October 31st, 1655
Region of Gujarat, Dakshin Bharatiya Empire.
Celebrations are taking place all over Gujarat. The last Mughal stronghold in Gujarat, located in the city of Rajkot, has finally been defeated, and the region of Gujarat has undoubtedly beco an integral part of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire.
Gujarat, one of the largest states in modern India, has beco a significant addition to the strength of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire. Its size has increased by another 196,000 square kilotres, and the coastal line has extended by another 2033.14 kilotres after including the coast of Sindh and Balochistan.
"Cheers."
Loud celebrations echo through the city of Ahdabad as commanders Narasimha Naik and Ramayya Senapati indulge in so wine. Although the culture of drinking alcohol is not prominent in the subcontinent currently, it is quite common on special occasions.
With the invasion of the Mughal Empire and the spread of their culture in Bharat, any alcohol product was explicitly prohibited by the Mughal Empire due to its religious taboo.
Although this was not always a strictly enforced rule, as so past Mughal monarchs enjoyed wine, overall, due to the influence of the Mughals, the non-essential product of wine beca a commodity only found in black markets, consequently increasing its price. Therefore, the already small wine culture in Bharat diminished even further.
Vijay, not a fan of alcohol himself, chose not to revive this declining tradition. Despite acknowledging the future profitability of the alcohol industry, he refrained from encouraging his people to consu alcohol or make it part of the culture.
Although the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire does not explicitly prohibit alcohol consumption, it is not encouraged either. The control chanism for this is the high price of alcohol, which serves as a deterrent. As for the production of alcohol, that is another matter entirely.
Vijay would be a fool if he prohibited the manufacturing of alcohol, but still, he had not found the exact blend he was looking for to make Bharat’s face in order to reach the sa reputation as French or Italian wines.
While the generals celebrate, intelligence professionals Roshan and Aditya work overti to send all the data to His Majesty, Vijay.
Simultaneously, the integration process has begun, as the central governnt has dispatched an administrator tasked with overseeing the integration of the new state, which is yet to be nad, into the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire.
Fortunately, due to the war, labour was nearly free. Only a bag of rice weighing 50 kilograms could employ four to five n for a week, with each man receiving one and a half kilograms of rice per day.
In the village called Kalavad, only 45 kilotres away from the military outpost of Rajkot, a family of three sat at their doorstep with their hands on their heads. The family consisted of a mother, a father, and a son. The grain in the house had recently run out, and the harvest season was still far away.
"Husband, what should we do?" the wife asked, her expression filled with fear. She couldn’t see a way forward for her family, and this thought brought her great despair.
The husband, hearing the despair in his wife’s voice, couldn’t help but feel overwheld himself. Due to the war, the rchants had already stopped travelling from one village to another, and the food in the village was already controlled by wealthy families. Poor families like theirs, who lived from paycheck to paycheck, were the most at risk.
The young man, who was about 16 or 17 had a hesitant look on his face, looked at the expressions of his father and mother and did not know what to say. He didn’t want to bring any more trouble to his parents than they were already in.
* Crowd noises *
However, in this depressed atmosphere, the family’s attention was caught by the large crowd walking towards a certain direction in the village, While carrying different tools commonly found during construction, like hamrs and chisels. what was peculiar among these groups of people was that most of them had excited expressions on their faces. Such enthusiasm was quite rare these days.
This surprised Naveen Ambani, the father who was sitting at the door of his house feeling depressed about the condition of their family. His wife, Shilpa Rao Ambani, and their son, Ashwin Ambani, were no different as they looked at the passing crowd with incredulous expressions on their faces.
"Shilpa, stay here. I will go and take a look," Naveen Ambani said as he got up to see what the commotion was about, with his son Ashwin following along.
He went closer to a person who had a happy expression on his face and asked, "Brother, what is happening? Where is everyone going? And looking at the happy expressions on everyone’s faces, did sothing good happen?"
The man, who was suddenly pulled by the wrist, was a little taken aback by this sudden move made by a stranger. However, upon looking at the desperate expression on Naveen Ambani’s face and the dull expression on the young boy’s face who was following the man, he felt like he understood their situation and sympathized with them quite a bit, as he was also in the sa situation yesterday.
Out of pity or a desire to help, he decided to share the news, "Oh, you don’t know? Well, that makes sense. Your house is in such a remote corner of the village, so you might not have heard the village crier’s words. The New Empire, which conquered our region, has started multiple projects throughout the region. Currently, there are a lot of job opportunities.
The Empire is exchanging work for grain at a rate of 1.5 kilograms per day for a single man. Go to the village panchayat and get it registered. You can also join."
Naveen’s face lit up as soon as he heard the words. He profusely thanked the man for his information and quickly, along with his son, without even going ho to inform his wife, he directly went to the Panchayat.
"Labor group 25, project 18," the labour dispatcher said as he quickly assigned Naveen and his son to a labour group and a specific project.
