Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 1240: WW1: Set off

"Are you sure you want to do this, father?" Agni asked, his expression tinged with a rare sense of worry.

Vijay, hearing the concern in his son’s words, smiled with contentment, but firmly shook his head. "Brat, don’t look down on your father just because I’m old. I’m capable of beating your ass even now, so worry about your own business. If something goes wrong in the rear, I’ll be sure to hold you responsible."

Agni didn’t get angry; instead, he felt helpless. He knew this would be the case, but still he tried. What if his father changed his mind and retreated back to the rear and switched roles with him? In the end, what happened was simply what he expected; the only catch was that he had hoped it would not.

"In that case, I will be waiting for us to spar once again, father, and I promise to go easy on you."

’This brat,’ Vijay cursed in his mind, but the widening smile on his face betrayed his thoughts.

"As for the logistics and handling the rear, please leave it to me. I will make sure that the army is properly equipped at every stage of the battle, and I will also make sure that the UGSR is not compromised." Agni resolutely stomped his feet and offered a salute, his expression no longer showing the concern he previously had; instead, it only showcased his steely will and unshakable determination. It was not a salute from a concerned son to a father, but from a knight to his monarch.

Vijay nodded in affirmation, pride appearing in the depths of his eyes. ’You have grown up, Agni. Take this as your final test. Handling the organisational and logistics operations of over five million troops now, and probably more in the future, should put a lot of burden on you, more burden than you have ever felt, maybe even as much burden as the routine cleanup operations.’

’If you make a mistake here, hundreds, if not thousands, of lives on the front line might be lost. The pressure will torment you; you will feel the blood of every soldier you have lost, as if caressing your skin, appearing on your own hands. But I know who you are, you are a stubborn *******. You do not give up, so push past your limits, break through, show me how capable you are of taking over what I have built.’

Suddenly, all the emotions in his eyes disappeared. The next moment, he simply nodded, then decisively got into the Naya Samrat, not showing even a hint of hesitation.

With the Emperor making a move, the reserve troops, the rear command, numbering over 1.3 million soldiers, began to march forward in stride.

By this time, the four commands that had advanced before Vijay had set off had gotten close to the new front line that had been erected after the Greek lands had been conquered.

Commander Vaibhav Krishnamurthy, thanks to his contributions in the battle for the Greek mainland, had gained a lot of merit. Although it was not enough for him to be promoted to a senior Mahamantri, it was still enough for him to be elevated within the ranks of the military, with his standing now among the top ten commanders of the empire.

Thanks to this elevated status, he was directly given the option to command the army and take on the responsibility of directing one of the four theatres that the Emperor had decided upon. When the question of whether he wished to command was asked by the Emperor himself, he did not hesitate and agreed in the blink of an eye.

He might be tired from the Greek battle that took several months, but he was not tired to the point of losing his mind and failing to see how big an opportunity the Emperor was giving him. If he put in some effort and was once again able to fulfil his mission, hopefully with as few losses as possible, then he might actually be able to gain a promotion in his noble status and have the hope of becoming one of the kings of the Bharatiya Empire.

What sort of being is a titled King? That is a supreme figure standing at the top of the food chain, the best of the best individual in their respective field, a noble figure revered by millions across the empire and the surrounding kingdoms. The reverence they receive is no different from that of living saints.

The previous generation of titled Kings might have grown old, but their legends and legacy live on, both in the empire’s history books and as several kingdoms. Who wouldn’t want such glory? Not to mention, a King has the ability to claim the right to the throne of the Bharatiya Empire, the mightiest empire on earth.

Vaibhav naturally did not have the ambition to become the Emperor, for now at least. His Majesty the Emperor was in good health and spirits and would live for at least 20 more years. Not to mention, the Prince was highly competent, intelligent, and had numerous merits, so much so that even if he were not a prince and simply a recruit, he would have become a commander himself, and all this, excluding the popularity he commanded. So, all Vaibhav wanted was to exchange the title for the right to establish his own vassal kingdom under the empire.

He knew Southeast Asia and Suvarna Dvipha were completely occupied, and there was no longer any land for him to claim there. However, there was still a lot of land uninhabited in the African continent and the two continents of the Americas.

If he could get a small piece of land, one where he could leave it to his descendants and establish his own dynasty that would survive through the ages, then his lifelong efforts would have borne fruit, and he would no longer have any regrets.

With so much riding on his shoulders, he did not dare to slack off in the past, and he especially did not dare to slack off now.

He was extremely cautious in his actions and followed his usual style of battle, one that his senior officers had repeatedly ordered him to change when he was a puny first lieutenant. But he had come this far through his efforts and persistence, hadn’t he? If he didn’t change his command style then, why would he now?

