Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

January 9th, 1658

Akhand Bharatiya Empire, Imperial Capital Bengaluru

The atmosphere is solemn within the parliament’s main conference room.

The delegations of both the Bharatiya Empire and the Spanish Empire finally met and began the initial process of negotiation.

The delegation of the Spanish Empire is led by the Valido of the Spanish Empire, Count Don Álvaro de Mendoza, while the delegation of the Bharatiya Empire is led by the Prime Minister of the Bharatiya Empire, Vinod.

The main negotiators for the Spanish Empire and the Bharatiya Empire are Pedro Santiago and S. Jaishankar, respectively.

Apart from these four people, the rest of the individuals in the conference room act as consultants for the trade deal. For example, a few nobles from the Spanish Empire who were proficient in finance and had been working in the Treasury were within the Spanish delegation to assist with the arithmetic operations.

Similarly, in the Bharatiya Empire, Finance Minister Jagannath Mohan attended the negotiation to provide guidance during the negotiation and ensure no unreasonable concessions were made.

The Spanish Valido Álvaro de Mendoza had come to value the Bharatiya Empire more and more after staying up all night to study the social situation within the Bharatiya Empire, especially after reading the newspapers published over the last few months.

The conclusion he reached was that the Bharatiya Empire was a highly unified society with a highly developed social structure, which was very unlikely to be influenced by outside factors. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Even though he was proud of his Latin culture and was complacent when he arrived in the Bharatiya Empire, thinking that by exporting Spanish culture and tradition, i.e., Roman Catholicism, the influence of the Spanish Empire would immediately increase in the Bharatiya Empire, a nation that did not have a unified religion but worshipped countless false gods across various castes and tribal groups.

Álvaro initially thought that with the introduction of Christianity, the false pagan religion of Hinduism would immediately collapse like butter in a hot pan.

But sadly, he was greatly mistaken and disappointed, noticing the sheer depth of Bharatiya culture, in which Hinduism was only a small part of the iceberg. With such a realisation, all the confidence Álvaro had in his plan crumbled after reading the newspaper.

Not to mention the citizens of the Bharatiya Empire—even he was mesmerized by the various stories, literary works, and artistic descriptions mentioned in the newspaper.

From his brief consumption of the newspaper, he witnessed the culture of the Bharatiya Empire, the Vedic culture, which was older than his Latin culture, showing signs of not only recovery but also further progress, while the influence of Latin culture was being diluted one year at a time.

Apart from realizing the huge disparity in cultural richness and depth, he realized how devastating it would be if the Spanish Empire launched an all-out war on the Bharatiya Empire.

As the Valido of His Majesty Charles Balthasar de Habsburgo, he was confident in the war capabilities of the Spanish Empire. Despite being severely damaged by the Thirty Years’ War and the conflict with the Portuguese, the empire still loomed as a formidable force, and no one in Europe would provoke it unnecessarily. He intended to leverage this strength to gain an upper hand in the negotiations.

However, after learning about the societal structure of the Bharatiya Empire, where every citizen is obliged to take up some sort of military service once in a while and where every teenager in schools and colleges is required to undergo military training for the first month of the school year, Álvaro immediately understood that the Bharatiya Empire was the least afraid of war.

Álvaro discovered a very horrifying fact: even with such horrifying strength, the Bharatiya Empire was only utilizing 40 to 45% of its population base to gain such power.

Since most of the northern part of the empire, where the largest population lies, was still not fully integrated within the Bharatiya Empire, and once that happened, Álvaro couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of what a nation filled with 50-90 million potential combatants would look like.

Álvaro realized that the Bharatiya Empire could actually be a threat to the Western dominance of the world, but sadly, he couldn’t do anything about it. Even if he explained his discoveries to the leaders of other countries, no one would believe him. On the contrary, due to his high position, they would think he was plotting something.

On the other hand, if he somehow convinced His Majesty Charles Balthasar to act on his own along with a few collaborators, he had no confidence in disrupting the integration of the northern part of the Bharatiya Empire with the southern part. The subcontinent was in such a golden geographic position that the only way to get to the northern part of the empire was through the southern part.

And to get through this southern part of the empire, which has military mobilization capabilities of at least three million soldiers, the Spanish would have to expend almost all of their military might, along with their collaborators. Adding to this, the fact that Bharat is so far away from Europe only worsens the situation.

One option could be to act through the Safavid Empire on the western side of the Bharatiya Empire, but sadly, in order to get through the Safavid Empire, Europe would have to deal with the Ottoman Empire.

Coming to this conclusion, Álvaro immediately knew that things were impossible since who would be stupid enough to negotiate peace with a nearby enemy who was very strong, very ambitious, and had evil intentions toward their territory In order to fight a further enemy who was very strong, very ambitious, and had essentially no probability of having any territorial claims on their own territory?

At most, the competition would be for the colonies.

Not to mention other European kingdoms and empires, even Don Álvaro de Mendoza, who fully understood the horror of the Bharatiya Empire, would not be willing to make this decision even if he had the power to do so. Coming back to reality, he chose to never be the enemy of the Bharatiya Empire, and he chose to be as close to the Bharatiya Empire as possible and find out their future goals.

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Vinod, who had been brought in by Jaishankar to provide some support as he was lacking in status compared to Valido, kicked things off.

"Your Excellency Don Álvaro de Mendoza, I’m very grateful that the Spanish Empire has chosen to accept our proposal and establish a trade deal between our two nations for the transfer of the Philippine archipelago to the Bharatiya Empire."

