Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

22nd August 1659

Dutch Indonesia, Batavia (Jakarta)

Hundreds of warships of different sizes, carrying firearms of varying calibres, poured out from the Strait of Malacca. All the ships flew the tricolour flag of the Dutch, with an emblem printed on the top left corner. It was the Navy of Batavia, a separate naval unit of the Dutch Republic.

Leading all these ships was His Highness Henry Casimir II himself. He was the Count of Nassau-Dietz and a stakeholder of Fierceland and Groningen in the Dutch Republic. His father was William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz and Count of Albertine Agnes of Nassau, making him the cousin of the current leader of the Dutch Republic, William III, through their shared parenthood under their ancestor William the Silent.

Due to constant failures, the previous manager of the Dutch East India Company had been replaced by Henry Casimir. This move came after the Dutch increased the importance of the Indonesian archipelago. Before, Indonesia was a significant cash cow for the Dutch and already the most profitable colony under their control. However, once the strength of the Bharatiya Empire began to rise, contrary to expectations, the profitability of the colony increased.

The result may seem contradictory since the Bharatiya Empire and the Dutch are not on good terms, but the truth is exactly that.

As the Bharatiya Empire's technological innovations improved, the tight grasp on older technology began to decline. Merchants born in the Bharatiya Empire could easily purchase one of the version 2 machine tools with enough money and agreeing to some legal clauses, which prevented them from selling the machine tools to any foreign merchant without the Permission of the Ministry of trade commerce and industry .

In such a situation, although it required a little effort, it did not take long for Henry to bribe some local Bharatiya merchants to sell him the machine tools at a premium of three times the price. This was not the only instance. Using his intelligence and financial strength, Henry Casimir managed to smuggle a few dozen machine tools into Indonesia and started the first steps of industrialization.

As for how he handled the legal clauses put forward by the government, he simply exploited a loophole, claiming that the machine tools had encountered a factory accident and had been burnt down. With enough money to bribe local officials who came to inspect after receiving reports and by covering the damages for the merchants he cooperated with, Henry did not face too many problems especially since his targets were scattered all over the southern part of the empire, where a few of his men had infiltrated.

Unfortunately, this was only possible until a year ago. When Vijay completely weeded out all the corrupt civil servants working in the government, the civil servants were immediately under tremendous pressure and wouldn't dare to accept his bribes, even if he was willing to pay more than ten times the premium. Instead of cooperation, one of his subordinates had been caught by the official agency and was still rotting in prison. This forced Henry to stop his actions, and his smuggling channels were completely cut off. This brought his procurement process to a standstill. Fortunately, the ones that had already been shipped had already proved their worth.

Instead of relying on manual labour to make the necessary tools, Henry Casimir used machine tools, significantly increasing productivity. The labour freed up by the machines was not left idle either; these workers were immediately reassigned to farming, mining, and other essential jobs.

Indonesia initially contributed nearly 30% of the Dutch Republic's GDP, but ten years later, this figure rose to 36%. Some might say that the increase in contribution does not seem too large, but they are wrong, as the increase of 6% is actually massive. One reason for this is that the colony has changed significantly over the past decade. The current Dutch Empire, due to the existence of the Bharatiya Empire, has not fully invested its interests in the subcontinent. Instead, it has diversified its investments, giving most of its attention to the Americas.

North and South combined are gigantic. There are a lot of places to be explored and a lot of interests to be gained. In the previous life, the fight for India in the 17th century between the British, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Spanish had actually reduced the amount of resources they extracted from Bharat. But in this life, due to all European countries declaring their own regions of control in the Americas, their earnings have actually gone up massively compared to the previous life.

The same situation was seen with the Dutch. Although a 36% contribution is not a large increase from 30% a decade ago, it is actually very significant since the GDP of the country has almost increased tenfold, making the 6% equal to the 54% a decade ago.

---

Gangadhar, who was currently stationed in the Maldives, quickly got the information about the Jakarta Navy approaching the Andaman and Nicobar Islands through the Malacca Strait.

"Send the message to let Commander Prasanna Nair take the lead in this battle," Gangadhar ordered as he immediately got on his battleship and set off for Chagos.

