Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

10th June 1660

Akhand Bharatiya Empire

Jalandhar Keshav, Deputy Director of Bharatiya External Pragya, arrived at the port of Visakhapatnam in utmost secrecy. Jalandhar Keshav is now the biggest target of the Dutch; the bounty on his head is in the hundreds of thousands of Varaha. While everything was mostly peaceful on the mainland, a prolonged war of independence had already started in Dutch Indonesia.

After months of struggle, the Navy and Army of the Bharatiya Empire, collaborating with the local forces, had already taken control of the city of Malacca. Normally, this would not have ended so quickly since the army support provided by the Bharatiya Empire was not too high, but since Henry, the Governor-General of Dutch Indonesia, had already abandoned the colony along with his subjects, the remaining Dutch were low in morale and had no will to fight. In the end, with only a simple show of force, they gave up.

Sadly, though, the situation took an unexpected turn in the islands of Sumatra and Java. The Dutch officers and military leaders had an internal strife that started quickly and ended even quicker. After the dust settled, out of nowhere, three pseudo-kingdoms were formed. The Kingdom of Lynden, The Kingdom of Reede, and The Kingdom of Verschuer. Three of the Dutch officers, instead of feeling desperate as they were no longer getting any support from the Dutch mainland, seemed to have secretly celebrated.

Long back, a seed called ambition had taken root deep within their hearts. This seed, which was deeply buried in the presence of Governor-General Henry, had now, with his absence, grown with ample nutrition and sunlight.

When Henry abandoned the colony and retreated back to the Americas, many officers of the Dutch were left out. Diederik Van Lynden, Reinout Van Reede, and Otto Van Verschuer were only some of them. Diederik, Reinout, and Otto, all three used to be officers with a command of over 800 soldiers, in the Bharatiya Empire's equivalent ranking, lieutenant colonels. Looking at all the officers of the Dutch left out in the colonies, their power or ranking did not seem to be too impressive, but what they had and the others did not was ability and ambition.

While all the other officers were heartbroken and listless, not only because their leader had abandoned them but also because their families wouldn't send anyone to rescue them, the three ambitious officers, after realizing that it was their time to shine, immediately pulled out their swords sharpened for a decade.

Diederik, Reinout, and Otto, all three of them had no contact with each other except for the professional contact they had as officers of the Dutch army, mainly because all three of them were very unassuming and looked normal during their duty. If there was anything common between them, it was that all three had heard about the tales of the legendary emperor of the Bharatiya Empire, Rajyapati Vijay Devaraya, and they knew how he used a small part of the subcontinent as a unified force to eventually swallow up the whole of the subcontinent. They had become greatly inspired.

The three of them, despite not knowing about each other's existence or plans, coincidentally came up with something very similar. They realized that although the colony did not have industrial manufacturing capabilities like the Bharatiya Empire, what it did have was a lot of fertile land to sustain the growth of a large population, abundant resources enough to manufacture traditional muskets, and a vast consumable population.

They used their ambition to convince the heartbroken military officers and reignite morale. They killed off the top officers who had become embroiled in debauchery and lust after losing their hearts and minds, and finally, on one fine day, they declared themselves kings.

When this happened, a lot of people were surprised, and the main ones among them were the three kings themselves, as they did not know of the other's existence.

Diederik occupied Southern Sumatra, Reinout occupied West Java, including Jakarta, and Otto occupied East Java and the surrounding islands with what little naval power of the Dutch was left.

This is where Jalandhar Keshav earned most of his hatred, not because he tried his best to stop the nation's formation, no, but because he did the exact opposite. As soon as he realized what was happening, he actually encouraged, directly or indirectly, the formation of the kingdoms.

In this way, Jalandhar Keshav, who had already let many of his cronies occupy major positions in the kingdoms and had also employed some locals in government positions due to a shortage of talent, got to know all the internal developments and policies of the three kingdoms.

