21st January 1657
Vijay was very wise in establishing the event committee because, within the short span of three weeks, all the preparations for the nation-founding ceremony were thoroughly completed, which is about to take place in five days.
Throughout the three weeks, the event committee, headed by Ganesh, the main secretary of the emperor’s office, took charge of dividing the tasks among his subordinates, drawing outlines for various events, paying close attention to even the smallest of details, ensuring that the allocated resources were not wasted, coordinating with different units of the government, and scheduling a march demonstration with the military.
Unsurprisingly, the emperor’s office turned out to be very suitable for the task since, normally, except for the emperor’s office, no other administrative unit in the empire comes into contact with so many departments, whether they are military or civil.
The emperor’s office, being directly subordinate to the emperor, naturally has experience in coordinating orders between Vijay and the nation’s various departments.
Hence, when the emperor’s office directly coordinated large civilian units like the various ministries and military units like the Legions and Special Forces, there was no hesitation or hierarchical considerations involved in completing their assigned tasks.
In such a way, Bengaluru, fully decorated like a piece of art, is not only aesthetically pleasing but also functionally ready to take on the burden of being the capital of an empire spanning 4.5 million square kilometres.
Currently, in the streets of Bengaluru, more than civilians, civil servants are roaming around with urgency on their faces. Carriages from all over the empire are moving into Bengaluru. Fortunately, due to the city being designed to withstand a population multiple times what it currently holds, there is no congestion.
These carriages travelled to various buildings considered the main attractions of the city, mostly run by the government, as these places were the various ministries and their headquarters, constantly being filled with necessities and fundamentals of the said ministries.
The parliamentary building of the Bharatiya Empire, a massive building rivalling that of a Roman gladiatorial arena, has already been decorated inside and out.
The new royal palace of the Deva Raya family, a fortified block on the edge of the city, resembles a small city within a city, similar to how the Kremlin is within Moscow of Russia. The palace also has a name, Śaurya, meaning "valour" in Bharati script.
Śaurya is not even the only palace that Vijay has within Bengaluru. There is also another one, but this one is in the city centre, much closer to the parliamentary building, constructed using the Vidhana Soudha of Vijay’s past life as a blueprint and magnifying its size. This palace, which is clearly meant to display the might and strength of the empire, is larger than the Śaurya Royal Palace.
That is to be expected since this palace is meant as a display of the empire’s majesty while the Śaurya Royal Palace is meant for practicality.
This palace within the city centre also has a name, called Siṃhāsanabhavana, meaning "House of the Throne," personally named by Vijay. As the name suggests, this palace is meant for the monarch of the nation, be it for Vijay or anyone who succeeds him. That is to say, if Agni is not fit enough to become an emperor and someone else is, then this palace will be owned by that person.
This system is very similar to the White House system in the United States.
The same does not apply to the Śaurya Royal Palace, since it comes under the direct assets of the Deva Raya family, while the Siṃhāsanabhavana comes under the property of the nation.
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Putting aside the change of the capital, a lot of things have taken place within the span of three weeks. For one, cargo ships carrying firearms were officially shipped three weeks ago, their destination being Nicobar.
Firearms are being unloaded on the island of Nicobar, and from there, with the help of smaller merchant vessels with drafts of 10 to 100 tons, these ships go to Southeast Asian countries.
Dutch Indonesia is the first recipient of these goods since it is nearer, whereas the Sulawesi Confederation is the next, as it acts as a transfer node for Bharat in reaching the easternmost parts of Indonesia, parts of the Philippines, and other regions.
These cargo ships, after delivery is completed, are docked in the port of Nicobar for a few days until their capacity is filled with traded goods from Southeast Asia, the majority of which are rice, spices, and other food items.
These vessels, once reloaded, immediately set off for the port of Kolkata because the northern parts of India are in more demand for food than the south.
In the last three weeks, 16,000 tons of food have been shipped as 23 Bhima-class cargo ships were put into action.
With this support, food security in the regions of Bengal and Uttar Pradesh has greatly improved. Although the situation was not initially better in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Kashmir, Lahore, and Sindh, the pressure on the southern states was significantly alleviated due to the temporary food needs of the northeastern states being fulfilled.
