Chapter 1052: Export Locomotives & The Suiz Canal
29th December 1687
Vijay was in a cabinet meeting with his government, discussing how to handle the traffic of the steam cars and the tractors that were about to be put on the market on a large scale in the near future.
The new Prime Minister, Narasimha Modi, was still getting used to his job and remained overwhelmed, as he had not expected that he wouldn’t even get the chance to raise his voice against His Majesty, the Emperor.
Over the past few months, he had managed to earn some respect from a few ministers because of his work, though some still believed he was not suitable for the position. Yet, he was confident he could prove them wrong, as he always did. However, in front of His Majesty, he couldn’t even raise his voice and became nothing more than a puppet, nodding to everything His Majesty said.
Only now did Narasimha Modi understand that he had completely misunderstood Prime Minister Vinod.
When he was the Chief Minister of Solanki Puri, he had thought that the Prime Minister was the puppet of His Majesty, the Emperor, and would agree to anything His Majesty said because he was raised by the royal family and was trained to be loyal to them.
He had dreamt that he would be different if he got the chance to become the Prime Minister. Although he did not want to oppose His Majesty, since even he knew that was suicidal, he at least wanted to be the voice of caution to make sure that His Majesty did not take things too far.
Like when he had the shipyards build those gigantic 1000-ton Guwahati-class container ships. Although his foresight turned out to be true, and now they were getting extremely popular, especially with it being standardised in land transportation as well, when it was first released, although it was not a loss, it was not a huge profit either. It was simply more trouble than it was worth, installing all those crane systems and the like.
Even when he constructed the rails and had elephant-pulled carriages on them, although this was not a loss, it was similarly not profitable either. There was only so much the elephants could pull, and the higher price meant that only important goods were being transported, while the normal goods went through the normal route.
His Majesty had extraordinary, almost inhuman foresight, as if he could already see into the future, but sometimes His Majesty missed the current necessity and implemented things too advanced. He thought that he could stop this from happening, but now he understood how naive he was. How could he speak against a man, a single man, who not only unified the whole bloody civilisation, which no other king in history apart from maybe the great Ashoka had done, and developed it to a level that he could walk sideways in any part of the world?
For such a man, he, a commoner from Solanki Puri, with his only achievement being improving the economy of the state of Solanki Puri, dared to give suggestions? Haha, how laughable.
Vijay had no clue what was in Narasimha’s mind, but even if he did, he would simply laugh, rightly so, because he couldn’t help the effect he had on others. Although he wanted someone to help him ground his thoughts, the achievements he had made made it impossible for anyone to suggest anything. Thankfully, his foresight and wisdom still helped in making judgments.
"Alright, that is it for the traffic laws and the amendments required in the existing Traffic Regulations Bill of 1656. All of you go through the amendment and submit it to me. I will review it, and if everything checks out, we can pass the bill."
"Is there anything else?"
" One thing, Your Majesty."
" Yes, Jitendra."
" His Highness Lachit Borphukan and His Highness Narasimha Nayak have requested to allow them to import the locomotives into the kingdom."
Soon, two more voices were heard
"They requested me as well, Your Majesty."
"Oh, and me!"
Vijay looked at the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and the Minister of External Affairs and became silent.
’Should it be allowed?’ He asked himself. Currently, the Bharatiya Empire alone had a large market waiting to be filled when it came to locomotives. It was not the problem of there being no one to buy them, but a problem of there being too many people wanting to buy them, and too little manufacturing capacity.
The capacity is ramping up since the five locomotive manufacturers have gotten very experienced in constructing them, and even the Raya Power Company has become good at manufacturing the Balwan 4th-gen locomotive engine. But still, it will take a long time for the demand to be met in the empire itself. In such a situation, should he really allow the locomotive to be exported?
"Have they laid down the tracks already?" Before he could come to a conclusion, he wanted to know the details.
"Not completely, Your Majesty, but the land is cleared up, all the gravel has been laid down and connected, and the process of laying down the rails is reportedly 20% done. Both Raja Lachit Borphukan and Raja Narasimha Naik have spent huge amounts of their own resources to construct the infrastructure as quickly as possible."
The corner of Vijay’s lips became upturned. "It is smart. The Kingdoms of Vishala Nagari (NSW) and Reshmi Vardhana (Victoria) are not too big compared to the other kingdoms on the continent, and also their capitals are quite close to each other, so it makes sense to connect these two places. It can improve the economy of the two kingdoms drastically."
"All right, let’s allow it," Vijay finally decided, "but only one locomotive per kingdom for now."
"And since we are allowing it for them, it should be allowed for other kingdoms as well. So, Narasimha."
"Your Majesty."
"Update the list of things that are banned from being exported, remove the name of the locomotive from the list, and add it to the list of controlled exports."
"We can allow each of the vassal kingdoms to purchase one locomotive."
"As for the allies, wait until our demand is met or we have a new generation of engines."
"Yes, Your Majesty, it will be done as you wish."
After the meeting, Vijay travelled to the state of Ganga Puri, to the Iron Economic Zone, and paid a visit to Kashi Mobility, a company founded by Agni.
He wanted to see how the car manufactured by the company his son founded was doing. The Kashi VK3, although in the trials its prototype performed well, it was not up to the road safety standards, so the whole design had to be improved, and certain things had to be optimised.
However, months later, it should have been solved.
Entering the building, he was immediately welcomed by his son, who then took him to show off the Kashi VK3.
Vijay did not hesitate, got into the driver’s seat, rode it for a while, and nodded in satisfaction. There were considerable improvements compared to the last time he tried it out.
"It runs well, although it is not as smooth as the Aakarsh A7. It’s not much different from the Baloch Shaan."
Being compared with the leaders in the market, Agni couldn’t help but smile wryly. Although he had a team of top engineers as well, Akarsh Group of Companies has a long history in carriage manufacturing, bicycle manufacturing, and manufacturing any sort of vehicle that has to do with travel, so the design they could bring out and the market appeal they have is so great that he could not compare with them, even if he matched their financial resources and technical talent.
"Thank you, Father."
"Are you going to submit it for review?"
"Yes, I have already contacted Minister Nirmal."
"Good."
"Let your subordinates handle the rest. I need you to do something."
Looking at his father’s piercing gaze, Agni’s expression turned serious. "Yes, Father."
"I need you to go to the Kingdom of Israel and negotiate a treaty between the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Egypt, the United Greek Socialist Republics (UGSR), the Portuguese, and ourselves."
Agni’s eyes widened. His father was planning something big.
"Jagannath Mohan, Bhuvan, and Jai Shankar will accompany you. They are most likely to accept our terms, but I need you to be there as a representative of the empire."
Agni patted his chest with confidence. "Rest assured, I will get it done, Father, but I still do not know what the negotiation and the treaty are about."
Vijay did not answer that question but simply took over a bunch of documents handed over by Katappa and placed them in front of Agni.
Agni was confused, so he quickly flipped through the documents, and his body shuddered.
Taking a big gulp of water as he felt his throat dry up from excitement, he nodded his head and agreed to complete the task with a trembling voice.