NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1024: 1686 (3)
Reading the emperor's statement, the expressions of the industrialists were not good at all. They all looked like children who had just been scolded by their teacher when they tried to sneak away from school.
Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do. If the decision had been taken by the government, they might have resisted, hoping to change the prime minister's mind with more petitions or perhaps even a small bandh. But now, with His Majesty the Emperor himself speaking, how could they dare go against him? Even if the will to resist had not completely died, how many would still come forward against the emperor himself? That number would certainly be no more than a few.
In the end, left with no choices, they all had to lower their prices and become much more scrappy to compete with manufactured goods coming in from Southeast Asia and the frontiers.
Time went on, and 1681 came to an end. Several infrastructure projects were completed, like the smaller canal construction projects or the railway backbone network construction projects in some states. However, with the advent of 1682, new construction projects were initiated to improve the transportation and communication network in the inhabitable regions, like Balochistan and Tibet.
Not only that, commanded by the Observer of the empire, Kishore Balabadra, Bharat underwent a top-down corruption cleanup at the state level, pruning out the bureaucracy in the state governments by a lot and making them much more effective and efficient.
The number of locomotives added continued to increase, making it possible for the time taken for goods to circulate internally to be cut down by more than half, which not only reduced the cost of everyday items, because before, in the cost of an item, the logistical cost was also counted, but now, with the logistics companies being able to shift goods several times faster using cargo locomotives, the cost for transportation has come down drastically. Ergo, the price of everyday items has come down in proportion, and the research on newer and better engines remained unhindered. The mobility laboratory commanded by Heyram continued to work on improving the power of the Bhalwan B-2 engine while potentially decreasing its size.
Vedant was not empty-handed either. Due to his contributions in the B-2 engine project, he took over as the chief researcher of the Bhairavi engine, an engine under research to be installed on naval vessels. This engine, by the way, is not like the Kesari K-3 engine that is installed on paddle boats operating in the Great Southern Bharatiya Canal. It is an engine that could power an actual steam warship plated with metal.
And for that to happen, he had to get the torque numbers of the Bhairavi engine to more than 10,000 Kanda metre, or else it would not have enough power to spin the propellers of a 1000-tonne metal behemoth.
While the mobility labs are expending a monstrous amount of resources to research the new generation of steam engines, private enterprises like the Aakarsh Enterprises and the Gaur Enterprises have started to research how to install the steam engine onto a carriage to make it drivable without animals, or install the steam engine onto a harvester to make the crops harvest without the need for oxen.
The research had also come a long way, and somewhat unexpectedly, it was not a difficult endeavour. Aakarsh Carriages, being one of the five locomotive manufacturers in the Bharatiya Empire, already had experience building locomotives and installing the Balwan B-2 engine in them. All they needed to do was design a single-carriage locomotive that could run on normal roads instead of rails.
Gaur Enterprises saw similar progress. As another of the five locomotive manufacturers, it was relatively straightforward for them to attach a steam engine to the harvester. However, problems soon appeared during preliminary tests. The road locomotive could not run properly, its heavy carriage sank into the ground, and there was no way to control its direction. The harvester faced a similar issue. It was already heavy, but the addition of a steam engine made it far heavier. Since harvesting took place on soft soil, the machine would not even budge.
Finally, Aakarsh Enterprises chose to focus on developing wheels with a larger surface area and redesigning the road locomotive so it could change direction at will. Gaur Enterprises, on the other hand, decided to separate the steam engine from the harvester itself, making the engine a completely independent unit solely responsible for pulling the harvester, much like oxen pulling it, only without the oxen.
While these tests were underway in the Bharatiya Empire to create the first steam car and steam tractor, the Europeans began to realise that something was amiss.
The intensity of the Bharatiya Empire's counterattack did not lessen at all; instead, it only seemed to grow. No matter how the Europeans attacked, the Bharatiya Empire struck back harder and faster. What horrified them even more were the empire's missiles, flaming projectiles that rained from the sky and unleashed hellfire, which the soldiers could only see as divine retribution.
And to make things much more complicated, the actions of King William Ferdinand of Brandenburg-Prussia, as well as Archduke Peter Alexandrovich Romanov, caught everyone off guard.
Within the year of the rebellion starting, King Frederick William had taken over Bremen, Berlin, and, more recently, Hanover, already occupying over one-third of the coastal region in the northern part of the Holy Roman Empire, completely obliterating its influence in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Due to this, Denmark-Norway silently launched raids on the islands previously claimed by the Holy Roman Empire and was successful in occupying them.
As for Peter, who had been pushed to the Far East, he began clawing back thousands of square kilometres at a time. He captured one stronghold in Siberia after another, and with the tribals by his side, no power of the Tsardom could stop his conquest.
In the matter of a year, he had already reached Tyumen City, about 1,710 kilometres from Moscow. On paper, it might seem like a massive distance, but considering he had started in Vladivostok, over 4,700 kilometres away, and had managed to occupy all the Orthodox Russian territories in Siberia that were under his brother's control within a year, 1,710 kilometres did not seem too far.
Naturally, Dimitri was furious and livid, not only because of the betrayal of the Bharatiya Empire but also because the military supply from the Bharatiya Empire had completely stopped, making it extremely hard for them to not only sustain the war in the Balkans but also to put up a resistance against the rebelling Archduke.
Leopold I faced a similar situation, but unlike Dimitri, he had expected something like this would happen, because he had already seen how the nobles under his command, despite his constant reminders, continued to go against his will and support the West Europeans against the Bharatiya Empire. He knew that the Bharatiya Empire would not stay quiet in this matter, and the Holy Roman Empire would, unfortunately, have to bear the brunt, and now his worries had come true with the Prussian King rebelling, and with the supplies completely cut off, they were left to depend on themselves.
The nobles in his empire were furious, but he was calm. He knew that things had already reached a point where the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire could no longer be stopped. After all, how can one repair a house when the whole pillar has just collapsed?
So he had already thought about the self-preservation of as much power as possible, or the self-preservation of his dynasty.
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While all this was happening, the West European alliance began to discover the unusual situation of the Bharatiya Empire.
" This cannot go on, with the speed they are incrementing those locomotives, it is no wonder they are able to transport so much ordnance to the frontline."
" I think we should send specialised teams to disrupt the situation."
" How can we do that?"
" Although we do not know how the locomotives work, we definitely know that without those train tracks, the locomotives do not run, so let's blow up some important bridges, which should strand the logistical supply within the Bharatiya Empire for a few weeks. At this time, we might get a chance for a breakthrough on the frontline."
" Agreed, how about assassinating the important scientists of the Bharatiya Empire? A major target is a person called Heyram, he is the one who invented the first steam engine, and he is also the one who came up with the locomotive. Taking him out will strand the technological innovation of the Bharatiya Empire for quite a while. This should give us some time to catch up."
" I like how your Highness thinks, but let's make this a little bigger, let us assassinate the princes as well. I have reliable intelligence that Prince Vedant is one of the masterminds behind the locomotive, and I know for a fact that Prince Agni has taken control of the military logistics for the war."
" Assassinating any one of them is enough to devastate the Bharatiya Empire, and assassinating them both is simply a blessing."
" Agreed."
" Agreed."
" Agreed."