Listening to the opening remark, Álvaro’s eyebrows twitched, as he immediately knew that the prime minister of the Bharatiya Empire was completely ignoring the fact that it was the Bharatiya Empire that launched an attack on the Philippines first and annexed it, initially offending the Spanish Empire.

However, Álvaro did not want to refute the Bharatiya prime minister either, as he did not want to bring up unhappy matters that would make the negotiation process more tedious. Instead, his focus was on the promises made by the Bharatiya Empire.

Álvaro immediately changed his expression and regained a wide, heartwarming smile.

"Of course, since the ancient Roman Empire, our two civilizations have been in a very close relationship with each other. Our relationship is one that has lasted over a millennium, so how could the Spanish Empire reject the request of the Bharatiya Empire to buy the Philippine colony from us?"

Vinod’s eyebrows were immediately raised as Álvaro made it sound like the Bharatiya Empire was begging the Spanish Empire for trade when it should have been the opposite. However, Vinod did not correct him; the reason the Spanish did this was to avoid losing their respect and dignity within the European power circle.

Vinod was sure that by the end of the negotiation, the story circulating throughout the European continent would be one of the Spanish reluctantly selling their Philippine island to the Bharatiya Empire.

With such propaganda, it should be very disadvantageous to the Bharatiya Empire in terms of reputation, but in reality, it mattered very little to Vinod, or even to Vijay for that matter, as the Bharatiya Empire had no interest in gaining respect or seeking validation from the European continent; hence, it didn’t really matter what the Spanish publicized in Europe.

Since, no matter how bad the publicity was, Europe would still continue to purchase the products of the Bharatiya Empire, as Bharat had unknowingly begun to take the route of China in Vijay’s previous life, becoming the manufacturer of the world’s industry and becoming the nation with the highest industrial output.

Taking the example from Vijay’s previous life, where no matter how bad the reputation of China was within the population of the world, the European countries and Americas that disliked China to the core were still the biggest customers of China until the time Vijay was reborn, and it is still likely to be the case unless the then Chinese leader, Winnie the Pooh, decides to go looking for his own demise.

Don Álvaro de Mendoza had initially expected some sort of pushback regarding the terminology he used, but surprisingly, he did not receive any reaction from the Bharatiya delegation. In fact, he was ready to change his terminology from "the Bharatiya Empire requested the trade" to " both empires conducted a mutually beneficial trade".

However, since he did not receive any opposition, He did not even mention anything else, he felt a little happy.

Unknown to him, due to the Bharatiya delegation giving up on pursuing the reputation of the Bharatiya Empire in Europe, they lowered the price offered to the Spanish Empire for the Philippines.

Naturally, Álvaro would find out about this in the coming few days; for now, he just wanted to confirm the conditions proposed by the Bharatiya Empire.

"The Spanish Empire is willing to sell the Philippines to the Bharatiya Empire out of consideration for our co-prosperity.

I have to ask, as it is my obligation: are the benefits the Bharatiya Empire proposed to the Spanish Empire true?" Álvaro’s gaze was sharp as they stared into the dark eyes of Vinod, but Vinod remained without any emotion on his face as if the piercing gaze of the opponent did not pressure him.

In fact, it was also true since the pressure given by Vijay was much more intense than that of Álvaro Mendoza.

Without averting his gaze, Vinod simply motioned for Jaishankar to begin.

Jaishankar was fully prepared for the negotiation as he took out his notebook and started to read out loud.

"As mentioned by His Majesty a few months ago to His Excellency Ambassador Pedro Santiago, the conditions of the Bharatiya Empire still hold true, and the Bharatiya Empire is willing to negotiate the deal on these terms."

"Bharatiya Empire is willing to purchase the Philippines from the Spanish Empire for a price agreed upon by both parties. The price will be paid in terms of silver. Additionally, in the trade between Bharat and the Spanish, the Bharatiya Empire will pay for the goods of the Spanish with silver ."

"The Spanish Empire can receive a discount on all military products from the Bharatiya Empire for a period of time. The Bharatiya Empire agrees to allow the Spanish Empire to recruit a skilled workforce in different sectors.

The Bharatiya Empire is willing to sign a trade agreement with The Spanish Empire by providing some benefits and tariff concessions for all products sold to the Spanish Empire and bought by the Bharatiya Empire."

"The Bharatiya Empire will provide the Spanish Empire with technologies capable of establishing an initial industrial layout. Finally, the Bharatiya Empire will be responsible for building and maintaining ten 1500-tonne cargo carriers between Manila and New Spain to help the Spanish improve their influence in the Americas.’’

Jaishankar closed the notebook as he stared at the Spanish delegation. "If the demands of the Spanish Empire are within the scope of these conditions provided by our Empire, the negotiations can continue; otherwise, there is no need to hold discussions on this matter."

Vinod was very impressed by Minister Jaishankar, who was decisive in his actions. Vinod then eyed Álvaro, intensifying his own gaze, giving the Spanish Valido the same treatment that he had received previously.

Don Álvaro de Mendoza, feeling the piercing gaze, immediately knew that he had to make a decision. If he agreed to the conditions then there would be no war and the negotiation could go on; if not, he was very sure that the Bharatiya Empire would prepare for war with the Spanish Empire in full force.

If it had been Don Álvaro making the decisions in the Spanish Empire, he would definitely have been offended by the tone and the tough words used by the Minister of External Affairs.

However, after everything he had seen and learned about the Bharatiya Empire, he knew that going to war just because he was offended was not really worth it, especially since neither side could do anything to the other.

"The Spanish Empire agrees to these conditions, but the specific details should be discussed further."

Vinod was surprised that the matter was settled so simply, so he did not hesitate to respond, "Of course, that is a given. Let’s discuss one matter at a time in detail."

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