Different from the continuous downward trend of the stock market since the economic crash, ever since a week ago, the market has been continuously fluctuating up and down, leaving everyone confused.
The people who were holding on to the stocks hoping that it would rise in the future got intimidated by the changes and quickly sold off the remaining shares, while the investnt firms and smart individuals who knew what was happening, or simply lucky people who tried their luck, were buying the stocks that had reached the lowest point ever since going public.
Vijay was sitting in his office, constantly flipping through the bundle upon bundle of financial reports from the Mangaluru Stock Exchange and the Kolkata Stock Exchange like a machine without any emotion.
The financial data from the reports just flowed into his mind like it was a piece of iron attracted by a magnet, and was being processed like a code in a supercomputer. The numbers were just fitting into their place like a complicated yet beautifully precise piece of a puzzle.
He was analysing how the economy was doing and if it was recovering, and what he saw so far greatly satisfied him. A smile adorned Vijay’s face. He predicted that in at most a month or even faster, the stock markets will not only recover, but will also surpass the previous peak. And Vijay doesn’t even think it will be hard, because the companies that survived the ordeal are the ones that grew up after absorbing the nutrients from the ones that have gone bankrupt. This is a situation where one plus one is greater than two.
’Knock Knock!’
" Co in "
It was Kattappa.
Vijay asked him to sit down, his expression turning serious.
" Have the preparations been done? " he asked as he put aside the reports.
" They are, your majesty, I’m only awaiting your order. I’m ready to start the operation anyti. "
"Good!"
Vijay finally showed a smile, he let out a chuckle, and finally gave his order, " Let’s do it. If we miss this opportunity, we will not get another one for a long ti. "
Kattappa respectfully accepted the order, saluted Vijay and left. Vijay himself would be joining the war room for the operation, but he still had so more affairs he had to handle, so he stayed back.
However, as he went back to work, the hidden sharpness in his eyes couldn’t be concealed.
Vijay is not oblivious to the situation in the empire. The vast majority of the people are blaming the governnt for the economic collapse, but a small number of them are also blaming him, comnting,’ the emperor has beco old and short-sighted.’
Honestly, Vijay doesn’t care much about these words. As the saying goes, you cannot bark back at the dog if it barks at you, but what annoyed him was the contributions of the intelligence agents, civil servants and politicians to the comnts.
This economic collapse was nothing but a great reshuffling of the industrial sector, where all the old companies that refused to modernise were driven straight into bankruptcy. In response, the civil servants, intelligence agents, and politicians, many of whom secretly received benefits from these failing companies, began showing their true faces. So lobbied their superiors, trying to push the governnt to provide aid to these struggling industries. Others simply spread propaganda among the people, trying to stir dissatisfaction so that the public pressure would mount on the governnt and the emperor, forcing their hand.
This ti, during the economic crisis, the entire system of the governnt was pushed to its very limits. All the snakes, lizards, and rats that had been hiding deep in the sewers away from the light, like the bloodsucking vampires they were, crawled out into the open to make trouble.
And this was the very day Vijay had been preparing for since half a year ago. Around that ti, he had already realised that an economic crisis was inevitable in the empire, and since then, he had allocated nearly 100 million varaha from his own funds to the Royal Intelligence Bureau, an intelligence network that worked solely for the royal family, and instructed them to expand their reach into every corner of society and every governnt departnt, including the three official intelligence agencies and even the supervisory departnt above them.
And now, six months later, it was finally ti to activate all the groundwork he had painstakingly laid.
---
Vijay finally finished signing the docunts, and he summoned Kishore Balabadra, the Observer of the empire and the director of the Election, Nobility and Examination Commission.
" You called, your majesty "
" Yes, initiate the purge sequence ", said Vijay, handing over the Royal Edict and his official declaration.
" ! "
Kishore Balabadra was shocked; he didn’t expect that after nearly 15 years of silence, his majesty would finally initiate another internal purge, but this was a welco developnt for him. Conducting the purge is one of the supre powers he has, but since the ability to initiate the purge is only with the emperor, his power is mostly useless.
Over the years, his situation has beco very embarrassing. All the new officials in the empire know him more for conducting examinations and raiding the houses of politicians and civil servants than as a knife hanging over their heads. It could be said that over the years, he has beco pretty transparent, but now the ti has co to finally brandish his claws, make the people aware of his existence.
" As you order, your majesty ", he responded, his eyes sharp.
Even though he was not a person who worked for fa or fortune, he demanded the respect and fear he deserved.
---
Vijay’s orders imdiately started a domino effect. The Royal Intelligence Bureau stayed silent and carefully observed the actions of all the departnts in the governnt and the Imperial Committee.
