Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

16th February 1659

Akhand Bharatiya Empire, Imperial capital Bengaluru, Simhasana Bhavana.

Getting to know about the battle situation in the civil war of the Safavid Empire, Vijay was feeling quite relaxed. He even leaned back into his chair, kicked up his legs onto the table, and hummed a pleasant tune from his last life. Moreover, discovering the existence of Yazidis was quite an unexpected surprise for Vijay.

He knew the Yazidis from his previous life. They were a pitiful group of people who were hated and attacked non-stop from ancient times to modern times for the sole reason of existing alone.

Seeing as his goal of safeguarding the interests of the Bharatiya Empire was pretty much completed since the threat of Europe in the current situation was at a very minimal level, Vijay had decided to help out the ancient ethnicities like the Yazidis in this life.

Being born in Bharat, Vijay understood the plight of an ancient civilization persecuted by invaders and had always felt it was his duty to help out all the other ethnicities persecuted by religious fanatics as much as possible, as long as it did not go against the interests of the Bharatiya Empire. Hence, if possible, Vijay would love for the Yazidis to have their own country or kingdom. However, he was quite disappointed when he learned about the massacre that took place in 1648, which supposedly wiped out all the Yazidis in Safavid territory.

However, After discovering the spies of Yazidis in Baghdad, Vijay was very happy, and the plan of helping to found a Yazidi nation he had thought about could be implemented once again. All of this was not just because he felt pity or compassion but also due to strategic reasons.

In his opinion, after the Persian Empire is revived, although it does not pose any threat to the Bharatiya Empire, it is still better to be careful since Vijay is planning major economic corridors and transportation projects that pass through the Persian region. More importantly, Persia is going to be the hub for all the oil imports coming into the Bharatiya Empire.

Even if Vijay wanted to firmly control some of the major oil-rich areas in the Arabian Peninsula, like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, then having influence over the Persian region is paramount.

So by helping the Yazidis build their own nation, it can not only increase the influence of the Bharatiya Empire within the Middle East but also give the Bharatiya Empire more room for maneuver.

If, in case, the Persian Empire starts to act up, then the Bharatiya Empire could utilize its influence within the Yazidi nation and the Jewish nation to put pressure on the Persian Empire. On the other hand, if the Jewish nation and the Yazidi nation are acting up, then he could use the Persian Empire to put pressure on them, all the while acting as a middleman and not actually using any form of violence or deterrence.

Since ancient times, rivalries within the nobility had always been good for imperial power. So, this is the exact same principle by which Vijay had made the decision.

---

'Knock Knock'

Vijay, who was staring at the map of the Middle East hanging on the wall, was awakened by the knock on the door.

"Come in," he said while sitting upright.

It was Ganesh, the Chief Secretary of the Emperor's Office, who had entered the room.

"Your Majesty, the various chief ministers from the northern part of the empire are continuously requesting you to reduce the criteria for employing core personnel of the government. They say that they are unable to implement all the policies of the Bharatiya Empire since they do not have enough backbone staff within the state governments."

Vijay did not have much of a reaction after hearing this since he had already predicted that such a thing would happen. Fortunately, he had taken precautions.

"The first batch of the Jewish and Romani immigrants, are they ready to take over their duties?"

Ganesh nodded his head. "The first batch of Jewish and Romani immigrants from Europe have already cleared their courses in the Bharatiya Institute of Naturalization, Your Majesty.

"Surprisingly, the majority of the Jews and a large number of Romani have some sort of skill set they acquired from their work back in Europe. "

"Due to this, after gaining knowledge about the rules and regulations of the Bharatiya Empire, they have been initially approved as fit for work."

Vijay leaned back in his chair. "So, in total, how many people are eligible to join the workforce?" he asked while taking out a pen and paper.

Ganesh was silent for a few seconds before he replied, "A total of 6,225 Jews and Romani have become eligible to join the workforce, Your Majesty, while 863 have failed to pass the examination put forward by the Bharatiya Institute of Naturalization."

"But the majority of these 800 or so people are also talented individuals since the only reason they had not passed was because of their low talent in language comprehension and because they could not master the Bharati language, not because they lacked notable skills."

"So, adding to the 8,000 recruits we have gotten in the second batch, we are bound to get another 7,000 or more eligible civil servants to join the workforce by April."

Vijay was greatly satisfied. Although the 6,000 civil servants are nowhere close to the required amount, with the addition of new graduates from various colleges and universities, it should be no problem to assign at least 20,000 civil servants. But to be totally honest, the 20,000 civil servant workforce is not even close to meeting the requirements of the demand. If anything, it could only barely fulfil the requirement for backbone staff in various state governments across the empire. As for the middle-level positions, they can only be filled up slowly, while the lower-level positions can only make do with the existing workforce.

Although this puts a lot of pressure on the core staff, it is still at a manageable level, especially since the salary they would be receiving would be top class in the empire, almost equal to some of the executives in major companies in the empire. Additionally, these high-level people should spontaneously train their own teams in order to make their lives easier, so these lower-level people who had been trained by this high-level civil staff would definitely be capable of handling middle-level jobs.

Thinking about this, Vijay quickly made a decision. "Alright then, let us begin allocating the jobs to these Jews and Romani, along with the land and monetary benefits we had promised them."

Ganesh quickly wrote down the order and its details so that he could draft the order for His Majesty to sign.

Vijay suddenly remembered something. "Is there no trouble expanding the police force? How is Minister Arjun handling it?"

