February 23rd, 1662
Sri Bana neighborhood, Tiruvannamalai
"Hey, Ram," a woman's shrill voice was heard in a small courtyard house in one of the well-off neighbourhoods of Tiruvannamalai. "Rember to throw out the trash. Don't forget like you always do."
"Alright, alright, God!"
Ramachandran had a scowl on his face as he walked out with an annoyed expression. 'Why did I even marry this woman?' He secretly cursed. Being the man of the house, he suddenly felt like he needed to express himself, so he turned back and yelled words of rebellion.
"Won, I will do it when I do it. Don't rush ."
Almost imdiately, there was a coback from within the house. "Haiyaa, there is no shortage of these dialogues. Which novel did you read it from????"
Ramachandran was imdiately choked. 'Forget it. Why should I spoil my day arguing with this woman?' He quickly cheered himself up and went to the garden to pick up the newspaper.
He happily trotted over on the grass, dying to see who the starting squad for the Chennai team would be.
He wasn't a big fan of team sports before, but after seeing the finals between Chennai and Bengaluru in last year's Bharatiya Premier League, his mind was absolutely blown. He had never seen anything like it. From then on, he was hooked on cricket, and he could not extricate himself.
'Let's see, I hope the manager picked Dhoni. He played very well in the qualifiers,' he hoped.
He picked up the newspaper, Tamil Urai, on the lawn and folded open the first page.
However, looking at the headline, his expression imdiately dropped. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes bulged out as if they were going to pop out of their sockets.
"Fuck!!!"
He imdiately cursed, startling the wife who was prepping for the al.
"What happened? What happened?" She ran out, worried. But when she saw that nothing had happened to her husband, and he was simply holding the newspaper in his hand like a statue with the sa expression as when she had rejected him for the first ti, the wife couldn't help but clench her fist in anger.
"Thu! Idiotic fellow! I was worried sothing had happened. Why are you screaming so loudly, early in the morning, as if you were being robbed at gunpoint?"
"Isn't it just a cricket match? Why are you so obsessed? I should have never let you go with my brother last year. Not only did he spoil himself, but he also spoiled you along the way."
The wife kept on nagging. she was relentless.
Fortunately, Ramachandran seed to have turned off all the outside inputs and was simply staring at the paper as if he had seen a ghost.
The wife couldn't take it anymore, so she coldly snatched away the paper and took a look at it herself. Fortunately, after attending the teacher's course put forward by the Ministry of Education, she beca a qualified primary school teacher herself, so she did not have any trouble reading the newspaper.
"Ayoooo, Shinmuga!"
"What sort of news is this?" The wife's expression fell, and she continuously slapped the husband's shoulder. "Ramachandran! Is this news true? Could the newspaper have a printing error?"
Ramachandran finally regained so clarity. His expression turned complicated. Although normally there would not be any printing errors in the newspaper, this ti he wished there was.
"What!!!"
Suddenly, a scream was heard from the next-door neighbour.
"Brother Ram, have you seen this? Is it true?" A young man with a disbelieving look on his face spread open the newspaper and directed it towards the couple who were standing on the lawn as if their souls had been taken away.
Ramachandran quickly took a quick peek at the headline. "The Parliant passed a bill to separate the legislative power of the military from the executive power. This bill has been passed after a petition had been put forward by the majority of mbers of the Parliant and had been officially signed by His Majesty, the Emperor himself. On March 15th, the Imperial Council will officially pass a resolution finalizing the change, all the while a new ministry will be established in the governnt called the Ministry of Defense, Rakshak Mantalaya."
Then he looked at the newspaper—it was Bharatham Daily.
His hopes were imdiately dashed. "Wife, it looks like everything written in the newspaper is true. Even Bharatham Daily reported the sa news. It is impossible for both newspapers to have the sa printing errors."
He let out a turbulent breath and looked up in sadness.