The ENEC, utilising the power they possess, had the three intelligence departnts run investigations among one another.
Only a few days after the purge started, hundreds of agents were caught having nefarious relationships with businessn, politicians or civil servants.
After the first batch of intelligence agents were caught, the search didn’t continue to a deeper level but went on to investigate the civil servants through the various branches of the governnt, and they saw the biggest list of contract terminations, firings and imprisonnt in the empire’s history. Several thousand people across the empire were caught, and their deeds were made public.
Vijay did not intend it, but this actually acted as a vent for the people who were dissatisfied with the economic crisis.
Again, all the civil servants that were caught were only small fish, but before investigating the big fish, the investigation moved on to the military and political houses. A similar situation repeated, after which there was calm in the society where the raids were no longer happening, and people were not being imprisoned anymore.
However, this was only to initiate a false sense of security within the corrupted people in the various departnts of the empire. After nearly four days’ rest, everything started once again, but this ti, Vijay took direct control of the propaganda channels of the governnt as he had already declared on file a national ergency, which gave him the ultimate power over everything in the empire.
All the double agents within the intelligence departnts quickly revealed the suspicious agents they had co across, and they were imdiately snubbed.
But at a deeper level, the agents of the Royal Intelligence Bureau watched all the things transpire with cold eyes without taking any action.
The Purge continued as the second wave of investigations spread to the departnts of the governnt, military and the political houses, where the middlen and so unlucky and careless top officials were caught. In fact, in one of these purges, even a minister of the parliant was caught, and the reason he got caught was because he was found secretly cheating on his wife by sleeping with the wife of an industrialist.
Apparently, the MP and the industrialist were secret partners by day, and the MP and the industrialist’s wife were secret partners at night.
Vijay was observing all of this from the war room, and when he got to know about this situation, he was left speechless. He had not expected that people like this would co out in the empire so quickly, but the purge continued.
After the second round of purge, the third one was initiated, and this ti it was on a hunt for the top corrupt officials, top intelligence agents and top politicians. And how exactly was that done? All the intelligence assets surrounding the top officials, like cleaners, drivers, guards, cooks, barbers, etc., were imdiately activated.
These assets worked directly under ENEC. Under normal circumstances, they are not activated even if their bosses are found to be suspicious and corrupt, because in that way the people in the empire would know that ENEC has secretly planted a lot of spies completely targeting the top officials of the empire. But now, with propaganda under the complete control of the emperor and the publication of newspapers temporarily stopped, the problem no longer existed.
Kishore Balabadra ruthlessly ripped the lives of the top officials, politicians and military n who were found corrupt. The legend of the white judgnt was hence born. On this third purge, Vijay saw an impressive list of 16 ministers of parliant who got caught, over 25 people in the position of deputy director and above, sixty-two police officers at the rank of Deputy General of Police and above, and military officers of the rank of Brigadier General and above.
With the three different purges targeting the three different groups of scum, most of the scum in the Bhartiya Empire has been eliminated over the span of the month. But just when Kishore Balabadra thought that everything was over, he suddenly started to receive intelligence about people he had missed out in the purge, as well as the evidence.
Kishore’s eyes widened when he understood that there was soone who was actually watching everything that was transpiring at a deeper level, and their intelligence network had spread far deeper and wider than his or any of the intelligence departnts in the empire, as far as observation is concerned.
’Gulp!’
Kishore Balabadra knew that these were the actions of his majesty himself, but he did not try to pry into the details or even ask his majesty about it. Since the intelligence ca to him without any explanation, it ans that his majesty wants to keep the existence of the intelligence agency he controls a secret or semi-secret.
Over the next few days, many people within ENEC were caught and put to death. More ministers were caught, more generals, and even more businessn. These were the slimiest of the slimy, and shockingly, even a Chief Minister of a state was discovered colluding with various construction and cent companies to embezzle state property.
Vijay had expected that sooner or later a big fish would be caught, but he did not expect a monster of this size.
He was stunned that a Chief Minister was involved in such deep and extensive corruption. Without hesitation, he ordered the Chief Minister to be put to death. The business owners of the implicated construction and cent companies were imprisoned and punished according to their level of involvent.
For normal people, the month without newspapers was not anything special; their work continued as always, but for the people in the know, it was as if the world had changed overnight. It was as if they were a group of children in a class, and suddenly out of nowhere, they were imprisoned in a cell, and when they got out of it, several of their classmates had disappeared. This is not a good feeling.
But apart from the lower-level civil servants, politicians and soldiers who talked about the event, no higher-level or middle-level people talked about it. They simply kept it in their hearts and lived in fear, once again reinforcing the idea of ’should not go against the rules’ in their hearts.
Reviews
All reviews (0)