"Minister Arjun has followed your orders, Your Majesty. He directly employed General Sergeant Harish and had him train all the disbanded soldiers into capable policemen who could follow the orders of their senior officers.

"And local police academies, responsible for enriching the theoretical knowledge missing in most soldiers, have been set up in all major towns and cities around the northern part of the empire.

"Due to this, although the northern part of the empire still does not have police officers as professional as we do here, the situation where the police is only a figurehead of the empire is no longer visible."

"With each police station employing multiple war veterans, no local force dared to challenge the rules and regulations of the empire."

Although it was not perfect, it was already very good for the current Bharatiya Empire.

"That's good," Vijay said as he got up from his seat.

"I think it'll take a while for the Yazidis to contact us again for the meeting, so in the meantime, arrange the meeting with Ezekiel Oppenheimer."

---

Ezekiel Oppenheimer had just come out of the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, and Industry office. Along with him was Moshe Goldstein, who had a happy expression on his face.

They were coming out of the office building right after they had registered a trading company in the Bharatiya Empire.

As for the name of the company, it was called Oppenheimer Goldstein & Co, taking the surnames of the proprietors of the company.

Initially, both Moshe Goldstein and Ezekiel Oppenheimer wanted to buy a small trading company that had some experience and a stable trade route. But unfortunately, the price of the company was highly overvalued due to their recent boom in profits in trade. More importantly, the majority of the trade companies in the Bharatiya Empire mostly specialized in trade with southeastern countries, and none traded with Europe directly, since the European traders came to their doorstep to pick up the goods.

So, not willing to pay the premium for a trading company that didn't even have experience selling to South Africa, Moshe Goldstein and Ezekiel Oppenheimer chose to start their own company from scratch. More importantly, they realized that they could gain some tax incentives by founding a company instead of acquiring one.

Moshe Goldstein and Ezekiel Oppenheimer got into the carriage and were on their way back to their residence.

The carriage was whizzing through the main street of Mangaluru along with the traffic,

Moshe Goldstein stared out of the window with an excited and curious expression on his face. No matter how many times he had seen the urban life of the Bharatiya Empire, he could always discover something new whenever he took a look at it.

Ezekiel Oppenheimer was sitting silently as well, but after a while, his face took on a hesitant look. "Um, Uncle, if you don't mind, may I ask you something?"

Moshe Goldstein looked at Ezekiel. "What is it, Young Master?"

Ezekiel Oppenheimer was contemplating whether to ask the question or not, but finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore. "Uncle Moshe, Father sent me a message saying you would be arriving. I was briefly surprised since you are a busy person and have your own business."

"But seeing as how you really came, something must have happened back home. Father did not mention anything about this, so if you don't mind, could you please tell me what happened?"

The jovial mood of Moshe Goldstein was immediately destroyed after hearing this question. Memories, like a rewinding clock, came flooding into his mind. He immediately frowned, and his emotions turned chaotic.

Fortunately, in the end, he seemed to have regained his control. "Sigh!"

Seeing such an intense reaction, Ezekiel Oppenheimer immediately knew that he had asked something he should not have. He was about to apologize to his uncle, but his words were cut off after his uncle gestured for him to stop.

"Well, you guessed it right, Young Master. Unfortunately, the business I have worked hard all my life to build has been destroyed," he said in a calm voice, but the depression and anger in his eyes betrayed his true emotions.

"Earlier this year, I got a huge order from Tsarist Russia, for machinery parts available in the Venetian Republic."

"I completed this task without any complaints, so I got a few more of similar consignments, which I consecutively completed once again."

"But unfortunately, due to the large amount of money I had earned in a short span of time, Earl Rutherford Krause, my largest creditor when I bought the merchant ships, immediately got greedy from my profits and demanded more."

"He no longer wanted the 10% interest from the loan; he directly wanted half of my business."

"So I rejected him, but unfortunately, this angered him. He banded together with a few barons and raided my company, claiming that I had committed tax fraud."

"I complained about this matter to the higher authorities and even tried to reach the Duke, but unfortunately, Rutherford had already bought out a lot of people in the Noble Council."

"After this incident, I knew that it was not safe for me to live in Frankfurt anymore, so with the help of your father, I was able to escape from the claws of the Earl and migrate to the Bharatiya Empire."

Ezekiel Oppenheimer was greatly shocked. He had never expected such a thing to have happened. Although he had guessed that something must have gone wrong with the business, he never thought that it would be completely destroyed by the local noble.

His father's warning echoed in his mind: *"Son, it doesn't matter if the noble lords unjustly take our wealth. With the military in their hands, nothing is unjustified, everything is just in front of force. So remember, never put wealth before your own life. If a noble lord suddenly wants a large part of your hard-won business, then, if it is not too much, do not refuse. If it is too much, then look for other nobles to support it, but never ignorantly rely on the Noble Council. Remember, son, justice can only be won with cannons and swords. As Jews are doomed to never have control of such justice, all we can do is compromise."* Before, Ezekiel used to think there was no need for his father to give so many benefits to the local nobles, but hearing about the situation of his uncle, he realized he had been greatly mistaken.

Ezekiel felt sad for Moshe Goldstein, but unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it except pray that their choice to trust the Bharatiya Empire was the right one. Since, if they could have their own nation, then they could also have the power to dictate their own rules.

In such a contemplative atmosphere, both Ezekiel Oppenheimer and Moshe Goldstein returned to their residence.

However, upon arriving, a surprise awaited them.

"Excuse me, Sir Ezekiel Oppenheimer. You have received a summons from the Emperor's office," Rajko Durril said with an incredulous expression on his face.