Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 1118

Chapter 1118: Battleship Ramachandra (1)

The sky above the printing press in Nagpur turned grey from the smoke of the steam engines, attracting the attention of the soldiers guarding it. Thankfully, it did not raise any suspicion, as the soldiers were not surprised for long.

For them, although the situation was rare, it was not like they had never seen it before. Monetary press, apart from the currency of the empire, also printed the bond paper used in legal documents. Millions of these bond papers were needed every month, so the soldiers simply thought that the bond papers were being printed and didn’t think much of it, but unknown to them, the production of the bond paper had been shifted to a different monetary press, while hundreds of thousands of varaha were printed every day in the one they were guarding.

From the government’s end, the Ministry of External Affairs requested that foreign countries to trade with the Bharatiya Empire using varaha instead of precious metals or barter.

A week later, this exact request was put forward in front of Ezidi Serwan.

Looking at the request letter given to him by the diplomat of the Bharatiya Empire, Serwan was left confused. ‘Isn’t paying with minerals more convenient? Why is this required? ‘ He asked himself, and, in the end, he was left with no answer.

But since he could exchange the resources in his hands for varaha by selling them to the merchants of the Bharatiya Empire, he did not feel too troubled and readily agreed.

Many kings across Africa, Arabia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia thought of the same thing and readily agreed to the request. After all, they had already started hoarding varaha, so what was the problem in hording more. At most they would sell their resources, exports, or services to the Bharatiya merchants and use the money obtained to purchase what they wanted, but Emperor Zhu Yu Lang was an exception. He realised things were not that simple.

He faintly felt with his intuition that the Bharatiya Empire was trying to impose its influence over Ming in a new way, but he could not figure out how. ‘How does it benefit the Bharatiya Empire if the trade is done using varaha?’ He asked himself multiple times, alas, with no answer, because he imagined how it would benefit the Ming if the Bharatiya Empire started to trade with the Ming Empire only using silver taels, and he still could not understand what the catch was.

In the end, he couldn’t help but ask his trusted courtier, Tang Li.

Sadly, though, Tang Li shook his head as he kowtowed on the ground, ” I am not able to guess it either, your majesty, but do we have an option? Without the industrial machines of the Bharatiya Empire, we will be left behind by those small countries down South.”

Hearing the reply, Zhu Yu Lang felt depressed. ‘ For 2000 years, the Western Heaven has influenced this land without sending a single soldier; is history going to repeat again? ‘ He couldn’t help but let out a turbulent breath.

Moments of awkward silence later, he suddenly stood up, a switch flipped in his mind, and his expression changed, becoming more serious. ” We’re going to increase the investment in education “, he ordered, his eyes firm. ” The Bharatiya Empire laid a foundation for its current domination three decades ago. If we have to keep up with this behemoth and not be left behind, and not to be hopeless, we should lay a solid foundation as well. ”

Tang Li suddenly hesitated, ” It is as it should be, your majesty, but those people in the West are still so unruly. How do we deal with them? ”

Hearing this, Zhu Yu Lang became ruthless, ” Warn them one more time, if they agree to reason, then it’s for the better, but if they disagree, then there is no need to negotiate, my sword and cannons will tell them the answer. ”

Tang Li immediately shivered, ” I will immediately relay your instructions to General Li Dingguo, your majesty. ”

” Good “, Zhu Yu Lang nodded, his eyes extremely cold.

Zhu Yu Lang had originally planned to introduce empire-wide Mandarin education to all ethnic groups after the unrest in the new western province was settled. The people of the new western province were extremely unruly and refused to yield, so he intended to slowly wear down their resistance, like stone carved by a continuous flow of water. Until then, he was willing to tolerate certain problems in the empire, including its dependence on the Bharatiya Empire for bureaucratic training and higher education.

