Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

20th December 1657

It has been a few months since Vijay started the trip around the nation, and during these months, he had fully inspected all the states in the empire and had decided on the economic growth models for each and every one of these states.

Additionally, During these trips, Vijay saw with his own eyes the persistent problems plaguing the northern part of the empire, the problems that had already been completely resolved in the south. Basic necessities like transportation, education, and personal security were nonexistent in these northern states.

Though nominally part of the empire, the vast majority of the population and resources in the north operated without any real government supervision.

The reason is simply because there aren’t enough personnel, either in the police force or in the civil service. No matter how quickly Vijay had the university students graduate, he still couldn’t fill the huge gap in professional shortages. If Vijay proceeded to reduce the requirements even further, he would be shooting himself in the foot.

Vijay had seen that due to the inadequate number of government workers in each northern state, only the cities and major towns were fully under the control of the local administrators, while the rest of the region, which occupies about 90%, could only be ruled partially.

Due to the shortage of police, except for cities and major towns, the police in the rest of the areas were spread out thinly, making The policemen assigned in these villages more like figureheads of the government than actual enforcers of the law and protectors of internal security. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

In the worst cases, there is only a single police officer, along with a few constables he had recruited locally, for every four to five villages. In this age, while people are not too knowledgeable about the world and don’t usually think of the consequences, they even dare to rush to the police station and beat up the police if they find them too annoying.

After many such similar cases, police stations have become brokers in settling large disputes rather than upholding the law. The police are simply not equipped to deal with the wrath of the locals.

Vijay witnessed an example of this while travelling through the region of Jharkhand. His carriage passed through a remote village, and before he could grasp what was happening, hundreds of people rushed into the village and began destroying everything in sight. The villagers quickly took up weapons and started fighting the invaders.

Vijay soon understood that it was a dispute between two villages over one village’s cows being killed by people from the other village. He wanted to take action but, seeing the arrival of a group of policemen, he decided to wait for them to handle the situation. Since Vijay was travelling as a rich merchant, his royal emblems were fully covered, and he was not recognized.

To his surprise, the policemen did not arrest anyone but instead mediated the dispute between the villagers with pained expressions on their faces, as they were unknowingly struck in various places by the enraged crowd. The police simply became punching bags for the two parties, Lamentably enduring the abuse; fortunately, they were equipped with riot shields that offered some level of protection.

If those had not been available, Vijay was sure the policemen would have been beaten bloody. Observing the surrounding people to see if anyone objected, Vijay was surprised to notice hints of disdain in their eyes. He even heard the jeering of the crowd: "I heard this guy is a new police officer appointed to our region.

When he first came, I thought he was powerful; now look at him, he’s getting beaten so badly." "Yeah, he should mind his own business. Why is he meddling in the disputes of our village?" Vijay soon concluded that, in the eyes of these people, the police held very little respect. Maybe the police were seen as just annoying men in khaki clothes.

Unable to let the fight continue, Vijay ordered his guards to put an end to it. The policemen were grateful for someone stopping the fight and rescuing them, but upon seeing the weapons in the hands of the guards, the head policeman was taken aback. He gave a stern warning to the "merchant" not to take the law into his own hands.

However, upon seeing the emblem inside the carriage, the policeman immediately recognized who he was dealing with and saluted Vijay.

This event left a very deep impression on Vijay, as he immediately realized that he had to find a way to solve this problem when he returned. Otherwise, not to mention industrialization, even the unity of the nation would be destroyed. Everything he had achieved and was proud of would disappear like a passing cloud.

Fortunately, not everything Vijay saw in the northern part of the empire was bad, as there were indeed some highlights and even a surprise. Although the northern part of the empire lacked many things, Strategic Infrastructure and communication stations were not among them.

Due to Vijay’s relentless insistence on infrastructure construction, especially strategic backbone infrastructure, the Bharatiya Empire has nearly 4 million workers directly involved in road construction and almost 9 to 12 million working in related industries.