Out of the 600,000 troops he had under command, he had assigned nearly two complete corps, 36,000 in each, to scout the surroundings in different layers. The innermost layer, which was closest to the marching army, was like a net that covered a small radius, but the monitoring for any threats was the strongest. The second layer, only two kilometres from the innermost layer, had a larger radius but slightly lighter monitoring intensity. In this way, there were four more layers, with the farthest layer being over 25 kilometres from the marching army.

And not only that, he decided to go all out in safeguarding his troops and achieving the best results, so he chose to be extravagant for once.

Under his command, every scout held over four to five different fireworks, all coded for different messages. So no matter what happened, as soon as an enemy was discovered within the large net of 25 kilometres, which was like a spider web he had created with manpower, fireworks would blast into the sky, and the special forces would immediately be dispatched, neutralising the enemy before they could get out of the net.

"Signal flare, 5 o’clock," a lookout shouted.

"4th company, it’s your time to perform, move out," Veera Venkat, who had been promoted to Major General of the commandos, roared and mobilised a company of commandos in a moment.

"6th, 4th, and 3rd platoons, you’re up," Veera Badra Shastri, who had been promoted twice during the Greek war from a second lieutenant to a first lieutenant and from a first lieutenant to a lieutenant colonel, swiftly called over the three platoons of rangers and coupled them with the commandos.

Simultaneously, Chandrakant Thakur, the director of logistics, readily mobilised the resources and loaded them onto the Naya Samrat, both for the consumption of the special forces and to refill the consumed resources of the scouts on the outermost layer.

Within a few hours, the special forces returned, their clothes splattered with blood and gunpowder, even their shoes and the tyres on the trucks showing traces of the bloodshed.

But no one was surprised. Even the soldiers who had been recruited from the vassal kingdoms all over the eastern hemisphere, be it from Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or Suvarna Dvipha, had become so used to it that it was almost numbing.

Everything happened like clockwork. From the appearance of the firework on the horizon to the action being taken, it did not take more than ten minutes, and under the command of Vaibhav Krishnamurthy, his marching army had become the embodiment of a venomous spider, one that did not leave the enemy any room to escape once it stumbled into its web.

The philosophy of each commander was different. While Vaibhav Krishnamurthy took the route of being extremely thorough and careful, even at the cost of being extravagant, Commander Arjun Venkataraman, who was moving towards the region of Macedonia, took the approach of being quick and decisive while conserving as many resources as possible, accumulating strength for a decisive strike.

As for Karthik Subramaniam, he adopted a strategy that was a mix of both Vaibhav’s and Arjun’s. Either in the Comprehensive movement while monitoring the surroundings or in speed, his troops were not as competent as those of the first two commanders, but with his target being Sofia, the current capital of the Slavic Byzantium Kingdom, his approach of finding a balance worked out extremely well. As for Rudra Bala Chandra, the commander of the fourth command moving towards the fortress city of Plovdiv, completely opposite to his menacing name, he took a defensive approach while not being extravagant in the usage of resources.

In the meantime,

A large battle group, numbering over 48 warships, of which 12 were battleships, four of them Maharaja Ramachandra class, slowly approached the largest naval base of the Slavic Byzantine Kingdom, Varna.

At the same time, a huge fleet, composed of over 79 warships, of which twenty-three were battleships, six of them Maharaja Ramachandra class, swiftly approached the Italian coast.

The news about the Bharatiya troop movement and the naval movement immediately reached the desks of the monarchs and the leaders of the affected nations.

"I knew it, I knew it," Leandro Contrerini yelled hysterically and decisively ordered the navy to take action. Italy had not rebuilt its navy after it was destroyed by the Bharatiyas in the Atlantic Sea, but they were still able to construct four battleships, the most advanced they had ever built, their specifications matching those of the Delhi class battleship.

"Bastards!!" Leopold cursed, his hatred not hidden. Because of the Bharatiya Empire, he had lost the glorious Holy Roman Empire, and now he was losing his Austrian Kingdom as well. He was already furious that he was being used as a meat shield by the Western countries, but now being directly targeted by the Bharatiyas made him furious beyond words.

"We will win, we will definitely win, there is no way that we can lose," Alexander Dimitrovich Romanov confidently declared.

But Dimitri, the King of Slavic Byzantium, had no words to speak of; his eyes had already become cloudy. Meanwhile, the fat Duke of Sofia had a hint of worry on his face, and soon it morphed into a struggle. He was thinking of a way out for himself, but he did not like his odds.