Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

June 1658

The northern part of the Akhand Bharatiya Empire

A beggar in the streets of Jaipur was startled when a 10 Varaha note was thrown into his bowl. The beggar’s eyes lit up with joy, and he was about to thank the kindhearted donor when an inscription in the corner of the note caught his attention. The inscription contained four digits.

The beggar’s expression immediately changed, and he quickly tucked the note inside his ragged clothes, resuming his usual act.

A few hours later, the beggar left the busy area and went into an isolated part of the city. Looking at the four-digit number, the beggar had a thoughtful expression on his face, his demeanour completely different from the homeless man of just a few hours ago. The man removed his thread necklace and opened the sealed bamboo tube tied to it.

Inside was a small piece of paper with four digits written on it. Comparing the numbers on the inscription and in the bamboo tube, they matched.

"So the time has come to kill my current character, huh?" There was a hint of relief on the man’s face. "Well, that’s good. Although I don’t mind playing this role for the empire, it’s still better to at least have a stable roof to sleep under."

A police officer in the city of Lucknow was greatly surprised when a packet containing a letter fell out of the milk he had just bought from his usual milkman.

The police officer was surprised, but thinking of something, his expression turned stern. He immediately looked around, closed all the curtains in the house, and opened the letter in the light of a candle, quickly reading it.

"Weeding plan," the police officer murmured in a low voice, his face expressionless, as the letter was burned to a crisp by the candle fire.

In a school in Lahore, a Bharati language teacher was sending off her students after class with a smile on her face, when suddenly one of her students, who had been absent throughout the day, came running towards her.

"Jagan, why did you not come to class today? Are you sick?"

The beautiful teacher asked, but to the teacher’s surprise, her student did not respond. Instead, the student simply shook his head, handed her a 10 Varaha note, and quickly ran away.

The teacher was momentarily confused as she took the note, but upon seeing the faint silhouette of the insignia through it, her face momentarily stiffened. She quickly recovered, hurriedly stashed the note in her bosom, and acted as if nothing had happened.

Going into her personal office and taking apart the desk, she pulled out a bundle of papers, each filled with hundreds of lines, all written after a random series of four-digit numbers. The teacher matched the digits on the insignia with those in the document, and her expression turned serious.

A coolie in Jalandhar surprisingly found a 10 Varaha note with an insignia on the floor of his carriage. He had initially thought it belonged to one of his customers, but turning the note over, he noticed the insignia and silently hid the note within his inner garments. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

A group of coal miners in Ranchi were abruptly called to a meeting in the middle of their workday. All of them were confused, but when they each received a note with the insignia, they went through their instruction books and followed the protocol to authenticate the four-digit two-factor authentication code.

What surprised them was not just that their manager was part of the intelligence service, but even their colleagues working in the mines were also members of the same service.

"Pffhahah!"

Realizing that their companions in the mines were actually their comrades in their real job, they burst out laughing. They immediately understood that their mission wasn’t related to any unusual activity in the coal mines, but rather, it was just their practical training.

---

In such a way, Bharatiya Internal Pragya agents, composed of various elites in society, external Pragya agents who had changed their jobs, new trainee agents who were recruited into the organization, thousands of new assets recruited to spread propaganda or news, and all the hidden top-level agents in the northern part of the subcontinent, were activated on the same day.

Nagpur, which had been the frontier throughout the war against the Mughal Empire, once again became the command centre of the weeding operation.

Vijay used the excuse of handling important matters to get out of the palace and secretly arrived at Nagpur while his body double followed his public schedule.

Arriving at Nagpur, Vijay entered the Nagpur Fortress, which had been turned into the command centre for all the operations.

People wearing black uniforms were hurriedly walking around in this tight space. The whole atmosphere resembled a movie scene, where the command centre is preparing right before a battle. On every available wall of the room, maps of the northern part of the Bharatiya Empire were plastered, with various notes written on them and arrows attached, with red threads connecting one arrow to another.

In such a hectic atmosphere, several times, Vijay had to give way to the helpers bringing in bundles upon bundles of intelligence received from all over the empire, with the help of the most dense and developed Arkha Dristhi communication channels established in Nagpur. The documents contained all the general decrypted messages from various intelligence handlers present throughout the empire.

Intelligence handlers is a new job within the three intelligence organizations. They are generally not directly involved in the fieldwork of intelligence gathering but are responsible for handling all the intelligence assets in the North.

All this data was being continuously pieced together by 40 specialised agents who formed the research and analysis wing of the Bharatiya Internal Pragya.

In this place, where chaos and order coexist, Vijay finally saw the leader of the organization, Selvan, continuously passing his orders while scribbling various things in a notebook.

"Action team one, standby. Action team two, enquire the status. Action team three, confirm the status. Action team four, standby. Action team five, standby. Action team six, enquire the status.

