Chapter 1053: New missiles, new machine tools, & many new things (1)
It was a new year of the Western Calendar, 5th January 1688.
Agni set out for the Kingdom of Israel a few days ago, and things in the empire continued to move forward as usual.
The massive infrastructure projects like the canal construction project, water conservancy projects, dam construction project, railway link project, roadworks projects, and multiple other public sector projects continued to contribute to the unemployment of the empire, staying under 5%. Driven by the steam engines, the economic dividends brought by the industrial revolution continued to increase, making the lives of the people in the empire more prosperous.
With steam cars occasionally roaming on the streets of major urban cities, steam-powered tractors pulling the harvester, steam locomotives delivering goods from one state to another, steam-powered machine tools becoming the source of the empire’s productivity, the Bharatiya Empire, along with its people, had firmly stepped into the Industrial Revolution several centuries before the British did it in Vijay’s past life.
With everything going according to plan and all the major decisions handled, Vijay was left with some free time. He leaned back in his chair with contentment and casually looked at the Vedic calendar.
To his surprise, he realised that the day of the exhibition was only two days away. ’Maybe I can attend it this time,’ he thought to himself with a little chuckle.
Ever since the first exhibition Vijay had conducted when he rose to the throne, the industrial exhibitions had been held every three or four years continuously for the last three decades.
Usually, he attended the exhibition, but when there were things more important to handle, like war, plague, or any kind of emergency, he skipped the exhibition and simply had one of his sons or his daughter attend the exhibition on his behalf.
This time, it was a perfect opportunity for him to visit, given that he had a small pocket of free time before he would get busy again.
---
In a temporarily constructed building on the parliament grounds,
"Listen, everyone. We just received a notice from the Emperor’s office, His Majesty will be attending the exhibition." An older middle-aged man wearing an exquisite business attire, which was nothing but a sherwani cut in half that somewhat looked like a western blazer, said with a serious expression on his face.
"Really!"
"What! Sir, are you sure?"
Exclamations immediately rang out.
The middle-aged man did not feel surprised at all by the reaction, because why would he? He was the same when he received the notice. His Majesty, who had not attended the exhibition for the last two times, was suddenly coming to the exhibition. How couldn’t this be big news? Even if the Prime Minister visited the exhibition after skipping a term, it was big news, much less the Emperor coming to the exhibition after eight whole years, almost a decade.
The man did not speak until all the voices died down. "This is the news I got from Chief Secretary Ganesh himself; there is no reason to doubt."
"Then, sir, do we contact the DSP? We will definitely have to increase the security detail, or should we directly contact the Chola Regiment?"
"No! None!"
The middle-aged man shook his head with amusement. "How can we take on this burden? I have just called you all only to inform you that the royal guards will be taking control of the security, and the event organisation committee of the Emperor’s office will handle all the details His Majesty will be involved in."
"All we have to do is hand over the control and complete bringing the people of the Emperor’s office up to task as soon as possible."
As soon as his words fell, a look of disappointment appeared on all the civil servants’ faces. They had fought very hard internally in the ministry to get their jobs, especially since handling such an event on an international stage earned a lot of merit and gave them a green flag either for promotion within the department or promotion to higher ranks in other departments.
The middle-aged man, seeing the expressions on his subordinates’ faces, could easily understand their concern. The Ministry of Special Affairs was an outlier among all other cabinet ministries in the empire. It was the only ministry without any fixed rules; it simply did whatever the empire needed at the moment.
Currently, the ministry’s main responsibility is to oversee the Special Economic Zones across the empire. Occasionally, it was also assigned to manage large infrastructure projects when private contractors failed to meet expectations. Organising international events, such as the International Bharatiya Industrial Exhibition, was another such task. This event was not physically demanding, but it was mentally exhausting. Still, it served as an excellent opportunity for career advancement, opportunities that were now gone.
"It’s a pity," he sighed inwardly, but there was nothing anyone could have done about it. It had been like a natural disaster, utterly unpredictable and impossible to prevent.
