Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

23rd June 1661

Akhand Bharatiya Empire, Imperial Capital Bengaluru, Simhasana Bhavana

Vijay sat together with Jaishankar, looking at him with doubt. "Are you sure about this?" He questioned, his eyebrows wrinkled.

Jaishankar nodded without hesitation, "Yes, Your Majesty, I am very sure. Even though at the beginning of his career he had a few hiccups, he has learnt a lot from his mistakes and has become one of the rising stars in the ministry. I firmly believe Rajendra Varma would be excellent to lead the embassy in the Toungoo Dynasty."

Vijay looked into his eyes for a while and slowly nodded, "Well, alright then."

Signing the appointment letters, Vijay finally stood up as he was about to go to the gym to get his evening workout in for the day, but he remembered he hadn't enquired about the arrangements made for the diplomats.

"Oh, by the way, have the Southeast Asian countries arranged a place for the embassy?"

Jaishankar, getting up, nodded, preparing to leave. "Yes, Your Majesty, the Southeast Asian diplomats handed over the land deed documents, each with hundreds of acres in the capital, to the Ministry of External Affairs as soon as they formally paid a visit to my office."

"That's good then," Vijay nodded. Hundreds of acres in any capital is not a small amount, but he did not feel like he was ripping off the weaker nations because, even though the embassy of ASEAN nations was only a plot of land of about 80 x 60 feet in Bangalore, its worth is currently about twice or thrice that of the hundreds of acres of land in the capitals of various Southeast Asian countries. It is actually the Bharatiya Empire that is taking a loss.

Maybe in the future, when the value of land in the ASEAN countries appreciates due to urbanization, it would be the other way around, where the empire would actually be taking advantage due to its higher status, but for now, it is not too unacceptable.

Vijay thought for a while and gave out a series of orders.

"The embassies—let them be as grand as possible, comparable to the Mangaluru Stock Exchange building. I need the buildings to represent the strength of the Bharatiya Empire. I need nine different Architectural styles for nine different countries. Demolish the already existing embassies in the Kingdom of Mindanao, Sulawesi Confederation, and the United States of Philippines, and rebuild them brand new with newer specifications."

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"The design philosophy will be a fusion of both Bharatiya and local cultures. I need this work to blend in perfectly to show an image of harmony and friendship."

"I remembered that all major infrastructure works in Nakkavaram Bay (Great Nicobar) are almost completed. You can directly employ Vajra Karma to design the Bharatiya Embassy with input from local designers."

"Put out a tender for all Southeast Asian architects and Bharatiya construction companies and let them work together to build the Embassy buildings in the capitals of various ASEAN countries ."

Jaishankar noted everything down. "I will get it done, Your Majesty. Please leave it to me."

Vijay smiled in approval and left.

The very next day, the diplomats representing the Bharatiya Empire in various Southeast Asian nations were made public.

*Bharatham Daily*, the top newspaper of the Empire, naturally made this the headline and published all the achievements and history of the diplomats chosen.

The Southeast Asian diplomats who were in the Bharatiya Empire smiled happily with the Bharatiya Empire making it public that they would be sending diplomats to Southeast Asian countries.

---

Few days passed uneventfully. Vijay felt like he was working on a 9-to-5 schedule where his whole day's itinerary involved taking care of Kavya, showing his face at certain games of Pro rugby league, handling the day-to-day matters of the war in the Middle East, and finally verifying and inspecting how far the megaprojects of the Empire had progressed.

In such an orderly schedule, everything was suddenly thrown out of whack when Vijay received an SSS classified intelligence report from the Bharatiya External Pragya, which was hand-delivered by Roshan himself.

Vijay was doing his back exercises at that time, but when he saw the seriousness on Roshan's face, he immediately dropped the *Gadda* weighing over 70 to 80 kilograms with a thud.

Wiping the sweat with a towel, Vijay sat down, took over the classified document, and swiftly read through it.

Vijay's expression immediately fell, his eyes became sharp, and his brows knitted. "Is this true?" he asked, staring at Roshan.

Roshan straightened his back and nodded gravely. "Unfortunately, it is, Your Majesty. The news has been verified."

Vijay rubbed his forehead. He was now having a headache. A lot of countermeasures appeared in his mind, starting from completely stopping the export of ordnance to Europe to assassinating the important scientists in Europe who were responsible for the research, but most of the plans he came up with were very unreliable. In such a way, being alone with his thoughts, unknowingly 20 minutes had passed. Roshan, not even fidgeting, sat in the same place waiting for his orders. Finally, getting some clarity in his mind, 'fuck it,' Vijay made a decision. He would revamp the whole ordinance of the Bharatiya Empire—it was time to bring about a new generation of weaponry.

"I will take care of this matter. You can leave now," Vijay ordered.

Roshan saluted and decisively left.

Vijay knew that the Europeans had been researching and planning to make their own weaponry, especially the main rifle which would be a military issue for major armies that was no weaker than the Bharatiya rifle, but he did not expect them to do it so soon. You have to know, before the Bharatiya Empire put rifles in the hands of each soldier, the Europeans still used swords and spears and relied on ancient cold weapon war tactics, while hot weapons were only auxiliary.

Vijay had at least hoped that it would give him several decades of leeway, but unfortunately, he seemed to have miscalculated the adaptability of the Europeans—scratch that—he seemed to have miscalculated the adaptability of humans. Because even in his last life, China went from having nothing to being the world's second most powerful military in only a few decades. It made up for the technological backwardness that should have taken several lifetimes in just 20 to 30 years. So Vijay should not have hoped for anything else. And as for how the development of weapons throughout major countries in Europe was so coincidental...

