijay chose Republic Day of India from his past life as the day for the empire’s establishment. Although no one would know the reasoning behind his decision, he himself was very happy and satisfied with it, and that was all that mattered.