Currently, infrastructure construction is the empire’s most money-burning project, so much so that nearly 30% of the resources obtained from Europe are being funnelled into the overall infrastructure construction of the North, with road construction alone occupying a staggering 18.62% of the budget.

The establishment of communication channels takes second place with 6.25%, and the remaining is allocated to the construction of schools, colleges, police stations, panchayats, land audit and management bureaus, courts, and other important public properties.

However, Vijay was not very annoyed by the result and even felt that 18.62% was not too much, since with this constant investment, every major city in the North has a main national backbone-level road connecting to the larger road network of the empire increasing the trade channels with every road built. Additionally, each city has an integrated communication channel connecting to each other.

Every one of them has a university, multiple colleges, numerous schools, and a large number of public facilities.

On paper, every major city in the North has specifications equal to those of any major city in the South. Although the rest of the area is still not developed, Vijay was not worried, since the current development is progressing quickly.

With each major city connected, each node is added to the expansive road network of the Bharatiya Empire, which acts as the artery of the empire’s circulation system.

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Vijay’s experience travelling from city to city was very pleasant, even a bit more pleasant than in the southern part of the empire, as there wasn’t any traffic anywhere. Vijay thought this could be because there wasn’t enough commerce circulating in the North, but he also knew there was some other factor involved.

Hence, Vijay grew curious and summoned the local contractor while travelling through a city in the western part of Bengal.

Lokesh Kalyan is the nephew of Pavan Kalyan, the patriarch of the Kalyan family, the owners of the largest infrastructure construction Company in the Bharatiya Empire. He was initially nervous when His Majesty summoned him, but after understanding why, he greatly relaxed.

"Your Majesty, this is because we use an algorithm researched by a scientist at the Bharatiya Academy of Civilian Science."

Vijay was surprised. "Who is this scientist?"

"He is called Bavish Jain, Your Majesty. He was the one who came up with the algorithm named Jain’s Betweenness Centrality."

’What!’

Vijay was taken aback, as he remembered there was an algorithm with the same name in his past timeline, which was mostly used for network analysis. Vijay was intrigued. "Tell me more about this algorithm you speak of."

Lokesh was momentarily silent as he recalled the words spoken by Bavish during his presentation. "Ah, right!"

"Betweenness centrality is an algorithm that measures the importance of a road within a road network based on the number of shortest paths that pass through it." Fearing that His Majesty would not understand, Lokesh used the example he was given.

"Basically, the algorithm quantifies how often a road acts as a bridge between two or more cities, and depending on how often the road is used, its importance is measured. With this importance known, arrangements can be made to improve the road’s efficiency and effectiveness by various methods."

"If I remember correctly, when Mr Jain gave the presentation, he did mention that his betweenness centrality could work together with the Linear Ant Traffic Flow Algorithm and Bidirectional Ant Traffic Flow Algorithm used before, and further improve transportation efficiency and avoid road blockages as much as possible."

Vijay was listening to the explanation with an interested expression on his face, but internally he was greatly shocked because this betweenness centrality was indeed the algorithm he knew from his past life. The only change was that instead of nodes, it was cities, towns, or key intersections, and instead of edges, it was roads.

The ant traffic flow algorithm was the same algorithm used to design various capital cities in the southern part of the empire to avoid too much congestion, Linear and bidirectional are just the two types of the same algorithm. It basically placed ants at various points to find the shortest and most efficient route.

Vijay concluded that these two algorithms, put together, would fully solve the transportation efficiency problem of the Bharatiya Empire for many centuries to come.

The Bharatiya Empire’s theoretical basis in road construction is now at the most optimum and efficient level, capable of withstanding a population of even a billion people.

Planning has ceased to be a bottleneck in the Bharatiya Empire.

Vijay was very happy in his heart, so he decided to reward this algorithm scientist greatly when he returned to the capital.

For now, Vijay is going to the last state in his tour: Uttar Pradesh.