Arriving at the designated location, they discovered that they were building sothing called a police station. A Lord, who called himself the chief engineer of the project, assigned individual tasks to them. By the end of the day, Naveen and Ashwin were both tired from the day’s work. To their happiness, they were given three kilograms of grain for the day’s work.
Standing in the middle of the queue at the front of the godown, which was recently established by the empire, Naveen and Ashwin eagerly awaited their turn. Thankfully, the wait was not too long, lasting only an hour. Eventually, their turn did co. The godown manager quickly verified their identities using the docunts present in the panchayat, along with the report prepared by the civil engineers.
Without delay, the godown manager poured three kilograms of grain into a bag and handed it over to Naveen Ambani.
As Naveen looked at the grain in his hands, he found himself speechless, his eyes brimming with tears. Just this morning, he had contemplated fleeing like so many other refugees in the region, but now, it seed unbelievable—they were truly saved. Witnessing his father’s reaction, Ashwin too couldn’t contain his tears.
Together, father and son stood there, crying and smiling in equal asure, overwheld with emotion.
The godown manager, who saw this scene, was already accustod to it, having witnessed similar cases in the past few days. He simply said a few words, "Don’t worry, everything will be alright. The almighty God Shiva will take care of you. You can go now, do not obstruct the queue."
Upon hearing the godown manager’s words, Naveen suddenly glanced back and saw the eager faces still in the queue. Realizing he was obstructing their path, Naveen swiftly apologized to the manager and promptly left the area, heading ho.
Witnessing the grain in her husband’s hands, Shilpa felt a wave of happiness and relief wash over her. Finally, the burden and mounting pressure on the family seed to lift. Naveen, seeing the joy on his wife’s face after many months, felt a profound sense of contentnt. As the whole family sat together, Although simple, they shared a fulfilling al that night.
Despite both the father and son’s bodies being in pain from the labour they had endured throughout the day, they slept soundly for the first ti in a long while, filled with hope for a better future.
Similar scenes occurred all over the region of Gujarat as the basic infrastructure of police stations, courts, schools, post offices, and city halls was being constructed at breakneck speed. The rit points of the labourers were also taken into account.
Surprisingly, nearly half of the landlords and high-caste families in the region ca to the regional administrative outpost of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire and proposed to sell the land at a very cheap cost. This was because they had already inquired about what happened to their class of people whenever the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire conquered a new region.
They wanted to keep their land, but unfortunately, even the nobles could not stop the invading Dakshin Bharatiya Empire. What could they do except cause aningless riots? Maybe if they voluntarily sold the land, they could receive so benefits.
Upon receiving this news at the fastest speed with the Laksham class clipper put into service recently, Vijay heard their plea and thought for a mont. Finally, he chose to accept the compromise and forgive the past wrongdoings of the landlord-class families. However, the remaining landlords Who did not co forward to relinquish their powers, still started to cause so trouble.
They launched separatist movents imdiately, and the higher-caste Brahmin priests also aided the movent with their cultural and religious advantages.
The reason why these priests supported these separatist movents was when they got to know that even the lowest class Shudras were required to study in a school where even the religious books could be read, they found it unacceptable. So did not accept that the Gurukuls would have to be supervised by the empire.
Alongside these individuals, there was also a rare number of people who actually believed in an independent Gujarat nation. This sentint was unfortunately brought upon the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire by Vijay himself when he penned chants during the freedom struggle of the last life. It ignited nationalism within so individuals, who used these chants to protest through various streets and corners.
Fortunately, like all the other separatist movents the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire had dealt with, this one was also very isolated. Special forces were used to deal with the situation. Both Dinesh Reddy and Lingesh, who had recovered from injuries, commanded this operation, as they were the most experienced in handling such situations.
Although it would take another week to fully settle these small troubles, the integration process of the Gujarat region could already be said to be underway, with millions of Gujaratis currently working under the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire.
With internal security secured, the military defence has shifted towards the eastern front, focusing on areas bordering Sindh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Thousands of tonnes of cent are continuously being shipped through the newly opened highway from Nasik to Surat and Ahdabad. Ahdabad once again beca the transportation hub of the Gujarat region for both land and marine transport.
Forward bases designated are Palanpur in the north and Dahod in the east. The border of the Gujarat region with the main parts of Sindh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, is only 500 kilotres in distance to be defended. The northwestern border with Sindh is 360 kilotres, but most of this area is inaccessible, so only a few trade routes were fortified, saving a lot of manpower.
Although the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan on the Arabian Sea were not heavily guarded, and the Mughal Empire could retake these locations with so effort, it is highly unlikely that they will do so in the current situation where they lack a proper navy. The only exception to this would be if the Mughal Empire received reinforcents from its possible allies.
Even in that case, these reinforcents would have to cross the Arabian Sea, which is now dominated by the Bharathiya Navy.
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