Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

March 1658

While the chemical revolution had silently begun in the Bharatiya Empire, Vijay, who had paved the way for the revolution, was in his office listening to a report made by Bhaskaracharya about the state of various industries of the Raya family.

"While every company is flourishing with significant profits and growth of a few hundred percent per annum, there has been a sudden increase in wealth generated by Raya Machinery."

"Oh!", Vijay was curious, But he did not have to ask, as Bhaskaracharya continued explaining.

"Your Majesty, I found out that, Raya Machinery is the only company in the empire currently capable of manufacturing equipment used in the chemical industries."

Bhaskar had a look of admiration on his face. "It was because of your decision, Your Majesty. When most of the empire’s chemists were focused on researching mass production technologies of the chemicals, the majority of the research capabilities of the Raya Research Institute were focused on developing the equipment required for the mass production of chemicals."

"Currently, orders have poured in from the 44 newly established chemical companies throughout the empire, and the demand is only increasing. For this reason, a new factory specifically for manufacturing chemical equipment has been set up."

"According to estimates, From the sales of chemical equipment alone, we are expected to close the financial year with a net profit of nearly 625,000 Varaha." (21.250 KG Gold, ₹116,875,000)

"Wow," it was a staggering amount of money, enough for even Vijay to feel amazed. He quickly recalled the decision he had made at that time. He had pushed for the research and development of three acids and two bases at various universities and institutes of the empire while delegating the task of researching the equipment to his own personal research institute.

He did not have any intention of monopolizing the production of chemical equipment; his only idea was that he wanted his factory to quickly start the production of chemicals. Now, looking at how things had turned out, he was both satisfied and slightly upset.

"Bhaskar, license out the chemical manufacturing equipment patents to any manufacturers interested in them."

Bhaskar was taken aback by the order of His Majesty, he became flustered. "But Your Majesty, we are not short of funds. Even though the demand is a bit too much for us to currently handle, we could easily cope with it with only a little capital investment from the royal family.

The profits we are currently making from manufacturing the chemical mass production equipment are enough to almost match the profit we are getting from manufacturing the machine tools." Bhaskar’s face was filled with a pleading expression, but sadly, Vijay did not budge; instead, he looked unhappy.

"Bhaskar, you should always remember that the prosperity of the royal family is because of the prosperity of the nation. It is not the nation’s prosperity that is dependent on the royal family, so it does not matter if I give up this opportunity to make a lot of money.

Instead, by selling these equipment manufacturing technologies, the chemical industry of the empire will receive a huge boost of confidence with the manufacturing of cheaper and more widely available equipment, This could lead to companies in the same field helping us in expanding the market ."

"And with a bigger market, even if the selling of technologies results in an immediate loss, it would be a profit in the long term. Since we have firmly established ourselves as a chemical company with the most cutting-edge products, we are bound to receive the bulk of the revenue generated by the chemical industry.

Remember, The revenue obtained from a small market monopoly is nothing compared to the revenue obtained by a large market competition"

Bhaskaracharya was enlightened. He had always thought that his responsibility was only to ensure that the wealth of the royal family was not only preserved but also increased. He had never considered where the wealth had come from and upon what the wealth was dependent on. It was only now that he opened his eyes and realized the truth. "Thank you for enlightening me, Your Majesty.

It looks like I have been too shallow before. In the future, I will take the interests of the empire into consideration."

Looking at the expression on Bhaskaracharya, Vijay felt relieved that his general manager immediately understood what he was talking about.

Then it suddenly hit him. ’Now that I think about it, some of the sensitive technologies are still firmly under the control of the military. Should I release them to the public so that the growth of the Bharatiya economy is boosted?’

Vijay stroked his chin in contemplation. Thinking about the soon-to-be-started industrial revolution, he made up his mind.

"Bhaskar, submit the patents for several key innovations for licensing, the 400-tonne-per-annum blast furnace, the improved Gutenberg printer, and both versions 1 and 2 of the machine tools."

Bhaskaracharya was immediately shocked; if the first order of His Majesty was a large firecracker, then the second order was a whole frag grenade.

Bhaskar’s demeanour suddenly became hesitant. "Are you sure, Your Majesty? These technologies are highly confidential, and only a few countries in the world possess them.

Although I can understand, according to your previous explanation, that by putting these technologies out to the public, the industrial strength of the Bharatiya Empire could suddenly jump up, but, I still want to kindly advise you to reconsider. What if, in case the technology...?"

Vijay quickly cut off the next words of Bhaskaracharya. "I know what you’re concerned about; it’s whether the technology would be stolen by foreigners, isn’t it?"

Bhaskaracharya nodded in agreement.