Prasanna Nair was tasked with acting as a second line of defence if anything were to go wrong in the battle plan. The arrival of the Jakarta Navy was not anticipated because both Gangadhar and Vijay had thought that the Jakarta Navy would not dare to venture into the Bay of Bengal, especially considering the strong presence of the Bharatiya Empire in these waters. Although there was a possibility, it was slim, so the battle plan was made with the consideration that the Jakarta Navy would not act. But now that the Dutch were indeed using their full strength to resist, Gangadhar had to invoke the protocol that had been set up in such a scenario. That was, he would replace Prasanna Nayyar in Chagos and Prasanna would take the lead in confronting the Jakarta Navy.

Prasanna Nair was overjoyed when he got the news from the Chennai-class clipper. "Finally, I have something to do," he said to himself as he excitedly dressed up.

"Executive Officer Sanjeev, we set off immediately. Location: Andaman and Nicobar."

Almost immediately, the Delhi-class battleships, 2000-tonne behemoths, spread open their sails, casting a shadow on the water as they cut through the Indian Ocean and rushed towards the Bay of Bengal.

---

"Captain, we have an order from the Admiral," an executive officer aboard the Pune-class battleship informed.

The captain, reading the letter, immediately put on a serious expression as he looked at his subordinates. "Pulling out and choking the snake protocol is a go effective immediately. Our fleet of ships will be under the command of Commander Prasanna Nayyar.

"Go full combat-ready mode and get ready to engage the enemy."

The old warships of the Bharatiya Empire, built almost 5 to 6 years ago, were not originally planned to be used in the battle. However, since the Dutch had made their move, Bharatiya had to expose its full strength to respond, so these naval vessels, only a few years from decommissioning, had to get onto the front lines of battle once again.

---

25th August 1659

The new generation of warships and battleships of the Bharatiya Empire were very quick, with an average speed of 15 knots. Prasanna Nair and his fleet arrived at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands within 3 days.

To Prasanna Nayyar's surprise, the naval vessels he had been assigned were already present around the island and were actually engaging with the Jakarta Navy.

"Welcome to the state of Andaman and Nicobar, Commander. I wish we had met under better circumstances, but life is such. Please come in," Aditya Bhosale welcomed the commander to the quick action room he had set up.

"Thank you, Your Highness, Raja Aditya Bhosale," Prasanna Nayyar said without hesitation and entered the room.

"The situation is like this," Aditya said, placing toy ships on the map to illustrate the current state of the battle with the Jakarta Navy.

In this situation, Prasanna Nayyar was not impressed by the tactics chosen by the captains defending Andaman and Nicobar, but he was not going to blame them either since the result was satisfactory.

Aditya, looking at the map, lamented, "In fact, we could have done much better if the sailors on these warships were veterans, but I guess they have performed very well considering that they are new recruits."

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Prasanna Nair nodded his head in agreement. "Well, it's time for me to pull my own weight."

"Boom!"

With one last look at the horizon, where battleships could be seen firing at each other, he quickly boarded his ship and set off with his fleet after restocking the necessary supplies.

---

Currently, the situation for the Bharatiya Empire in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was not too bad, as they used the various islands and coastal defenses to resist the charge of the Jakarta Navy. Unfortunately, the tactic could only work for so long since the commander of the Jakarta Navy, Henry, had already split his naval warships into groups and had them attack the Bharatiya vessels one at a time.

This started to cause a lot of casualties, and the Bharatiya Empire began to go on the back foot. Fortunately, at this time...

"BOOM!" Like the roar of a fire-breathing dragon, the sound of a cannonball was heard whizzing through the air.

"Baang!" The deck of a 1,500-ton first-class ship of the Dutch Republic was turned to shreds as the cannonball exploded upon impact.

"Captain, look!" The executive officer looked in a direction with astonishment as he pointed a finger.

The captain looked in the direction pointed out by his executive officer and was overjoyed to see the fleet of Prasanna Nair arriving quickly.

"The commander is here! Increase the firepower output immediately!" he roared, unable to hold back his excitement.

---

Henry Casimir squinted his eyes when he saw the larger Delhi-class battleships of the Bharatiya Empire approaching the battlefield.

"Regroup," he ordered, knowing that the strategy that had worked until now would not work against this larger fleet.

P.S. Too tired, will make it up tomorrown/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

P.S Travell increased from 1 day to 3