Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

20th May 1673

The actions of Dynasty Corporation immediately had a widespread impact on the industry. Dynasty Corporation, as one of the 3 military conglomerates, was not alone in the problems it faced; Mahabali Enterprises and Himalayan Group had similar problems as well, so as soon as they understood what Dynasty Corporation was doing, they started to imitate and follow along.

Their actions started with reducing the eligibility criteria for interns. As soon as the news got out, students from the Tier 2 colleges were extremely excited; the jobs they could only dream about were finally in their grasp, a chance was all they needed, and they rushed to snatch them. Only a few days after the announcement, the Human Resources Department of the three military conglomerates were immediately overwhelmed by the number of applications they were receiving. Young people all over the empire came excitedly to apply for the job. The job became so influential that private colleges started to sign up all their students who were about to graduate.

Apart from the students from the second-tier universities, various human resource companies felt like Dipavali had come early. Companies like Indramanju received requests from the three military conglomerates to poach as many senior-level managerial talents in the manufacturing sector as possible, without any limit. The recruiters' eyes turned green as they suddenly got the chance to earn a year's income in a month or less.

They pounced on various companies like wolves on a pack of sheep

The allure of working for the three military conglomerates could not be underestimated. When the managers, engineers, and other kinds of talent were given an opportunity to work for one of the three military conglomerates with a higher salary, almost all of them agreed.

In such a way, the void of talent that had appeared in the three military conglomerates for the middle and higher levels slowly began to fill up. The problem where they expanded faster than they could handle slowly began to solve itself.

Sadly, this left a lot of industrial bosses like Arjan Bakshi, Bhupathi, Ghana Prabhu Barunda, Ganapathra Pillai, Jayamma, Aakarsh, Pranav Dixit, and others frothing with rage. Although not as intense as in the military manufacturing industry, with what little Kesari engines they had, they were experiencing tremendous growth as well. And the talent they had in their company was just enough to maintain further expansion without slowing down the growth, but now with so many high-quality factory managers being poached, although it didn't hurt their industrial chain, it did ruin their plans for further growth, forcing them to slow down.

The three military conglomerates are rivals, almost always trying to snatch each other's customers, but they are cooperators as well, so when Dynasty Corporation announced a 2 shift work system for the middle and high level managerial talent, and its plans to build 4 mega factories by investing 100 million in Nagpur, the other two military conglomerates immediately held board meetings and came to the decision to do the same.

The very next day, the Himalayan Group announced a plan mirroring Dynasty Corporation's move—an investment of over 90 million Varaha to establish four mega factories in Nagpur, designed to handle nearly 25% of all manufacturing tasks.

Mahabali Enterprises, which was from the time of its birth the largest military conglomerate, seemed to be stimulated after being pushed to the 3rd position among the three conglomerates, so they immediately made a big bet and invested over 200 million to construct 10 megafactories in Nagpur, capable of taking on nearly half of all the work of the company.

The news sent shockwaves throughout the Empire. Headlines across all business and industry newspapers focused on the bold moves by the three industrial conglomerates and the unexpected gamble by Mahabali Enterprises.

Business Weekly: "Empire's War Engine Roars as Military Conglomerates Trigger Mega-Industrial Race in Nagpur"

Abhijit Kumar Sen: "With 10 megafactories planned in Nagpur, Mahabali Enterprises aims to reclaim its crown as the empire's most valuable military conglomerate."

Investment Focus: "Nagpur Becomes Strategic Core as 390 Million Varaha Flood into Arms Manufacturing Sector"

Surat Samvad: "Talent Drain Hits Surat Industries as Military Conglomerates Poach Senior Managers for Expansion"

"Can Mahabali's 200 Million Varaha Bet Disrupt the Defence Sector Hierarchy?"

Seeing the news, the large construction companies were immediately overjoyed. The three military conglomerates added together are spending 400 million Varaha to construct the largest factories in the empire in Nagpur, even if a single construction company got the contract to construct only one factory, the profits are in the millions.

Any construction company in the empire that had even a bit of self-confidence immediately started to contact the three military conglomerates through various means to obtain the construction contract, which appeared before them like a juicy watermelon on a hot sunny day.

Unfortunately, not everyone is in such a good mood.

The situation of top industrial companies in the empire became even more helpless; they could never have the reputation like the three military conglomerates, which could stop the employees from jumping ship, and they could never hope to be as crazy as them and employ middle and higher level management at a 50% premium.

At first, the industrialists in the empire did not complain too much about the actions of the three military conglomerates since, even though what they were doing was extremely disgusting, the three military conglomerates were still the largest economic drivers in the empire, they provided employment indirectly to millions of people, and the expansion of the three military conglomerates means the expansion of interests surrounding it, but as the poaching got out of hand, the top industrialists in the empire like Bakshi, Bhupathi, Berunda, Kalyan, Pillai, and even Shetty joined hands together and directly put a complaint letter and sent it straight to the Emperor's office.

---

Ganesh planned to write an individual report on each and every complaint he received from the industrialists, but as the complaints kept piling up, he became too overwhelmed. In the end, he took the common complaints from all the letters and put it in a single report and submitted it to His Majesty.

Vijay calmly accepted the report and read it quickly.

"Thank you, Ganesh."

