Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 814

Chapter 814: 1664 – 1670 Part (4/4)
When the bonds were sold to the public through various banks of the empire, as well as the two stock exchanges, over 500,000 bonds were sold in the first week alone. In a matter of a few months, all the bonds sold by the government were sold out. This was mainly because the clients were informed that the bonds could be used as currency in case the client needed emergency money. After this news was made public, most investment institutions, as a way of hedging risks, bought a few thousand bonds at a time, but the bonds issued by various governor offices did not sell well.

This was mainly because there wasn’t enough trust in the governor’s office. Noticing the situation, all five banks of the Bharatiya Empire banded together to provide underwriting to the governor’s offices, promising the clients that if the governor’s office was not able to pay back the money in ten years, the banks would pay the clients themselves out of their own pockets.

With the money in place, massive, large-scale infrastructure projects started. Once again, driven by the infrastructure projects, the gross domestic product of the Bharatiya Empire for five years increased as if its economy had been tied to a rocket ship.

The increase in gross domestic product from 1664 was, on average, 20% for three consecutive years. The most significant surge came as the infrastructure projects reached their peak, with GDP growth soaring to 40% during the years 1668, 1669, and 1670.

By the end of the decade, the gross domestic product of the Empire had reached a whopping 76.55 billion Varaha. Converted into its value in gold, it was a mind-boggling 1156.76 tonnes of gold.

By the end of the decade, Varaha had been devalued by 50%. In 1664, 150 Varaha could purchase 3.4 grams of gold, but by 1670, for the same 3.4 grams of gold, it required 225 Varaha. This meant the gold that could be purchased with one Varaha had decreased from 0.02267 grams to 0.01511 grams.

The total currency circulated in the market also reached a healthy 19.852941 billion Varaha. What was interesting was that, with the development of the economy, the spending habits of the people of the Bharatiya Empire had also changed over the years. At the beginning of the decade, the ratio between the total Varaha in circulation and the gross domestic product was 1:2, meaning there was some spending in the household, but it was not more than necessary.

But as the years went on, the ratio by the end of the decade reached 1:3.8571, meaning that a value 3.8571 times greater had been generated from the existing money in circulation. This signified that people had become twice as willing to spend as they were in 1664, with people more eager to buy and more active in participating in trade.

Over the years, the population has also increased significantly. Each year, anywhere from 10 million to 15 million babies were born—an astonishing figure, especially when compared to 21st-century India, which saw around 25 to 30 million births annually. This steady birth rate helped replenish the population of the Bharatiya Empire, with outgoing numbers falling within a similar ballpark.

By the end of the decade, the total net population of the Bharatiya Empire had reached 223,000,000, the majority of it being young military-aged people and a healthy number of children.

The population received by the frontiers also kept up throughout the years, and by the end of the decade, each and every frontier had millions population of filled with the majority being Bharatiya people.

By 1670, Malayapradesha had a population of 6,246,792. Vayudhvaja had a population of 4,949,873. Javanesha had a population of 7,065,551. Kalakuta had a population of 4,962,917. Poorva Desha had a population of 5,043,253. Driven by various conveniences provided by Raja Jayadhwaj Singh, the population of Nagapura reached 6,907,200. Given that Bali was already a fairly developed region, Balidevapura had a population of 3,387,344. Madagascar Nagara had a population of 2,488,208. Hawaii Nagara reached a total of 920,000.

Arohanapura reached a population of 11,050,000, driven by the extremely developed mining industry. In Vijay’s last life, the western part of Australia had not been tapped by the British due to being extremely barren and very hard to develop. But in this timeline, due to Vijay splitting apart Australia into six different frontiers, and further driven by the financial resources and connections of Kiran Poojari, a lot of minerals had been discovered in the western part of Australia, thereby pushing for the development of the mining industry, thereby increasing the population.

Vidya Nagar had a population of 710,000. Prabhava Pura had a population of 1,900,000. Surya Nagari had a population of 1,170,000. Vishala Nagari had a population of 1,660,000. And finally, the population of Reshmi Vardhan reached 1,420,000.

Logically, the population of the frontier should not have increased so quickly due to the harsh conditions of the environment, but driven by resources as well as infrastructure projects, the population picked up quite quickly with the migrant workers who went there to work, eventually settling in Suvarna Dwipa after redeeming a large plot of fertile land. Not to mention, all the native population received from the Americas was sent to the frontiers of Suvarna Dwipa.

By the end of the decade, over six million three hundred and four thousand Native Americans were settled in Suvarna Dwipa. Additionally, driven by war, a lot of Chinese and, driven by profits and better economic policies, many Southeast Asian people belonging to ASEAN countries chose to settle in the frontiers of Suvarna Dwipa, forming three different minority groups in all the frontiers.

