JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Oh, I totally forgot to add my orders. I'm eight months late, I know.
I will post my separate military orders in another post.
Orders for Turn 2 - 1891 (or are we doing them for 92?):
Confirm the joint declaration of war. (That was a bummer)
Recruit 2 more missions, 2 more enterprises, 1 more squadron, and 1 Corps.
Assign 2 Enterprises to give logistic support in the Tarim Basin region
Assign 3 Corps to training and developing the new Akali (Nihang) formations.
Assign a corps and a mission to work on the Khalsa regional quest.
Two squadrons will be assigned to coast guard duties.
The rest of our forces will participate in the war on the Taiping.
_______________________________
The Dead and the Pure (and the Nihang)
Declaration of the Maharaja Khan Noonien Singh:
Too long and too far have we strayed from the old ways. We have become complacent and we have forgotten the old days of persecution and self-defence. We have engrossed ourselves in the management of an Empire, and have forsaken the wisdom that gave us this Empire. The Khalsa are the core of our existence. So many Khalsa like ourselves are at the top, and our moral code is strict, but we are no longer soldiers. What then of those for whom soldiery is integral to being Khalsa? We have forsaken them. No more.
The Nihang are the heirs of those first Nihang, the fearless and prodigious warriors that led us to countless victories. They earned for themselves the name of Akali, which means Immortal. Such was their fame, and their prowess. They lay now on the side, but no more. We look back now and We as sovereign have decided to reclaim this heritage. We will bring back these heroes from the streets on to the battlefields. The army shall create special units composed exclusively of Khalsa. They shall receive only the best training and the best weapons, and will be elite cadres. They will receive no better pay than any other soldier, and their reward will be to know that they fight for the Faith itself once more.
[End the Declaration]
Order 109/1891
In accordance to the proposals of Sardar (Brigadier) Parkash Singh, special training camps will be set up in secluded areas, one in the Kashmiri mountains and one in the Thar Desert, with tough living conditions and for training in unorthodox fighting tactics. Several corps will be involved in setting up the camps, running them, and developing and refining the techniques that these camps aim to teach.
Another facility will open at Lahore: the Special Service Tactical School, which will provide training in the operational principles of this unit to its officer corps before they join their units. Officers will then train alongside their troops up to the rank of Mahzor (Major) in order to improve loyalty, morale, and unit cohesion.
The curriculum at the school will focus on the scale of the methods and logistics of infiltration, the scale and variety of objectives achievable by this technique, and lower echelon autonomy in the context of the semi-improvisational nature of deep reconnaissance and sabotage operations.
The camps will weed out only the best of the best physically and mentally. Specially apt sepoys (privates) will be eligible for NCO courses at the SSTS. These units will be made up exclusively of the Nihang Khalsa warriors that are wasting away in our Empire and are reported as joining the underworld. There will be a special recruitment drive aimed at them by army and government units side by side. Thus the Special Nihang Corps will be formed at Lahore, with the SSTS and Nihang Training Camps under its command. The forces under its command will be headquartered in Lahore and Srinagar once their training is complete.
The aim is to establish specialised Nihang Brigades able to perform either as shock troops or, in smaller formations, as infiltration, deep reconnaissance and sabotage units. These will provisionally form into all-Nihang Divisions for quartering, but will exercise only as integral brigades and companies, and will routinely embed in other divisions for wargames.
Sepoys rejected by the NTC will be sent to a regular army training camp, but will form a special gendarmerie service. This measure is hoped to neutralise the unlawful warlike elements loose in the country at the same time as it furnishes us with elite cadres and a stable pacification force for Pushtunistan.
_____________________________
Tarim Basin Logistics:
The enterprises in the Tarim Basin will essentially open a feasible supply route through the Western passes of the Himalayas, and be responsible for the construction of a road and railroad to Kashgar. The sheer length of the track makes us expect that only the road might be finished this year, but this alone will make the transit of troops and supplies through much easier.
Orders for Turn 3 (1893)
We'll adopt all of the following (as many as our economy allows): “Impressionism and decadent art”, “Expressionism and avant-garde”, “Realism and pragmatism”, "Mass culture and popular art", "Bohemianism and counterculture", “Investment banking and trust funds”, “Corporate ethos”, “Phenomenalism”, “Psychoanalysis”, “Biologism and evolution theory”, “Eugenics and racial science”, “Constitutionalism”, “Investigative journalism”, “Transnational crime and law”, “Oligarchy and political corruption”, “Cartels and economic crime”, “Hydraulic power network”, “Internal combustion engine”, “Still engine”, “Vaccination”, “Refrigeration”, "Interchangeable parts", “Geologic expeditions”, “Water and land conservation”, “Dreisines and velocipedes”, “Bicycle-riding and ski infantry”, “Field trenches”, “Dispersed combat tactics”.
____________________________________________
Employ 3 enterprises and 2 missions to completing the Srinagar-Hotan Railroad, and complementary projects. The companies that started the job will finish it, employing the bits of infrastructure already set up to facilitate further construction. The reinforcement of missions will map out the country and complement our own geological observations with local knowledge of recurring climate and geological events.
This knowledge will be used to develop and deploy any necessary security measures and avoid unnecessary risks. It will also serve to assess the possibility of developing a much longer, much more challenging line to Lhasa from Kashmir, although no work should be started on that beyond such an initial assessment.
_____________________________________________
Four corps and a mission will continue developing, refining, teaching, and training in Nihang techniques. Units in the Desert quarters will move to the Kashmiri quarters and viceversa. By the end of training, all Nihang units will have learned infiltration and survival in the roughest environments, as well as suitable and practical combat tactics to go with it. A third base will be set up in Amritsar, where select soldiers will learn to speak and behave like Bharatis from occupied regions, to later form the basis of a special infiltration force deep behind enemy lines, at peace and during war. This is the most sensitive part of training, conducted by the mission, and thus it will be disguised as an Eastern Logistical Support Center for the Army.
_____________________________________________
Three Enterprises and a mission will start research on Job shops. This project will take place in the Karachi region, where we want to encourage investment and industrial growth. Maghrebi control of the southern economy must be fought with its own tools and by encouraging a greater integration of our non-Sikh subjects to the Empire. The first step is to involve them in a large scale in state projects, and at its most basic we can achieve that by integrating them as workforce. We'll also be building technichal and managerial enterprise that these subjects can later exploit for their own entrepeneurial ventures.
_____________________________________________
The Pashtun Question: The Pashtunistan Judicial District
Last year's Khalsa recruits who didn't cut it for Nihang training will be deployed this year. Three corps will be sent as a police force to Pashtunishtan, with orders to not simply patrol and watch, and not act unless fired upon. Soldiers who overreact or commit excessed will be disciplined harshly and immediately discharged pending trial. Three missions and an enterprise will be sent to secure social peace. They will recruit wise men from villages, towns, and tribes to form up a judiciary system within the Empire's.
At least a secretary of each court will be directly appointed from Lahore, while the Pashtunistan Legal District that will be created will pretty much act autonomously. Evidently preliminary studies and a close inspection are necessary in the first stages to ensure fairness and normality in the procedures, and the secretaries will have the duty to report any irregularities for revision by the High Judiciary Review.
The first duty of the Pashtunistan Judiciary District will be to compile Afghan traditional law and harmonise it to the overarching legal principles of the Empire. The courts of the District will have investigative and decisory powers over the issues of crime and public order in Pashtunistan. The military forces sent in as peacekeepers and police will be under orders of the courts, who will ultimately be responsible for authorising any intervention. Said interventions will then be subject to revision by the High Judiciary Review, to dissuade judges from committing excesses or performing tribal favoritism.
Under the aegis of the District authorities, a census will be conducted to establish population, tribal affiliation, and economic activity (including what crops are cultivated and by what methods), and a program of subsidies will be started to decouple the economy from feudal warfare cycles and start a modernisation of agriculture.
Orders for Turn 4 (June-September 1893)
5 Corps to the Nihang Research
1-2 Enterprises to Job Shops
2-3 Enterprises, 1 Mission, and 2 Corps to the Srinagar-Hotan Railroad
1 Corps to the Pandit Quest
5 Missions and 2 Corps to the Pushtun Question
2 Enterprises and 1 Mission to Tharra Regulation
Activate the Compound Steamers tech.
__________________________________
Nihang First Class
This is the final year of training for the first promotion of Nihang Infiltration Units. Five Corps will take part in the exercises. The Nihang Units will redouble their training in anticipation of the largest wargames ever in the country. There will be several waves of these, which will test both the adequacy of their training and that of our own security. A board of instructors from the different training centers will identify key objectives and the related goals that the units will have to achieve.
In the first wave, units will be brokendown to small teams, assigned a randomised target, and dropped off at a randomised location. The targets can range from the Imperial Palace to the Post Office, and the goals will be to introduce inoffensive but noticeable disruptions in such places, like swapping a file or introducing an awkward igredient in a high official's dinner. The teams will operate almost completely autonomously, with one member having to report within predetermined timeframes at predetermined locations. Teams will have to complete their assignments successfully and extract themselves unnoticed. Whatever the case, their supervising officer will report the success or failure of each team to the board, which can overturn the supervising officer's assessment.
In the second wave, the same exercise will be carried out by individuals volunteered and chosen for the task. They will operate completely autonomously and will report secretly through pre-arranged drop points and postage cypher. Only once their mission is completed will they have to report in person at Lahore SSTS, where the board will evaluate their success. Needless to say, all objectives will be highly guarded and security details will know of the exercises.
Finally, a conventional wargame will take place pitting the Nihang formation against regular Army units, whereby the objectives will be to disrupt supply and communications of the opposing team for the Khalsa, and for the regulars to defend these, maintain them, and secure 'enemy' HQ miles and miles away.
______________________________________________________________
Karachi Job Shops
IF the NGF last-minute edit goes through, ONE Enterprise assigned.
IF the former is not true, TWO Enterprises assigned.
The Grand Vizier will dispose of the necessary resources to complete his pet project. With help from German industrialists who have seen promise in his experiment, his initiative to take back Karachi from foreign investors by breaking down production into local businesses has gone forward. There are high hopes in the court that this will result in an uptick in employment as well as production in the Sindh, and other state-led industrial projects elsewhere have already started to apply the same model.
Relying on a variety of shops for production reduces dependability of any production process on a single provider, and by distributing the workload spreads the benefits of more business across a wider spectrum than if the whole process were integrated in a single corporation. It is no secret that the Vizier hopes that the success of his initiative will show the Muslim population that the Empire cares for them too, and this will lead to more positive attitudes towards it.
_______________________________________________________________
Srinagar-Hotan Railroad
IF the NGF edit did go through, 3 Enterprises assigned.
IF not, 2 Enterprises assigned.
As the works near completion, the contractor's work will be supplemented with military units to aid in the completion. Teams of military engineers will work alongside civilians to ensure a safe and speedy conclusion to the works. This will serve to add the railroad and its surrounding region to our military maps, as well as to establish depots and camps to ensure that proper ferrying of military units is possible and secure. Deployment timetables will be crafted accordingly, but these tasks must not detract from the primary objective to complete the passage. It has been a long and troubled project, but it is a testament to the endurance of the people who built it, and living proof of the engineering prowess of our nation.
The completion of the railroad will give credence to our assurances of defence to our allies in the region.
_ _ _ _ _ __ _ __ _ __
Tibetan Surveys
A Corps led by engineers will also be deployed to scout our the routs through Tibet in anticipation of a direct route to Lhasa. This Corps will form an expedition surveying such a route further than we did on the first half of the year, and will trace the way that such a future railway will follow in its middle section.
_____________________________________________
Pashtunistan Pacification
We will double down on our efforts in Pashtunistan. We would not be a self-respecting Empire if we remained inactive to alleviate our people's suffering. The troops we sent will be disciplined and reassigned to arid Balochistan. We will bring in not our best, but well disciplined and loyal troops whose orders are to aid the gendarmerie if required and maintain social peace. In order to establish such a peace, we will redouble on our recruitment and conciliation efforts, drawing from local elders to furnish a tribal court system with its own peculiar code of law to deal with tribal confrontations.
In order to set such a code, a board will be formed with amenable local elders who seek to help bring this peace. The Legal Board of Pashtunistan will compile customs, rationalise them into written law, reconcile them with islamic tradition, and then modulate it to conform to Sikh legal standards. This board will have a Sikh secretary from the Imperial judiciary who will have to sign on the code to secure its conformity to the overall legal framework of the Empire, and will advise on the board's efforts to this end. His final stamp will be subject to approval from Lahore, but otherwise he will be trusted to act independently and in accordance with the Imperial administration.
Once such a code of law is passed by the board and signed by the secretary, it will be adopted in the Empire as a legal statute for the region of Pashtunistan. The same board that wrote it will, in this code, establish the manner in which the courts are to be formed and judges to be selected and, according to these procedures, courts will be established in the provinces and towns to resolve disputes. Also in the statue will be regulated the permanent composition of the Board, which will always have a Sikh secretary, and the permanent Board will be established in accordance with such statute. These courts will have the ability to order local assigned corps to intervene in special cases, such as open revolt or undeclared war between rival tribes. This is a last recourse option and such intervention can be vetoed by the Board, which can also pass orders to military districts.
The evident goal is toput an end to fighting and force disputes to take place in impartial courts where matters will be settled justly by Pashto for Pashto. In the grand scheme of things, it is but a small step towards the integration of the region and its improvement to uplift its people and bring them up to the standards elsewhere in our domains.
________________________________________________
Tharra Regulation and Breweries
The Islamic religion forbids drinking alcohol. Sikhism forbids drugs, specifically tobacco. But there is no denying that the custom of drinking is alive and well within the Empire. Even the high classes that once cared to preserve a pretence of virtue have been lured by the Western fashion of 'cock-tails' and can be openly seen drinking in high occasions. Such beverages tnd to be European, in spite of no short supply of local produce. This is because the alcohol produced in the Empire is made illegally and in people's homes. If done wrong, it can be deadly. In a word: it is cheap. It is for the masses. Those of higher standing go for whatever is the fashion in Europe.
Enough. In a move to both protect the people from drinking literal poison and to diminish the impact of imported European produce, the Imperial government is making a move to regulate local alcohol brews, a sort of rum known as tharra. Scottish and English distillers of whisky and gin, respectively, suffering from prohibition at home, will be approached and invited to aid in and supervise the process. Prominent local brewers and medical experts will form a panel alongside one or two of these foreigner experts to set standards and denominations of tharra, most importantly those regarding the alcohol contents and the brewing process.
Once these regulations are set, producers will be eligible for certification. Those who choose to be certified will receive some government aid to set up new, large distilleries. Teams led by the foreign experts will design and construct these distilleries, as well as train their employees. The distilleries will be encouraged to retain British distillers in managerial positions to ensure the continuity of standards and procedures. It is hoped that the setting up of larger plants will make cheaper and safe tharra available to those who already drink it, while other distilleries may specialise in premium products that would not only be consumed by local elites, but would also be up for export. The idea is that gin distiller experts may help with the cheaper, larger quantity projects while Scots whisky distillers would aid with the development of limited batch premium brands.
The possibility of opening whisky, gin, and proper rum distilleries remains open in the future.
Orders for Turn 5 (Q4 1893)
Recruit 3 Missions and 6 Corps.
Sign the Treaty of Thale Noi Lake.
Change official name to Indostan.
Discard Shahids and Military Martyrdom, activate Lean Manufacturing
Allocate an Enterprise to work on Compound Steam Engines.
Another Enterprise will start work on Lean Manufacturing.
Three Enterprises and a corps will be focused on redeveloping and expanding Karachi's port.
Two Missions and two corps will be on the Akali quest line.
Two missions, two corps, and an enterprise will be involved in a clandestine mission to Nepal.
Three missions and two corps will infiltrate Delhi in a secret assignment.
Seven corps and an enterprise will be engaged in preparations, reconnaissance and infiltration all along the border region with British India.
____________________
Indostan
Though Our State be established by Sikhs and is still ruled by Sikhs, it would be foolish to think that it is only of Sikhs and only for Sikhs. Our State is preoccupied with the state of all Our Subjects, Sikh or not, and extends far beyond the lands where Sikh people could be found before this State brought them there. It is therefore foolish to call our State a Sikh one. Whilst the principles of our governance be rooted deep in our Sikh faith, and precisely because the Sikh faith demands that our treatment and considerations towards our subjects be Just and Equanimous, Our State cannot be Sikh itself; for a State is but a reflection of the Subjects under it. We have decided, then, that Our State be henceforth known by the name of the land it stands on, which since times immemorial has been called Indostan.
________________________
The Port of Karachi and the Steam Revolution
Indostan hopes to become a spearhead for technological innovation in the coming century. Initiatives like the compound steam engine ship open tender are hoped to kickstart this. In order to help the project along, an international competition has been organised to select a prototype that is actually functional. For the purposes of hosting the event, which is expected to host Russian and German firms, a presiding committee has been selected amongst Sikh scientists and engineers to supervise the tests and validate the results.
Because testing such engines would usually involve installing it on a ship, and because of a desire of the committee to avoid any safety risks, a pioneering installation is being built in Karachi port. First step of a broad expansion and renovation project for the port, the Marine Engine Design and Testing Facility will consist of a large assembly workshop, a hangar around a large pool, with several stock axles, rotors, and partial ship bow frames for assembly. This is so engines can be assembled on site, and then assembled to a configured propulsion system for static testing of the engine performance. The facility will also contain a couple management offices, and have an annex building with the Marine Engineering School, Library, and Archive.
After building the Facility, work will start on the port expansion proper, which will include two state-of-the-art drydocks and a naval arsenal, as well as some new commercial wharfs. The goal is to enable the Empire to develop, build and repair its ships natively, as well as expand Karachi's role as a trading hub on the Indian Ocean. Also an essential component of this massive project is the huge amount of workers that it will require, redirecting the Punjabi labourers from finished irrigation projects in rural Sindh. While admittedly a temporary patch, the withdrawal of many of these perceived foreigners into the multicultural city is hoped to alleviate tensions in the region.
