Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Receiving the positive reply from the Tsarist Russian Empire about the Bharat-Russia trade corridor agreement was not surprising to Vijay, since the Russians had very little to lose and a lot to gain. However, what was surprising was the intention to invest shown by the Russians. He was fully confident that the Russian Empire wouldn't invest anything in the trade corridor, but to his surprise, the Russians showed the intention to invest a large amount of money in the project.

Vijay didn't try to figure out what the Russians were thinking, instead he quickly, tasked a delegation composed of the Minister of Trade and Commerce Rajesh, Minister of Finance Jagannath Mohan, Minister of Transportation Nirmal, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, and finally the Prime Minister of the Empire Vinod, to negotiate and finalise the contract with the Russians, Persians, and Yezidies.

Baku, Lalishsthan, was the location chosen for the deal due to its close proximity to three of the four participating countries.

The negotiations officially began on the 25th of June 1673.

The representatives of all four countries had heated negotiations on all aspects of the trade agreement. By the end of the month, a preliminary agreement had been reached. The agreement was sent back to the monarchs of all four countries to confirm its contents for one last time.

Vijay read the agreement carefully over a whole day and finalised it.

Discussions started once again on the 14th July 1673.

Vinod, being the highest-ranking person among the representatives present, took the position of leadership and stood up to read the agreement that had been finalised by the monarchs of all four participating countries, before the agreement was officially signed.

He first read out all the nations that will be involved in the agreement, as well as the representatives and who they will be representing.

Next, he went on to recite the Oath, which basically stated that all parties agree to jointly develop and operate a strategic trade and infrastructure corridor named Bharath Russia Economic Corridor, to connect the economies via integrated road, rail, and maritime routes. Additionally, a single management company based in Kabul will oversee operations, construction, tariffs, customs coordination, and profit distribution.

He then went on to discuss about the route and infrastructure goals of the agreement, which was basically to connect Kabul, Kandahar, and Zabol, three frontier cities of the Bharatiya Empire, to the major cities of Amol via Tehran and Baku, located in the Kingdom of Persia and the Kingdom of Lalishsthan respectively.

The connexion on land will be through roads and railways, where routes will be built with the same standards as the backbone highway of the Bharatiya Empire, and the road will be laid down between major economic hubs in the host cities of Persia and Lalistan, given that the route deviation is less than 15% of the shortest possible route without considering economic cities in between. As for the railway, it will be laid with the most direct feasible alignments, only considering the geographic and engineering factors.

Subsequently, Vinod also mentioned the expansion of Amol and Baku ports to the scale of medium-scale ports of the Bharatiya Empire, capable of transporting 400,000 tonnes of cargo every year, and both the ports added up, bringing annual throughput to over 800,000 tonnes.

Vinod went on to read about the investment amounts of each nation. Persia invested 120 million Varaha in cash, 10 million Varaha in land, and another 10 million Varaha to completely sell the Amol Port to the Bharat Russia trade corridor management company, making a total investment of 140 million Varaha.

Lalasthan invested 45 million Varaha in cash, 4 million in land allocated to the project, and an impressive 15 million Varaha in the Baku Port, since Baku Port was already the largest port in the Caspian Sea, making it less costly to expand. In total, the investment was 64 million Varaha.

In fact, both the Kingdom of Lalishsthan and the Kingdom of Persia were willing to make more investments since the road infrastructure laid down for the Bharat Russia trade corridor could be used as a fast transportation network for their own countries, but unfortunately, both the countries were unwilling to invest too much money into the railway projects. Both Ezidi Serwan and Roxana Atashban could not understand why the Bharatiya Empire insisted on including it in the trade corridor project.

They knew that railways were already used in the southern part of the Bharatiya Empire, and it was a more economic way to transport goods over large distances, but the geographic conditions in Persia and Lalishsthan were too difficult for animals to pull large carriages over large distances. But unfortunately, due to several factors like the insistence of the Bharatiya Empire, the agreement of the Russian Empire, and more importantly, the agreement of the Bharatiya Empire stating that railway construction will only begin after the backbone road network is built, made them reluctantly agree to it, with the mentality of making up for the losses in the railway project from the economic growth brought by the first-class road network.

