Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Chapter 727 Archduke Pyotr Alekseyevich Romanov

Things have turned very hectic in the Bharatiya Empire, as in the month of December, the remaining identity cards in the Bharatiya Stack, like the ration cards and tax certificates, have begun to be slowly issued throughout the empire.

The people who had gone in search of livelihood have all started to travel back home at the same time on this rare occasion.

Industrial production had momentarily halted, as without the labourers and people from the northern part of the empire working for low income, the upstream industry chain directly stopped. It has already relied too much on cheap labour, and it can no longer function without this cheap labour. Fortunately, although the business owners felt their hearts palpitate, the shutdown is not permanent, this they were sure of. Unexpectedly though, due to this incident, which made people aware of how important the labourers from the northern part of the empire were to the Bharatiya Empire, even without the government increasing the minimum wage standards, the company owners took the initiative to raise the wage by 50 to 100 Varaha when the workers came back.

Going back to their hometowns turned out not to be actually too bad because this year the festival of Deepavali fell in the middle of December. So, the people going back home not only went back to collect their identity credentials but also to celebrate the festival with their family. What's more, Christmas is usually the time when trade with European merchants slows down since a lot of European merchants set off a month or two in advance to go home for Christmas. So, all in all, with everything considered, it all coincidentally worked out.

The only thing that did not was that even though some labourers went home to collect their credentials, their credentials had not been printed yet. This is to be expected, since no matter how large the printing force of the Bharatiya Monetary Press is, it cannot really print hundreds of millions of documents continuously for two months straight.

This caused a little trouble at several Bharat One points throughout the northern part of the empire, but fortunately, it was quickly resolved when the government promised that after the printing of their documents is completed, it will be sent directly to their place of work. So, the people who came simply gave their work address and left happily.

Apart from everything, there was another unexpected thing that happened, which left the owners of a lot of production factories confused because, overnight, hundreds of thousands of employees quit their work, and they who went back to their hometowns only came back a few months later to collect the remaining salary and go back.

When inquired about what happened, they were shocked to discover that all these hundreds of thousands of cases where people suddenly quit were from those who previously belonged to villages, townships, or cities in close proximity to the industrial zones established in the northern part of the empire. Going home, with the persuasion of family, friends, or general curiosity, they went to check out the industrial zones to see how they would measure when compared against the factories they used to work in the southern part of the empire, and they were surprised to find out that even though the equipment was the same, the efficiency was a little less. They immediately found out the reason for it—it was because the labor force was not experienced enough.

So, they immediately came up with an idea to see if they could work near their hometown and earn a similar wage. Even a slightly lower wage was alright for most of them since they would be working from the convenience of their homes. But when the factory owners, managers, and directors heard that these labourers who had worked for a long time in southern industries would like to work for them, they were immediately overjoyed, and increased their salaries on the basis of what the southern industries paid them, and directly poached them away from their old factories. The neighbouring companies who heard the wind of the word immediately realized that this was an opportunity, and they started the poaching operations as well.

The business owners and managers were left feeling very regretful. If they had simply provided insurance to their workers, this could have been avoided, since with insurance present, the identity documents would directly come to the location of the company.

In such a way, the labour force trained by industrial companies in the southern part of the empire had begun to migrate back to their homes, contributing to their local economies. Although hundreds of thousands of people suddenly leaving does not even dent the number of workers from the northern part of the empire's industry, which has already exceeded the 20 million mark, the vacancies left behind were quickly filled. The people who returned to resume their work actually brought along their cousins, friends, and relatives to find employment. It was as if asking whether the cutting of the flow of water from a small tributary into the ocean would make the ocean lose anything.

Although it might not lose anything, it was still a precursor to change.

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Tobolsk, Tsarist Russian Empire

A beautiful city covered in the haze of the white morning snow could be seen nestled on the banks of the Irtysh River. It was the extreme season of winter, and all productivity in Siberia had come to a halt.

But life has to go on. Smoke from chimneys could be seen rising above all the buildings in the city, people could be seen walking around the streets with heavy winter gear at a leisurely pace, and some kids skated on the nearby pond with happy expressions on their faces.

Peter sat in his palace on a warm and cosy chair right next to the chimney, reading all the letters he had recently received. He was surprised that the Bharatiya Empire sent the location so quickly, but he was more surprised by the location.

"Who would have thought there is such a good natural port right outside the edge of Russian territory," he muttered.