________________________
Lean Manufacturing
A concept pioneered but not explored in Japan, Lean manufactoring will be worked on in a partnership between the Japanese pioneers and Indostani companies that will be implementing the concept under the aegis of the Grand Vizier, who is famously an administrator most eager for organisational innovations.
________________________
The Akali
When an institution corrupts, it must reform or face degradation and, eventually, destruction. The voices calling for the reform of the mahants has grown too loud to ignore. Some call for their election by the people, and others for their selection by the bureaucracy. Both have persuasive arguments, and thus both must be adopted. For each gurdwara there will be an allocated number of mahants, which will correspond to the number of believers who register with it. Registration is necessary to be eligible as a mahant and as a voter, and open to both men and women.
For each position there will be applicants who will face a two part test: one testing their textual knowledge of scripture and the other gauging their interpretations of it. Applicants will also require the support of 3% of registrees in the gurdwara. Those who fulfill these requirements will be interviewed by the governor or an apointee, who will select three of them. In case that there were less than three successful applicants, the interview will be skipped. The registrees will then elect the mahant from the three candidates. If nobody wins a majority, a second round will happen with the two top candidates.
An effort will be made through an information campaign to make everyone aware and acquainted with proper procedures, and events will be held after services to familiarise people with ballot formats and registrations procedures, to make sure any illiterate believers get to participate fairly. Security will also be reinforced when such elections happen to make sure order dows not break down. Pashtunistan veteran police units will be favoured for their proven experience.
___________________
The Gorkhas
A great injustice has taken place in Nepal under British control. The Gorkha dynasty was overthrown by an usurper so unashamed that he didn't even pretend to claim the dignity of kingship for himself. However, we have received word of agitation in the old kingdom, to restore the old dynasty and unshackle from the British to fall in our loving arms. Even as we prepare to strike at the heart of British India, the legendary and fearless fighters from Nepal will be invaluable allies, and we must make their cause our own. Through the Tibetan routes charted in the last year, a diplomatic mission will sneak to Nepali territory to meet with the discontent and establish contect. They will be accompanied by clandestine military detachments and their logistic support. After setting up a supply depot in lower Tibet, and once we have contacted support from the local nobility, these military forces will descend into Nepal, where they will be housed and fed by our local allies. Their mission will be to recruit, arm, and train a local force for an uprising. To that end, their logistical support will remain in Tibet storing up ammo and rifles, while the lead Nihang infiltration units with them will establish weapons caches and designate rallying points throughout the country.
____________________
The Impending Downfall of Delhi
It is known by all, and feared by some, that the British have grown inordinately fond of Bengal. Delhi is an extremely vulnerable city, lying just a few days' march from our border. Thus many of Delhi's princes and bureaucreats believe that a move by the British to Dacca or Kolkata of the administration is imminent, and they fear to lose their power. We are here to take advanage of this fear.
We are sending noblemen to Delhi as our envoys to Britain, protesting for the situation of Nepal, whilst we meet in private with the princes. Britain is in a tenuous situation, and so is Delhi. If the British ignore our protests, and war comes, Delhi will be in the frontlines. The Brits are already thinking of moving away. The only way for the city to survive and keep its power is to help us. Delhi, the powerhouse it already is, would always be the administrative hub for Northern India if we were to expel the British. But, in the midst of war, the city could be reduced to rubble, and the government would surely flee. However, were the princes to help us prevent such a move, any evacuation, and surrender the city, Delhi would emerge unscathe of any conflict, and remain the lynchpin of a continent.
Our mission's escort will be formed by members of Nihang units, and will act as a link with the rest of their unit, which will have secretly infiltrated British India and started gathering intelligence on the city and the region's strategic military and logistic targets. They will relay their information through our official envoys who will be hard at work trying to sway the nobility to our side, and through them they will be given a priority target so that planning can commence. Were our diplomatic mission to be successful, their task will be that much easier, as easier it will be to supply them with material.
________________________________
War Preparations
Finally, all available Nihang recon units not already assigned will be deployed all along the border. Even as our troops intensify drilling and start to be moved to Eastern bases, these special units will settle in advanced posts in British territory in Rajastan and Gujarat, from where they will conduct long range reconnaissance and gather intelligence on enemy assets. Each team will have runners whose job will be to relay recon and intel back through the border, as well as bring back supplies. For the time being, and like all other infiltrated units not in Nepal, they will have no proper military gear and dress in civilian clothes. Furthermore, each team will be selected according to their training, wherein Hindu speakers will be assigned to the northern areas, Rajasthani trained speakers will be assigned to Rajasthan, and Gujarati speakers will be assigned to the south.
Finally, a special effort will be made to establish the largest smuggling route since the Opium Trade. Through the Rann of Kutch, tharra and other mass produces alcohol will be introduced to British India and distributed across some of our units whose task will be to confraternise with Indian workers in British military installations and supply these with alcohol. The final goal is to undermine the British Army's morale and discipline, but we hoped that even if it failed at that at least it will provide revenue for the state.
Orders for Turn 6 (S1 1894) COMMITTED (war plans pending pictures)
Activate smoke screen.
Raise 5 additional corps and 1 squadron
2 missions, 5 enterprises to enact the provisions of the War Emergency Act
17 corps assigned to active duty as field armies
4 corps assigned as a strategic reserve
1 corps, 1 missions, 1 enterprise to lead the Nepali Uprising
3 corps, 2 missions, 1 enterprise to maintain the border infiltration&sabotage and tharra smuggling operations.
5 missions to persuade the Gentoo mercenaries and peoples of Central India to rise
5 squadrons to blockade the West Coast of India
1 squadron dispatched to aid the Boers in the Cape
Adopt Mechanisation of Agriculture, Telegraph and Telephone, Spark-Gap Radio, Gas lighting and shift work, Direct Current, Electrified manufacture, Integrated Railway Network, Steam Carriages, Vezdekhod&all-terrain, semi-automatic small arms, light mortars and infantry support, field hospitals, skeleton crawlers, aufstragstaktik, shock troops, light signalling, amphibious operations, and naval infantry.
___________________________________________
War Emergency Act
In the better interest of the Nation when faced by these troubling times We, Maharaja Khan Noonien Singh, hereby promulgate this Act, by which:
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth relieved of Imperial sanction. The Laws and Ordnances approved and promulgated by the Cabinet will be known as Decrees, and susceptible to Imperial veto by the promulgation of an Act repealing or overriding such a decree;
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth permanently in an Emergency Meeting, which entails the permanence of all cabinet members in Lahore unless excused by their very labour as Ministers of the Cabinet;
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth reformed into the War Cabinet, in which either the chief of staff or the commander in chief of the armed forces must attend any and all cabinet meetings unless it is absolutely indispensable to the conduct of the war, in which case a general officer must be present as an authorised representative of either CoS or CiC, permanently in communication with Army Headquarters;
Our Realm of Indostan is henceforth under Mobilisation to better and more efficiently serve the War Effort.
To that end, the following dispositions are affixed to this Act:
That every man of age must report to the closest barracks, cantonment, or governmental office to report for the draft. His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will employ the drafts to raise additional forces for either reserve or active duty.
That the War Economy must be reinforced heavily. To that end, and to reduce dependence on imports of foreign materiel, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will fund new and state-of-the-art steel mills, ammunition factories, chemical plants, small arms assemblies and arsenals, as well as the training courses for its workers.
That in order to man such plants and factories, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet shall subsidise or fund the modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture, as well as fine and tax those landowners who do not undertake such measures.
That in order to facilitate the War Effort, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will authorise a Mission to procure the latest armaments and devices of war developed around the world.
By Our hand signed with the Imperial Seal on the 30th of January in the year of 1894
(Troops will be drawn from the reserve if needed to quell unrest or discontent in the wake of the War Emergency Act. A secondary focus of the industrial build up will be to divert the Punjabis in Sindh away from the fields to relieve the ethnic tensions there. Maybe after ten turns of doing this that quest will start being solved. Halfway there.)
______________________________________
Sepoy Legacy
In the years of yonder warriors, now bandits, the Gentoo must rise once more against the dreaded British, now threatened from all sides. We will send secret missions and feelers into the heart of Bharat to unite or at least rile up these band into open rebellion, and for the towns and cities to join them.
We shall offer those who rise up a place in the new Army, and a pension. For demonstrable feats, victories, or outstanding valour, an increase on it, or lands of their choosing. This is a chance for them to become respected and respectable once more, to do so by defeating those who cast them out to begin with, and who have been oppressing the Bharati people for over a century already. Fame, fortune, revenge, and country. What else does a man need to stand on his feet again?
_____________________________________
This One’s on the House
As Military Operations commence, we will redouble our efforts on our smuggling operations. At the same time, those same operatives who have been spread across the border, producing intel and reconnoitring, and facilitating the trade, will move to actively sabotage the British defensive efforts, be it by killing the engineers, poisoning food and water supplies, blowing up railroads, ammo depots, and construction sites.
Efforts will focus on the areas imminently under attack: that is Delhi, Sonipat, Ahmedabad, and the Ratangarh sectors, as well as the city of Jaipur proper. Concentrating our units and efforts in these areas will have a significant effect, while diversionary sabotage operations elsewhere will tie in additional British forces.
_________________________________
Fire from the Snow
The time has arrived to liberate Nepal from the British yoke and restore it to its rightful rulers: the Gorkha dynasty. After recruiting, training, and drilling a capable volunteer militia, the rising will begin by rallying to the caches scattered around the country in the dead of night. At sunrise, the armed militias will fall on the preselected targets: ammo and supply depots, army barracks, and Kathmandu. We rely on surprise and on the fierce spirit of the Nepali warriors to take back the country and expel the British. Should the uprising succeed completely, our Nepali forces will then move down towards Patna in support of our allies offensives in Bengal, whilst units in the western reaches of the country will link up with the Fauj Ganga in Moradabad after Delhi has been taken.
__________________________________
War Plan ਇ
Our forces will be assembled into five field armies: the Fauj-i Khas, the Fauj Punjab, and the Fauj Ganga near Delhi, the Fauj Hamala in Bikaner, and the Fauj Rajasthana in Gujarat our remaining corps will be held on reserve or employed in other operations. The Fauj Punjab will be reinforced with additional corps up to five, whilst the others will remain at the standard 3. The Fauj Hamala will be composed almost exclusively of cavalry or mounted units, with its focus being on mobility.
The Fauj Punjab will deploy from Rohtak and attack directly towards Delhi, whilst the Fauj-I Khas and the Fauj Ganga will rally at Gorhana and advance through Sonipat to secure the northern flank of our advance. These manoeuvres form Operation Dargeh, which will be the main focus of the initial campaign. The Fauj Rajasthana will have the goal of securing British Gujarat and advancing North towards Udaipur in Rajasthan, whilst the Fauj Hamala will attempt to break through the enemy lines in the desert and launch a campaign against Jaipur. These two will be carrying out Operations Anchal and Charan, respectively. Concurrently, Operations Geedhay and Paaraata will be conducted to undermine enemy capabilities and reduce their effectiveness.
Support Operations
Operations Geedhay and Paaraata were started three months ago, and constitute our undercover efforts to intoxicate British Army personnel beyond fitness for combat and to reconnoitre and report British positions at and near the border. With the beginning of the war, Operation Paaraata will move into a second phase where Nihang commando operatives will target and destroy key British Army supply and ammo depots, as well as fortified strongpoints, before offensive operations begin. Operation Geedhay then will continue, and in fact the contacts smuggling tharra into British barracks, camps and positions will now coordinate to provide access for the Nihang operatives to conduct their own sabotage missions. Most importantly, Paaraata and Geedhay will seek to undermine or stall British defensive efforts in and around Delhi, where we hope to be aided by sympathisers in preventing the British administration from evading capture. Paaraata will be key in destroying or crippling key facilities at the Delhi and Ahmedabad cantonments.
Operation Dargeh
Diversionary Operations
Operation Charan seeks to secure the southern flank of Dargeh by capturing the Rajasthani capital of Jaipur, thence cutting the resupply and reinforcement roads between Delhi and the south, especially the border forces in Rajasthan. Operation Anchal, on the other hand, seeks to divert forces from Delhi itself by threatening, in conjunction with Charan, to cut off British forces in their border positions.
Follow-Up Operations
The Ganges Campaign will see the Fauj Ganga and the Fauj-i-Khas move down the Gangetic Plain towards Lucknow and finally Patna. The Fauj Punjab will redeploy south to relieve the Fauj Hamala and complete the occupation of Rajasthan, striking south through Ajmer to link up with Fauj Rajasthana in Udaipur. The Fauj Hamala will then operate as the reserve for the Ganges Campaign.
The Fauj Ganga will take the northern route through Moradabad (where they should link up with Nepali units), Bareilly and Pilibhit then south to Lucknow, whilst the Fauj-i-Khas will take the southern route through Agra and Kanpur, then across the Ganges to Lucknow. At Lucknow, the Fauj Ganga will once more go north through Faizabad and Gorakhpur, whilst Fauj-i-Khas will take Allahabad, Jaunpur, and Benares along the way to Patna.
Orders for Turn 7 (1894 S2) COMMITTED (pending military plans and maps):
Resource Trades:
170 EC to Italy for 10IC, 10MC
285 EC to Sublime Porte for 25 MC
500 EC to Russia for 230 IC
200 EC to Russia for a technical school
Summary:
Adopt aerodynes, Inter-branch cooperation, airship reconnaissance, Zamburak and Stud farms.
Activate Quick-firing guns.
Recruit 3 missions and 3 enterprises.
Send 2 missions to help research holistic warriors in Burma.
2 corps will lead research efforts into smoke screening with assistance from Burmese and Japanese personnel.
Allocate two Enterprises to develop quick-firing guns along Burmese and Japanese contractors.
Contract with another two enterprises to repair and overhaul our logistics and communications in the Ganges plain.
Three Enterprises and two missions will set up and recruit personnel for the Delhi Auto Works.
Three missions and a Corps will be assigned to the Gentoo quest.
27 corps will be placed in active duty as part of Strategic Campaign Mahabharata.
7 squadrons will adopt a fleet-in-being stance.
_____________________________________
Delhi Auto Works
It was on the initiative of Jarnail M.B. Singh, recently promoted commander of V Corps, that the eponymous V Corps Repair Works was created in a newly disused warehouse of the Delhi Cantonment. It was evident upon receiving the first crawlers for training, that such a facility would be necessary. Jarnail Singh’s surprise was the response he got when he requested more funds and personnel to properly man the workshop: V Corps Repair Works was to become Delhi Auto Works, a centralised facility for the repair, maintenance, manufacture, and training of technicians for all crawler forces in the Indostani Army.
Now under government management, DAW was quickly moved out to a larger emplacement, where spare parts could be stored alongside a new workshop furnished with Italian machinery and technicians (IC and MC trade) who would train Indostani personnel in order to manufacture the aforementioned spare parts. New buildings were hastily erected or projected with a large garage, a foundry to cast new pieces and models, a short track and firing range for testing, and other such facilities. The ostensible mission of DAW would be not just to maintain and repair existing crawlers as they are, but also to labour in finding and creating mechanical or structural improvements, both implementable on existing machines and in future models.
It was also decided that DAW should become a research centre, and its mission should be to also try to develop new means to meet battlefield needs with automotive means. With the promised establishment of a Russian technical school, large amounts of Russian technicians, engineers and scientists experts in fields from metallurgy to mechanics and automation were hired. Whilst their ostensive purpose will be to lead improvement efforts in the larger process of industrialisation, many will be employed in pursuit of automotive research and in kickstarting Indostani expertise in that field.
_________________________________
Logistics overhaul
After the fighting, it will be necessary to rebuild. Though the logistics and engineers teams of our field armies carry telegraph cables and some rails for repairing combat damaged infrastructure, a larger investment is needed to adequate our network to the reality on the battlefield. As we reinforce our positions south of Kathmandu, it will be necessary not only to fully restablish the British rail and telegraph network, but also to build our own extension along south Nepal to the launching bases of Operation Arjuna. Therefore, the main work will be on laying a line from Biswan to Bahraich, reinforcing our existing rail connections there, and thence through the Churia Range and along its north side to our positions near the British railhead at Bikna Thori. New telegraph lines will be laid along this line to improve vertical and horizontal communications to the General Staff and between field army HQs.
__________________________________
Quick-firing guns
Taking advantage of the newly constructed DAW facilities and the machining expertise of the technicians there, and owing to the relatively small workload that derives from crawlers being new and not requiring extensive maintenance or repairs yet, the Indostani government approached the newly arrived European experts to improve other combat systems for the Army. A concept soon emerged to improve artillery reloading, and several pieces were cast at the foundry and tested.
Still in early stages, most failed or jammed, but gradual improvements have been achieved over the weeks. With the workload at DAW growing, development was moved to the Lahore Arsenal, which had been refurbished with Turkish machinery to improve fabrication methods whilst the prototypes were being first cast at DAW. Allied Burmese and Japanese contractors were brought in to further refine the concept and develop its fabrication processes. Several of the Russian experts involved with the initial development were also transferred to Lahore Arsenal to supervise the latter stages of the project. Progress has been steady and the first operational guns are expected to roll out of the newly furbished Arsenal in the upcoming months.
___________________________
Smoke Screening
Meanwhile, troops of the newly formed XXIX Corps train alongside veterans of the reformed XVI Corps in an undisclosed location near Bikaner. The outlying regions of the Thar Desert offer a perfect backdrop for secret Army tests. There has recently been a commotion in town, however, with the arrival of many Japanese and Burmese allied troops, primarily officers, arriving through treacherous Himalayan routes or crossing neutral countries as civilians.
Training exercises for both formations consist of large scale wargames where they are pitted against each other in a variety of situations. Takin turns to defend or attack certain positions, these wargames wouldn’t be exceptional were it not for the deployment of a new weapon: smoke. Given to one side or both alternatingly, the use an efficacy of smoke screen deployment is being tested at a large scale with combat formations advancing and holding against other fully manned units. Although live fire is of course not used to prevent friendly fire casualties, the actual potential of this new weapon has become evident to our own and our allied observer officers.