Action team seven, standby. Action team eight, confirm the status..."

With every announcement he made, he either ticked the name or crossed it out, and in some cases, he drew a question mark.

This process took a whole 30 minutes, as there were a total of 80 staggering intelligence teams consisting of Bharatiya External Pragya intelligence handlers and hundreds of thousands of normal intelligence assets: thousands of low-level agents, hundreds of intermediate agents, and dozens of top-level agents who had been activated for the weeding mission.

Seeing that Selvan had finished reading every team on the list, Vijay enquired, "When can we start the operation?".

Selvan was startled when he realized that his majesty was right beside him. He quickly got up, arranged a chair for Vijay, and explained, "As of now, 63 handlers are in position and on standby, waiting for the orders. Seven handlers are ready, but we are waiting for their final confirmation.

However, 10 handlers have not yet sent their status, and we are currently waiting for news from these handlers. Once everything is green, we can start the operation."

Vijay’s eyebrows wrinkled, "What could be the delay?" he asked.

"In my opinion, it is only because of the distance, Your Majesty. The farther the distance, the slower the intelligence transmission."

"So the remaining 10 handlers are located in the far western regions of the empire, huh?" Vijay asked.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Selvan nodded his head as he showed Vijay the spread of the teams.

Seeing the various locations drawn on the map, Vijay suddenly thought of something. "Are you planning to send the orders at the same time?"

Selvan was confused as he looked at His Majesty with a perplexed expression on his face. "Of course, Your Majesty. If the Weeding plan is not executed simultaneously, there is a very high chance that it will not succeed."

Vijay nodded his head but shook it right away, "That is of course true, but haven’t you noticed that the places farther from us receive the order much slower than those nearer to us? I do not know the exact time, but there should be at least a 10-hour difference between the farthest and the nearest. Don’t you think variables would increase and hinder the plan within this time span?"

Selvan immediately realized the problem his majesty mentioned but shook his head, "To be exact, your majesty, the difference should be 12 hours. However, it should be impossible for anyone in Lahore to alert anyone in Jabalpur within the span of 12 hours.

That is simply impossible, in my opinion, If the weeding plan starts simultaneously throughout the empire within 12 hours, then there should be no problem in completing the task successfully."

Vijay naturally understood this, as in this age, where there are no instantaneous communication channels, people in one town do not know what is happening in their neighboring town If communication channels are deliberately isolated, let alone in different parts of the country. But Vijay did not want to take any risks.

"What you said is naturally true, but have you considered that the example you’ve given is only the extreme case between the farthest and nearest locations? What about places closer to each other? Have you planned in what sequence the messages would be sent to two different cities in the same region? If the delay in information takes too long, there’s a slight possibility that the news could leak. "

"And, due to the nature of our plan, where if the news is unfortunately leaked, the government and I will permanently lose the trust of the Muslims in the empire, completely eliminating the possibility of integration and putting us firmly against each other. In such an extreme case scenario, I may have no choice but to banish them all to avoid leaving any future dangers for the empire.

So, it is best that all the handlers receive the instructions at relatively the same time, with the difference being no more than one hour, and for the entire plan to be executed within 48 hours."

Selvan was immediatly embarrassed as he had indeed not considered the sequence in which the messages would be sent. His plan was to directly send the messages through all available communication channels, but now, hearing his majesty’s opinion, he couldn’t help but lament his majesty’s great foresight. He did not continue to argue and humbly inquired, "We will do as you command, your majesty.

But is it too late to make changes? To implement your strategy, we would require a mathematician from the Academy of Sciences to calculate the exact timings for sending the orders to each city in the north."

Vijay simply laughed it off, "There is no need for a mathematician; I will be enough. Quickly call the agents in the research and analysis wing to assist with further calculations."

Selvan was stunned, but soon enlightened. He had totally forgotten that his majesty was not only a great leader but also one of the best scholars in the empire. He did not hesitate and quickly called all the agents in the research and analysis wing over.

The agents gathered together with books in hand, looking at Vijay with stars in their eyes.

Vijay didn’t think much of it; he had already gotten used to it.

"Alright, let us first define the problem to solve it.

"We have to create a formula that will allow the message sent from Nagpur to reach every handler at the exact same time, minus some uncontrollable variables that could be rounded off to a one-hour difference."

"So first, let’s take Nagpur as point A and the farthest point, Lucknow, as point B, with a signal travel time of roughly 12 hours. Take another point A, Nagpur, and point Z, which is Jabalpur, let’s say takes 15 minutes or 0.25 hours."

"All the other destination points for the purpose of formulation can be classified as a variable i or I."

"Now, note down the time it takes to send a message from point A to whatever the destination point is. You don’t have to stick with the system I used; all of you can discuss together, set your own code names, and divide the tasks among yourselves."

To be continued...