Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

September 12th, 1660

Vijay, having no idea how large the impact of upgrading Brown Bess rifles will have on the Bharatiya Empire, is routinely going through the recent reports he has received.

One of the interesting reports he had received was about Akhil, the commander of the Bharatiya Pacific Fleet, establishing a military research firm focusing on military communications. What made him intrigued was that Sarvesh and Heyram, two of the most high-profile personalities in the Bharatiya Empire, seemed to have been involved in this project.

What's more, the patent usage and research rights of the rocket launcher platform had been purchased by the Shri Manjunatha Research Firm, founded by Akhil.

'Just what are they doing?' he thought to himself, intrigued.

'knock' 'knock'

Vijay's concentration was suddenly broken when he heard the knock on the door. He asked the person to come in. Unsurprisingly, it was Ganesh.

"Your Majesty, Raya Research Institute has just sent a message saying that there has been a breakthrough in the research of new printing technologies."

Vijay's eyes suddenly lit up. "Prepare the carriage," he ordered as he resolutely got up and left the room.

Printers to the Bharatiya Empire are no less important than the generation five machine tools or the first-generation atmospheric steam engine.

All these three things together account for more than 90% of the Bharatiya Empire's urbanization. In such a situation, you could guess how important printing technology was for Vijay.

Until now, there were only two different printers being mass-produced in the Bharatiya Empire. One was the improved Gutenberg printer, whose accuracy, precision, and tolerances had been improved by the 4th generation machine tools, and the other was the Raya Printer, which was the main workhorse for the Bharatiya Empire's currency printing. Apart from these, there were no other printers.

Sitting in the carriage and looking at the scenery that was moving past him at a fast speed, Vijay was feeling lost. 'Finally, the monopoly of Raya Media Group can end, and the amount of books that could be printed will be increased.' Until now, there hadn't been a second newspaper apart from the Bharatham Daily, and this was not a coincidence.

Even though setting up a newspaper is a very resource-intensive task and the risk is also very high, after seeing the success of Bharatham Daily, the elite class of the Empire would have easily established a few newspaper companies. But they were not allowed to do so because the bottleneck was in the printers. No matter how many printers were produced, they were simply not enough for the Bharatiya Empire. Due to the fast pace of modernization, Empire printing tasks could be seen all over society—in schools, in colleges, in universities, in banks, in courts, in police stations, in government departments, in private enterprises, and where else not. In such a situation, maintaining the current production had become a huge problem.

Many times, even the Bharatham Daily newspaper had to delay its release by a few hours due to scheduling issues. Not to mention, the expansion couldn't be sustained anymore. Bharatham Daily newspaper had hit a bottleneck at two million copies, and more could not be produced no matter the cost.

In such a situation, Vijay couldn't really let the Gutenberg printer go into the market. Thereby, no private newspaper companies had been established.

He knew that things going on like this for a long time wouldn't be good. So, as far back as a couple of years ago, he secretly funded the research of a new and more efficient printer that was ready for the industrial age. He had invested millions of Varaha into the research, and finally, after two long years, he was hearing the good news.

The journey was over 300 kilometres long, as his destination was the political capital of the Vijayanagar State and his hometown, Hampi.

This was the location of Raya Research Institute, the organization responsible for all research and innovation in all the Raya Group of companies.

Thankfully, due to the excellent road network of the Bharatiya Empire and, more importantly, thanks to the National Highway directly going from Imperial Capital Bengaluru to Hampi, the trip did not take long. In half a day, Vijay was in Hampi, drinking a cool coconut juice and feeling the refreshing air of the Tungabhadra River. Experience tales with My Virtual Library Empire

Looking at the familiar streets and houses, he was feeling a little nostalgic, so he went back to his home for a bit, met up with the Chief Minister of Vijayanagara, and finally made his way to the research institute.

The first person Vijay saw when he stepped foot in the research institute was none other than Naveen Bhatt, the young mechanical engineering prodigy of the Bharatiya Empire. Ever since he had participated in some of the most high-profile innovations and inventions of the Bharatiya Empire, Naveen Bhatt was no longer constrained to one organization. He simply joined any research team he found interesting. So, after helping out in his atmospheric steam engine research, Vijay had thrown out the idea of an upgraded printing press, and Naveen Bhatt, being the curious man that he was, immediately agreed.

"Naveen, your reputation is not to be underestimated. You have only been here for less than half a year, and you have already helped bring out the results," Vijay patted the young man on his back. Starting as a technician and innovator in the paper-making machine to one of the brightest minds in the Bharatiya Empire, Naveen had come a long, long way. "You did really well, Naveen. The Empire will reward you greatly," Vijay praised.