Small Burmese and Japanese combat units have participated in the wargames to test the technique in smaller scale. Although it has been determined that its use in large scale attacks is most fruitful, it is estimated that deployment of smoke to cover up smaller unit advances has a heavier impact on their casualties, and thus have been deemed a necessary practice in conducting localised assaults.
__________________________________________
Strategic Campaign Mahabharata (detailed plans and maps coming soon)
Acting on a novel concept of the General Staff dubbed ‘saturation offensive’, it has been decided to conduct a total of seven distinct operations with offensive advances in at least 8 points across the entire front. The core concept is to saturate enemy command with critical situations, so that they cannot respond effectively to any one of our advances. If they do, they weaken their other positions, which our other forces can then exploit.
It is critical that each army is in horizontal communication with each other, such that if any of them faces a critical situation of their own they can be supported by the adjoining force. The Monsoon season is now in full swing, so there are three months to prepare these operations. While the monsoon lasts, troops will have shorter frontline duty tours in order to prevent infestation, disease, boredom, and mutiny. Instead, idle troops will be tasked with performing flood relief. Amongst our preparations, any food surpluses will be shipped and distributed across occupied regions to be distributed to the displaced from flooding. In short, we will reduce the length of time our troops stay in the frontline in order for them to train and prepare for the upcoming operations as well as to provide relief to those most affected by floods. Fortunately for us, our positions are mostly upstream and will be less sensitive to seasonal flooding than British positions, which we hope will play favourably for us once the rains are over and the campaigning season starts.
Operation Dhritarashtra
Our insurgency operation is the only one that will actually progress during the rainy season. Crack troops experienced from our Nepal operations, as well as Hindu and Maratha operatives, will trickle into Central India from our base in Baroda, establishing contact with Gentoo cells and our agents already in the area. New armament and equipment will be provided, as well as explosives to conduct sabotage operations. The most important task will be to destroy the British railways, especially around the critical junction of Manmad, connecting Bombay and the southern rail network to the central and northern rail networks, and Ratlam, which is the last remaining railroad supplying Rajasthan. It should be possible to cut this line at the base and, by constant action, prevent it from ever being fully reopened. This will greatly aid in the success of Operation Pandu in October.
Once contacts have been set up and a network established, a full-scale uprising should take place much like the one in Nepal. Critical junctions, ammo depots, arsenals, cities must be taken or destroyed. Central India must become a hail of gunfire to any British soldier that dares enter. An attempt should be made to reach or send units to sabotage the Orissa rail line, which will be the sole thread linking South and North India after the uprising severs British lines of communication through Central India.
Kurukshetra Saturation Offensive
Our remaining 27 corps will be formed into 9 field armies, one of which will remain in reserve in Baroda to support other operations in the area. The remaining armies will actively take part in winter offensive operations. The main thrust will be the Pandava Offensive in the Ganges plain, formed by Arjuna from Nepal to Patna, Yudhishthira towards Gorakhpur and Patna, the twin Nakula and Sahadeva around Lucknow and towards Varanasi and Bhirma from Agra to Allahabad. Its goal is to push the British south of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, cutting their rail links to their base in Calcutta and leaving them to perish in the wilderness. Operation Draupadi from Baroda to Bombay, and the pincer Operation Pandu from Modasa and Agra towards Ajmer, complete the offensive. Taking Bombay would be a huge blow, depriving the British of a vital naval and supply base, whilst the pincer seeks to finally take Rajasthan by enveloping it and forcing the surrender of any forces left.
Turn 8 Orders
Resource trades:
700HC to Boers for 100MC
800HC to Egypt for 200IC
___________________
Summary:
Adopt Maskirovka, Penicillin, Judo, telescopic sights, indirect counter-barrage, trench raiding, defense-in-depth, women’s battalions, and Arditi.
Activate frogmen.
Send 3 corps to research army logistics in Japan.
1 mission to join the Serpent’s Garden
4 missions and 1 corps to steal Mad Minute tech from Britain,
4 missions and 1 corps to steal Night signalling from Brazil,
2 missions and 1 corps to FINALLY make the Gentoo rise,
3 enterprises to build the Herat-Kandahar-Quetta Railway and its connection to the Central Asian Railway.
3 enterprises and 2 corps in reserve to improve military logistics and supply lines,
7 squadrons to conduct naval operations against the British,
3 corps to verify the Ottoman withdrawal from Persia and escort the Shah to Tehran,
2 enterprises to improve the logistics in Ganges Region,
12 corps in the Ganges Region to conduct the Ikshvaku Offensive,
2 enterprises to improve the logistics in Central India,
3 corps to conduct Operation Rama and 4 corps and 2 missions to conduct Operation Sita.
__________________________
Serpent’s Garden:
Ulysses Anand – Decorated warrior, supernaturally doted for hand-to-hand fighting, and a free spirit with a heart of gold who has travelled the world several times over. Born exactly upon the instant when the Great Sepoy Rebellion broke out, illegitimate son of an English official and his maid. He shares that instant of birth with author and celebrity Yamya G. Kaur, with whom he shares a telepathic link and who has written his exploits as Subedar Singh in her book series of the same name.
Mohandas K. Gandhi – Trained lawyer, capable clerk. Unremarkable. Relation of Ms. Kaur, selected as Subedar Anand’s liaison, translator, and clerk for his fluency in German and trustworthiness.
____________________________
Espionage:
Night signalling – We will recruit Portuguese agents reliably favourable to our cause from the trading community in Karachi and Gujarat, who can secure safe passage through Goa to Brazil, along with some of our own Gujarati agents. Once there it should be easy for our Portuguese recruits to gather intelligence from locals disturbed by exercises and to find officers that can be bribed to hand over the protocols.
Mad Minute – Infiltrating Britain will prove harder. There will always be traitors and idealists eager to sell their country out, but Britain is a watchful nation. We will recruit any sympathetic Britons that we can reach through our diplomatic missions abroad whilst we also smuggle our native Gujarati agents across enemy lines to flee to Britain posing as refugees. Once in Britain, our agents will have been instructed to use every means at their disposal to acquire the knowledge. Cajoling, bribing, lying, cheating, deceiving soldiers, officers, officials, diplomats and respective wives.
________________________________
Gentoo Rebellion:
Though Britain interfered with our final preparations by sowing some dissent, which forced us to spend the rest of the semester trying to mend relations and finding ways around ethnic rivalries, we are now ready. Weapons and munitions have been stockpiled, objectives selected, hideouts established, and units recruited. All that is left to do is rally the men, gather the weapons, and start the rebellion. Key railways and railway towns, from Jhansi and Bilaspur to Bhasawal and even Cuttack in Orissa will be blown up or seized, halting British supply operations. Ambushes will be established to prevent it from moving along, and if possible captured or destroyed. Combined with Operation Sita and the pressure in the North from Ikshvaku, we expect the British position in Central India to collapse altogether, effectively splitting British India in two: Bengal and South.
____________________________-
Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway:
Given British control of the Arabian Sea, and that the recent war in Persia means it is not suitable for our trade to transit through, we have to turn to the lower throughput routes along the Central Asian Railroad and the Transhimalayan Railway. Given the closer proximity to the key markets of Europe and the shorter length of track to be built, we have decided to build a connection to the former. Though the goal is to build a triangular Kabul-Herat-Kandahar network in Pashtunistan eventually, with connections Kabul-Peshawar and Herat-Quetta, we will focus on building its western side. The lowlands of west Pashtonistan are the most favourable terrain to build this connection which, double tracked and with adequate water towers and depots will take the most advantage of the railroad’s capabilities. Any spare funds and time should be devoted to breaking ground on the Peshawar-Kabul connection and onwards to Herat.
_______________________________-
Logistics overhaul:
As we have advanced into India, we have strained the capabilities of our railroads and our industry to keep our armies properly supplied adequately. Though the dense railroads of the Ganges plain are adequate to sustain our forces at the present moment, we are almost at the end of the tether in the southern front. Much of the railroads and related infrastructure we have captured are still damaged, with only the minimum necessary having been repaired to allow continuous supply.
Our utmost effort will be dedicated to restoring this most vital infrastructure. The Imperial Corps of Engineers will lead the effort, determine any lines that must be reinforced or new railroads that have to be laid. The Quartermaster of the Army will report any shortcomings in production that need to be overcome and establish priorities. If an ammunitions factory has to be built in Chitor or Baroda before a railroad is built between Ahmedabad and Udaipur, it will be.
____________________________________________________
Breaking the Blockade:
Now that our allies are victorious at sea, and the British have been defeated elsewhere, it is the time to turn back the tide and break the blockade. Both the Japanese and the Boer Navy will be sending assistance. The Boers will escort a convoy of 100MC, which in Somalia will be joined by a massive Egyptian convoy of 200IC. In order to ensure that these arrive safely, we need to gather our strength. Therefore we will first sortie en force to rendezvous with the Japanese squadrons near the Maldives. We expect British forces to be scattered trying to intercept shipping, or to be concentrating near the gulf of Aden to intercept the Boers, who will resupply in Somalia.
Still a feint is advised: that the fleet should sail in full towards Aden from its base, seemingly to escort the convoy, then mostly swing East to effect the rendezvous, trying to avoid engaging large enemy formations. Our recent refitting of our ships with new compound engines whilst they were in port should give us the necessary edge in speed. Only an escort flotilla and a cruiser will continue sailing westwards, always attempting to avoid actual engagements with enemy ships, to make the deception more real. Once reunited with the Japanese, we will sail back to resupply if necessary at our nearest base, then sailing to Mogadishu to meet with the Boers and hunting any and all British shipping along the way.
Hopefully the bulk of the British Indian Force can be engaged and, thanks to our allies, sunk, clearing a path to Karachi. Otherwise, the joint force should be more than enough to fend off any attacks and deliver the cargo intact. Upon arrival, the Egyptian and Boer ships will load their HC and leave, with the anti-British navies now free to hunt and raid British shipping in turn.
_____________________________________
Persian Peacekeeping:
VII and XVIII Corps of the Fauj Rajasthana, along XVI Corps, will be assigned to this mission. They will advance in three parallel columns along the coast, the interior, and the north. No actual fighting is expected, so supplies will be largely limited to foodstuffs and fuel. In order to save on both, these corps will be stripped of most of their heavy equipment. They should be composed almost entirely of infantry and light cavalry, with only a few field artillery pieces but a sizeable zamburak component of machineguns and light guns. The more experienced and disciplined VII will take the northern route and escort the Shah to Tehran.
Ammo will be limited to what the men can carry, except for machineguns and artillery which will be sealed up in carts. They are to not engage or fire unless strictly necessary for self-defence. The mission will merely consist in taking over places under Ottoman occupation as the Ottomans withdraw and raise the colours of the Shah. For that purpose, advancing troops will fly the Indostani and Persian ensigns side by side as they advance. This assignment is so that battle-wearied formations can take a rest and, being hand-picked for this assignment, they are expected to behave impeccably and be the presentation card of Indostan in Persia.
_____________________________________
Ikshvaku Offensive:
We failed to achieve any of our ultimate objectives with the Pandava Offensive. Nevertheless, we secured the critical Lucknow-Faizabad-Gorakhpur line that sensibly eases our internal lines of communication and redeployment. The final link in this chain is the railroad hub at Kanpur. We need to secure it and secure a crossing of the Ganges further East, in order to cut Bengal supply into Central India which should provide an added incentive for the British to retreat from it, and hopefully prevent them from doing so altogether. We are still seeking the destruction of a British field army.
______________________________
Operation Rama:
Taking Bombay is the top priority this campaign season. We were slowed down at Daman, but once past it we are picking up momentum again. XVII and XXIII Corps are weathered from fighting, but must fight on. VIII Corps will be dispatched to reinforce. Concentrated artillery fire is still the name of the game.
__________________________________
Operation Sita:
Sita is the operation by which we will break the line of the Satpuras and break into Khandesh. It will be preceded by an elaborate deception, whereby we will concentrate few troops in Surat until the very last minute, all the while our missions feign heavy troop and materiel concentrations in Indore, the tip of our salient threatening both Asirgarh Pass and the Sabarmati River basin. The British will be forced to guard its eastern and southern approaches, some distance from their railways making rapid redeployment impossible. Then we will strike. Spearheaded by V and IX Corps, we will attack the British lines on the Tapti river valley east of Surat, and push onwards. All the while, the British rear should go up in flames as the Gentoo partisans rise and destroy their infrastructure from below them.
I will post my separate military orders in another post.
Spoiler Sikh Empire Turn 2 Orders :
Orders for Turn 2 - 1891 (or are we doing them for 92?):
Recruit 2 more missions, 2 more enterprises, 1 more squadron, and 1 Corps.
Assign 2 Enterprises to give logistic support in the Tarim Basin region
Assign 3 Corps to training and developing the new Akali (Nihang) formations.
Assign a corps and a mission to work on the Khalsa regional quest.
Two squadrons will be assigned to coast guard duties.
The rest of our forces will participate in the war on the Taiping.
_______________________________
The Dead and the Pure (and the Nihang)
Declaration of the Maharaja Khan Noonien Singh:
Too long and too far have we strayed from the old ways. We have become complacent and we have forgotten the old days of persecution and self-defence. We have engrossed ourselves in the management of an Empire, and have forsaken the wisdom that gave us this Empire. The Khalsa are the core of our existence. So many Khalsa like ourselves are at the top, and our moral code is strict, but we are no longer soldiers. What then of those for whom soldiery is integral to being Khalsa? We have forsaken them. No more.
The Nihang are the heirs of those first Nihang, the fearless and prodigious warriors that led us to countless victories. They earned for themselves the name of Akali, which means Immortal. Such was their fame, and their prowess. They lay now on the side, but no more. We look back now and We as sovereign have decided to reclaim this heritage. We will bring back these heroes from the streets on to the battlefields. The army shall create special units composed exclusively of Khalsa. They shall receive only the best training and the best weapons, and will be elite cadres. They will receive no better pay than any other soldier, and their reward will be to know that they fight for the Faith itself once more.
[End the Declaration]
Order 109/1891
In accordance to the proposals of Sardar (Brigadier) Parkash Singh, special training camps will be set up in secluded areas, one in the Kashmiri mountains and one in the Thar Desert, with tough living conditions and for training in unorthodox fighting tactics. Several corps will be involved in setting up the camps, running them, and developing and refining the techniques that these camps aim to teach.
Another facility will open at Lahore: the Special Service Tactical School, which will provide training in the operational principles of this unit to its officer corps before they join their units. Officers will then train alongside their troops up to the rank of Mahzor (Major) in order to improve loyalty, morale, and unit cohesion.
The curriculum at the school will focus on the scale of the methods and logistics of infiltration, the scale and variety of objectives achievable by this technique, and lower echelon autonomy in the context of the semi-improvisational nature of deep reconnaissance and sabotage operations.
The camps will weed out only the best of the best physically and mentally. Specially apt sepoys (privates) will be eligible for NCO courses at the SSTS. These units will be made up exclusively of the Nihang Khalsa warriors that are wasting away in our Empire and are reported as joining the underworld. There will be a special recruitment drive aimed at them by army and government units side by side. Thus the Special Nihang Corps will be formed at Lahore, with the SSTS and Nihang Training Camps under its command. The forces under its command will be headquartered in Lahore and Srinagar once their training is complete.
The aim is to establish specialised Nihang Brigades able to perform either as shock troops or, in smaller formations, as infiltration, deep reconnaissance and sabotage units. These will provisionally form into all-Nihang Divisions for quartering, but will exercise only as integral brigades and companies, and will routinely embed in other divisions for wargames.
Sepoys rejected by the NTC will be sent to a regular army training camp, but will form a special gendarmerie service. This measure is hoped to neutralise the unlawful warlike elements loose in the country at the same time as it furnishes us with elite cadres and a stable pacification force for Pushtunistan.
_____________________________
Tarim Basin Logistics:
The enterprises in the Tarim Basin will essentially open a feasible supply route through the Western passes of the Himalayas, and be responsible for the construction of a road and railroad to Kashgar. The sheer length of the track makes us expect that only the road might be finished this year, but this alone will make the transit of troops and supplies through much easier.
Addendum said:Then reassign an extra mission to the Khalsa Quest, and another mission and all Enterprises to the Tarim Basin project.
Another road will be opened to the east, south of the Takla Makan, from Srinagar to Hotan, and extebsive works will be carried out to improve the current poor ly maintained toutes from this village to the West Gansu oasis route that form the heartland of the Ma dominion. This is part of the same project, although it more than doubles the scope of the original plan. The Eastern road is also prioritary as it shortens the lines by hundreds of miles. The mission will take the role of prospecting the route and expropriating the the appropriate lands, with compensation, if necessary. The final project going into this is an improvement of defense in depth fortification along the Ma and Tibet borders with China. Two enterprises will be assigned to this project alongside a corps which will help identify ideal combat positiins and dispositions. This corps will also be there as an assurance of our protection to our allies, and though the soldiers will participate in the construction, their engineers will be doing the prospecting alongside the enterprises who will do most of the building. The other three enterprises will open the Srinagar-Hotan road alongside the assigned mission.
The remainder of missions will attempt to infiltrate the Taiping and reveal the disposition of their forces. We will use Chinese refugees, of which there surely is no shortage in our Empire. They will receive specialised practical courses at the SSTS, then provided with false identities, and sent back into the country to contact old dissident acquaintances and set up apy rings in the country on our behalf. We hope for but do not expect immediate results. We will focus our efforts on the Western reaches and the southern provinces of the Mandate.
Spoiler Sikh Empire Turn 3 Orders :
Orders for Turn 3 (1893)
We'll adopt all of the following (as many as our economy allows): “Impressionism and decadent art”, “Expressionism and avant-garde”, “Realism and pragmatism”, "Mass culture and popular art", "Bohemianism and counterculture", “Investment banking and trust funds”, “Corporate ethos”, “Phenomenalism”, “Psychoanalysis”, “Biologism and evolution theory”, “Eugenics and racial science”, “Constitutionalism”, “Investigative journalism”, “Transnational crime and law”, “Oligarchy and political corruption”, “Cartels and economic crime”, “Hydraulic power network”, “Internal combustion engine”, “Still engine”, “Vaccination”, “Refrigeration”, "Interchangeable parts", “Geologic expeditions”, “Water and land conservation”, “Dreisines and velocipedes”, “Bicycle-riding and ski infantry”, “Field trenches”, “Dispersed combat tactics”.