"It looks like the governnt is really turning its back on the empire's heroes who fought for its freedom, and it looks like His Majesty is siding with them as well. Sigh... What is going on? Wasn't everything fine until now? Why did things take such a drastic turn?"
Ramachandran and his family were not the only ones surprised by this news. Hundreds of thousands of people across the empire picked up the newspaper in the hopes of looking at who the main players for the team would be for the upcoming Bharatiya Premier League, which had caused a lot more anticipation compared to last year. But when they read the front page across all major newspapers of the empire—be it Tis of Bharat, Ahom Daily, Nepal Tis, The Observer, My Hampi, Lanka Observer, Kannada Nudi, Marathi Samachar, Odiya Prabha, and even the distant The Balochi—all had published the sa news about the separation of the legislative and executive departnts of the military.
This sparked intense reactions from the people, both literate and illiterate alike.
"What? How dare they! These traitors are backstabbing the heroes of the empire! Such people do not deserve to be our representatives!"
"That's right! If such a thing had happened before the elections, I would definitely not have voted for the current ruling party—these traitors!"
"Co on, let's take to the streets and express our full support to the Marshal! We will follow his orders!"
"Yes, co on, let's go!"
"Down, down, Vinod! Down, down!"
Literate and illiterate alike seed to have suddenly lost their minds. It looked like they had even thrown away the ability to think rationally. A lot of young people suddenly took to the streets, and even the youth wing of the Parliant and its president, 18-year-old Prabhas, who was very hands-on and direct, openly showed their dissatisfaction with the decision taken by the governnt.
"I wonder why His Majesty agreed."
"Shhhhh! Do you want to be beaten up? Keep quiet! His Majesty should have his own reasons."
"Hey, what else could it be? This should be a way for His Majesty to clean out the dissidents within the governnt. This is clearly one of his strategies."
Naturally, doubt began to arise about why Vijay agreed to the proposal and passed the bill. But since his reputation among the people and the way he held sway over public opinion was so great, no one even blad Vijay. That included several newspapers, which occasionally put out so prickly topics that were disliked by the ruling party.
Most people thought that Vijay was using this opportunity as a whetstone to polish the Bharatiya governnt even more.
What they all did not know was that they were absolutely correct—albeit on an inverse scale—because Vijay did not take the opportunity to weed out dissidents from the governnt but from within the army. He wanted to see how many people would jump up this ti, seeing how big of a commotion they would make. The higher they jumped, the harder they would fall.
---
Lahore Regint
"Brothers, we must not let it happen! We cannot let those politicians have a say in the military! We should resist this no matter the cost, even if our lives depended on it!" a first lieutenant passionately declared to the 160 n in his company.
Pakthtun Regint
"The Bharatiya Empire is in great turmoil. Now is our chance to act, brothers! This is a golden opportunity, and we cannot miss it!"
"Allahu Akbar!"
"Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!"
Thatta Regint (Sindh)
"Hahahaha! The ti for revenge is finally here! Let us go gather our n!"
---
Foxes that were hidden in various corners began to slowly show their heads. Vijay after realizing that his inadvertent intention to touch dissidents was working unexpectedly well, imdiately passed a command to the mbers of the military who were both agents of the Royal Intelligence Departnt and hidden mbers of the Asura Special Forces to show so intention to cooperate with the traitors.
"Let's see how many more old foxes will co out of their holes. It will be good to crush them all in one move." With this, he could avoid doing any cleanup operation in the military for at least the next five to six years.
While he was in his thoughts, Ganesh ca into the office and interrupted him. "Your Majesty, the Marshal is here to et you."
Vijay turned back, his eyebrows raised. "Oh, he is here so soon? All right then, bring him in."
Soon, Kiran Poojari entered the office with a respectful attitude. His expression did not convey any anger or resentnt; he looked normal as always.
Vijay looked at him with interest. "Don't you feel disappointed, Kiran? Despite all you have done for the empire, this is how you are being repaid. Aren't you feeling betrayed?" Vijay questioned as he sat down in front of Kiran, his expression curious.
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