When the Russians stated their investment amounts, Ezidi Serwan and Roxana Atashban finally understood why the Russians supported the Bharatiya Empire's insistence on constructing railway tracks, because out of the 190 million Varaha invested by the Russian Empire, although 150 million was in the form of gold and silver, over 40 million Varaha was in the form of iron ore, enough to account for laying down all the bridges for roads, and enough to cover more than 60% iron and steel needs for the rails.

Roxana Atashban and Ezidi Serwan were a little jealous of the resources possessed by the Russian Empire, but they did not think of doing the same since they had already mortgaged a lot of mineral mines they have in their territory with the Bharatiya Empire for loans to develop their territory, and even if they had discovered new mineral mines, they had to use it for themselves.

Moving on, Vinod discussed for a final time about the rate and tariff structure for the goods to be transported, where the cost for transportation will be the product of the base price, distance in kilometres, weight in tonnes, and product type multiplier.

The base price will be set at 3 Varaha per tonne of cargo per kilometre. He discussed about the product type multipliers as well, where cargo will be priced in four different categories, where the standard category will be charged according to the base price, fragile goods will be charged according to 1.20 of the base price, liquid and hazardous material will be charged 1.25 of the base price, and finally oversized cargo will be charged 1.30 of the base price.

At this point, a lunch break lasting an hour was taken, which gave the opportunity for a cultural exchange event where foods of all four countries were shared with each other, making for a moment of bonding.

After the lunch break, Vinod went on to discuss about the merchant charge and corridor profit. The merchant will have to pay 40% more than what it will cost the company to transport the goods, and the cost will include all the expenses of the company, hence leaving the 40% as pure profits that can be thrown into the profit pool.

The money in the profit pool will be distributed every quarter pro rata by investment share, which goes something like Bharatiya Empire 60.6%, Russian Empire 19%, Persia 14%, Lalishsthan 6.4%.

He read out carefully the clause which all the countries had paid utmost attention to, which stated that the arrangement of interest sharing will remain the same until the Bharatiya Empire recovers its full capital along with a 200% return on investment adjusted for inflation, after which the profit sharing ratio will be renegotiated under the similar framework of the agreement.

Vinod's throat became a little parched speaking continuously since morning, so Mikhail Zaretsky, representing the second largest shareholder of the project, the Russian Empire, took over the reading session and continued where Vinod left off, which was at the governance and management, where it stated that a management company will be established in Kabul under the law of the Bharatiya Empire.

The company will be run by a manager selected by a board of directors. There will be a total of 10 board of directors, and the board of directors will be appointed according to the investment of each nation. In the end, the Bharatiya Empire got to appoint six members, the Russian Empire two, Persia one, and Lalishsthan one. Protocols were made clear as well, where for routine business decisions a simple majority would be enough, and where six or more board members could decide. For strategic decisions, eight board members would be required to vote on a certain issue, for example, adding a new member to the agreement.

Moving on, Mikhail ended the reading session with a mention about the clause where the company is required to produce financial reports to investors every 120 days and the right for independent audits for every investor.

On the 16th of July 1673, terms were reached between all parties.

The Prime Minister of the Bharatiya Empire, Vinod, representing the imperial government, and the Emperor Vijay Devaraya, bearing his seal, signed the agreement.

Mikhail Zaretsky, the manager and the representative of the investment group created by the Russian Emperor, along with other Russian investors, signed the agreement bearing the seal of the Romanov family as well as the investment group.

Roxana Atashbhan represented herself and signed the agreement on behalf of the Kingdom of Persia.

Ezidi Serwan, representing himself, signed the agreement on behalf of the Kingdom of Lalishsthan.

The contents of the agreement were etched into four different bronze plates with high tin content because the trade agreement was meant to be for in perpetuity, where only the terms will be changed, but the framework will remain, and the agreement that was signed on the 16th of July 1673 in Baku will be the base of this agreement for all four participating countries for decades or even centuries to come.

The 4 bronze plates were sent back to all four participating countries, where they will be circulated between all four countries until eventually each country will have a document which was signed by all four monarchs.

P.S. Check the comments for the summary