____________________________________________
Employ 3 enterprises and 2 missions to completing the Srinagar-Hotan Railroad, and complementary projects. The companies that started the job will finish it, employing the bits of infrastructure already set up to facilitate further construction. The reinforcement of missions will map out the country and complement our own geological observations with local knowledge of recurring climate and geological events.
This knowledge will be used to develop and deploy any necessary security measures and avoid unnecessary risks. It will also serve to assess the possibility of developing a much longer, much more challenging line to Lhasa from Kashmir, although no work should be started on that beyond such an initial assessment.
_____________________________________________
Four corps and a mission will continue developing, refining, teaching, and training in Nihang techniques. Units in the Desert quarters will move to the Kashmiri quarters and viceversa. By the end of training, all Nihang units will have learned infiltration and survival in the roughest environments, as well as suitable and practical combat tactics to go with it. A third base will be set up in Amritsar, where select soldiers will learn to speak and behave like Bharatis from occupied regions, to later form the basis of a special infiltration force deep behind enemy lines, at peace and during war. This is the most sensitive part of training, conducted by the mission, and thus it will be disguised as an Eastern Logistical Support Center for the Army.
_____________________________________________
Three Enterprises and a mission will start research on Job shops. This project will take place in the Karachi region, where we want to encourage investment and industrial growth. Maghrebi control of the southern economy must be fought with its own tools and by encouraging a greater integration of our non-Sikh subjects to the Empire. The first step is to involve them in a large scale in state projects, and at its most basic we can achieve that by integrating them as workforce. We'll also be building technichal and managerial enterprise that these subjects can later exploit for their own entrepeneurial ventures.
_____________________________________________
The Pashtun Question: The Pashtunistan Judicial District
Last year's Khalsa recruits who didn't cut it for Nihang training will be deployed this year. Three corps will be sent as a police force to Pashtunishtan, with orders to not simply patrol and watch, and not act unless fired upon. Soldiers who overreact or commit excessed will be disciplined harshly and immediately discharged pending trial. Three missions and an enterprise will be sent to secure social peace. They will recruit wise men from villages, towns, and tribes to form up a judiciary system within the Empire's.
At least a secretary of each court will be directly appointed from Lahore, while the Pashtunistan Legal District that will be created will pretty much act autonomously. Evidently preliminary studies and a close inspection are necessary in the first stages to ensure fairness and normality in the procedures, and the secretaries will have the duty to report any irregularities for revision by the High Judiciary Review.
The first duty of the Pashtunistan Judiciary District will be to compile Afghan traditional law and harmonise it to the overarching legal principles of the Empire. The courts of the District will have investigative and decisory powers over the issues of crime and public order in Pashtunistan. The military forces sent in as peacekeepers and police will be under orders of the courts, who will ultimately be responsible for authorising any intervention. Said interventions will then be subject to revision by the High Judiciary Review, to dissuade judges from committing excesses or performing tribal favoritism.
Under the aegis of the District authorities, a census will be conducted to establish population, tribal affiliation, and economic activity (including what crops are cultivated and by what methods), and a program of subsidies will be started to decouple the economy from feudal warfare cycles and start a modernisation of agriculture.
Spoiler Sikh Empire Turn 4 Orders :
Orders for Turn 4 (June-September 1893)
5 Corps to the Nihang Research
1-2 Enterprises to Job Shops
2-3 Enterprises, 1 Mission, and 2 Corps to the Srinagar-Hotan Railroad
1 Corps to the Pandit Quest
5 Missions and 2 Corps to the Pushtun Question
2 Enterprises and 1 Mission to Tharra Regulation
Activate the Compound Steamers tech.
__________________________________
Nihang First Class
This is the final year of training for the first promotion of Nihang Infiltration Units. Five Corps will take part in the exercises. The Nihang Units will redouble their training in anticipation of the largest wargames ever in the country. There will be several waves of these, which will test both the adequacy of their training and that of our own security. A board of instructors from the different training centers will identify key objectives and the related goals that the units will have to achieve.
In the first wave, units will be brokendown to small teams, assigned a randomised target, and dropped off at a randomised location. The targets can range from the Imperial Palace to the Post Office, and the goals will be to introduce inoffensive but noticeable disruptions in such places, like swapping a file or introducing an awkward igredient in a high official's dinner. The teams will operate almost completely autonomously, with one member having to report within predetermined timeframes at predetermined locations. Teams will have to complete their assignments successfully and extract themselves unnoticed. Whatever the case, their supervising officer will report the success or failure of each team to the board, which can overturn the supervising officer's assessment.
In the second wave, the same exercise will be carried out by individuals volunteered and chosen for the task. They will operate completely autonomously and will report secretly through pre-arranged drop points and postage cypher. Only once their mission is completed will they have to report in person at Lahore SSTS, where the board will evaluate their success. Needless to say, all objectives will be highly guarded and security details will know of the exercises.
Finally, a conventional wargame will take place pitting the Nihang formation against regular Army units, whereby the objectives will be to disrupt supply and communications of the opposing team for the Khalsa, and for the regulars to defend these, maintain them, and secure 'enemy' HQ miles and miles away.
______________________________________________________________
Karachi Job Shops
IF the NGF last-minute edit goes through, ONE Enterprise assigned.
IF the former is not true, TWO Enterprises assigned.
The Grand Vizier will dispose of the necessary resources to complete his pet project. With help from German industrialists who have seen promise in his experiment, his initiative to take back Karachi from foreign investors by breaking down production into local businesses has gone forward. There are high hopes in the court that this will result in an uptick in employment as well as production in the Sindh, and other state-led industrial projects elsewhere have already started to apply the same model.
Relying on a variety of shops for production reduces dependability of any production process on a single provider, and by distributing the workload spreads the benefits of more business across a wider spectrum than if the whole process were integrated in a single corporation. It is no secret that the Vizier hopes that the success of his initiative will show the Muslim population that the Empire cares for them too, and this will lead to more positive attitudes towards it.
_______________________________________________________________
Srinagar-Hotan Railroad
IF the NGF edit did go through, 3 Enterprises assigned.
IF not, 2 Enterprises assigned.
As the works near completion, the contractor's work will be supplemented with military units to aid in the completion. Teams of military engineers will work alongside civilians to ensure a safe and speedy conclusion to the works. This will serve to add the railroad and its surrounding region to our military maps, as well as to establish depots and camps to ensure that proper ferrying of military units is possible and secure. Deployment timetables will be crafted accordingly, but these tasks must not detract from the primary objective to complete the passage. It has been a long and troubled project, but it is a testament to the endurance of the people who built it, and living proof of the engineering prowess of our nation.
The completion of the railroad will give credence to our assurances of defence to our allies in the region.
_ _ _ _ _ __ _ __ _ __
Tibetan Surveys
A Corps led by engineers will also be deployed to scout our the routs through Tibet in anticipation of a direct route to Lhasa. This Corps will form an expedition surveying such a route further than we did on the first half of the year, and will trace the way that such a future railway will follow in its middle section.
_____________________________________________
Pashtunistan Pacification
We will double down on our efforts in Pashtunistan. We would not be a self-respecting Empire if we remained inactive to alleviate our people's suffering. The troops we sent will be disciplined and reassigned to arid Balochistan. We will bring in not our best, but well disciplined and loyal troops whose orders are to aid the gendarmerie if required and maintain social peace. In order to establish such a peace, we will redouble on our recruitment and conciliation efforts, drawing from local elders to furnish a tribal court system with its own peculiar code of law to deal with tribal confrontations.
In order to set such a code, a board will be formed with amenable local elders who seek to help bring this peace. The Legal Board of Pashtunistan will compile customs, rationalise them into written law, reconcile them with islamic tradition, and then modulate it to conform to Sikh legal standards. This board will have a Sikh secretary from the Imperial judiciary who will have to sign on the code to secure its conformity to the overall legal framework of the Empire, and will advise on the board's efforts to this end. His final stamp will be subject to approval from Lahore, but otherwise he will be trusted to act independently and in accordance with the Imperial administration.
Once such a code of law is passed by the board and signed by the secretary, it will be adopted in the Empire as a legal statute for the region of Pashtunistan. The same board that wrote it will, in this code, establish the manner in which the courts are to be formed and judges to be selected and, according to these procedures, courts will be established in the provinces and towns to resolve disputes. Also in the statue will be regulated the permanent composition of the Board, which will always have a Sikh secretary, and the permanent Board will be established in accordance with such statute. These courts will have the ability to order local assigned corps to intervene in special cases, such as open revolt or undeclared war between rival tribes. This is a last recourse option and such intervention can be vetoed by the Board, which can also pass orders to military districts.
The evident goal is toput an end to fighting and force disputes to take place in impartial courts where matters will be settled justly by Pashto for Pashto. In the grand scheme of things, it is but a small step towards the integration of the region and its improvement to uplift its people and bring them up to the standards elsewhere in our domains.
________________________________________________
Tharra Regulation and Breweries
The Islamic religion forbids drinking alcohol. Sikhism forbids drugs, specifically tobacco. But there is no denying that the custom of drinking is alive and well within the Empire. Even the high classes that once cared to preserve a pretence of virtue have been lured by the Western fashion of 'cock-tails' and can be openly seen drinking in high occasions. Such beverages tnd to be European, in spite of no short supply of local produce. This is because the alcohol produced in the Empire is made illegally and in people's homes. If done wrong, it can be deadly. In a word: it is cheap. It is for the masses. Those of higher standing go for whatever is the fashion in Europe.
Enough. In a move to both protect the people from drinking literal poison and to diminish the impact of imported European produce, the Imperial government is making a move to regulate local alcohol brews, a sort of rum known as tharra. Scottish and English distillers of whisky and gin, respectively, suffering from prohibition at home, will be approached and invited to aid in and supervise the process. Prominent local brewers and medical experts will form a panel alongside one or two of these foreigner experts to set standards and denominations of tharra, most importantly those regarding the alcohol contents and the brewing process.
Once these regulations are set, producers will be eligible for certification. Those who choose to be certified will receive some government aid to set up new, large distilleries. Teams led by the foreign experts will design and construct these distilleries, as well as train their employees. The distilleries will be encouraged to retain British distillers in managerial positions to ensure the continuity of standards and procedures. It is hoped that the setting up of larger plants will make cheaper and safe tharra available to those who already drink it, while other distilleries may specialise in premium products that would not only be consumed by local elites, but would also be up for export. The idea is that gin distiller experts may help with the cheaper, larger quantity projects while Scots whisky distillers would aid with the development of limited batch premium brands.
The possibility of opening whisky, gin, and proper rum distilleries remains open in the future.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 5 Orders :
Orders for Turn 5 (Q4 1893)
Recruit 3 Missions and 6 Corps.
Sign the Treaty of Thale Noi Lake.
Change official name to Indostan.
Discard Shahids and Military Martyrdom, activate Lean Manufacturing
Allocate an Enterprise to work on Compound Steam Engines.
Another Enterprise will start work on Lean Manufacturing.
Three Enterprises and a corps will be focused on redeveloping and expanding Karachi's port.
Two Missions and two corps will be on the Akali quest line.
Two missions, two corps, and an enterprise will be involved in a clandestine mission to Nepal.
Three missions and two corps will infiltrate Delhi in a secret assignment.
Seven corps and an enterprise will be engaged in preparations, reconnaissance and infiltration all along the border region with British India.
____________________
Indostan
Though Our State be established by Sikhs and is still ruled by Sikhs, it would be foolish to think that it is only of Sikhs and only for Sikhs. Our State is preoccupied with the state of all Our Subjects, Sikh or not, and extends far beyond the lands where Sikh people could be found before this State brought them there. It is therefore foolish to call our State a Sikh one. Whilst the principles of our governance be rooted deep in our Sikh faith, and precisely because the Sikh faith demands that our treatment and considerations towards our subjects be Just and Equanimous, Our State cannot be Sikh itself; for a State is but a reflection of the Subjects under it. We have decided, then, that Our State be henceforth known by the name of the land it stands on, which since times immemorial has been called Indostan.
________________________
The Port of Karachi and the Steam Revolution
Indostan hopes to become a spearhead for technological innovation in the coming century. Initiatives like the compound steam engine ship open tender are hoped to kickstart this. In order to help the project along, an international competition has been organised to select a prototype that is actually functional. For the purposes of hosting the event, which is expected to host Russian and German firms, a presiding committee has been selected amongst Sikh scientists and engineers to supervise the tests and validate the results.
Because testing such engines would usually involve installing it on a ship, and because of a desire of the committee to avoid any safety risks, a pioneering installation is being built in Karachi port. First step of a broad expansion and renovation project for the port, the Marine Engine Design and Testing Facility will consist of a large assembly workshop, a hangar around a large pool, with several stock axles, rotors, and partial ship bow frames for assembly. This is so engines can be assembled on site, and then assembled to a configured propulsion system for static testing of the engine performance. The facility will also contain a couple management offices, and have an annex building with the Marine Engineering School, Library, and Archive.
After building the Facility, work will start on the port expansion proper, which will include two state-of-the-art drydocks and a naval arsenal, as well as some new commercial wharfs. The goal is to enable the Empire to develop, build and repair its ships natively, as well as expand Karachi's role as a trading hub on the Indian Ocean. Also an essential component of this massive project is the huge amount of workers that it will require, redirecting the Punjabi labourers from finished irrigation projects in rural Sindh. While admittedly a temporary patch, the withdrawal of many of these perceived foreigners into the multicultural city is hoped to alleviate tensions in the region.
________________________
Lean Manufacturing
A concept pioneered but not explored in Japan, Lean manufactoring will be worked on in a partnership between the Japanese pioneers and Indostani companies that will be implementing the concept under the aegis of the Grand Vizier, who is famously an administrator most eager for organisational innovations.
________________________
The Akali
When an institution corrupts, it must reform or face degradation and, eventually, destruction. The voices calling for the reform of the mahants has grown too loud to ignore. Some call for their election by the people, and others for their selection by the bureaucracy. Both have persuasive arguments, and thus both must be adopted. For each gurdwara there will be an allocated number of mahants, which will correspond to the number of believers who register with it. Registration is necessary to be eligible as a mahant and as a voter, and open to both men and women.
For each position there will be applicants who will face a two part test: one testing their textual knowledge of scripture and the other gauging their interpretations of it. Applicants will also require the support of 3% of registrees in the gurdwara. Those who fulfill these requirements will be interviewed by the governor or an apointee, who will select three of them. In case that there were less than three successful applicants, the interview will be skipped. The registrees will then elect the mahant from the three candidates. If nobody wins a majority, a second round will happen with the two top candidates.
An effort will be made through an information campaign to make everyone aware and acquainted with proper procedures, and events will be held after services to familiarise people with ballot formats and registrations procedures, to make sure any illiterate believers get to participate fairly. Security will also be reinforced when such elections happen to make sure order dows not break down. Pashtunistan veteran police units will be favoured for their proven experience.
___________________
The Gorkhas
A great injustice has taken place in Nepal under British control. The Gorkha dynasty was overthrown by an usurper so unashamed that he didn't even pretend to claim the dignity of kingship for himself. However, we have received word of agitation in the old kingdom, to restore the old dynasty and unshackle from the British to fall in our loving arms. Even as we prepare to strike at the heart of British India, the legendary and fearless fighters from Nepal will be invaluable allies, and we must make their cause our own. Through the Tibetan routes charted in the last year, a diplomatic mission will sneak to Nepali territory to meet with the discontent and establish contect. They will be accompanied by clandestine military detachments and their logistic support. After setting up a supply depot in lower Tibet, and once we have contacted support from the local nobility, these military forces will descend into Nepal, where they will be housed and fed by our local allies. Their mission will be to recruit, arm, and train a local force for an uprising. To that end, their logistical support will remain in Tibet storing up ammo and rifles, while the lead Nihang infiltration units with them will establish weapons caches and designate rallying points throughout the country.
____________________
The Impending Downfall of Delhi
It is known by all, and feared by some, that the British have grown inordinately fond of Bengal. Delhi is an extremely vulnerable city, lying just a few days' march from our border. Thus many of Delhi's princes and bureaucreats believe that a move by the British to Dacca or Kolkata of the administration is imminent, and they fear to lose their power. We are here to take advanage of this fear.
We are sending noblemen to Delhi as our envoys to Britain, protesting for the situation of Nepal, whilst we meet in private with the princes. Britain is in a tenuous situation, and so is Delhi. If the British ignore our protests, and war comes, Delhi will be in the frontlines. The Brits are already thinking of moving away. The only way for the city to survive and keep its power is to help us. Delhi, the powerhouse it already is, would always be the administrative hub for Northern India if we were to expel the British. But, in the midst of war, the city could be reduced to rubble, and the government would surely flee. However, were the princes to help us prevent such a move, any evacuation, and surrender the city, Delhi would emerge unscathe of any conflict, and remain the lynchpin of a continent.
Our mission's escort will be formed by members of Nihang units, and will act as a link with the rest of their unit, which will have secretly infiltrated British India and started gathering intelligence on the city and the region's strategic military and logistic targets. They will relay their information through our official envoys who will be hard at work trying to sway the nobility to our side, and through them they will be given a priority target so that planning can commence. Were our diplomatic mission to be successful, their task will be that much easier, as easier it will be to supply them with material.
________________________________
War Preparations
Finally, all available Nihang recon units not already assigned will be deployed all along the border. Even as our troops intensify drilling and start to be moved to Eastern bases, these special units will settle in advanced posts in British territory in Rajastan and Gujarat, from where they will conduct long range reconnaissance and gather intelligence on enemy assets. Each team will have runners whose job will be to relay recon and intel back through the border, as well as bring back supplies. For the time being, and like all other infiltrated units not in Nepal, they will have no proper military gear and dress in civilian clothes. Furthermore, each team will be selected according to their training, wherein Hindu speakers will be assigned to the northern areas, Rajasthani trained speakers will be assigned to Rajasthan, and Gujarati speakers will be assigned to the south.