---
The news of the Emperor’s arrival at the exhibition soon spread throughout the elite circles of the empire, and all the industrialists who were participating in the exhibition went berserk.
"Gurudwar, increase the publicity funds to 2 million," a chairman of a furniture company declared, his face red and his hand trembling with excitement.
Gurudwar, the financial manager, was left stumped, his large eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth agape.
"But sir, we have already planned the whole advertisement campaign along with an athlete endorsement for a total of 600,000, Besi-.." "I don’t care! His Majesty is personally coming to the exhibition. If our product catches the eye of His Majesty, then everything is worth it. So don’t hold back, quickly order the factory to make something more flashy and sign a few more athletes!"
Gurudwar, who was about to continue speaking, suddenly shut up the moment he heard that His Majesty would be visiting. "I’ll get it done, sir, don’t worry, leave it to me." He was even more excited than the chairman himself when he left the room.
A similar situation occurred in various other factories, and the investment in the exhibition suddenly doubled or even tripled.
The people who had already signed up to attend the exhibition, after knowing that His Majesty would be coming, were extremely excited and thankful that they had signed up early, while the ones who had not regretted it bitterly and quickly rushed to sign up.
Even the crowd of European merchants who got to know that the Emperor of the Bharatiya Empire would be attending the exhibition could not stand still and immediately started to move towards the capital early.
As things continued to ferment, the phenomenon of all the rich people moving to the capital was caught by various national and state newspapers and was reported on the headlines. Funnily enough, due to such large traffic entering Bengaluru, and that too traffic involving a lot of elites and rich people across the empire, the very first car accident involving two steam-powered cars occurred.
"A Solanki Puri businessman gave the control of the car to his 15-year-old son within Koramangala Junction this morning, and the young boy, unable to react in time when the traffic police slipped the stop sign, crashed into a Shaan. The businessman, his son, and the party involved were all taken to the police station for questioning. The person involved was soon released, while the father and son were detained."
The headline caused quite a stir in the evening newspaper, but Bengaluru, now the busiest city in the world, buzzed on with its relentless hustle. The rush to the exhibition showed no signs of slowing.
Ganesh, who was organising and preparing the venue for His Majesty’s arrival, soon noticed the unusual flow of people into the exhibition. Red flags soon rang in his mind, and he immediately contacted various departments to get to know about the situation. As he had guessed, the number of people arriving at the exhibition had drastically increased.
So he did not hesitate and directly took full support of the Royal Guards after obtaining His Majesty’s permission, and even mobilised the local military who were garrisoned in the city in case of internal threat. Additionally, he also contacted the team which had prepared the venue in the first place from the Ministry of External Affairs, added them under his wing, and completely reworked the organisation protocol and human flow patterns of the event venue.
On the day of the event, his eyes were completely red as he hadn’t slept for even a second, but he did not complain and quickly notified His Majesty that it was time for him to make his entrance.
---
On the back of the parliament grounds, there was an unusual car sitting in the middle of the road. As for why it was unusual, the car was completely black, and interestingly enough, it even had windshields and a roof. It had the insignia of Shanku and Chakra on both ends of the car where the lights were supposed to be placed, and a bold Ashoka Chakra was attached right on the front of the car, along with a saffron flag with an Ashoka Chakra flying right on the bonnet, covering the steam engine.
Throughout the car, dull black lines, which were ancient Vedic chants etched into the frame of the car, ran all around its body as if it were a protective shield. On the back, there was a spare tyre with, once again, the Ashoka Chakra attached right in the middle.
The car sat low like a Jaguar, ready to pounce and clamp on an enemy’s head. It looked magnificent. Within the car sat an older man with grey hair, but unusually, his eyes were amber, and his body, like that of a well-trained athlete, was filled with muscles and explosiveness. Even sitting down in one place, he looked like a straight sphere ready to strike.
Who else could this be other than Vijay, the emperor of the Bharatiya Empire?