In fact, Siberia may not be fully controlled by the Russian royal family, but there are still expedition teams and explorers constantly going into it, either from the funding of a nobleman or the royal family, in order to fully discover the geography of Siberia. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire

In fact, several settlements and fortresses already existed in Siberia and further Far East. For example, the city of Yeniseysk, established in 1619, the fortress of Surgut, established in 1594, the city of Yakutsk in 1632, Nerchinsk in 1650, and even the Sea of Okhotsk, which is located on the Pacific coast.

These are all major strategic points the Russian Empire has in the region of Siberia in order to exert its control.

Peter, reading the letter, fell into deep thought as he stared at the map of Siberia and the Far East, which was right in front of him with a burning gaze.

The location, which vijay provided was theoretically in the territory of the Manchu Qing dynasty, but with the current weakened state and unstable political situation of the Qing Empire, Peter did not have to worry about conquering this location. "Such a good location, it is a waste to be in the hands of these Manchus," he muttered as he got to know from the letter that, except for a few tribal settlements, the Bharatiya fleet could not see any other settlements from the Manchu Empire.

It was amazing how quickly things had changed for him. If it was before, he would be brooding in his palace with a gloomy shut-in aura every day without any drive since Siberia was more barren than he had expected.

And more importantly, since he could not even complain.

Peter knows the reason why he was made Archduke of Siberia. The main reason was naturally because he asked for a fief before his father made the decision, which made him lose the initiative, making his father suddenly have an unreliable impression of him, while his brother, who looked more stable and who was more like his father, pleased his father. And with his suggestion, he was stuck with this vast territory of 13 million square kilometers, which he had originally very high hopes for after being highly stimulated by the Bharatiya Empire, though those hopes came crashing down—that's another matter altogether. Another main reason is, even though slaughtering a few lazy nobles by giving them responsibilities they cannot handle was his idea and would benefit the empire greatly, it was still frowned upon by the nobility of the Russian Empire.

The Valkov arms manufacturing family, Yaropoulos military aristocratic family, Morozov military aristocratic family, the Zaristry traditional political family, and other families have all put pressure on the Romanov imperial family to give an explanation for the action, so in the end, his father, inorder to calm down the anger of everyone, chose to sacrifice him.

His father got the most benefit, and he took the most blame—but if he was being completely honest, Peter was not disappointed by this turn of events since he knew why his father did what he did, as it was natural for an emperor to balance the power dynamic in the empire even if he had to sacrifice one of his kin. This was not any different for even a completely imperialist governance style of the Tsarist Russian Empire—if there are no subordinates who will listen to the orders of the emperor, which empire will his father rule? But still, he was disappointed after realizing that the Russian nobility had already become rotten to the core—removing a few of them wouldn't do anything to the overall situation of his motherland.

So, coming to Siberia, he was initially very hopeful if he could make a new start here and build everything according to his ideas from the ground up, but he was utterly disappointed because although the resources were all abundant, there was not enough population. Currently, in the habitable part of Siberia, adding up all the cities, towns, and villages where people live, there are only 800,000 people—this was less than the number of people he saw in some of the cities in the Bharatiya Empire.

He had lost hope, but after going on a trip to the Bharatiya Empire and coming back, he had experienced what one would call enlightenment.

His ideas expanded—he no longer was constrained to his thinking of only considering Russian Orthodox Christians and his soldiers, along with some tribals, as his people, but also started to see the tribes spread all across Siberia as, although not exactly his people, at least people who he could use.

And with the trade deal opportunity provided by the Bharatiya Empire, he finally saw an opportunity for the rise he had been fantasizing about.

Looking out the window, he muttered, "The intensity of the snow has already stopped. In a few months, it should completely stop."

Now it was January of 1661, and by March or May, the snow would start to melt, and this was the time in which he could take the opportunity to find the route to the natural port Vijay had mentioned.

For now, he had asked his subordinates—mainly the Cossacks, Yakuts, Buriats, and Tatars—altogether accounting for nearly 35,400 loyal soldiers, to investigate all the tribes and their general area of activity in Siberia.

In fact, he could have asked his army, composed of 30,000 trained Russian infantry, to get the job done for him, but there were many reasons he did not use them. For one, they were the army given to him by his father, so he knew his father had a lot of control over them, and there were many people in this army who were informants to his father, so he did not want to use these guys. On the other hand, although the soldiers would not mind the harsh winter since Russia is almost the same throughout its landscape in winters, that is, chilling and throat-numbing cold, Siberia is a whole different matter, and the tribals like Cossacks, Yakuts, Buriats, and Tatars, who had already traveled this landscape, have connections, and are used to the weather, fare much better chances of getting him what he needed.

"To think that I used to look down on these tribals when I was back home—oh, how things have changed," he smiled self-deprecatingly as he shook his head.