Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

It has been a week since Vijay came back from the Middle East. As soon as he came back, he did not directly delve into the matters of the government; instead, he secretly summoned the director of Bharatiya External Pragya and tasked him to directly handle the delivery of a letter.

In the letter was Vijay's writing about his request for Alexis I, the emperor of the Tsarist Russian Empire, to launch the campaign to conquer the greatest Western city in the world, Constantinople. Consequently, Vijay also wrote a separate letter in which he mentioned his request to the Doge of the Republic of Venice, Giovanni Morosini, to assist the Russians on the naval front. He also mentioned his willingness to further support the unification movement of the Italians by providing ordnance at a further discounted price.

'Although the Ottomans did not invest more resources in the Middle East like I thought, more than 70% of the force is still in the Middle East, and although it is not perfect, it is enough leeway for the Russians and the Venetians to take advantage of it,' Vijay said to himself.

In fact, what was ironic was that the current dominance of the Ottoman Empire could actually be attributed to the influence of the Bharatiya Empire. Because even though in Vijay's last life the Ottoman Empire was still a behemoth that no one liked to provoke, it was not such a monster that it would have a million troops ready to go. But in this timeline, due to the Bharatiya Empire's existence and its philosophy of maintaining a large regular army spreading throughout the world, the militaries of all nations in the world have gotten bigger. This could be said especially for the Ottoman Empire. In Vijay's last life, the army of the Ottoman Empire in the middle of the 17th century ranged around 90,000 soldiers to 150,000 soldiers, but now it is more than a million.

The expansion of the army actually happened nearly a decade ago, when the philosophy of Dharmic or New Testament Islam spread preliminarily in the Ottoman Empire and its territories. At that time, the Ottoman Empire still had many subordinate states; for example, Walachia in the Balkans was one, along with others in the region of the Caucasus and North Africa, neighbouring Egypt. But when cracking down on the philosophy of Dharmic Islam, Mehmed IV seemed to have discovered the hidden wealth of these subordinate states and directly started to occupy them. And without any surprises, less than a year later, all the subordinate states of the Ottoman Empire disappeared, and all of it was turned into a direct control territory of the Ottoman Empire. For the last five years, using the newly available human resources at their disposal, the strength of the military grew to 1.2 million troops, nearly 900,000 or more of whom are in the Middle East, while the remaining 300,000 are stationed in various fortresses in Turkey and the Balkans.

"Hopefully my cards are enough," Vijay muttered to himself, as he knew that everything does not always go according to plan. The best he could hope for is to have enough surprises to give to the enemy until eventually they succumb.

Putting the messy thoughts aside, Vijay started to go through the reports submitted by various ministries of the government. However, when he came upon the report provided by the Ministry of External Affairs, he was taken aback, because within the report, there was actually an application for enrollment, not for a student to join a university, but for a country to join an association.

In order to get better clarity on things, Vijay summoned S. Jaishankar directly to the office and enquired what was happening with him face to face.

"Your Majesty, I am sorry to inform you that I do not know what led the Southern Ming Empire to request its entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but when the association received the application and request from Emperor Zhu Youlang, they did not know how to handle this matter and asked for our opinion."

"However, Your Majesty, they did unofficially mention that they hoped to allow the Southern Ming Empire as one of their member nations."

"Hmm," Vijay stroked his chin, "Why do you think that is?"

"If I dare to take a guess, Your Majesty, it's probably because the Southeast Asian nations are desperately looking for a market to dump their goods. The products produced in our empire are naturally the best in quality and quantity, so we do not have to worry about competition from any other country. But nations in Southeast Asia are completely different—they produce rudimentary industrial products, their quality is subpar, the quantity is not too high, thereby making the price of manufacturing higher, not to mention the technologies which they are using to produce are widespread, thereby creating a situation where companies are in constant competition with each other, and their products have to stand out in the presence of our products in order to get attention. Until now, they are making do with spreading propaganda about using products made in their own nations. But now, if the Southern Ming Empire—an empire with a population of nearly 30 million people—is suddenly added to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, this is a huge market for the member countries in ASEAN to divide up. Even if they only get a small piece of the market, they are bound to become a lot wealthier."

"It makes sense. Alright, Jaishankar, you can take your leave now. I will formally send an edict after I have decided about the matter."

"Yes, as you wish, Your Majesty."

After Jaishankar left, Vijay summoned Jalandhar Keshav, the deputy director of Bharatiya External Pragya Southeast Division.

Thankfully, Jalandhar Keshav was in the capital in order to give his annual report, so Vijay didn't have to wait for him for days at a time.

"Are there any new changes taking place in China?"

Hearing the question, Jalandhar Keshav's eyes immediately brightened. "Yes, Your Majesty, I had already written about it in the annual report."

He handed over the report and continued to explain, "Your Majesty, with the loss of almost all of the southern territory to the Southern Ming Empire, there was a lot of political disturbance in the Qing Empire."

"The people's, the court officials', and the military leaders' dissatisfaction with the Shunzhi Emperor has continued to grow, especially since the Emperor seems to have become completely withdrawn and has paid less and less attention to the affairs of governance."

"Another shocking thing the agency received just yesterday is that the Shunzhi Emperor seems to have become sick and bedridden. Rumours are that he was poisoned by his minister, but we currently do not have enough information or intelligence to prove the truth or falsehood of the matter."

"In the end, Your Majesty, the Qing Dynasty is currently facing a very precarious situation, only barely a century after its establishment."

Vijay was extremely surprised by this news because, historically speaking, nothing should have happened to the Shunzhi Emperor, and no dissatisfaction or rebellions should have broken out during his rule. But thinking about it some more, it makes sense, because unlike in his last life, the Southern Ming Empire in this world exists and is stronger than ever. Not to mention, the rise of the Southern Ming Empire happened after the death of the Shunzhi Emperor's beloved consort, Zhuang, after which he almost wanted to become a monk. As fate would have it, this is true in both his previous life and the current one.

Having such an emperor in a time when the nation is stable and the surroundings are peaceful can actually be considered a blessing, as he wouldn't start meaningless conflicts. But the current situation of the Qing Dynasty is anything but that. The dynasty has only recently been founded, and the pushback against forcing people to wear pigtails and follow the customs of the Manchurian people still exists. And if there was no military conflict, that could also have been suppressed—but unfortunately, there was a military conflict with the Southern Ming Dynasty, which was supported by one of the best armaments of the Bharatiya Empire.

"There is a very high chance that someone in the ruling class saw the incompetence of the emperor as well as the danger surrounding the empire. The chances of poisoning the Shunzhi Emperor are definitely high." Vijay quickly figured out the ins and outs of the situation and drew his own conclusion.

Vijay sent back Jalandhar Keshav and began to think. "Maybe Zhu Youlang already saw the situation and decisively put forward a request to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, seeing as how his enemy is in trouble and there would be more development opportunities in ASEAN, which was initiated by the Bharatiya Empire." He finally decided to allow the Southern Ming Dynasty to become a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. With this, not only will he gain further respect from the member countries of ASEAN, but also the economy of the Bharatiya Empire itself will get another market to which industrial products can be sold.