From what he had observed, the students who returned from Bharatiya institutions were truly top-tier in ability, but they also seemed to develop a slight fondness for the Western Heaven. This made him uneasy. Originally, he felt this problem could be solved once stability returned to the West. But with the Bharatiya Empire suddenly announcing a policy that required Varaha for all trade, his unease grew sharper. He felt he could no longer remain still; he needed to act, and act quickly.

14th April 1694

While undercurrents surged in the Ming Empire, Vijay was on his way to Colombo, where the secret research laboratory of the Bharatiya Navy was housed.

It has been nearly six months since Vijay put forward the task of designing a new generation of battleship for the Empire’s navy, which would eventually be the flagship and the most powerful battleship of the Bharatiya Empire. In fact, Vijay got the designs barely one month after he put forward the task, and as he had guessed, each design bureau excelled in some aspect of the design better than others, and considering the proposals of all the design bureaus, 4 design bureaus and four chief designers were selected for designing the flagship.

Finally, after 5 months since the design started in the secret laboratory, he got the notice that the design was ready and he was welcomed to inspect.

Arriving at Colombo, he was immediately received by Danior Boswell, Vishesh Niladri, Anant Raj Shetty, and Ghana Prabhu Berunda, the chief designers from all four design bureaus that were selected this time.

Entering the laboratory, he met up with their teams, but aside from them, what got his attention was the model of the ship that was placed at the centre of the laboratory. It was a sleek, streamlined ship, looking like a beautiful mermaid born to cut through the waves, and like the great white shark ready to hunt.

Danior Boswell knew the emperor well enough to understand that he was no longer interested in getting to know their teams, so, being the person who was responsible for the hull and layout foundation of the ship, he started to introduce the battleship, which he could say was his best work yet, despite him only being partially responsible for its design.

” The new flagship, code-named Bheema, is a full metal battleship of the Bharatiya Empire, utilising all the empire’s best technologies. ”

” It has a standard displacement of 2650 tonnes and a full load displacement of 2850 tonnes. It is over 85 metres long and 15.5 metres wide. ”

” It uses the Chamundi WI 500 armour steel as its hull material, along with two chimneys for exhaust gases. ”

” I have designed the ship to be built according to my new metal rolling and interlocking process, which allows for exceptional stability of the ship, with its metacentric height, transverse metacentre, centre of gravity, righting arm, angle of vanishing stability, and maximum safe operating heel, all reaching over 40% more than the previous ships. ”

Hearing the data, Vijay’s eyebrows raised. There has been a lot of theoretical work at the physics department at the Bharatiya Institute of Civilian Sciences and the Nalanda Institute of Fundamental Sciences, so a lot of parameters were being discovered every year, and among them were the new ways to measure the stability of the ship, studying how much it can tilt before it collapses and its various parameters.

What was unexpected was, he did not think it would be put into practical use so soon, but of course, he was not complaining since he was the one who asked to use the cutting edge of technology. Putting his surprise aside, he could tell that the ship layout put forward by Danior was extremely advanced, focusing on stability, leaving Vijay satisfied.

This was why he picked the Boswell design bureau. As the oldest and most decorated design bureau of the empire, even though in recent times it had gotten the label of being somewhat conservative, when it comes to building reliable ships, no design firm in the world could match the work done by Danier Boswell and his team. From what he witnessed in the design, he was not wrong. Danier did not make him regret his decision.

Danior Boswell stepped back, and Vishesh Neladri, along with Ananth Raj Shetty, came forward.

Looking at their backs, Danior Boswell and Ganaprabu Berunda had complicated expressions. Both Vishesh Niladri and Anant Raj Shetty were disciples of Danior Boswell and Ganaprabu Berunda, but they joined other research bureaus in order to become chief designers and lead their own bureaus.

Originally, they were very resentful, and they felt like they were stabbed in the back, but as time went on, they did understand that young eagles needed to fly on their own, or else they wouldn’t be eagles, just sitting ducks. And when they worked together on this project, it left them even more impressed. They had an illusion that the disciples they knew and the young men they were working with were two completely different people. The ideas were extremely refreshing, even giving old fogies like them a run for their money.

To be Continued…

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