Finally, a special effort will be made to establish the largest smuggling route since the Opium Trade. Through the Rann of Kutch, tharra and other mass produces alcohol will be introduced to British India and distributed across some of our units whose task will be to confraternise with Indian workers in British military installations and supply these with alcohol. The final goal is to undermine the British Army's morale and discipline, but we hoped that even if it failed at that at least it will provide revenue for the state.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 6 Orders :
Orders for Turn 6 (S1 1894) COMMITTED (war plans pending pictures)
Activate smoke screen.
Raise 5 additional corps and 1 squadron
2 missions, 5 enterprises to enact the provisions of the War Emergency Act
17 corps assigned to active duty as field armies
4 corps assigned as a strategic reserve
1 corps, 1 missions, 1 enterprise to lead the Nepali Uprising
3 corps, 2 missions, 1 enterprise to maintain the border infiltration&sabotage and tharra smuggling operations.
5 missions to persuade the Gentoo mercenaries and peoples of Central India to rise
5 squadrons to blockade the West Coast of India
1 squadron dispatched to aid the Boers in the Cape
Adopt Mechanisation of Agriculture, Telegraph and Telephone, Spark-Gap Radio, Gas lighting and shift work, Direct Current, Electrified manufacture, Integrated Railway Network, Steam Carriages, Vezdekhod&all-terrain, semi-automatic small arms, light mortars and infantry support, field hospitals, skeleton crawlers, aufstragstaktik, shock troops, light signalling, amphibious operations, and naval infantry.
___________________________________________
War Emergency Act
In the better interest of the Nation when faced by these troubling times We, Maharaja Khan Noonien Singh, hereby promulgate this Act, by which:
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth relieved of Imperial sanction. The Laws and Ordnances approved and promulgated by the Cabinet will be known as Decrees, and susceptible to Imperial veto by the promulgation of an Act repealing or overriding such a decree;
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth permanently in an Emergency Meeting, which entails the permanence of all cabinet members in Lahore unless excused by their very labour as Ministers of the Cabinet;
His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet is henceforth reformed into the War Cabinet, in which either the chief of staff or the commander in chief of the armed forces must attend any and all cabinet meetings unless it is absolutely indispensable to the conduct of the war, in which case a general officer must be present as an authorised representative of either CoS or CiC, permanently in communication with Army Headquarters;
Our Realm of Indostan is henceforth under Mobilisation to better and more efficiently serve the War Effort.
To that end, the following dispositions are affixed to this Act:
That every man of age must report to the closest barracks, cantonment, or governmental office to report for the draft. His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will employ the drafts to raise additional forces for either reserve or active duty.
That the War Economy must be reinforced heavily. To that end, and to reduce dependence on imports of foreign materiel, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will fund new and state-of-the-art steel mills, ammunition factories, chemical plants, small arms assemblies and arsenals, as well as the training courses for its workers.
That in order to man such plants and factories, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet shall subsidise or fund the modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture, as well as fine and tax those landowners who do not undertake such measures.
That in order to facilitate the War Effort, His Imperial Majesty’s War Cabinet will authorise a Mission to procure the latest armaments and devices of war developed around the world.
By Our hand signed with the Imperial Seal on the 30th of January in the year of 1894
(Troops will be drawn from the reserve if needed to quell unrest or discontent in the wake of the War Emergency Act. A secondary focus of the industrial build up will be to divert the Punjabis in Sindh away from the fields to relieve the ethnic tensions there. Maybe after ten turns of doing this that quest will start being solved. Halfway there.)
______________________________________
Sepoy Legacy
In the years of yonder warriors, now bandits, the Gentoo must rise once more against the dreaded British, now threatened from all sides. We will send secret missions and feelers into the heart of Bharat to unite or at least rile up these band into open rebellion, and for the towns and cities to join them.
We shall offer those who rise up a place in the new Army, and a pension. For demonstrable feats, victories, or outstanding valour, an increase on it, or lands of their choosing. This is a chance for them to become respected and respectable once more, to do so by defeating those who cast them out to begin with, and who have been oppressing the Bharati people for over a century already. Fame, fortune, revenge, and country. What else does a man need to stand on his feet again?
_____________________________________
This One’s on the House
As Military Operations commence, we will redouble our efforts on our smuggling operations. At the same time, those same operatives who have been spread across the border, producing intel and reconnoitring, and facilitating the trade, will move to actively sabotage the British defensive efforts, be it by killing the engineers, poisoning food and water supplies, blowing up railroads, ammo depots, and construction sites.
Efforts will focus on the areas imminently under attack: that is Delhi, Sonipat, Ahmedabad, and the Ratangarh sectors, as well as the city of Jaipur proper. Concentrating our units and efforts in these areas will have a significant effect, while diversionary sabotage operations elsewhere will tie in additional British forces.
_________________________________
Fire from the Snow
The time has arrived to liberate Nepal from the British yoke and restore it to its rightful rulers: the Gorkha dynasty. After recruiting, training, and drilling a capable volunteer militia, the rising will begin by rallying to the caches scattered around the country in the dead of night. At sunrise, the armed militias will fall on the preselected targets: ammo and supply depots, army barracks, and Kathmandu. We rely on surprise and on the fierce spirit of the Nepali warriors to take back the country and expel the British. Should the uprising succeed completely, our Nepali forces will then move down towards Patna in support of our allies offensives in Bengal, whilst units in the western reaches of the country will link up with the Fauj Ganga in Moradabad after Delhi has been taken.
__________________________________
War Plan ਇ
Our forces will be assembled into five field armies: the Fauj-i Khas, the Fauj Punjab, and the Fauj Ganga near Delhi, the Fauj Hamala in Bikaner, and the Fauj Rajasthana in Gujarat our remaining corps will be held on reserve or employed in other operations. The Fauj Punjab will be reinforced with additional corps up to five, whilst the others will remain at the standard 3. The Fauj Hamala will be composed almost exclusively of cavalry or mounted units, with its focus being on mobility.
The Fauj Punjab will deploy from Rohtak and attack directly towards Delhi, whilst the Fauj-I Khas and the Fauj Ganga will rally at Gorhana and advance through Sonipat to secure the northern flank of our advance. These manoeuvres form Operation Dargeh, which will be the main focus of the initial campaign. The Fauj Rajasthana will have the goal of securing British Gujarat and advancing North towards Udaipur in Rajasthan, whilst the Fauj Hamala will attempt to break through the enemy lines in the desert and launch a campaign against Jaipur. These two will be carrying out Operations Anchal and Charan, respectively. Concurrently, Operations Geedhay and Paaraata will be conducted to undermine enemy capabilities and reduce their effectiveness.
Support Operations
Operations Geedhay and Paaraata were started three months ago, and constitute our undercover efforts to intoxicate British Army personnel beyond fitness for combat and to reconnoitre and report British positions at and near the border. With the beginning of the war, Operation Paaraata will move into a second phase where Nihang commando operatives will target and destroy key British Army supply and ammo depots, as well as fortified strongpoints, before offensive operations begin. Operation Geedhay then will continue, and in fact the contacts smuggling tharra into British barracks, camps and positions will now coordinate to provide access for the Nihang operatives to conduct their own sabotage missions. Most importantly, Paaraata and Geedhay will seek to undermine or stall British defensive efforts in and around Delhi, where we hope to be aided by sympathisers in preventing the British administration from evading capture. Paaraata will be key in destroying or crippling key facilities at the Delhi and Ahmedabad cantonments.
Operation Dargeh
Spoiler :
The objectives for Operation Dargeh are the conquest of Delhi, as intact as it is feasible, and the capture of as much of the colonial government as possible, with a special mention for taking intact the British census data.
The Fauj Punjab’s main objective will be not to take Delhi, but to surround it and secure its communications west and south. They should advance to Bahadurgarh, where the shift south will begin. Whist a corps from the Fauj Punjab will keep on advancing towards Delhi in order draw enemy units, the bulk of its forces will swing south through Najafgarh and towards the Delhi Cantonment and Gurgaon, cutting off the railways and roads south, and attracting the bulk of the enemy forces. After taking Gurgaon, securing our southern flank, the remaining forces not engaged will march east to the Yamuna, sealing off Delhi and providing support to the rest of the Fauj Punjab fighting just west of the town.
Meanwhile, the Fauj Ganga and the Fauj-i Khas will advance from Gorhana to Sonipat, and then march on Delhi from the North. This will sweep up the city’s northern defences and prevent any possible reinforcements from the north. The Fauj Gunga will then cross the Yamuna through the ford at Norespur and march in parallel to the Fauj-i-Khas on the eastern shore. The Fauj Ganga will then take Shahdara and, if practicable, move out east to take Ghaziabad to push the lines further away from Delhi itself. The Fauj-i-Khas will be the one to actually march on Delhi and take it.
It is hoped that Operations Paaraata and Geedhay, in conjunction with our successful efforts in the last few months will result in a relatively bloodless siege, whereby the city might be surrendered or turned over by the princes we have wooed. In any case, it is hoped to contain fighting to the cantonment or to the outskirts west of Delhi.
The Fauj Punjab’s main objective will be not to take Delhi, but to surround it and secure its communications west and south. They should advance to Bahadurgarh, where the shift south will begin. Whist a corps from the Fauj Punjab will keep on advancing towards Delhi in order draw enemy units, the bulk of its forces will swing south through Najafgarh and towards the Delhi Cantonment and Gurgaon, cutting off the railways and roads south, and attracting the bulk of the enemy forces. After taking Gurgaon, securing our southern flank, the remaining forces not engaged will march east to the Yamuna, sealing off Delhi and providing support to the rest of the Fauj Punjab fighting just west of the town.
Meanwhile, the Fauj Ganga and the Fauj-i Khas will advance from Gorhana to Sonipat, and then march on Delhi from the North. This will sweep up the city’s northern defences and prevent any possible reinforcements from the north. The Fauj Gunga will then cross the Yamuna through the ford at Norespur and march in parallel to the Fauj-i-Khas on the eastern shore. The Fauj Ganga will then take Shahdara and, if practicable, move out east to take Ghaziabad to push the lines further away from Delhi itself. The Fauj-i-Khas will be the one to actually march on Delhi and take it.
It is hoped that Operations Paaraata and Geedhay, in conjunction with our successful efforts in the last few months will result in a relatively bloodless siege, whereby the city might be surrendered or turned over by the princes we have wooed. In any case, it is hoped to contain fighting to the cantonment or to the outskirts west of Delhi.
Diversionary Operations
Operation Charan seeks to secure the southern flank of Dargeh by capturing the Rajasthani capital of Jaipur, thence cutting the resupply and reinforcement roads between Delhi and the south, especially the border forces in Rajasthan. Operation Anchal, on the other hand, seeks to divert forces from Delhi itself by threatening, in conjunction with Charan, to cut off British forces in their border positions.
Spoiler Operation Charan :
Operation Charan will be a dash through enemy lines in the desert and straight towards Jaipur. Although strategic reserves will be assigned to hold captured towns and junctions, the Fauj Hamala is not expected to maintain or protect a supply route, or to keep and maintain open a route to retreat. Because this makes it possible for it to be cut off from its supply base and train, the Fauj Hamala will carry with it extra supplies to last a couple weeks, to be used only when regular supplies have been cut. Should those fall short, it will have to rely on foraging and raiding.
The planned route of advance for the Fauj Hamala is through the border and along the Northern India Railway to Ratangarh, then across country roads to Fatehpur, where another line of the Northern India Railway leads straight through Sikar and the Bhopatpura junction to Jaipur and its critical rail junctions to the south and west. It will be critical to take Nagargarh Fort directly north of the city. It is in order to reduce the chance that significant forces can be diverted there in time that the Fauj Hamala will be, like in the old times of the misls, a fully mounted, fully mobile army. Even so, if investing the fort and the city proved impossible, the commanding officer will be free to choose new objectives that enable him to neutralise the railways to enemy use. In any case, the rail connection to Delhi depends on the undefended Bhopatpura junction, and it should become a priority if Jaipur cannot be taken.
Critical to the success of this campaign will be speed, alacrity, and concentration of force. To that end, the Fauj Hamala will be furnished with the latest and most reliable steam carriages, as well as plenty of horse-drawn carriages, both to carry the extra supplies, and so that it can set up and maintain a mobile HQ from which to carry out commands on the move if necessary. Also to improve its efficiency in the consecution of its objectives, the Fauj Hamala will have a completely independent command until it is relieved or it links up with Fauj Punjab units in Jaipur. Finally, it will rely extensively on our network of infiltrated long recon units to keep its maps updated, as well as on contact with our own civilian assets tasked with persuading local leadership to surrender the city or make it join in the anti-British cause.
The planned route of advance for the Fauj Hamala is through the border and along the Northern India Railway to Ratangarh, then across country roads to Fatehpur, where another line of the Northern India Railway leads straight through Sikar and the Bhopatpura junction to Jaipur and its critical rail junctions to the south and west. It will be critical to take Nagargarh Fort directly north of the city. It is in order to reduce the chance that significant forces can be diverted there in time that the Fauj Hamala will be, like in the old times of the misls, a fully mounted, fully mobile army. Even so, if investing the fort and the city proved impossible, the commanding officer will be free to choose new objectives that enable him to neutralise the railways to enemy use. In any case, the rail connection to Delhi depends on the undefended Bhopatpura junction, and it should become a priority if Jaipur cannot be taken.
Critical to the success of this campaign will be speed, alacrity, and concentration of force. To that end, the Fauj Hamala will be furnished with the latest and most reliable steam carriages, as well as plenty of horse-drawn carriages, both to carry the extra supplies, and so that it can set up and maintain a mobile HQ from which to carry out commands on the move if necessary. Also to improve its efficiency in the consecution of its objectives, the Fauj Hamala will have a completely independent command until it is relieved or it links up with Fauj Punjab units in Jaipur. Finally, it will rely extensively on our network of infiltrated long recon units to keep its maps updated, as well as on contact with our own civilian assets tasked with persuading local leadership to surrender the city or make it join in the anti-British cause.
Spoiler Operation Anchal :
Operation Anchal will be a more traditional advance. Its primary objective is to secure the city of Ahmedabad, with its British cantonment an absolute priority. Although we expect our advance units to have already done a number on its facilities, it will still be a critical position at an infrastructure hub between the South and North of Bharat. It will be of the essence to move fast and not give the enemy respite, never let them organise, as Ahmedabad lies across the river and the capture of the railroad bridge will be essential. If we fail to do so, our forces will have to march north of the city to ford, and march on the cantonment. Although heavy resistance is expected, it is hoped that their efforts in defence of Delhi will leave them even more vulnerable than our intoxication and sabotage campaigns will.
Ahmedabad should be the toughest nut to crack. Once taken, Fauj Rajasthana will head north along the railway to Talod Station, and thence East along Modasa road, from where the Udaipur road departs. It is important to follow this route, as it is the most direct and accessible road to Udaipur, which lies nestled amongst the rough hills and mountains of eastern Rajasthan. Control of this sector gives us control of the main passes through such orological systems, and thence cuts off any border forces from resupply or escape south.
Ahmedabad should be the toughest nut to crack. Once taken, Fauj Rajasthana will head north along the railway to Talod Station, and thence East along Modasa road, from where the Udaipur road departs. It is important to follow this route, as it is the most direct and accessible road to Udaipur, which lies nestled amongst the rough hills and mountains of eastern Rajasthan. Control of this sector gives us control of the main passes through such orological systems, and thence cuts off any border forces from resupply or escape south.
Follow-Up Operations
The Ganges Campaign will see the Fauj Ganga and the Fauj-i-Khas move down the Gangetic Plain towards Lucknow and finally Patna. The Fauj Punjab will redeploy south to relieve the Fauj Hamala and complete the occupation of Rajasthan, striking south through Ajmer to link up with Fauj Rajasthana in Udaipur. The Fauj Hamala will then operate as the reserve for the Ganges Campaign.
The Fauj Ganga will take the northern route through Moradabad (where they should link up with Nepali units), Bareilly and Pilibhit then south to Lucknow, whilst the Fauj-i-Khas will take the southern route through Agra and Kanpur, then across the Ganges to Lucknow. At Lucknow, the Fauj Ganga will once more go north through Faizabad and Gorakhpur, whilst Fauj-i-Khas will take Allahabad, Jaunpur, and Benares along the way to Patna.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 7 Orders :
Orders for Turn 7 (1894 S2) COMMITTED (pending military plans and maps):
Resource Trades:
170 EC to Italy for 10IC, 10MC
285 EC to Sublime Porte for 25 MC
500 EC to Russia for 230 IC
200 EC to Russia for a technical school
Summary:
Adopt aerodynes, Inter-branch cooperation, airship reconnaissance, Zamburak and Stud farms.
Activate Quick-firing guns.
Recruit 3 missions and 3 enterprises.
Send 2 missions to help research holistic warriors in Burma.
2 corps will lead research efforts into smoke screening with assistance from Burmese and Japanese personnel.
Allocate two Enterprises to develop quick-firing guns along Burmese and Japanese contractors.
Contract with another two enterprises to repair and overhaul our logistics and communications in the Ganges plain.
Three Enterprises and two missions will set up and recruit personnel for the Delhi Auto Works.
Three missions and a Corps will be assigned to the Gentoo quest.
27 corps will be placed in active duty as part of Strategic Campaign Mahabharata.
7 squadrons will adopt a fleet-in-being stance.
_____________________________________
Delhi Auto Works
It was on the initiative of Jarnail M.B. Singh, recently promoted commander of V Corps, that the eponymous V Corps Repair Works was created in a newly disused warehouse of the Delhi Cantonment. It was evident upon receiving the first crawlers for training, that such a facility would be necessary. Jarnail Singh’s surprise was the response he got when he requested more funds and personnel to properly man the workshop: V Corps Repair Works was to become Delhi Auto Works, a centralised facility for the repair, maintenance, manufacture, and training of technicians for all crawler forces in the Indostani Army.
