Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

5th October 1655

Currently, Sarvesh and his crew of around 800 soldiers are located in the town of Kasindra on the bank of the river Sabarmati.

Sarvesh, after accepting the request made by Ramayya Senapati and Narasimha Nayak, travelled to the town of Kasindra nonstop. He departed for the town early in the morning and arrived by 1:00 PM in the afternoon.

Due to the number of people travelling with him, which was not very large compared to the thousands of refugees displaced because of the war and travelling through the wilderness, they did not cause too much commotion, as basic camouflage techniques were enough to avert the eyes of anyone who may have been interested.

Moreover, due to the consecutive attacks and several main cities falling under the siege of the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, the whole of Gujarat is in a state of panic. Except for the main officers of the Mughal Empire, the rest of the normal patrol officers and soldiers are looking for a way out.

Of course, this way out is proving to be very hard for most people, as their families could fall into danger the moment they think about betrayal.

Sarvesh assembled his force, which amounted to a battalion. A quarter of the men present in this battalion were the old followers of Sarvesh, who were with him during the takeover of Bharuch City and even Vadodara City. Unfortunately, in both of those raids, a lot of casualties occurred, and Sarvesh felt very irritated by it.

He somehow felt he was responsible for it because he clearly felt that he was capable of teaching them how things could have been done and how they could have saved their lives. For him, from the moment he sneaked into the enemy base, everything was clear in his mind.

He doesn’t know what happened for him to change like this, but his instincts tell him that some force is somehow responsible for his change. And the most likely human suspect he thought of was his majesty.

Before he met his majesty, he was not used to getting all these weird insights and random pieces of ideas whenever he wanted them. On the contrary, he used to get nightmares about his two mothers and sister, but not anymore. Originally, when he noticed this phenomenon, he thought it might be related to the gods sending him blessings, but he denied it right away.

After all, the things he had done truly deserve no blessings. Moreover, before the death of his family, he also used to believe in the gods very devoutly. But then, no ideas and insights had come out of his mind. So finally, he concluded that it could be either his majesty’s doing or some evil deity who seemed to have taken a liking to him.

Could it be Lankadeshvara Ravana or, wait, better yet, Narakadeshvara Yama, maybe?

Unfortunately, Sarvesh knew he could never find out about his weird and bizarre situation. Maybe if he told it to someone, they would think that a ghost had occupied his body, so he never planned to put out his thoughts.

Looking forward at his crew, Sarvesh could see various new faces. These were the people who actively signed up to join his new mission after finding out that there were some vacancies in his team. All the people who submitted applications were highly impressed by his exploits, and among these applicants, Sarvesh chose the most capable ones after various tests. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

It has to be noted that this is not the first time such a test has been conducted. Similar tests were done during the Vadodara mission when there was a shortage of manpower.

Of course, the final test in order to join his crew was this one question, "You’re most likely going to die. Are you okay with that?"

Only after this agreement was reached, had Sarvesh agreed to take them on his operation.

Everyone was looking at Sarvesh without fear in their eyes. Sarvesh knew what the look meant, so he got straight to the point.

"Like I said during your selections, most of us are going to die in this mission, no doubt about it. We are going to sneak into the capital of the Mughal-occupied Gujarat with only 800 of us. I’m sure it must be terrifying, even dreadful. Maybe you had a bad sleep yesterday.

But despite that, all of you showed up, which means one thing: you are ready to lay down your lives for what you believe is right. I respect that."

Sarvesh nodded his head as he banged his chest with his hand and rolled up into a fist as a way of showing his respect for the people who really showed up. Then, he put on a serious face, his eyes burning like fire, and said,

"Although I cannot guarantee your life, there is one thing that is guaranteed: once we succeed in this operation, our names will be etched in the annals of the empire’s history as the brave team of 800 who were responsible for the independence of Gujarat."

"So, that’s what we are fighting for. Never forget that people are dying every moment, every second in this dreadful empire. You might have already been introduced to this truth during our travel. So, the question is: are you going to infiltrate the most populated and the most fortified city in Gujarat, which also happens to be its capital, with only us?"

Everyone, hearing Sarvesh’s words, shouted loudly, "Yes, commander!"

"I need to hear it louder!" Sarvesh commanded.

"Yes, commander!" they responded, raising their voices.

"Even louder! Don’t worry about the bastards that get attracted by the shout; we will make them our first blood!"

"YES, COMMANDER!" they yelled on top of their lungs, their nerves almost popping out of their necks.

Unfortunately, a guard was indeed attracted by this loud noise on the outskirts of the town. But the unfortunate one was naturally the guard. Poor guy was swiftly taken out and buried in the same place where Sarvesh and his crew were hidden.

That night, on the 5th of October 1655, they left the town of Kasindra. Sarvesh and his crew made a lot of preparations. They arranged wooden flippers and animal bladders in case emergency air was required, as they had to submerge into the water for a few minutes In case of the presence of an enemy.

Additionally, they gathered a lot of rations and food because their journey would take at least eight hours, and they would burn through a lot of energy during their travel.

In the dark of the night, near the bank of the river Sabarmati, a group of 800 men was slowly travelling upstream the river. Sarvesh and his crew walked most of the way on land right beside the river. But on special occasions when a lookout post or a town was found, they had to get in the water and swim until they passed the town.

Unfortunately, this was harder than everything Sarvesh had attempted before because, unlike Bharuch, he was not in a stagnant and slow-moving stream of gutter. And even unlike Vadodara, where the stream was actually to his favour, pushing him along. The river they were swimming in was against them.