Even if Vijay, through his knowledge transfer, provided a lot of help to Naveen, the majority of his success could only be attributed to his own brilliance and hard work. Because if that were not the case, Vijay had sent knowledge seeds to a lot of people—then why were they not as brilliant as the man in front of him?

Vijay's knowledge seeds only played the role of bringing a man to a buffet, and whether the man enjoyed the buffet or not was left to him.

Naveen Bhatt was blushing from the compliments. He was feeling embarrassed—not every day did he get praised so much by His Majesty the Emperor himself. "Your Majesty, my contribution is actually not too much. By the time I joined the research group, they had already completed over 80% of the research. The functionalities were already there—it could already be called a prototype. The only thing I did was to polish out the design drawings, remove the unnecessary parts, and add a few innovations, that is all."

"Haha, look at you being so humble. Don't think I don't know—if it was not for you, the research would have taken a year longer. The innovations you put forward in the motion dynamics of the machine were not small. You don't have to make yourself small—be proud," Vijay laughed and said as he entered the research institute with the guy.

Naveen Bhatt bit his lips and remained silent because what His Majesty said was indeed true. If it was not for him, the machine would have cost more, needed repairs and refurbishment constantly, its efficiency would not have been as high, and most importantly, its cost-effectiveness wouldn't have been as high either.

Getting into the lab, Vijay first greeted all the researchers and scientists who had participated in the project. These were all the top scientists of the Bharatiya Academy of Sciences and top professors of the Bharatiya Institute of Technology, whom he had poached at a high price.

This was a collective research effort, so everyone contributed small amounts of their innovation and ingenuity over the span of two years to produce the new machine.

Vijay, looking at the machine, his eyes brightened because this was very similar to a machine he had seen in his past life.

It was none other than the two-revolution press that was invented by David Napier of Scotland in the year 1830. The two-revolution press was actually one of the first transitional printing presses that was ready for the Industrial Revolution. Unlike the to-and-fro motion of the Gutenberg press or any other press of its time, it used a continuous cylinder rotation,

which allowed it to be upgraded to a steam-engine-run printing press or even, theoretically, an electric printing press, given that all it needed was an induction motor to power it.

"Tell me about it," Vijay pointed at the large machine as he looked back at the scientists.

One of the scientists whom Vijay recognized as Govinda Vajpayee, a researcher he had poached from the Academy of Military Sciences from the mechanical department, came forward and responded.

"Your Majesty, the machine is mainly composed of four different components, or you can say modules, each module performing its own function."

He took out a stick like the ones used by teachers to point out details on the board and directed it towards the machine.

"This right here is the impression cylinder, which holds the paper and applies pressure to transfer the inked image from the form."

"This right here is the press bed, which is nothing but a flat surface that moves back and forth, carrying the ink from beneath the impression cylinder."

"This right here is the inking system, which comprises rollers and ducts that apply ink evenly to the form on the press bed."

"Finally, this is the form, which can be called a type or plate. This is the surface bearing the text or image to be printed, positioned on the press bed."

Vijay nodded in understanding. He asked for a research assistant to remove the panel on the side of the machine so that he could look at its internals, and looking at it, he got a brief idea of how the thing functioned.

"Let's see it work," he said as he turned his head towards Govinda Vajpayee.

Soon, ink was applied to the inking rollers from the ink reservoirs. The rollers spread the ink evenly over the type form on the press bed.

The printing worked in two cycles, namely the forward stroke, which was the printing phase, and the return stroke, or the reset phase.

Vijay saw how the press bed moved forward, carrying the inked type form beneath the impression cylinder. A sheet of paper was fed into the position in front of the impression cylinder. As the bed moved, the impression cylinder rotated its first rotation and pressed the paper into the inked type form.

The ink transferred from the type form to the paper, creating the print. The printed sheet continued to move and was guided out of the press.

During the return stroke, the press bed reversed direction, moving back to its original position. The impression cylinder completed a second rotation but was slightly lifted to avoid pressing the paper again. The inking system re-inked the type form for the next print. The cycle repeated with a new sheet of paper.

"Clap clap clap"

Vijay clapped happily as the whole process was completed seamlessly, and even he couldn't suggest any improvements to be made.

"Tilt as many resources of Sriranga Industrial Tools to the manufacturing of the printer. I need at least a few hundred units to be put on sale immediately," Vijay ordered.