Chapter 197 Military Planning

Chapter 197 Military Planning

Dakshin Bhartiya Empire, Vijayanagar state, capital city Hampi, the royal palace.

Vijay is sitting in the royal palace, facing Marshal Kiran Pujari and Admiral Gangadhar. A maid comes in, offering them beverages and snacks, including some biscuits. The maid leaves the room, gently closing the door.

"So, gentlemen, what do you think?" Vijay asked as he forwarded the intelligence from the Ottoman Empire, provided by Leonardo, to both the marshal and admiral. First, it was Kiran Pujari who opened his mouth, "Your Majesty, can this intelligence be trusted?"

Vijay nodded his head in acknowledgement. He had also thought about the issue of whether the intelligence could be trusted, as it was obtained from the Venetians. Still, he concluded that Bharat did not have any other choice but to trust the Venetians as they had no opposing interests. Moreover, the Venetians needed a lot of help from the Dakshin Bhartiya Empire. The only other place they could go for the same kind of help would be the Chinese Qing dynasty. Unfortunately, as the Qing Empire was newly established, there was a lot of internal strife among its people, so Vijay was happy to ignore that option.

Kiran Pujari started to speak, "Assuming that the intelligence was true, Your Majesty, I do not know much about naval warfare. Still, if these 10 battleships manage to dock in a port or locate their own natural port to invade the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, we will quickly receive this news through our intelligence channels. If our Navy is incapable of fighting these 10 battleships, we can go inland and wait it out until they take the initiative to attack. As we are already self-sufficient and could afford to wait, it will be easy to defeat them then."

However, he could not defy His Majesty's direct order and reassigned the old orders that had yet to start construction to other shipyards while halting new orders. The next contents of another letter from the government he received made him understand why His Majesty ordered the transfer of civilian ships. He got an order for 35 Hampi-class sloops and an order for 8 more Vinayaka-class frigates, both with a tight deadline of 50 days. The deadline seemed a little tight, so Devendra frowned, but it was nothing he could not handle. Now that the civilian ships under construction will be completed and delivered to the customers within this week, all 10 dry docks will be available for use. He planned to use these docks to build 10 ships at a time. It should be doable.

Orders from Vijay had caused a storm in the marine industry. It was chaotic at the beginning as suddenly all four shipyards rejected any civilian orders. The supporting industries thought that the shipping industry was dying down. However, suddenly the next day, a storm of new orders poured in. What's more, these orders were for much more expensive military-grade products. The industry knew that something big was about to happen, as they learned through some channels that Manager Devendra got 35 orders for sloops, Manager Sudhakar from Chola Shipyard got 25 orders, Nitin from Ashoka got 20, and Pankaj from Shivaji Shipyard got 20.

With the four main shipyards of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire completely occupied by military orders, the small and medium-sized shipyards, privately owned by families, seized this opportunity and snatched up all the civilian boat orders. There were still a few shipyards that had poached skilled technicians from the main shipyards. One among them, in particular, was capable of manufacturing a 130-ton merchant ship they designed in-house, completely different from the Bosswell Design Bureau. It was called the Berunda Design Bureau, owned by the Berunda shipyard. This ship was quite popular with merchants because although it did not have the defensive capabilities of the Dhana class or the speed and durability, it was much cheaper for small-time merchants to afford, and the coastal waters were very safe because of the coast guard. So, with this gap created by the four large shipyards, the Berunda shipyard expanded heavily, taking orders from left, right, and centre. A new project was also put forward by the patriarch of the family, Gana Prabu Berunda, for the designers to create an ambitious 350-ton merchant ship codenamed the Samudra Bandhu class.

Everyone in the Empire was working at breakneck speeds as they had targets to achieve, whether it was a worker assigned a certain amount of work or a contractor tasked with completing a specific length of roads. The Dakshin Bharatiya Empire was bustling with activity. While all this was happening, the three ministers of finance, trade and commerce, along with the judiciary, had been working on forming the framework for business reforms. All the necessary information had been provided by His Majesty the Emperor; it was just that the task was extensive and involved a multitude of small details. The three men had been working on this for a few days. Mohan and Rajesh knew that His Majesty considered this an urgent matter, so they fully utilized the resources of their respective ministries to tackle the task.

Kishore Balabhadra was also preparing for the upcoming elections. As the elections were approaching, he had to get ready again. His list of candidates with nobility titles was also nearing completion; he was just waiting for the list from the Nobility Bureau in the military to submit a consolidated report to His Majesty.

Currently, his focus was on election preparations, whether it was reviewing each candidate along with their assigned symbols or ensuring there were enough materials to ensure the smooth conduct of the elections. Due to him, there was a small storm in the artisan circles of Hampi, as thousands of ballot boxes were suddenly ordered, albeit with a demand for a faster delivery time. All in all, everyone was busy with their own affairs, including Vijay, who was also occupied with exercises alongside Kavya.