Now under government management, DAW was quickly moved out to a larger emplacement, where spare parts could be stored alongside a new workshop furnished with Italian machinery and technicians (IC and MC trade) who would train Indostani personnel in order to manufacture the aforementioned spare parts. New buildings were hastily erected or projected with a large garage, a foundry to cast new pieces and models, a short track and firing range for testing, and other such facilities. The ostensible mission of DAW would be not just to maintain and repair existing crawlers as they are, but also to labour in finding and creating mechanical or structural improvements, both implementable on existing machines and in future models.
It was also decided that DAW should become a research centre, and its mission should be to also try to develop new means to meet battlefield needs with automotive means. With the promised establishment of a Russian technical school, large amounts of Russian technicians, engineers and scientists experts in fields from metallurgy to mechanics and automation were hired. Whilst their ostensive purpose will be to lead improvement efforts in the larger process of industrialisation, many will be employed in pursuit of automotive research and in kickstarting Indostani expertise in that field.
_________________________________
Logistics overhaul
After the fighting, it will be necessary to rebuild. Though the logistics and engineers teams of our field armies carry telegraph cables and some rails for repairing combat damaged infrastructure, a larger investment is needed to adequate our network to the reality on the battlefield. As we reinforce our positions south of Kathmandu, it will be necessary not only to fully restablish the British rail and telegraph network, but also to build our own extension along south Nepal to the launching bases of Operation Arjuna. Therefore, the main work will be on laying a line from Biswan to Bahraich, reinforcing our existing rail connections there, and thence through the Churia Range and along its north side to our positions near the British railhead at Bikna Thori. New telegraph lines will be laid along this line to improve vertical and horizontal communications to the General Staff and between field army HQs.
__________________________________
Quick-firing guns
Taking advantage of the newly constructed DAW facilities and the machining expertise of the technicians there, and owing to the relatively small workload that derives from crawlers being new and not requiring extensive maintenance or repairs yet, the Indostani government approached the newly arrived European experts to improve other combat systems for the Army. A concept soon emerged to improve artillery reloading, and several pieces were cast at the foundry and tested.
Still in early stages, most failed or jammed, but gradual improvements have been achieved over the weeks. With the workload at DAW growing, development was moved to the Lahore Arsenal, which had been refurbished with Turkish machinery to improve fabrication methods whilst the prototypes were being first cast at DAW. Allied Burmese and Japanese contractors were brought in to further refine the concept and develop its fabrication processes. Several of the Russian experts involved with the initial development were also transferred to Lahore Arsenal to supervise the latter stages of the project. Progress has been steady and the first operational guns are expected to roll out of the newly furbished Arsenal in the upcoming months.
___________________________
Smoke Screening
Meanwhile, troops of the newly formed XXIX Corps train alongside veterans of the reformed XVI Corps in an undisclosed location near Bikaner. The outlying regions of the Thar Desert offer a perfect backdrop for secret Army tests. There has recently been a commotion in town, however, with the arrival of many Japanese and Burmese allied troops, primarily officers, arriving through treacherous Himalayan routes or crossing neutral countries as civilians.
Training exercises for both formations consist of large scale wargames where they are pitted against each other in a variety of situations. Takin turns to defend or attack certain positions, these wargames wouldn’t be exceptional were it not for the deployment of a new weapon: smoke. Given to one side or both alternatingly, the use an efficacy of smoke screen deployment is being tested at a large scale with combat formations advancing and holding against other fully manned units. Although live fire is of course not used to prevent friendly fire casualties, the actual potential of this new weapon has become evident to our own and our allied observer officers.
Small Burmese and Japanese combat units have participated in the wargames to test the technique in smaller scale. Although it has been determined that its use in large scale attacks is most fruitful, it is estimated that deployment of smoke to cover up smaller unit advances has a heavier impact on their casualties, and thus have been deemed a necessary practice in conducting localised assaults.
__________________________________________
Strategic Campaign Mahabharata (detailed plans and maps coming soon)
Acting on a novel concept of the General Staff dubbed ‘saturation offensive’, it has been decided to conduct a total of seven distinct operations with offensive advances in at least 8 points across the entire front. The core concept is to saturate enemy command with critical situations, so that they cannot respond effectively to any one of our advances. If they do, they weaken their other positions, which our other forces can then exploit.
It is critical that each army is in horizontal communication with each other, such that if any of them faces a critical situation of their own they can be supported by the adjoining force. The Monsoon season is now in full swing, so there are three months to prepare these operations. While the monsoon lasts, troops will have shorter frontline duty tours in order to prevent infestation, disease, boredom, and mutiny. Instead, idle troops will be tasked with performing flood relief. Amongst our preparations, any food surpluses will be shipped and distributed across occupied regions to be distributed to the displaced from flooding. In short, we will reduce the length of time our troops stay in the frontline in order for them to train and prepare for the upcoming operations as well as to provide relief to those most affected by floods. Fortunately for us, our positions are mostly upstream and will be less sensitive to seasonal flooding than British positions, which we hope will play favourably for us once the rains are over and the campaigning season starts.
Operation Dhritarashtra
Our insurgency operation is the only one that will actually progress during the rainy season. Crack troops experienced from our Nepal operations, as well as Hindu and Maratha operatives, will trickle into Central India from our base in Baroda, establishing contact with Gentoo cells and our agents already in the area. New armament and equipment will be provided, as well as explosives to conduct sabotage operations. The most important task will be to destroy the British railways, especially around the critical junction of Manmad, connecting Bombay and the southern rail network to the central and northern rail networks, and Ratlam, which is the last remaining railroad supplying Rajasthan. It should be possible to cut this line at the base and, by constant action, prevent it from ever being fully reopened. This will greatly aid in the success of Operation Pandu in October.
Once contacts have been set up and a network established, a full-scale uprising should take place much like the one in Nepal. Critical junctions, ammo depots, arsenals, cities must be taken or destroyed. Central India must become a hail of gunfire to any British soldier that dares enter. An attempt should be made to reach or send units to sabotage the Orissa rail line, which will be the sole thread linking South and North India after the uprising severs British lines of communication through Central India.
Kurukshetra Saturation Offensive
Our remaining 27 corps will be formed into 9 field armies, one of which will remain in reserve in Baroda to support other operations in the area. The remaining armies will actively take part in winter offensive operations. The main thrust will be the Pandava Offensive in the Ganges plain, formed by Arjuna from Nepal to Patna, Yudhishthira towards Gorakhpur and Patna, the twin Nakula and Sahadeva around Lucknow and towards Varanasi and Bhirma from Agra to Allahabad. Its goal is to push the British south of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, cutting their rail links to their base in Calcutta and leaving them to perish in the wilderness. Operation Draupadi from Baroda to Bombay, and the pincer Operation Pandu from Modasa and Agra towards Ajmer, complete the offensive. Taking Bombay would be a huge blow, depriving the British of a vital naval and supply base, whilst the pincer seeks to finally take Rajasthan by enveloping it and forcing the surrender of any forces left.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 8 Orders :
Turn 8 Orders
Resource trades:
700HC to Boers for 100MC
800HC to Egypt for 200IC
___________________
Summary:
Adopt Maskirovka, Penicillin, Judo, telescopic sights, indirect counter-barrage, trench raiding, defense-in-depth, women’s battalions, and Arditi.
Activate frogmen.
Send 3 corps to research army logistics in Japan.
1 mission to join the Serpent’s Garden
4 missions and 1 corps to steal Mad Minute tech from Britain,
4 missions and 1 corps to steal Night signalling from Brazil,
2 missions and 1 corps to FINALLY make the Gentoo rise,
3 enterprises to build the Herat-Kandahar-Quetta Railway and its connection to the Central Asian Railway.
3 enterprises and 2 corps in reserve to improve military logistics and supply lines,
7 squadrons to conduct naval operations against the British,
3 corps to verify the Ottoman withdrawal from Persia and escort the Shah to Tehran,
2 enterprises to improve the logistics in Ganges Region,
12 corps in the Ganges Region to conduct the Ikshvaku Offensive,
2 enterprises to improve the logistics in Central India,
3 corps to conduct Operation Rama and 4 corps and 2 missions to conduct Operation Sita.
__________________________
Serpent’s Garden:
Ulysses Anand – Decorated warrior, supernaturally doted for hand-to-hand fighting, and a free spirit with a heart of gold who has travelled the world several times over. Born exactly upon the instant when the Great Sepoy Rebellion broke out, illegitimate son of an English official and his maid. He shares that instant of birth with author and celebrity Yamya G. Kaur, with whom he shares a telepathic link and who has written his exploits as Subedar Singh in her book series of the same name.
Mohandas K. Gandhi – Trained lawyer, capable clerk. Unremarkable. Relation of Ms. Kaur, selected as Subedar Anand’s liaison, translator, and clerk for his fluency in German and trustworthiness.
____________________________
Espionage:
Night signalling – We will recruit Portuguese agents reliably favourable to our cause from the trading community in Karachi and Gujarat, who can secure safe passage through Goa to Brazil, along with some of our own Gujarati agents. Once there it should be easy for our Portuguese recruits to gather intelligence from locals disturbed by exercises and to find officers that can be bribed to hand over the protocols.
Mad Minute – Infiltrating Britain will prove harder. There will always be traitors and idealists eager to sell their country out, but Britain is a watchful nation. We will recruit any sympathetic Britons that we can reach through our diplomatic missions abroad whilst we also smuggle our native Gujarati agents across enemy lines to flee to Britain posing as refugees. Once in Britain, our agents will have been instructed to use every means at their disposal to acquire the knowledge. Cajoling, bribing, lying, cheating, deceiving soldiers, officers, officials, diplomats and respective wives.
________________________________
Gentoo Rebellion:
Though Britain interfered with our final preparations by sowing some dissent, which forced us to spend the rest of the semester trying to mend relations and finding ways around ethnic rivalries, we are now ready. Weapons and munitions have been stockpiled, objectives selected, hideouts established, and units recruited. All that is left to do is rally the men, gather the weapons, and start the rebellion. Key railways and railway towns, from Jhansi and Bilaspur to Bhasawal and even Cuttack in Orissa will be blown up or seized, halting British supply operations. Ambushes will be established to prevent it from moving along, and if possible captured or destroyed. Combined with Operation Sita and the pressure in the North from Ikshvaku, we expect the British position in Central India to collapse altogether, effectively splitting British India in two: Bengal and South.
____________________________-
Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway:
Given British control of the Arabian Sea, and that the recent war in Persia means it is not suitable for our trade to transit through, we have to turn to the lower throughput routes along the Central Asian Railroad and the Transhimalayan Railway. Given the closer proximity to the key markets of Europe and the shorter length of track to be built, we have decided to build a connection to the former. Though the goal is to build a triangular Kabul-Herat-Kandahar network in Pashtunistan eventually, with connections Kabul-Peshawar and Herat-Quetta, we will focus on building its western side. The lowlands of west Pashtonistan are the most favourable terrain to build this connection which, double tracked and with adequate water towers and depots will take the most advantage of the railroad’s capabilities. Any spare funds and time should be devoted to breaking ground on the Peshawar-Kabul connection and onwards to Herat.
_______________________________-
Logistics overhaul:
As we have advanced into India, we have strained the capabilities of our railroads and our industry to keep our armies properly supplied adequately. Though the dense railroads of the Ganges plain are adequate to sustain our forces at the present moment, we are almost at the end of the tether in the southern front. Much of the railroads and related infrastructure we have captured are still damaged, with only the minimum necessary having been repaired to allow continuous supply.
Our utmost effort will be dedicated to restoring this most vital infrastructure. The Imperial Corps of Engineers will lead the effort, determine any lines that must be reinforced or new railroads that have to be laid. The Quartermaster of the Army will report any shortcomings in production that need to be overcome and establish priorities. If an ammunitions factory has to be built in Chitor or Baroda before a railroad is built between Ahmedabad and Udaipur, it will be.
____________________________________________________
Breaking the Blockade:
Now that our allies are victorious at sea, and the British have been defeated elsewhere, it is the time to turn back the tide and break the blockade. Both the Japanese and the Boer Navy will be sending assistance. The Boers will escort a convoy of 100MC, which in Somalia will be joined by a massive Egyptian convoy of 200IC. In order to ensure that these arrive safely, we need to gather our strength. Therefore we will first sortie en force to rendezvous with the Japanese squadrons near the Maldives. We expect British forces to be scattered trying to intercept shipping, or to be concentrating near the gulf of Aden to intercept the Boers, who will resupply in Somalia.
Still a feint is advised: that the fleet should sail in full towards Aden from its base, seemingly to escort the convoy, then mostly swing East to effect the rendezvous, trying to avoid engaging large enemy formations. Our recent refitting of our ships with new compound engines whilst they were in port should give us the necessary edge in speed. Only an escort flotilla and a cruiser will continue sailing westwards, always attempting to avoid actual engagements with enemy ships, to make the deception more real. Once reunited with the Japanese, we will sail back to resupply if necessary at our nearest base, then sailing to Mogadishu to meet with the Boers and hunting any and all British shipping along the way.
Hopefully the bulk of the British Indian Force can be engaged and, thanks to our allies, sunk, clearing a path to Karachi. Otherwise, the joint force should be more than enough to fend off any attacks and deliver the cargo intact. Upon arrival, the Egyptian and Boer ships will load their HC and leave, with the anti-British navies now free to hunt and raid British shipping in turn.
_____________________________________
Persian Peacekeeping:
VII and XVIII Corps of the Fauj Rajasthana, along XVI Corps, will be assigned to this mission. They will advance in three parallel columns along the coast, the interior, and the north. No actual fighting is expected, so supplies will be largely limited to foodstuffs and fuel. In order to save on both, these corps will be stripped of most of their heavy equipment. They should be composed almost entirely of infantry and light cavalry, with only a few field artillery pieces but a sizeable zamburak component of machineguns and light guns. The more experienced and disciplined VII will take the northern route and escort the Shah to Tehran.
Ammo will be limited to what the men can carry, except for machineguns and artillery which will be sealed up in carts. They are to not engage or fire unless strictly necessary for self-defence. The mission will merely consist in taking over places under Ottoman occupation as the Ottomans withdraw and raise the colours of the Shah. For that purpose, advancing troops will fly the Indostani and Persian ensigns side by side as they advance. This assignment is so that battle-wearied formations can take a rest and, being hand-picked for this assignment, they are expected to behave impeccably and be the presentation card of Indostan in Persia.
_____________________________________
Ikshvaku Offensive:
We failed to achieve any of our ultimate objectives with the Pandava Offensive. Nevertheless, we secured the critical Lucknow-Faizabad-Gorakhpur line that sensibly eases our internal lines of communication and redeployment. The final link in this chain is the railroad hub at Kanpur. We need to secure it and secure a crossing of the Ganges further East, in order to cut Bengal supply into Central India which should provide an added incentive for the British to retreat from it, and hopefully prevent them from doing so altogether. We are still seeking the destruction of a British field army.
______________________________
Operation Rama:
Taking Bombay is the top priority this campaign season. We were slowed down at Daman, but once past it we are picking up momentum again. XVII and XXIII Corps are weathered from fighting, but must fight on. VIII Corps will be dispatched to reinforce. Concentrated artillery fire is still the name of the game.
__________________________________
Operation Sita:
Sita is the operation by which we will break the line of the Satpuras and break into Khandesh. It will be preceded by an elaborate deception, whereby we will concentrate few troops in Surat until the very last minute, all the while our missions feign heavy troop and materiel concentrations in Indore, the tip of our salient threatening both Asirgarh Pass and the Sabarmati River basin. The British will be forced to guard its eastern and southern approaches, some distance from their railways making rapid redeployment impossible. Then we will strike. Spearheaded by V and IX Corps, we will attack the British lines on the Tapti river valley east of Surat, and push onwards. All the while, the British rear should go up in flames as the Gentoo partisans rise and destroy their infrastructure from below them.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 9 Orders :
Turn 9 Orders (1895-1896)
Resource trades:
400HC for 39MC from Japan
Units:
Disband 10 corps
Recruit 2 missions and 5 enterprises
Summary:
Ratify the Treaty of Hong Kong
Adopt Futebol, Citizen Dividend Cards, Citizen Data Cards, Data vaults, Fast food, crown seal, Kingsmen.
Drop Smoothbores, Breech-loading handguns. Abandon Sail and Steam-and-sail ships.
Activate Dharam and Social Justice
3 Missions to start research on Dharam.
3 Enterprises to research Lean manufacturing.
2 Missions and 1 Corps to reconcile the Akali movement.
5 missions and 1 corps to undertake a full census of the newly acquired territories (Ganges)
5 Enterprises to survey and initiate work on the India 1900 Plan.
3 Missions and 1 corps to mediate in the Warriors Don’t Read Books quest.
2 corps to fight off the Kaabi Under the Yellow Banner.
2 Enterprises to complete the Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway.
____________________________________________________
Dharam:
Though the war is won, many families have suffered from it. It is now the job not only of the state, but also of their communities to help them in their tougher times to lift themselves above misery.
Lean Manufacturing:
As the war winds over, thousands of men will return home in need of a job, and vast numbers of people in the Ganges and Tapti River basin will hurt for goods. It is time to adapt the lessons learned in manufacturing during wartime and conjoin them with the pre-war industrial experiments initiated by Japan. Whilst we shall need less military goods, more food and light industry will be needed to help those who’ve seen their land torn into a battlefield heal.
____________________________________
The Akali:
Though the war put a temporary stop to the woes of the Akali, it is clear that the Imperial compromise wasn’t making anyone happy. Whilst this is a sign that it was a good compromise, the Maharaja has now called for a Sarbat Khalsa, a free and open meeting of all Sikhs to deliberate and decide upon all sorts of matters. In order to not collapse Shri Akal Takhat and the city of Amritsar itself, the congregation of each gurdwara in the empire, meeting all on the same day to prevent any cheating, should choose two representatives each to represent them in the Sarbat Khalsa alongside their mahant. This Sarbat Khalsa will be purely for the matter of deciding on the matter of mahants and their selection, which should be settled to the satisfaction of the people. Select army units will provide security, managing the transportation and safety of all representatives from major regional cities to Amritsar, and there prevent any disturbance of order.
