Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Chapter 399: The Patna Battle part: (3/3)

Before the battle began

The city of Patna was in a tense atmosphere, and foot traffic on the street had been reduced drastically.

The streets of Patna, which are normally bustling with people shopping for daily necessities and going about their duties, are now particularly empty.

One reason for this is that Shehzad Khan had implemented strict curfews on the people due to the upcoming war.

Due to this, the hearts and minds of the people are panicked, but what can they do? They have to obey the orders, or else in this sensitive time, what if something happens to them?

"Father, can I go and play now?" A small boy around the age of eight or nine pleaded with his father, his eyes brimming with tears.

Jhanaki Verma, the father, was about to get angry and slap the kid away, but looking at his aggrieved face, his heart softened, and he put down his hand. "Praju now is not the time for you to play. If you go outside without reason now, the guard uncle will catch you and sell you somewhere else," he said, his face with a grave expression.

Prajval immediately became a little scared and ran away to find his mother.

Lenija Varma, the mother who was cooking in the kitchen, suddenly felt a tug on her saree. Looking down, she saw it was her son.

"Brat, let me go, I’m busy," she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She was getting annoyed.

The boy became even more scared and said, "Uhhh, I don’t want to be sold. uh I only want to play." Tears were streaming down his face.

The mother had no choice but to bear with him. A while later, she came out of the kitchen with Prajwal still holding onto her saree.

"Why do you scare him like that? Whenever you scare him, he runs to me and keeps on annoying me," Linija complained after putting down the plate of food she had cooked for Janaki.

Janaki Verma was a little helpless as he said, "What can I do? He keeps on throwing a tantrum about wanting to go out and play. You know the current situation, so how can I let him do that?"

Hearing the reason, Linija immediately got silent as if she inwardly agreed with his reasons.

"Okay, leave it," she said, putting the matter aside, but then her face filled with worry.

"Husband, the rations in the house are running out. Do you think the so-called war the higher-ups keep talking about will end within a week? Because our rations will not last until a week."

Janaki Verma was immediately uneasy. They were a normal family doing small labour jobs for the nobles of the city. They lived hand to mouth with no disposable income every month. Most of the little money they earned was used to buy rations, and what little was left was kept for themselves.

Unfortunately, due to the constantly rising grain prices, the grain that could last for a month with their previous salary could now only last three weeks reluctantly. Even if Janaki Verma wanted to use his spare money to buy grain in the current situation of absolute curfew, he didn’t know if it would bring him trouble.

"I wish this curfew ended early. Mahakaala, help us," he prayed in his heart.

He put on a confident expression and replied to his worried wife, "Don’t worry, I will do something."

"What!!"

Suddenly, the peace was disturbed by the loud commotion outside.

Janaki Verma motioned Linija to stay still. He found his son, left him with her, and carefully stepped out of the house to see what was going on.

What he saw left him dumbfounded, amazed, and surprised. His emotions were complex as he saw beautiful balloons falling from the sky into the street.

Janaki Verma looked at one balloon that landed near the house of their neighbour, Jasprit. Looking at the balloon, Jasprit cautiously picked up what seemed to be a letter carried by the balloon and started to read it.

"Bastards!!" Jasprit immediately cursed, his face livid. It was the first time Janaki witnessed his amiable neighbour get so angry at something.

Coincidentally, a balloon landed next to his feet. He picked up the letter that was placed in the basket and proceeded to open it.

Inside it, there was a depiction of a temple being burned by flames. This temple looked very downtrodden and ill-maintained. There was also another picture depicting how a mosque was being built on top of the temple.

Janaki Verma recognized this temple. He recognized it too well. He visited this temple once when he got married, and his wish to go to this temple was ever-present. It was the temple of Mahakala Shiva, one of the Sapta Puri, one of the seven holy cities, Varanasi, the city of birth and death, Kashi.

Realizing the identity of the temple, anger was rising within the heart of Janaki Verma. He could not understand what was written in the letter, but he could guess the message just by looking at the images.

"Brother Jasprit, can you read this for me once?"

He asked, his voice tinged with fury.

Jasprit didn’t even look at the letter as he angrily roared, "Those Mughal bastards completely destroyed the Gyanvapi Temple of our lord, and they are building their mosque over it!"

"What!!"

"Bloody bastards!!"

"No wonder they imprisoned us in our own homes. It is for this reason, those pieces of trash!"

Janaki Verma was fuming. His faith in Lord Shiva meant a lot to him and for his family. It was this faith that put them through the greatest troubled times of their lives, and this faith of theirs transcended rationality.

Jasprit, looking at the frantic expression on Janaki’s face, did not feel that anything was wrong with it. He continued to increase the firepower, "And not only that, these lowlifes are also attacking the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. How dare they!"

"What!!"

Janaki couldn’t stand it anymore. He rushed into his house, picked up an iron rod that he used in his work, and swiftly joined the people who had similar ideas.

Linija, who got to know about the reasons, instead of stopping her husband, actually did a little pooja and put vermilion on his forehead, blessing him for his victory.

"We want justice!!"

"Mughal lords, get down!!"

"We want explanations!!"

They began to scream and shout at the top of their lungs as they reached the noble area of the city. Usually, they are not allowed to come or even reach this region, but who could stop them? Thousands of them had gathered, after all.

Janaki Verma took the lead in destroying one of the statues in the region, which was of a Mughal lord. The people, whose emotions were riled up, immediately started to follow suit. This was not an isolated case but a case that happened in multiple noble regions of the city.

It was at this time that Shahzad Khan lost his sanity for the second time.

"Send these troublemakers to hell, Lieutenant. Light the explosives!" Shahzad roared, his expression manic and wild.

The lieutenant, who had a deep grudge against the infidels, happily nodded his head and replied, "Right away, Your Excellency."

"BOOOM!!"

"BOOOM!!"

"BOOOM!!"

"BOOOM!!"

Explosions rang out in multiple noble regions of the city, and the people who had rallied to demand justice were immediately obliterated by the explosives placed on the streets.

Maybe it was for this reason that the Mughal nobles did not enter the streets even if there were riots going on.

Janaki Verma, who was very lively and kicking just a few moments ago, now lost both legs in the explosion, and his consciousness was quickly slipping into the darkness as blood continued to pour out of his body.

There was anger and rage in his heart, but there was also unwillingness and even a little bit of regret after remembering the faces of his beautiful wife, Linija Verma, and his little son, Prajwal.

*Bang!!*

*Bang!!*

*Bang!!*

Just as his consciousness was about to permanently disappear, he heard gunshots coming from very near.

He barely opened his eyes and saw men dressed in weird blue attire going into each and every noble house, dragging out the noble lords and shooting them in the head.

Their faces looked angry and remorseful.

But anyway, he finally had some peace before he slept.

*Thud*

His body fell to the ground.

A few minutes later, a marine came up to him and checked for his pulse.

"He’s gone, General."

Gaurav let out a sigh of regret, but soon anger took over him. He had thought that the massacre of Indore was a one-time scenario committed by a lunatic, but he did not expect there to be another lunatic who would dare to slaughter a whole town of people if they didn’t agree.

"Let’s go. Don’t leave even a single one. Drag them out and make them pay for their dues. It’s about time."

The marines burst into the noble homes, dragged the noble lords outside, and shot them right in the head. Some of these noble lords pleaded and some begged for mercy, but there was no hesitation in the eyes of the marines.

"Go atone for your sins in Naraka and beg for mercy from Yama," they said. It was the second bloodbath of the day.

P.S.

Thanks, its_a_joke, for the continued donation of Ice Cola!

Thanks, Lucifer_6671, for the donation of pizza!