Finally, by the end of the decade, iron production saw a big jump with the completion of large-scale blast furnaces capable of churning out thousands of tonnes of molten iron, thereby bringing the number to 1.5 million tonnes of iron produced per annum in the year 1670. In fact, the number is a jump of 50% from the previous year. The steel production also saw a massive jump of 500,000 tonnes per annum from 200,000 tonnes the previous year. Coal production jumped to twenty million tonnes, while cement production jumped to a whopping 50 million tonnes.

Finally, by the end of the decade, all the railway tracks in the southern part of the empire had been laid down, and a few tracks had been put into operation by using elephants.

As far as technological innovations were concerned, the decade saw the invention of the theory of electromagnetism proposed by Anand Binoy, the discovery of oxygen and hydrogen, the discovery of vaccination, the explanation of thermodynamics, the invention of fossil studies, the invention of taxonomy of animals, the discovery of the nervous system and its functions, the discovery of photosynthesis, the invention of gas laws, the discovery of aerodynamic properties and principles, the discovery of sound propagation, the deepening of ocean current understanding, the discovery of electric charge conservation, the theory of colors, the new field of human psychology, the expansion of botanical clarification, deepening of chemical reactions, zoological classification, commet orbits, along with many other innovations and discoveries.

Key inventions included the pendulum clock, a tuning fork, a reflector telescope, a steam cooker, a water frame, a flying shuttle, an improved Gupta Ram loom machine, improved harvesters, a musical instrument similar to a piano, flush toilets, a fire extinguisher, a washing machine, an improved chronometer, a parachute, and other inventions.

As far as the military is concerned, the Southern Ming Dynasty has regained its dominance in the southern part of China, especially in the provinces of Guangdong, Yunnan, and Guangxi.

The war in the Middle East has been maintained at a standstill, with the Ottoman Empire investing a lot of resources into the war, while the Bharatiya Empire played the war economically.

Once the Ottoman Empire attacked a certain city with full force, if it was a force that the Bharatiya Empire could not resist with the current weaponry and human resources, then the two commanders, Lachit Borphukan and Ramayya Senapathi, would throw a smoke screen at the Ottomans and decisively retreat from the city, allowing the Ottomans to occupy the city and deepen their logistic lines. At the same time, the Alliance Army would attack the city with weak forces, exploiting the weak links in the enemy’s territory, thereby making the Ottomans transfer their forces from one region of the border to another.

Due to the line of command being too long, most of the battles were spent in travel. This did not affect the allies of the Bharatiya Empire much because they had an ample road transportation network, but due to there not being any ample transportation network on the side of the enemy, they suffered a lot. Also, the logistic cost and human resources invested went up by several magnitudes.

Unfortunately for the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV only received information about all the victories, but did not receive new information about how much it had cost the Ottoman Empire to continue the war.

Additionally, the Sultanate of Mahra and the Qasimid State also played the battle of attrition with the Ottoman Empire for the last seven years.

Mehmed IV, seeing that the Iberian nations and Western European nations were very busy in their conflicts in the Americas, saw this as an opportunity to expand territory to the East. This decision of his increased the amount of slaves purchased, but unknowingly, the price of slaves for the Ottoman Empire had doubled, increasing the resources spent on the war.

With this initiative, although the Ottoman Empire gained more control over Shamlu and Ustajlu territories, thereby virtually increasing the land area of the Ottoman Empire by 1.5 million square kilometers and making it a direct neighbor of the Bharatiya Empire, while making Mehmed IV extremely happy since it would give him access to the Persian Gulf and the Bharatiya Mahasamudra once the war was won, It unwittingly also made the Ottoman Empire invest a lot more resources in the Middle East than it would have if the Bharatiya Empire had completely eliminated rival families in the Safavid Empire.

Basically, Vijay’s “quicksand plan” of leaving a large part of the Safavid Empire untouched as bait was very successful, making the Ottoman Empire unknowingly sink into the quagmire.

Now, all there is to do is hit the Ottoman Empire where it hurts and see if he can completely destroy this age-old enemy.

P.S. If there is confusion, throughout the seven years, the war with the Ottoman Empire was only a war of attrition. During the 6 years of war, the Ottoman Empire appeared strong, but all its resources had been invested in the war in the Middle East, weakening its foundation, thereby giving those who were biding their time and building up strength the opportunity to take the Ottomans by surprise with an all-out attack, causing as much damage as possible. This has not happened yet. I’ll write this down in the next volume, which will be the last volume of the novel. It’ll be around 100 to 150 chapters.