The poaching of managerial talent was not the only problem Vijay was currently handling. He was also handling the problem of not enough skilled labour to work in the industries. Even though there are a lot of second tier college students signing up for jobs in the military conglomerates, their skill level is next to none, they have almost no practical experience in working with machinery, and finally, they require a company-funded training course ranging from one month to six months in order to finally put them to use. Human resources in the Bharatiya Empire are rich, but skilled human resources are not so much. Not to mention, he had several other problems he had to deal with.

Vijay called for a meeting with a few of the ministers, making up his mind to address as many problems as possible.

---

A few hours later

Simhasana Bhavana

"Minister Raghavendra, please come up with a feasible bill for a new educational institution in the empire that is primarily focused on training workers for the manufacturing sector."

"The manufacturing sector is about to usher in a new round of expansions and growth; human resources cannot be its bottleneck."

Vijay handed over a large document to Raghavendra Bhatt and continued,

"This educational institute will be called as Industrial Training Institute or ITI for short, it will be a division-level unit under the Ministry of Education, but its only role is to intervene when it is necessary. The department will not be responsible for making the question papers or setting standards; instead, they will be a regulatory body, very much similar to the Securities and Commerce Exchange Commission, and act as the jury for the institute."

"The institute will have state-level departments, and the state-level departments will be responsible for forming a council of industries that will be responsible for setting up the question papers and tasks for practical examinations every year according to the common industrial demand."

"Anyone who has passed high school will be eligible to join the institute, and the course will be 6 months for now since we are in short supply of skilled labour, but in the future it can be one to three years, and the examination, like always, will be conducted by ENEC."

Raghavendra Bhatt quickly noted down everything in a notebook.

Vijay stretched open a large map and placed it in front of all the Cabinet ministers present.

On the map, several red lines were drawn, cutting through the Middle East and reaching the vicinity of Russia.

"I propose a large-scale infrastructure project, which I call as Bharat-Russian Economic Corridor."

"The project will include a series of road, rail, and port networks that connect the Bharatiya Empire with the Russian Empire."

"This plan will involve four separate sovereign nations, the Kingdom of Lalishtan, the Kingdom of Persia, the Czarist Russian Empire, and ourselves."

"Until now, our trade with Russia and other Eastern European nations was happening through Grand Duke Peter and a considerable amount through the merchants who came to the Bharatiya Empire through the Atlantic Ocean, but both modes of trade took a very long time."

"Trade route in the west is naturally time-consuming because the ships have to circle around Africa, while even though at first glance, trade through the east, shipping directly to Vladivostok, might look convenient, unfortunately, by the time the goods from eastern coasts of Russia reach the western hinterland, a month has passed, which is not much different from the western trade route. At most, it will have an advantage of 15 to 20% in speed."

"But in this way, Grand Duke Peter will have a chokehold over the Bharatiya Empire's trade to Russia and Eastern European nations. It was alright before since we had no other alternatives, but now that we have, with the Ottomans completely retreating from the Middle East and with the Caspian Sea coming under our influence, this can no longer be tolerated."

"To solve this exact problem is the reason for the Bharat-Russian Economic Corridor's existence. "

"Jaishankar."

"Your Majesty."

"Negotiate with the Kingdom of Lalishtan and the Kingdom of Persia, inform them of our economic corridor plan."

"If they agree to fund the construction of roads and railways in their territory, we can allow them to collect a part of the benefits, be it through tax or any other way."

"Jagannath, you have to do the research and think about the profit model of this economic corridor to the participating countries. It can be either individual tax privileges to each of the countries, or we can charge a unified percentage of the value of the goods being transported. All the participating countries can get a cut in this amount."

"Coming back to you, Jaishankar, if the country is unwilling to fund the whole project or only willing to fund it partially, it's alright, we can fund it ourselves, but negotiate a deal where we get to keep all the proceedings from the tax or whatever monetary benefits that are derived from the logistics of the trade corridor."

"My bottom line is this: we recover our total investment along with a 200% profit. After that, we can renegotiate a deal where the host country receives a share."

"Nirmal, I have decided the road and railway lines will go from Kandahar to Tehran in the Kingdom of Persia and Baku in the Kingdom of Lalishtan."

"The ports of Baku and Amol will both be expanded into medium-scale shipyards according to the Bharatiya Empire standards, and finally, the products will be directly shipped to a major Russian city called Tsaritsyn. It's around 400 km from the banks of the Caspian Sea, but it sits on the Volga River, one of the largest in Russia and a river that flows directly into the Caspian Sea. Theoretically, we can directly conduct trade with this city."

"Oh, right, I forgot. Jaishankar, you will have to discuss this matter with the Russians, but I don't think Dmitry will object, since he doesn't want to be controlled by his brother anyway. He will accept our proposal with open arms."

"But Your Majesty, wouldn't this affect our relationship with Grand Duke Peter?"

"Don't worry about it, cracks have already formed between Dmitry and Peter. Forced into Siberia and the Far East, Peter's connection has almost been cut off from Europe, and in order to at least protect himself and his territory from his brother's possible invasion, he will definitely have to rely on us. Not to mention, this new economic corridor is not a bad thing for Peter anyway, since at least in this way, the number of jealous eyes he attracts will become less, leaving him an easier time in developing his territory."

"Peter should be smart enough to understand this."

"Anyway, we are short on time. Everyone, get going, I need the results as quickly as possible. I will not accept any excuses."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

P.S. Sorry if the edit is ruff, I made it last minute