Using these cronies, he did his best to disrupt any plan of the Dutch ruling class without them even knowing. For example, the Dutch kings wanted to give out land to the locals in order to convince them not to rebel, but the cronies he had planted in the government started to protest, saying that all the land should either remain under the control of the king or be distributed only among the ruling class, which included themselves. Since this demand was actually very favourable to the ruling class of the Dutch, the new military aristocrats, the kings, who had only become kings due to the support of others, could not refuse.

Unfortunately, although they had big ambitions, they lacked foresight. Although they tried to emulate Vijay, they forgot the important point that when Vijay did what he did, he had absolute control over the Vijayanagar Empire at the time.

In this way, the policy that would have increased the three Dutch kingdoms' influence among the people was diverted. Jalandhar Keshav did many such things. At first, no one realized it, but as disputes became more frequent, they understood that someone was actually manipulating a lot of government employees to change the entire direction of policy.

After investigating using the blanket search method, many of his cronies were caught. Although fortunately none of them knew that he was their boss, unfortunately, in this raid, one of his handlers also got caught, and his name was leaked.

From that day forward, Jalandhar had become notorious in the three kingdoms. Although the Dutch kings did not know what he looked like, his name, along with a huge bounty, was publicized throughout the kingdoms.

---

Jalandhar Keshav, sitting in a carriage bound for the capital, let out a sigh of relief as he removed the cloak he was wearing. "Whew!"

He let out a breath of turbid air. Although he was not in danger at any moment in his job, it was still a little stressful to be the most wanted man by three different kingdoms.

Jalandhar Keshav leaned back onto his chair, stretched out his legs, and became comfortable in his seat. Resting his head on the headrest, he slowly closed his eyes.

He was going to get a much-needed good night's sleep.

Nearly half a day later

Jalandhar Keshav got out of the carriage refreshed. He stretched himself to the fullest with absolute enjoyment.

This time, coming to the mainland, not only did he want to report the data he had collected to His Majesty, but he also wanted to urge His Majesty to take action in order to quickly eliminate the three self-proclaimed Dutch kingdoms in Java and Sumatra, especially since he no longer had control over grassroots officials in the new pseudo-nation.

Vijay, being informed by Ganesh about the arrival of Jalandhar Keshav, was overjoyed. He was looking forward to the report, as he had a few policies he wanted to push that required maximum control over Southeast Asia.
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"Sit down, Keshav. Have you completed the task I asked of you?"

Keshav smiled with a hint of pride visible on his face. "I have, Your Majesty, but before I give my report, can you please take a look at this situation?" He carefully took out a document in his hand, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, and handed it over to Vijay.

Vijay was confused, but he still took the document and flipped it open. A few minutes later, his eyes widened in shock, he could not believe that all these things had happened within a few months, but he was not a rookie. It only took him an instant to recover, with his expression returning to normal the next moment.

"I'll handle this situation. You'll get the update before you go back," his voice was monotone, as if devoid of emotions.

Jalandhar smiled happily in his heart. 'Now that His Majesty has paid attention to this matter, it is definitely going to be solved.'

Since he got the answer he wanted, he did not continue to delve into the matter anymore. Instead, he took out another document, but this time it was not anything confidential; it was just too thick.

"As ordered, I have prepared the report of all the regional powers, the resources they occupy, and the resources that are currently under our influence and potentially under our influence." He got up from his chair and handed it over carefully.

Vijay took over the bundle, which was as thick as a cricket bat, and placed it in front of him, but he did not open it. "Briefly summarize the results."

"Right away, Your Majesty."

"The whole of Southeast Asia is occupied by over 11 different powers that have some sort of organizational structure."

"The most obvious one, that is, the landmass to our east, is comprised of six different kingdoms."

"Starting off with our direct neighbour, the Toungoo Kingdom is a Monarchy ruled by the Toungoo Dynasty, spanning over 630,000 square kilometres. It is the largest kingdom among the six kingdoms I have mentioned, and it's ruled by King Narathi Hapate."

To be continued...

P.S. The accuracy might be questionable since I only used a single source for my research. I'm sorry if I am wrong.

P.S. Thank you Lucifer_6671, for the Inspiration capsule

P.S. Thank you Tervantas, for the Massage chair

P.S. Fricking Legends