"Well, your worry is not wrong; initially, I was also worried about the same. I did not want the English or the Dutch to get their hands on this technology of ours, which is why I kept it under wraps for so long.

But I realized something: since we have exported the products made from these technologies to Russia, the Republic of Venice, and the Portuguese, these technologies are bound to be copied and replicated by the Europeans."

Bhaskaracharya widened his mouth in disbelief. "How could this be?"

Vijay shrugged. "Why not? Not to mention the British and the Dutch, who have the worst relationship with us. Even the countries with which we have established diplomatic connections do not mind copying and replicating our technologies by reverse engineering our products. After all, we haven’t signed any patent agreements with them.

And even if we did, taking Venice as an example, we cannot really stop them from replicating our products since the machine tools or the blast furnace, or anything else we produce, could be made using different mechanisms while using the same principles of physics."

"So, since we cannot patent the laws of physics, we cannot really stop them from manufacturing their own machine tools or blast furnaces or anything else. The only way to completely stop them is for us to cease research on these technologies ourselves," he let out an exasperated sigh. "But do you think that is possible?"

"It is not, Your Majesty. How can we stop the advancement of our empire just because someone might copy us?" Bhaskaracharya shook his head as he understood the crux of the problem. Then he curiously looked at Vijay, wanting to understand what plans he had.

"So, I came to a conclusion: since we cannot really stop them from copying our technologies, we will fully make them dependent on our technology."

"By releasing these technologies to the public, we can completely destroy their efforts in researching their own proprietary technologies."

"And since we are only releasing technologies that are a generation or two older than our cutting-edge technology, we can always stay a step ahead of anyone else in the world."

"Additionally, this could lead to a huge boost in not only the economic prosperity of the empire but also in the military power of the empire."

Bhaskaracharya nodded in understanding. "I understand your plan, Your Majesty, I will follow your commands, but I do not have the authority to disclose the patents we discussed. All the sensitive patents we hold are partially also held by the government, so the director of the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences has to approve the sale/licensing too."

Vijay understood this. "Don’t worry about that; I’ll talk with Heyram and have Ganesh coordinate between the two of you."

After taking such an important decision, Vijay reached the main topic for which Bhaskaracharya had arrived at the Simhasana Bhavana instead of just sending a report document.

"Putting the matter of the patents aside, is there something you want to inform me of, Bhaskar?"

Bhaskaracharya suddenly remembered the reason why he came to the Royal Palace. "Sorry, Your Majesty, I unconsciously got sidetracked."

Suppressing his embarrassment, he said, "Your Majesty, haven’t you put an article in the Bharatam Daily for the last few weeks about how the Empire is facing a problem of insufficient policemen and civil servants?" n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Vijay immediately became interested as he leaned forward in his chair. "Did you get some worthy suggestions?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Although most of the suggestions I received were unreliable, there were a total of three suggestions that I felt were worth considering."

"Go on."

"Well, Your Majesty, the first suggestion I found to be reliable came from General Sergeant Harish, the Sergeant who was previously responsible for training the army in emergency situations during the war against the Mughal Empire."

"Oh, I remember him. I heard he was elevated to the rank 1 Mantri as well."

Vijay was becoming more interested.

"General Sergeant’s plan has something to do with the 400,000 soldiers we disbanded after the war. His suggestion is that we once again recruit those soldiers who are willing to settle down in the North into the police department and station them wherever required."

"General Sergeant put forward an idea that in order to compensate for the professional knowledge these soldiers lack, The Empire could cap their positions at the level of a constable not allowing them to be promoted without taking the corresponding exam.

he further proposed that we hold exams every month for these soldier-turned-police officers to master the literary and professional knowledge, which includes everything a police officer should know."

"In his suggestion, he explained that the promotion of a constable to police inspector has only one requirement: having knowledge of the law and understanding all the rights and obligations of a police officer. In order to reach a higher level, these police officers would need to further enrich their knowledge and make additional contributions to the police force."

"In this way, the shortage of police officers in the northern part of the empire could be addressed until police academies are established."

Vijay was lost in contemplation. This suggestion had a lot of merit, and it had already proven effective in the army and navy, which would make it easier to implement quickly. Although this suggestion would not immediately fill the top brass of the police force required in the North, it would definitely provide grassroots police officers.

’If only there were someone who could take up the post and be responsible for bringing the North completely under police control.’ Just when he thought about the way to solve the problem, he hit his head in annoyance.

Wasn’t Harish the perfect man for the job? After all, he had nearly 300,000 soldiers trained under his command at one point during the war. Could he not handle these police officers?

"The suggestion is good, Bhaskar. Is there anything he mentioned to solve the problem of insufficient civil servants?"

To be Continued...