Fortunately, Sarvesh had learned a few tricks for swimming against the current when he was living his life in the forest.

Firstly, they would look out for spots where there were rocks in the middle of the river, and in the proximity of the rock, the current of the river would be halted. In some cases, the stream would rotate anticlockwise and push them against the stream. Sarvesh also crossed the river at angles and never directly against the river.

Most of the time, when the security was lax, they used the riverbank as a rope and slowly passed the areas they were avoiding.

Overall, the distance of 16 kilometres was covered in 8 hours. By the time they reached Ahmedabad, it was already early in the morning before sunrise.

6th October 1655

The scouts and lookouts of the city of Ahmedabad noticed a bunch of flags on the horizon. These flags were saffron in colour and had different emblems. But what caught their attention was the Ashoka Chakra on all these flags, the sign of the Dakshin Bharathiya Empire, The same Empire that made their master sleepless.

The soldiers at the gate quickly rang the enemy alert bell in the city. The Diwan of the city, Nazaruddin, was alerted, and he quickly dressed up in his battle attire and soon was standing on the top of the wall.

A messenger was quickly sent with a formal proclamation:

"His Majesty, the Emperor of Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, wishes to rid the people of the subcontinent of their abusive overlords called the Mughal Empire."

"His Majesty Vijay would no longer tolerate the unequal treatment within the Mughal Empire, where Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs need to pay higher taxes than their Muslim counterparts, and the Christians are systematically eliminated. His Majesty will also not tolerate his people being denied the chance to rise up in the social hierarchy of the Mughal Empire.

His Majesty will especially not tolerate the defamation and blatant destruction of his civilization’s heritage. Hence, he has vowed to kick the Mughal Empire out of these lands and restore it to the civilizational sacred land of Akhand Bharat it previously was."

"So, Sir, you have a choice. If you surrender, no blood will be shed, and you will be allowed to leave the country with the wealth you accumulated in tow, along with your family. So, Diwan Nazaruddin, what say you?"

Nazaruddin was not calm; he was furious, even enraged, because he felt insulted being forced to listen to the lowly kafir’s words. But after hearing the message, which was more like a warning, he had the mind to directly shoot the insolent bastard in the head right away.

However, doing that would lead to his image among his subjects to decline. He had been calm and collected in the eyes of the public, after all.

"I will decline, and the Mughal Empire will soon win the victory in the subcontinent and rid it of its parasite called the Bharathiya Empire."

After this exchange of words, the battle officially started. The cannons lined up, and the dumping of iron officially began. Six to seven hundred 30-kilogram calibre heavy cannons were used to bombard the eastern front of Ahmedabad City. Sometimes, among the normal shots, even grape shots and exploding shots were used in order to cause heavier damage and to mix up the timing of the enemy.

Both Narasimha Nayak and Ramayya Senapati decided to unify their forces and not launch attacks from both flanks like they were doing in their earlier battles. For a city on the scale of Ahmedabad, splitting their forces would be suicidal. Moreover, with Sarvesh potentially acting from the inside, they were hoping for a relatively quick victory.

The cannonballs, arrows, and gunshots were exchanged continuously. Unfortunately, due to Vijay introducing a new way of battle with an absolute scale of firepower, the traditional armies lost effectiveness in Bharat. Hence, it was a constant exchange of firepower.

The only place where the traditional battles were still fought was in the close-quarter battles constantly happening on the outskirts of Ahmedabad City where satellite towns and villages were located. There, soldiers of the Dakshin Bhartiya Empire and the Mughal soldiers battled it out.

Fortunately, the Bharathiya soldiers held an absolute advantage when it came to close-quarter combat because of the constant training they had to undergo from different martial arts masters.

What had to be noted was that even on the main battlefield, most casualties happened on the side of the Mughal Empire because most of the troops on the side of the Mughals were city guards responsible for the internal security of the city. Although they were numerous, they were not soldiers who had experienced a battlefield.

So, even though they operated the guns and cannons with little training, they were not proficient at it. On the other hand, although there weren’t many troops on the Bharatiya Empire’s side, they were a veteran army. Even the trainees who had only joined this war had much more experience than the city defence unit of Ahmedabad City.

But still, the balance of the battle was leaning towards the Mughal Empire side because they had near-unlimited logistic supplies, strong fortress, and their human resources were replenished immediately.

This balance could have been tipped if the full force of the Bharatiya Empire arrived on the battlefield, but due to Sarvesh accepting their proposal, they are still waiting for this secret hand of theirs to work and deal a crippling blow.

Narasimha Nayak also noticed this during the war and felt that it was tricky. "If we do not have a break within 3 to 4 hours, we will be surrounded, and we will have no choice but to withdraw," he remarked.

Ramayya Senapati, who heard these words, also nodded, but his eyes were still focused on the city as if waiting for something. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered, his hand placed on the Talwar, fidgeting with it.

*Boom, boom, boom*

Ramayya’s face suddenly lit up with a smile after hearing the distant noise of what seemed like shots from multiple cannons. "Son of a gun, Sarvesh did it again!" Ramayya Senapati exclaimed, laughing with joy.

"Yes, although it was only a possibility, this guy really made it happen. Seriously, why is he in the Navy anyway?" Narasimha Naik also exclaimed, happy about what he was hearing.

Nizamuddin, who was on top of the city wall, was suddenly approached by Barid. He said something in his ear, and suddenly Nizamuddin collapsed unconscious.