Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 875: Rāja Tantram : Agni’s lesson

90 kilometers off Basrah

Vijay, who was in a carriage on his way to Basrah's Vajragarba fortress, received continuous intelligence about how the reclamation of the land was progressing. Sitting beside him was none other than his son, Agni, who was helping him organise all the intelligence reports and temporarily acted as his secretary.

"Father, it looks like the supplies taken out of the grain bank have been supplied to various cities. The military logistics department has sent managers to manage the issuance of food." "Recruitments are going on in all the cities in order to quickly provide ways for the locals to support themselves." "Overall, work is progressing at a very good pace, Father."

"Hmm!" Vijay stroked his chin with a smile. "Come to think of it, this is the first time any department under the Strategic Materials Management has been actually used as it was intended—in food shortages and famines. Though I'm not complaining, as we were fortunate that we never had to use the reserve grain for ourselves."

Agni shook his head and leaned back. "It will be a very unusual phenomenon if we suffer from famine, Father. Our empire is so interconnected that even if a drought occurs in one region, food supplies can be shipped within a day from other parts of the empire. And even if the impossible occurs and the whole nation is in food shortage, then we can simply import it from our overseas territories."

"Not to mention, Father, the yield of grains in the empire is increasing year by year, becoming one of the largest grain sellers in the world. Also, Sir, this year there was a record-breaking harvest in Yudheya Nagari (Punjab), outclassing other states by 30% more grain yield per acre. Their contribution this year alone is enough to fill up the deficit created in the grain bank formed by supporting the people of the new territory."

"That's true," Vijay said as he closed the report.

Agni proceeded to read other intelligence documents and proceeded to report it to his father, but when he was doing that, something hit him. "Father, there are still a large amount of people in the Kingdom of Persia who are very dissatisfied with us claiming half of the territory from which the Ottoman Empire retreated."

"Can't we shut their mouths by showing that they won't be able to keep it for long, since they can't afford to feed the civilians abandoned by the Ottomans who will be in desperation for food?" Darting his eyes around, he finally added in a low voice, "The Persians don't have the resources to feed so many people anyway."

Looking at his son, who had a glint of slyness in his eyes, Vijay smiled. "We can do it, but this is not the right time. Son, you have to understand that from the moment the incident began, from our western command acting as reinforcements, to how it ended with clearing out all the local landlords and resistance forces while freeing the civilians, all of it can be considered a weapon—not a weapon of violence but a weapon of morality, and a weapon that only gets more powerful as time goes on. This weapon of morality can only be a pistol now, but in the future, maybe several hundred years from now, when the might of the Bharatiya Empire is no longer a large deterrent, when tension arises between the divided boundaries in Persia, this weapon would have transformed itself into a missile."

"You have to understand, son, the people who are making noise in the Kingdom of Persia are only those people who do not have much sway on the royal family. There is no need for us to use our weapon so prematurely."

"Do you think that after the Atashbans got to know what the Ottomans did, they wouldn't understand what the schemes of the Ottomans were? When I first decided to occupy half of the territory that was abandoned, Roxana was extremely unwilling, but today, just before she sent us off and when she thanked us for our support, was she lying?"

Agni thought about it in his mind, remembered the aura fluctuation from Roxana Atashban this morning, and shook his head. "No, but... why?"

"It's because she, just like us, knows that Persia cannot afford to occupy such a large territory if they have to pay for it with grain."

"If I had not demanded to get half of the territory, the Persian Kingdom would have had to occupy all of it, even if it choked. However, in that case, there is no way that they could pay for grain for so many people, as they, even now, only managed to calm down the hearts of the civilians in the territory they took control over with what reserve grains they had in their reserve programmes. There was no way that they could support more people. In a way, the Bharatiya Empire is helping them in disguise." Vijay's expression became intriguing, "and this is the ammunition to our weapon."

"In the future, when claims arise saying that we have occupied territory illegally that should belong to the Persian Kingdom, all the intelligence reports we have in our hands can be used against the Persians, saying that if it was not for us, millions of people would starve to death like they did on their side."

Agni's eyes widened. "Millions of people will die?"

"Not really, but several thousand surely will. As Persia in itself does not have too many grains in surplus, after allocating everything they have in reserve, they will have to buy it from us. This will take some time since we will have to mobilise the resources in the south. In the meantime, it is not too hard to guess—the old and sick, who are unable to hold on anymore, will die in droves. The phenomenon has already started in the region we have occupied."

"Then why did you say millions of people will die?" Agni was confused.

Vijay looked at his son without any expression on his face. "Because, unlike us, they are very unlikely to keep the records for so long. So when the issue arises in the future, we will have the proof, and they will most likely not. In this case, even if we exaggerate a little with what evidence we have collected, it should be enough to sway the public opinion to our side."

Vijay's eyes turned serious all of a sudden. "For a monarch, it is very important to plan the matters of his dominion hundreds of years into the future. We are not politicians to only consider the nation until our term ends. We are monarchs who rule the empire all our entire lives. Remember, Agni, the Devaraya family is always connected to the Bharatiya Empire. No matter who the emperor might be in the future, as long as the Bharatiya Empire exists, the Devaraya family will exist. I have made it so that both are deeply ingrained with each other. In order to get rid of one, you will have to get rid of the other. There is no other way around. So the loyalty, dedication, and existence of our family will always be coupled with the rise and fall of the Bharatiya Empire."