______________________________
India Census of 1895, the Indostan 1900 Plan:
The Indostan 1900 Plan is a massive, swooping, socio-economic plan that seeks to alter the face of Indostan forever. Seeking to develop and modernise the country, the Plan accounts for all steps to be undertaken. It will start off with a thorough and comprehensive census of people and land, and move onwards to moderate land reform and massive infrastructure investments, to end up with the electrification of several key regions and the construction of analytical engines and state industries. The work on the field will be accompanied of subsidies both to new industries and to modern agricultural equipment to kickstart economic growth. The massive scale of the project demands caution and a very gradual implementation.
Therefore, the Indostan 1900 Plan is divided into several Phases, the first of which is essentially the groundwork for the others. Though the British were diligent in compilating a census, there can be no doubt that the war has grievously affected the population of North India. The Imperial government, then, will undertake a census of the entire region’s people and land, as well as its ownership and use. Indostan will bring the country into the modern era, and that cannot be done with its people living in squalor and poverty and busy in subsistence agriculture. The planned lad reform will be moderate, only taking away idle land from absentee landlords or British collaborators to introduce modern techniques to make it productive. Owners will be given a year’s time to put the land to use before it is taken, and the purchase of basic modern equipment will be subsidised. At this point, only the census will be made, whilst the reform will only be implemented when required by the situation (i.e. productive land whose owners have fled or been killed). It might be necessary for the army to escort or clear the way for census workers in hostile, inhospitable, or remote locations, and for engineers to aid in speeding up land surveys.
Simultaneously, surveys and initial work will be made on the massive infrastructural projects that are coming, namely an expansion of the Surat-Katni railroad, and its extension directly to Midnapore through Jharkand, as well as support lines connecting key stations to the main lines along the Ganges. A key concept in the plan is to improve communications across the country and strive towards self-sufficiency as much as feasible. Therefore, in addition to the rail expansion, at least one port is to be constructed in the East coast. Four locations have been scouted already, at Haldia, the mouth of the Subarnarekha at Balasore, Dhamra, and Paradip.
This obeys to the planned administrative division of the country into three regencies: the Indus Regency, comprising all of Indostan before the war except Kathiawar, the Ganges Regency, and the Narmada Regency, comprising Rajasthan, Gujarat, Khandesh, Malwa, and the rest of Central India southwest of the Jhansi-Katni line. The Plan envisions for each of the Regencies to be serviced by at least one major port, those being Karachi and Surat for the Indus and Narmada Regencies, respectively. This means that, in spite of Kolkata being in friendly hands across the Hoogly River, it is imperative for Indostan to develop its own port on the eastern coast.
The Regencies are in effect focal points for the Plan to develop separately and then integrate together. The Katni-Midnapore railroad will be important to integrate the regencies involved, and for the same reason it will be important to reinforce the Rajasthan network and its connection to the Indus Regency across the Thar desert. Rohri-Jaisalmer-Jodhpur, Jaisalmer-Bikaner, and Bahawalpur-Bikaner will take priority, but local connections such as Udaipur-Igar-Ahmadnagar, Gwalior-Kotah-Chitor, Jaipur-Kotah-Ujjain, and Baroda-Bodeli-Mhow-Indore will also be necessary.
_________________________________
Warriors Don’t Read Books, Under the Yellow Banner:
Our forces are in Persia to verify the Ottoman withdrawal and to prevent civil unrest. We are not here to dictate Persian policy, and will withdraw when Persian police and armed forces have been trained and when the situation in Khuzestan is under control. Currently the Fauj Parsa, the Indostani army in Persia, will be divided to attend two tasks. XVI Corps will remain a light force, though well supplied, tasked with policing Tehran and other major cities. They will take over or establish barracks facilities, and be encouraged to contact and fraternise with locals. The goal is to grow closer to policed communities and acquire friendly translators in anticipation of a training programme. We want to be seen as liberators, not occupation forces. Wherever we can deploy enough translators, we will start to train and organise the germen of a new Persian Army.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic mission will arrive in Tehran to assemble both the intelligentsia and the rural nobility and landowners to mediate and come to a compromise. We want to establish an executive cabinet under the effective authority of a Grand Vizier and the nominal authority of the Shah, in the style of the Indostani cabinet. We want to find a consensus figure to head this cabinet who can manage the balance of opposing forces in the cabinet. In the end, if a compromise solution proves futile, we will lend our support to one side, but only after the Khuzestan campaign is over.
This campaign will be conducted by VII and XIX Corps, who already fought together to take Udaipur and Chitor in the Fauj Rajasthana. Unlike XVI Corps, they will receive their full armoured complement and their conventional artillery. A base will be established at the port of Bushehr on the coast south of Khuzestan, which will be supplied directly from Karachi, from where the campaign will advance to clear the country of insurgents and Kaabi raiders. Protected logistical areas should help the fight insofar as they will render typical insurgency and raiding tactics ineffective, and will help establish a progressively thicker network within which the enemy will be contained and eventually forced to surrender.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Addendum: we maintain our control over Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, as we negotiate the formal transfer of sovereignty from Portugal-Brazil.
Resource trades:
400HC for 39MC from Japan
Units:
Disband 10 corps
Recruit 2 missions and 5 enterprises
Summary:
Ratify the Treaty of Hong Kong
Adopt Futebol, Citizen Dividend Cards, Citizen Data Cards, Data vaults, Fast food, crown seal, Kingsmen.
Drop Smoothbores, Breech-loading handguns. Abandon Sail and Steam-and-sail ships.
Activate Dharam and Social Justice
3 Missions to start research on Dharam.
3 Enterprises to research Lean manufacturing.
2 Missions and 1 Corps to reconcile the Akali movement.
5 missions and 1 corps to undertake a full census of the newly acquired territories (Ganges)
5 Enterprises to survey and initiate work on the India 1900 Plan.
3 Missions and 1 corps to mediate in the Warriors Don’t Read Books quest.
2 corps to fight off the Kaabi Under the Yellow Banner.
2 Enterprises to complete the Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway.
____________________________________________________
Dharam:
Though the war is won, many families have suffered from it. It is now the job not only of the state, but also of their communities to help them in their tougher times to lift themselves above misery.
Lean Manufacturing:
As the war winds over, thousands of men will return home in need of a job, and vast numbers of people in the Ganges and Tapti River basin will hurt for goods. It is time to adapt the lessons learned in manufacturing during wartime and conjoin them with the pre-war industrial experiments initiated by Japan. Whilst we shall need less military goods, more food and light industry will be needed to help those who’ve seen their land torn into a battlefield heal.
____________________________________
The Akali:
Though the war put a temporary stop to the woes of the Akali, it is clear that the Imperial compromise wasn’t making anyone happy. Whilst this is a sign that it was a good compromise, the Maharaja has now called for a Sarbat Khalsa, a free and open meeting of all Sikhs to deliberate and decide upon all sorts of matters. In order to not collapse Shri Akal Takhat and the city of Amritsar itself, the congregation of each gurdwara in the empire, meeting all on the same day to prevent any cheating, should choose two representatives each to represent them in the Sarbat Khalsa alongside their mahant. This Sarbat Khalsa will be purely for the matter of deciding on the matter of mahants and their selection, which should be settled to the satisfaction of the people. Select army units will provide security, managing the transportation and safety of all representatives from major regional cities to Amritsar, and there prevent any disturbance of order.
______________________________
India Census of 1895, the Indostan 1900 Plan:
The Indostan 1900 Plan is a massive, swooping, socio-economic plan that seeks to alter the face of Indostan forever. Seeking to develop and modernise the country, the Plan accounts for all steps to be undertaken. It will start off with a thorough and comprehensive census of people and land, and move onwards to moderate land reform and massive infrastructure investments, to end up with the electrification of several key regions and the construction of analytical engines and state industries. The work on the field will be accompanied of subsidies both to new industries and to modern agricultural equipment to kickstart economic growth. The massive scale of the project demands caution and a very gradual implementation.
Therefore, the Indostan 1900 Plan is divided into several Phases, the first of which is essentially the groundwork for the others. Though the British were diligent in compilating a census, there can be no doubt that the war has grievously affected the population of North India. The Imperial government, then, will undertake a census of the entire region’s people and land, as well as its ownership and use. Indostan will bring the country into the modern era, and that cannot be done with its people living in squalor and poverty and busy in subsistence agriculture. The planned lad reform will be moderate, only taking away idle land from absentee landlords or British collaborators to introduce modern techniques to make it productive. Owners will be given a year’s time to put the land to use before it is taken, and the purchase of basic modern equipment will be subsidised. At this point, only the census will be made, whilst the reform will only be implemented when required by the situation (i.e. productive land whose owners have fled or been killed). It might be necessary for the army to escort or clear the way for census workers in hostile, inhospitable, or remote locations, and for engineers to aid in speeding up land surveys.
Simultaneously, surveys and initial work will be made on the massive infrastructural projects that are coming, namely an expansion of the Surat-Katni railroad, and its extension directly to Midnapore through Jharkand, as well as support lines connecting key stations to the main lines along the Ganges. A key concept in the plan is to improve communications across the country and strive towards self-sufficiency as much as feasible. Therefore, in addition to the rail expansion, at least one port is to be constructed in the East coast. Four locations have been scouted already, at Haldia, the mouth of the Subarnarekha at Balasore, Dhamra, and Paradip.
This obeys to the planned administrative division of the country into three regencies: the Indus Regency, comprising all of Indostan before the war except Kathiawar, the Ganges Regency, and the Narmada Regency, comprising Rajasthan, Gujarat, Khandesh, Malwa, and the rest of Central India southwest of the Jhansi-Katni line. The Plan envisions for each of the Regencies to be serviced by at least one major port, those being Karachi and Surat for the Indus and Narmada Regencies, respectively. This means that, in spite of Kolkata being in friendly hands across the Hoogly River, it is imperative for Indostan to develop its own port on the eastern coast.
The Regencies are in effect focal points for the Plan to develop separately and then integrate together. The Katni-Midnapore railroad will be important to integrate the regencies involved, and for the same reason it will be important to reinforce the Rajasthan network and its connection to the Indus Regency across the Thar desert. Rohri-Jaisalmer-Jodhpur, Jaisalmer-Bikaner, and Bahawalpur-Bikaner will take priority, but local connections such as Udaipur-Igar-Ahmadnagar, Gwalior-Kotah-Chitor, Jaipur-Kotah-Ujjain, and Baroda-Bodeli-Mhow-Indore will also be necessary.
_________________________________
Warriors Don’t Read Books, Under the Yellow Banner:
Our forces are in Persia to verify the Ottoman withdrawal and to prevent civil unrest. We are not here to dictate Persian policy, and will withdraw when Persian police and armed forces have been trained and when the situation in Khuzestan is under control. Currently the Fauj Parsa, the Indostani army in Persia, will be divided to attend two tasks. XVI Corps will remain a light force, though well supplied, tasked with policing Tehran and other major cities. They will take over or establish barracks facilities, and be encouraged to contact and fraternise with locals. The goal is to grow closer to policed communities and acquire friendly translators in anticipation of a training programme. We want to be seen as liberators, not occupation forces. Wherever we can deploy enough translators, we will start to train and organise the germen of a new Persian Army.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic mission will arrive in Tehran to assemble both the intelligentsia and the rural nobility and landowners to mediate and come to a compromise. We want to establish an executive cabinet under the effective authority of a Grand Vizier and the nominal authority of the Shah, in the style of the Indostani cabinet. We want to find a consensus figure to head this cabinet who can manage the balance of opposing forces in the cabinet. In the end, if a compromise solution proves futile, we will lend our support to one side, but only after the Khuzestan campaign is over.
This campaign will be conducted by VII and XIX Corps, who already fought together to take Udaipur and Chitor in the Fauj Rajasthana. Unlike XVI Corps, they will receive their full armoured complement and their conventional artillery. A base will be established at the port of Bushehr on the coast south of Khuzestan, which will be supplied directly from Karachi, from where the campaign will advance to clear the country of insurgents and Kaabi raiders. Protected logistical areas should help the fight insofar as they will render typical insurgency and raiding tactics ineffective, and will help establish a progressively thicker network within which the enemy will be contained and eventually forced to surrender.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Addendum: we maintain our control over Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, as we negotiate the formal transfer of sovereignty from Portugal-Brazil.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 10 Orders :
REMINDER! Warriors Don't Read Books orders were misinterpreted last turn, and you stated that you'd fix it this turn. The confusion was: that I intended to set up the Persian government alongside the Indostani model of government, with an executive Grand Vizier; NOT make the Indostani Grand Vizier the executive authority.
Indostan Turn 10 Orders
Trade&Units:
294 HC to Russia in exchange for IC
Disband 5 Squadrons, 3 Corps
________________________________________________
7 FP:
1. Activate Plastic Surgery – 2 Missions
2. Minority Problem – 5 Missions, 3 Enterprises
3. Invisible Crowds – 5 Missions, 1 Corps
4. Indostan 1900 Plan (Land Reform) – 3 Missions, 3 Enterprises, 1 Corps
5. Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure) – 7 Enterprises, 1 Corps
6. Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway – 1 Enterprise
7. Under the Yellow Banner – 1 Enterprise, 2 Corps, 1 Squadron
_________________________________________________
Plastic Surgery:
For some time already a mere idea, the concept of plastic surgery came to the forefront as the wounded and maimed in the All-India War of Liberation started coming home. With the advent of modern field hospitals, deaths were reduced, but permanent injuries grew unimaginably, and many men returned disfigured and were subsequently cast out by society and even their own families.
A group of surgeons, led by prestigious Dr Aadam Aziz, came forward to the Maharaja with the proposal of creating a dedicated centre to experiment and develop surgical techniques to reconstruct the faces and bodies of such people, and enable them to regain some measure of their dignity and their standing in society. Interested in the concept perhaps less for its therapeutic possibilities than for its less ethical implications, the Grand Vizier granted Dr Aziz and his colleagues authorization to create a plastic surgery unit in Dr Aziz’s Srinagar Princely Hospital, and set up a state department to oversee its operation and the creation of a state fund to subsidise treatment for war veterans.
Minority Problem:
For too long have we blissfully ignored the nepotism brewing at the uppermost levels of the court, that prevented worthy people from climbing high, solely on the question of their religion. With the massive expansion of the Empire, this problem has been compounded by linguistic complexities, and thus we can no longer afford to sit alone in our marbled galleries atop the Palace walls. It is not only futile, but also impossible to presume ourselves fit for these duties of ours if we are incapable of harnessing the talents and power of so many.
For starters, the government of the newly incorporated Regencies, which is for now mostly a holdover from British administration, will be overhauled. A dual system will be implemented, where local government will be mostly recruited from local linguistic communities and will be imparted in the local language, whilst the regency administration will work in Punjabi. Regional administrations will function to provide a more or less smooth transition between local and regency and will thus be bilingual. Their main function will be to enable locals to address the Imperial administration in their own language, and to translate their demands and local edicts to Punjabi for processing by higher echelons.
To that effect, an Imperial Service School will be created, which will provide administrative training and language courses in Punjabi to local functionaries and officials who wish to progress in the civil service. The School will manage and arrange the examinations that will qualify civil servants for higher levels of service, as well as for the recruitment and training of new functionaries at the local and regional level. Although its official headquarters will be in Lahore, its actual central administration offices will be located in the more central location of Jaipur, and it will have branches in all regional (Subah) capitals. The delineation of subahs will take both geography, historic divisions, and linguistic communities into account.
However, it would be foolhardy to give every dialect its own subah and to train considerable amounts of staff to handle such unwieldy amounts, so officially only standard dialects will be taught and only documents in such standard dialects will be archived. Therefore, the Imperial Service School subah branches will have to handle teaching local trainees such standard dialects as well.
_________________________________
Invisible Crowds
Much progress has been made over the last six months to survey the deeper regions of Central India. Most of the legwork has been done, and whilst our tireless census workers complete the field work with their military escorts, the personnel at the statistics offices must start organising and processing the data systematically, so that the work of establishing an efficient administration and starting the land reform can proceed ahead without further hurdles.
__________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Land Reform)
We hurried too much in trying to execute land reform as the data-gathering work of the census proceeded. However, much of the work has been done already, and we can easily afford to take a step back, sit down, and take a hard look at the data. We only need a respite and to proceed methodically and calmly. Check, re-check, and execute.
Because we are operating in recently liberated areas where grudges are still held and ambitious players will try to take over their communities, we have to be careful. Military patrols will be dispatched to escort and assist in expropriations, auctions, and other such field transactions that may excite the animosity of certain people.
_____________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure)
After the preliminary work of expanding the existing lines between Surat and Katni and the auxiliary Balaspur-Mhow connection complementing the Asirgarh Pass line, we will move on to actually building new infrastructure. Surveys have been completed on the chief key lines of Jaipur-Kotah-Ujjain, Rohri-Jaisalmer-Jodhpur, and on the Katni-Ranchi-Balasore line. The latter is the main focus of this project, which will allow us to tap into the vast mineral wealth of Jharkhand and the Orissa highlands, and to reach and start work on the Ganges Regency ocean port at Balasore. Currently our rail access to Orissa goes through Burmese Bengal, and it is imperative to complete this line so that we reduce the hurdles of customs and border controls. Alongside the rail, telegraph and telephone lines will be laid to reinforce existing communications and connections.
The line will connect both terminals to the intermediate cities of Rewa and Daltonganj, which will provide auxiliary connections to the main rail artery along the Ganges, as well as provide a direct rail connection to the Orissan capital of Cuttack and provide excellent rail access to most of the Chota Nagpur plateau. Secondary in priority, though almost as important, will be the extension of the Katni-Balasore line northwest into Rajasthan, with the Marwar-Chitor-Kotah and Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Rohri sections being key to establish a continuous, uninterrupted line between the Indostani terminus of the Central Asian Railway at Herat and the future Ganges Regency port at Balasore. Resources not required by these endeavours can be directed to commencing the expansion of port facilities at Surat and preparing the ground at Balasore for much the same purpose.