Consequently, support for these northwestern states increased further, alleviating some of their food security problems.
In the meantime, the rebels in Southeast Asia have already begun to move as they have received the firearms that they were promised. For the past few weeks, continuous training of guerrillas has been going on within various resistance camps, and these people might strike at any time.
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Two weeks ago...
"Your Majesty, I want to control the demobilization of the military to the lowest possible amount. We are not able to put these veteran soldiers in middle-income jobs as promised since there are not enough jobs for these soldiers to take over."
"Additionally, even though the transformation of military industries to civilian is taking place, it is not happening fast enough, Your Majesty. We need a solution immediately," Vinod said, his face filled with panic.
Vijay frowned as this was a tricky problem. Even though various steps have been taken to avoid this issue, it seems like the scale is too large to anticipate all the things that could go wrong. So he immediately fell into deep thought.
’Putting these soldiers in the civil construction sector is out of the question since not only will the soldiers feel let down, but this will also reduce the respect and status that is given to a soldier within society. What would happen if a war veteran went home and worked on a construction site as a coolie?’ Thinking about such scenes, Vijay immediately rejected them.
’No matter how you look at it, the soldiers are best placed in industrial enterprises as workers since with these disciplined soldiers, the quality code could be strictly followed, elevating the product quality of Bharatiya civilian products, which might improve the brand image of products made in India as cheap and quality goods to the customers.’
’But here comes another problem: what to do with workers who were previously working in these factories and new workers who are coming into the field?’
There was a look of confusion on Vijay’s face. However, Making the decision was something that was unavoidable since he had no choice. He was at a dead end, and he had to choose whose interests he had to compromise. However, he did not hesitate for long, as being on the battlefield for so long gave him a decisive character.
"Vinod, draft a bill to give industrial work priority to these veteran soldiers who could not stay in the army. As for the recruitment in the civilian field, only allow for the brightest minds to be recruited," Vijay said, his face resolute.
"But Your Majesty, this will cause a large amount of unemployment within the civilian population," Vinod said, his tone tinged with worry.
"Immediately start construction projects throughout the northern part of the empire. This should immediately fill up the labour gap in the market," Vijay said.
Vinod was stunned as he knew that the empire had expanded by nearly 3 million square kilometres after defeating the Mughal Empire. How large the infrastructure work is and how much it is going to cost, he did not know the numbers, but he knew that this is not something the Bharatiya Empire could bear.
Vijay, understanding the thoughts of Vinod, did not give him a chance to ask the question as he explained, "Don’t worry, I don’t want full infrastructure like we have in the south. What I need is a backbone of infrastructure that connects one major city to another.
Although it is still very expensive with our current finances, the gold obtained from the Mughals should make it reluctantly possible to be done."
Vinod let out a sigh of relief. Although he felt the decision was a bit extreme, it effectively addressed many societal problems brought about by the transition from a military industry to a civilian one and from a socio-economic model to a capitalistic economic model.
On 19th January 1657, the Veteran Employment Bill was passed by the government, guaranteeing the employment of military veterans in middle-class earning jobs.
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At the same time, the Department of Road Planning and Maintenance under the Ministry of Transportation came up with an infrastructure construction bill to connect all the main northern cities to the backbone infrastructure road network of the Bharatiya Empire, at the same time opening up millions of jobs across the empire.
Some people in society quickly realized that it had become nearly impossible to gain a job in an industrial factory unless their achievements were enormous. Naturally, these people protested, but since they were going against the interests of the military and their own interests were not too large, the problem caused was not too big.
They themselves eventually gave up and joined the construction group.
With the ambitious plan of linking every major city in the empire, cement production exploded, with annual production reaching hundreds of thousands of tons and increasing day by day.
All of this was possible only because the military-economic system was still used to direct the transition until it eventually transitioned itself and completely let go of its stronghold on the economy.
Overall, the current Bharatiya Empire is bustling with activity, and everyone is busy, all having something to do in this empire-building spree that happens once in 1,000 years.