These words were already written in his emperor's book that would be passed on to the inheritors of the patriarch position in his family, but since he is very confident and sure that Agni will be that person, he is saying everything beforehand to prepare him from now.

Agni was left very rattled, but he still calmed down quickly. "I understand, Father." Although he didn't know what steps his father had taken to deeply ingrain the Devaraya family into the very being of the Bharatiya Empire, he didn't ask about it either, since he had a feeling that he would get to know about it soon.

Vijay was very satisfied with how well Agni took his words, so he decided to enlighten him some more.

"In fact, do you know that with the recent incident, the Persian Kingdom became more dependent on the Bharatiya Empire?"

"Huh, how?" Agni was surprised that his father was still willing to disclose more things.

"It's simple. In order to completely integrate the new territory into the kingdom, they will have to come up with a lot of food. What they have is barely enough, as you know. But for importing it from somewhere else, they will need a lot of gold. But most of their gold is earned by us, in the form of military purchases and military support. So the only way they can purchase the grain now is to use the military merits they have earned in the war, and these merits will not be accepted by any other country than the Bharatiya Empire."

"Essentially, they are forced to buy grain only from us. This is one. As for the second, if they spend most of their military merits on purchasing the grain, what they have left will not be enough to purchase better arms technology to make arms on their own—they can only stick with legacy, outdated tech. As for the third, if they use all the merits to purchase grains and outdated military or civilian technology, and all the gold to purchase ordnance, where will they have resources to develop their economy, for example, to build bridges, roads, and everything else? No one can come up with such large amounts of money to help out the Persians but us. Essentially, they are completely reliant on us for financial support. As for the fourth, we will provide them with the loans to develop the infrastructure to quicken the integration in the lands they have acquired, and for anything else they need it for, in exchange, we have them mortgage several strategic mineral ores."

"You see now, we have reached full circle. Unknowingly, the entire economy, military, and diplomacy of the Persian Kingdom are under our clutches. It'll be like step by step falling into a quagmire without any way to get out."

Agni, who had become more stoic since he experienced the battle, had a shocked look on his face. Even his mouth was wide open, unable to imagine how far his father had planned.

"So this is Rāja Tantram (Doctrine of Kingship), huh?"

Looking at his son, Vijay simply stayed silent, not giving an affirmative answer. But Agni understood everything he wanted to know. For the next couple of hours, he was completely silent. He even stopped reading the intelligence reports, and Vijay reluctantly had to read it all by himself.

Agni, throughout the time, was in deep thought. He felt like his thinking patterns had all changed, and he felt like he had learnt how to think once again.

Everything that happened in recent days came to mind.

"Father, you don't intend to integrate the newly occupied territory into the empire, do you?"

Vijay was taken aback. The question came out of nowhere. "Why do you ask?"

"It's nothing, Father. Since I know that you like to think for the long term, it dawned on me that you wouldn't like to take over the territory where more than 80% of the occupants are Muslims. So the next best alternative I found was you would either prop up a new kingdom or prop up a vassal state."

"Haha, looks like you figured it out."

"Yes! I don't intend to integrate the territory. Our borders are already well fortified on all sides. Expanding them further will lead to more openings we will have to consider, and this is only one of the concerns. The ideology of traditional Islamic followers is very incompatible with our ideology. Their belief system possesses several weapons of expansion—an expansion which divides the whole world into two regions: *Dar al-Islam* (the 'abode of peace') and *Dar al-Harb* (the 'abode of war')."

"Since I defeated the Turko-Mongol, Timurid Dynasty in the subcontinent, which they already consider their own, we are currently in the territory of *Dar al-Harb*, so you can expect them to attack our sovereignty in the future, as they will remember us and never forget."

"Such an ideology, once entrenched in society, is very hard to get rid of, so it is best that we not introduce it in the first place."

"In a way, occupying half of the territory abandoned by the Ottomans can act as a buffer between us and the radicalised groups."

"Understood. Have you already thought about who will be leading this nation, Father?"

"Hmm," Vijay paused for a split second, then nodded in affirmation. "I do. And I got the idea after hearing the story of the Sikh father and son you brought along with you. Seeing them, I realised, if there is a society that can resist the cultural and military invasion of Islamic invaders from Central Asia and anywhere else, then it can only be the Sikhs. They have safeguarded our motherland for 1,000 years before it eventually succumbed. Let these warriors have a land of their own sovereignty."

"Considering the region, it is possible for the empire to prop up a Sikh Republic. There are still a lot of Sikhs in the Middle East, just scattered all over. Let this nation be a beacon of attraction to these Sikhs, and if we open up doors for the Sikhs in our own empire to relocate to this new nation, at least twenty to thirty percent of the population should immediately be occupied by the Sikhs. Increasing our efforts to have the local people adopt the New Testament and further efforts to increase migration in the future, this nation, which has been neutralised, should become our brother state, acting as a first line of defence against Central Asia."

Agni diligently listened and noted down everything.