He could only find one logical reason for this situation, and that was because the Dutch, French, and English might be sharing their technology with each other, as he could already vaguely sense them being more than just a simple military alliance. Thinking about it, the arrival of Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia was starting to make more sense. He had just thought that William felt a sense of crisis because the Holy Roman Emperor's governing philosophy seemed to be to maintain the empire's land with stability and have enough deterrence against the neighbours, but it seemed like William had already smelled the advancement in industrial military capabilities of major European nations.

Thinking about this, his eyes became sharp and piercing.

'To have six knockoffs, tsk tsk tsk.'

He was not too surprised by the Russians, Venetians, Portuguese, and Spanish creating a knockoff since the Bharatiya Empire constantly exported the advanced rifles of the Bharatiya Empire, but the knockoffs of the British and the Dutch were a little surprising.

If Vijay was being completely honest, even if he knew the knockoffs were made because of his exporting firearms to Europe, and even if he did not want this situation to happen, he was in the end helpless. Because if he completely stopped exporting firearms to Europe—the Bharatiya Empire's current biggest market for ordnance—it would almost cripple the arms industry in the Bharatiya Empire. It was using the money earned from Europe that the Bharatiya Empire was able to fund and give friendly prices to Middle Eastern countries to resist the mighty Ottoman Empire despite being children in comparison.

What's more, the whole reason the arms industry is one of the pillars of the Bharatiya Empire's economy is because of the mass production of ordnance that is outclassing each and every nation in the world. If Vijay abruptly shuts down exports to Europe, he wouldn't be surprised if there was a small-scale economic collapse in the stock market due to the sudden collapse in steel demand.

Letting out a turbulent breath, Vijay read through the intelligence report one last time, where all the weaponry had been rated in their various specifications when compared to the Bharatiya Shakti Percussion Musket. Shakti is the new name given to the Brown Bess musket after it has been modified with percussion lock technology, which makes it more reliable and more usable in damp and wet conditions.

This technology was invented after the invention of the 5th generation of machine tools by one of the private design firms.

The French Charleville Musket is rated four stars for reliability because of its reliable flintlock design and simple maintenance. Its rate of firing is also rated four stars for smooth loading and three rounds per minute. The accuracy is at four stars, as it gives consistent accuracy at short to medium range, and its effective range is at four stars, given that it has a range of 274 meters. Its muzzle velocity has four stars for stable 350 meters per second velocity, and its handling was rated five stars for its light and easy-to-maneuver build. Overall, it has been rated 4.3 out of five.

The English Charles Type Two Musket has been rated four stars for reliability, four stars for the rate of fire, four stars for accuracy, four stars for effective range, and five stars for muzzle velocity as it is capable of reaching velocities of up to 550 meters per second, five stars for handling, and overall it achieves a rating of 4.5 stars.

The Russian Tula Dragunov Musket is rated three stars in reliability as it is very strong in cold conditions, but the flintlock struggles when wet. It is rated two stars in the rate of fire, four stars in accuracy, four stars in effective range, four stars in muzzle velocity, and two stars in handling, and overall it has been rated 3.2 stars.

The Venetian Leone di Venezia achieved three stars in reliability, three stars in rate of fire, two stars in accuracy, two stars in effective range, two stars in muzzle velocity, five stars in handling, and three stars in overall rating.

The Portuguese Lisboa Terço Musket achieves four stars in reliability, four stars in rate of fire, four stars in accuracy, four stars in effective range, five stars in muzzle velocity, and four stars in handling. Overall, it has been rated 4.2 stars.

The Spanish Toledo Trueno is rated four stars in reliability, four stars in rate of fire, five stars in accuracy, four stars in effective range, five stars in muzzle velocity, four stars in handling, and 4.5 stars in overall rating.

The Dutch Amsterdam Storm Musket is rated four stars in reliability, four stars in rate of fire, four stars in accuracy, four stars in effective range, four stars in muzzle velocity, five stars in handling, and a total rating of 4.3 stars.

Compared to all the guns and weapons he had seen, the Shakti rifle—the upgraded version of the military-issue Brown Bess rifle—is still a superior weapon as it has a reliability that allows it to have ignition in any conditions. Its rate of fire can go up to five rounds per minute, it is very accurate due to its rifling, it has an effective range of over 300 meters on a fixed target and over 500 meters on a field target, and it has a maximum muzzle velocity of over 600 meters per second, making it the best muzzle-loading rifle in the world.

However, Vijay knew that he could not sit on his laurels forever, so he immediately set off to his study room and planned for a complete overhaul in the ordnance of the Bharatiya Empire. The best way to deal with the current situation is to make your own technology so advanced that even if design drawings are given to the other party in hand, they will not be able to manufacture it.

In fact, this has already somewhat worked because all the guns rated four stars and above are from countries that have Invented industrial manufacturing capabilities of at least third-generation machine tools standard. The only countries getting lower ratings are the Russians and the Venetians, who, despite getting a lot of help from the Bharatiya Empire, do not seem to have a knack for manufacturing. It is either that, or they have become too reliant on the Bharatiya Empire, and they do not even care to make their own weapons as best as possible since Bharatiya weapons are always cheaper than whatever they produce.

Either way, it was at least one piece of good news that Vijay was happy about.