_____________________________________
Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway
With all the track laid and the work wrapped between Quetta and Herat proper, the only remaining task is to finish it off by effecting the connection between Herat and the Russian Central Asian Railroad. The governor of Pashtonistan himself will be present for the striking of the final nail, which will be engraved with the date, and will ride on the inaugural convoy between Multan and Mashhad.
______________________________________
Under the Yellow Banner
Whilst we are dealing damage to the enemy, we are being atrociously ineffective at it. Facing a semi-nomadic insurgency like we did British formations in the field has led to great wastage of resources. We will progress with a campaign of area denial. We have by now established a secure net of protected logistic areas. We will supply these by sea with the help of the Indostani Navy, and establish chains of redoubts and pillboxes between them. The resulting grid will allow us to filter and locate enemy forces and raids, and to concentrate our forces to defeat or destroy them when and where necessary.
We must consider that these actions have to be fast, and thus the heavier artillery will remain within such fortified emplacements and mostly provide passive support, while crawlers will be useful in battle to use as mobile fortified machinegun positions that the Kaabis will not have the armament to assault, and that infantry can rally around.
Indostan Turn 10 Orders
Trade&Units:
294 HC to Russia in exchange for IC
Disband 5 Squadrons, 3 Corps
________________________________________________
7 FP:
1. Activate Plastic Surgery – 2 Missions
2. Minority Problem – 5 Missions, 3 Enterprises
3. Invisible Crowds – 5 Missions, 1 Corps
4. Indostan 1900 Plan (Land Reform) – 3 Missions, 3 Enterprises, 1 Corps
5. Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure) – 7 Enterprises, 1 Corps
6. Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway – 1 Enterprise
7. Under the Yellow Banner – 1 Enterprise, 2 Corps, 1 Squadron
_________________________________________________
Plastic Surgery:
For some time already a mere idea, the concept of plastic surgery came to the forefront as the wounded and maimed in the All-India War of Liberation started coming home. With the advent of modern field hospitals, deaths were reduced, but permanent injuries grew unimaginably, and many men returned disfigured and were subsequently cast out by society and even their own families.
A group of surgeons, led by prestigious Dr Aadam Aziz, came forward to the Maharaja with the proposal of creating a dedicated centre to experiment and develop surgical techniques to reconstruct the faces and bodies of such people, and enable them to regain some measure of their dignity and their standing in society. Interested in the concept perhaps less for its therapeutic possibilities than for its less ethical implications, the Grand Vizier granted Dr Aziz and his colleagues authorization to create a plastic surgery unit in Dr Aziz’s Srinagar Princely Hospital, and set up a state department to oversee its operation and the creation of a state fund to subsidise treatment for war veterans.
Minority Problem:
For too long have we blissfully ignored the nepotism brewing at the uppermost levels of the court, that prevented worthy people from climbing high, solely on the question of their religion. With the massive expansion of the Empire, this problem has been compounded by linguistic complexities, and thus we can no longer afford to sit alone in our marbled galleries atop the Palace walls. It is not only futile, but also impossible to presume ourselves fit for these duties of ours if we are incapable of harnessing the talents and power of so many.
For starters, the government of the newly incorporated Regencies, which is for now mostly a holdover from British administration, will be overhauled. A dual system will be implemented, where local government will be mostly recruited from local linguistic communities and will be imparted in the local language, whilst the regency administration will work in Punjabi. Regional administrations will function to provide a more or less smooth transition between local and regency and will thus be bilingual. Their main function will be to enable locals to address the Imperial administration in their own language, and to translate their demands and local edicts to Punjabi for processing by higher echelons.
To that effect, an Imperial Service School will be created, which will provide administrative training and language courses in Punjabi to local functionaries and officials who wish to progress in the civil service. The School will manage and arrange the examinations that will qualify civil servants for higher levels of service, as well as for the recruitment and training of new functionaries at the local and regional level. Although its official headquarters will be in Lahore, its actual central administration offices will be located in the more central location of Jaipur, and it will have branches in all regional (Subah) capitals. The delineation of subahs will take both geography, historic divisions, and linguistic communities into account.
However, it would be foolhardy to give every dialect its own subah and to train considerable amounts of staff to handle such unwieldy amounts, so officially only standard dialects will be taught and only documents in such standard dialects will be archived. Therefore, the Imperial Service School subah branches will have to handle teaching local trainees such standard dialects as well.
_________________________________
Invisible Crowds
Much progress has been made over the last six months to survey the deeper regions of Central India. Most of the legwork has been done, and whilst our tireless census workers complete the field work with their military escorts, the personnel at the statistics offices must start organising and processing the data systematically, so that the work of establishing an efficient administration and starting the land reform can proceed ahead without further hurdles.
__________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Land Reform)
We hurried too much in trying to execute land reform as the data-gathering work of the census proceeded. However, much of the work has been done already, and we can easily afford to take a step back, sit down, and take a hard look at the data. We only need a respite and to proceed methodically and calmly. Check, re-check, and execute.
Because we are operating in recently liberated areas where grudges are still held and ambitious players will try to take over their communities, we have to be careful. Military patrols will be dispatched to escort and assist in expropriations, auctions, and other such field transactions that may excite the animosity of certain people.
_____________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure)
After the preliminary work of expanding the existing lines between Surat and Katni and the auxiliary Balaspur-Mhow connection complementing the Asirgarh Pass line, we will move on to actually building new infrastructure. Surveys have been completed on the chief key lines of Jaipur-Kotah-Ujjain, Rohri-Jaisalmer-Jodhpur, and on the Katni-Ranchi-Balasore line. The latter is the main focus of this project, which will allow us to tap into the vast mineral wealth of Jharkhand and the Orissa highlands, and to reach and start work on the Ganges Regency ocean port at Balasore. Currently our rail access to Orissa goes through Burmese Bengal, and it is imperative to complete this line so that we reduce the hurdles of customs and border controls. Alongside the rail, telegraph and telephone lines will be laid to reinforce existing communications and connections.
The line will connect both terminals to the intermediate cities of Rewa and Daltonganj, which will provide auxiliary connections to the main rail artery along the Ganges, as well as provide a direct rail connection to the Orissan capital of Cuttack and provide excellent rail access to most of the Chota Nagpur plateau. Secondary in priority, though almost as important, will be the extension of the Katni-Balasore line northwest into Rajasthan, with the Marwar-Chitor-Kotah and Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Rohri sections being key to establish a continuous, uninterrupted line between the Indostani terminus of the Central Asian Railway at Herat and the future Ganges Regency port at Balasore. Resources not required by these endeavours can be directed to commencing the expansion of port facilities at Surat and preparing the ground at Balasore for much the same purpose.
_____________________________________
Quetta-Kandahar-Herat Railway
With all the track laid and the work wrapped between Quetta and Herat proper, the only remaining task is to finish it off by effecting the connection between Herat and the Russian Central Asian Railroad. The governor of Pashtonistan himself will be present for the striking of the final nail, which will be engraved with the date, and will ride on the inaugural convoy between Multan and Mashhad.
______________________________________
Under the Yellow Banner
Whilst we are dealing damage to the enemy, we are being atrociously ineffective at it. Facing a semi-nomadic insurgency like we did British formations in the field has led to great wastage of resources. We will progress with a campaign of area denial. We have by now established a secure net of protected logistic areas. We will supply these by sea with the help of the Indostani Navy, and establish chains of redoubts and pillboxes between them. The resulting grid will allow us to filter and locate enemy forces and raids, and to concentrate our forces to defeat or destroy them when and where necessary.
We must consider that these actions have to be fast, and thus the heavier artillery will remain within such fortified emplacements and mostly provide passive support, while crawlers will be useful in battle to use as mobile fortified machinegun positions that the Kaabis will not have the armament to assault, and that infantry can rally around.
Spoiler Indostan Turn 11 Orders :
Indostan Turn 11 Orders
Trade&Tech:
640 HC to Japan for 64 MC
Adopt Agit-Trains and Agit-Boats; Secesja; Medievalism; Hisbah; Nihilism; Statistical Theory; Blowlamp blazing and soldiering; Vulcanization, Synthetical materials; International System of Units; Hydrometallurgy; Water purification; Gas warfare; bunker fortresses; fortified districts; Myeongje baegab; Foreign Legion; Signal rockets
FP:
1. Activate Photostat, Cyclostyle – 5 Enterprises
2. Plastic Surgery – 5 Missions
3. Minority Problem – 5 Missions, 1 Corps
4. Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure) – 3 Enterprises, 1 Corps
5. Under the Yellow Banner – 1 Enterprise, 2 Corps, 1 Squadron
6. Imperial Victory Cruise – 2 Missions, 1 Enterprises
7. Heliograph – 3 Enterprises
Generic Actions: 2 Missions, 2 Enterprises to increase influence in Indus region. 1 Mission to defend from foreign actions in Indus Region.
__________________________________________________
Photostat, Cyclostyle
With the sudden growth of the Empire and the subsequent explosion in the size of its state apparatus, so has multiplied the clerical and archival activities and needs of the bureaucracy. Add to sheer geography the inimaginable social complexities and the messy nature of post-war power transition, and the administration quite simply cannot keep up even in producing the more banal forms and reports. To solve or at least alleviate this problem, the government is heavily investing in several fringe but promising technologies for what some call “mimeography”, that is copying documents. Though the more extravagant solutions seek to apply cutting-edge technology for perfect results (such as the photostat, which literally photographs the object to be copied over and over), the cheapest and more down-to-earth solutions, which have already started to see production in numbers, rely on replicating the processes of an industrial printing press on a smaller scale.
____________________________________
Plastic Surgery
At the behest and insistence of certain sectors of the government, Dr Aziz acceded to include selected active and perfectly healthy personnel in his program. Posing as patients in other sections of the hospital and with surgeries scheduled at odd hours, the scheme went unnoticed, and security officials were reportedly very favourably impressed, and recommended that the program be expanded and Aziz’s unit segregated into a more specialised facility, a neglected princely palace in Srinagar itself that was quickly refurbished as the Aziz Surgical Hospital; the world’s first and only hospital specialised in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Fully funded by the Ministry of Health, the hospital not only performs surgical procedures on disfigured veterans and cherry-picked secret service operatives, but also people with congenital deformities, accident victims, and even the odd affluent client who is willing to spend ludicrous amounts of money for the tiniest cosmetic corrections.
____________________________________________________
Minority Problem
Our course is true, and we must not steer away from it. We will implement a Punjabi learning program at the officer school, and train designated NCOs as translators. On top of that, recruits will still learn all the commands in Punjabi, as it has been done for a hundred years, so that their performance is not hindered by linguistic limitations. This will be the first step of a program to extend Punjabi learning formally to all enlisted men. Though of course the army life is already conductive to it and Sindhi, Pashto, and Punjabi soldiers have had little trouble fighting side by side for the last few decades, the multiplication of the sociolinguistic reality of recruits and conscripts will make it necessary to take an extra step in ensuring that all commands are understood and regular communication is smooth. Language classes will be part of navy training at every level, however, since it demands considerably less resources due to its sheer size.
In the administration, we will adopt a dual policy of merit and quotas. We will seek to fill out positions with the best men regardless of origin or religion, and so anonymous contests will be held amongst eligible candidates to a vacancy or promotion to determine the better suited. At the same time, however, to prevent alienating the people from the administration, we will strive to make sure that most mid and high-tier officials in a given region are of the predominant religion in that region. There will be a special appointed office outside the system of merit, which will be that of Imperial Overseer. This position will outrank any provincial official but will not have the power to override them or directly intervene in the normal functioning of the administration. It will be an advisory role to the regional government and administration and it will report to the Imperial government on any misdeeds and misgivings. It will be appointed by the Maharaja himself from amongst the notables of the region and should be of the predominant religion.
____________________________________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure)
Even when most of the work has been completed, much of it is still ongoing. With the first track laid to Balasore and the first docks erected, what is left to do is expand the docks, build a railroad cargo terminal, and finish doubling the track all the way from Rohri. Further work is also necessary at the Rohri-Jaisalmer sector to consolidate the railway and prevent the desert from burying it or destabilising the tracks. These works are the top priority, as they are already ongoing and will complete the Great All-India Railway, a strong connection between Orissa and the rest of the Empire, a new logistical backbone spanning the whole Empire.
Other very important works are the expansion of Surat port and its shipbuilding facilities, as it fell into neglect with the British focus on Bombay for shipping, so that it can become the export center for the Narmada Regency. Further down the list are the two projects that would culminate the Great All-India Railway: the direct connections Allahabad-Rewa and Patna-Daltonganj through the existing line Patna-Gaya. This would better connect the eastern section of the GAIR to the main cities of the lower Ganges and improve the connections between provinces of the Ganges Regency.
____________________________________________
Under the Yellow Banner
We shall proceed as we did last year. By now we have established a strong and secure grid of forts, outposts, and depots that allow us to track Kaabi activity and cordon off vulnerable areas to their raids. Our efforts shall be redoubled in completing this system, which is already seriously hampering Kaabi mobility. The project’s completion should allow us to encircle or corner them into a localised area where we can use the full might of our arms to crush them at long last.
________________________________________________
Imperial Victory Tour
There were parades and festivals at the end of the war, but between the scarred country and the logical insecurity that befits territorial transfers, there had been great official celebrations. This will change with a Grand Tour by the Maharaja of the Empire and its new provinces. The Tour will start at Lahore, where a small military parade will be held . The next day in Amritsar, the Maharaja will humble himself before Guru Granth Sahib before he formally starts his journey. He will travel to Delhi by land and there downstream on a river cruise. There will be frequent stops along the way, where he will hold audience and announce the most relevant plans of the reconstruction and development effort within the Indostan 1900 Plan. At Delhi he will honour some of the soldiers most distinguished in its liberation as well as the most prominent local nobles. At Varanasi, the most important of these will be made: the city will host Dharma, Indostan’s third analytical engine, once the connection to Orissa has been completed and funds can be allocated to the project. Resources have been allocated to start work on it, so that at least the Maharaja can visit the premises where it will be located.
Arriving in Patna, the Maharaja should be joined by the Konbaung Emperor to resume the cruise jointly down to the Bay of Bengal. In Calcutta, the Maharaja will formally sign the Treaty of Friendship with Burma, before boarding an Indostan Navy ship for Balasore. The Maharaja will travel along the Great All-India Railway stopping and visiting his newer domains and taking a detour at Katni to visit Malwa and then Khandesh. Finally, by way of Surat, the Maharaja will head north through Rajasthan. An announcement will be made at Ahmedabad of a fourth analytical engine; Muzaffar. Finally, the last notable stops will be at Udaipur and Jaipur, to inaugurate monuments in honour of those fallen for their liberation.
___________________________________
Heliograph
The Andes are not the only mauntains that divide a single country into a myriad valleys. The heliograph is a cheaper and much more simple to maintain system than the telegraph, and it is very well suited to the heights of the Himalayas. It is in our interest to collaborate in this Andean development in order to provide a back up to the telegraph alongside the Transhimalayan and other mountain railroads to Kathmandu or the roads to Lhasa. The heliograph will also be valuable for military applications as a system of communications reliant solely on the devices and not on ground infrastructure. A great boon would be to be able to produce signals with lamp lighting, as it would allow heliographic communications al through the night as well. Therefore we will focus our efforts on developing a magnifying system that allows for the accurate projection of such lights over the vast distances involved, as well as setting up a Himalayan heliographic network on which to test our own innovations.
Trade&Tech:
640 HC to Japan for 64 MC
Adopt Agit-Trains and Agit-Boats; Secesja; Medievalism; Hisbah; Nihilism; Statistical Theory; Blowlamp blazing and soldiering; Vulcanization, Synthetical materials; International System of Units; Hydrometallurgy; Water purification; Gas warfare; bunker fortresses; fortified districts; Myeongje baegab; Foreign Legion; Signal rockets
FP:
1. Activate Photostat, Cyclostyle – 5 Enterprises
2. Plastic Surgery – 5 Missions
3. Minority Problem – 5 Missions, 1 Corps
4. Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure) – 3 Enterprises, 1 Corps
5. Under the Yellow Banner – 1 Enterprise, 2 Corps, 1 Squadron
6. Imperial Victory Cruise – 2 Missions, 1 Enterprises
7. Heliograph – 3 Enterprises
Generic Actions: 2 Missions, 2 Enterprises to increase influence in Indus region. 1 Mission to defend from foreign actions in Indus Region.
__________________________________________________
Photostat, Cyclostyle
With the sudden growth of the Empire and the subsequent explosion in the size of its state apparatus, so has multiplied the clerical and archival activities and needs of the bureaucracy. Add to sheer geography the inimaginable social complexities and the messy nature of post-war power transition, and the administration quite simply cannot keep up even in producing the more banal forms and reports. To solve or at least alleviate this problem, the government is heavily investing in several fringe but promising technologies for what some call “mimeography”, that is copying documents. Though the more extravagant solutions seek to apply cutting-edge technology for perfect results (such as the photostat, which literally photographs the object to be copied over and over), the cheapest and more down-to-earth solutions, which have already started to see production in numbers, rely on replicating the processes of an industrial printing press on a smaller scale.
____________________________________
Plastic Surgery
At the behest and insistence of certain sectors of the government, Dr Aziz acceded to include selected active and perfectly healthy personnel in his program. Posing as patients in other sections of the hospital and with surgeries scheduled at odd hours, the scheme went unnoticed, and security officials were reportedly very favourably impressed, and recommended that the program be expanded and Aziz’s unit segregated into a more specialised facility, a neglected princely palace in Srinagar itself that was quickly refurbished as the Aziz Surgical Hospital; the world’s first and only hospital specialised in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Fully funded by the Ministry of Health, the hospital not only performs surgical procedures on disfigured veterans and cherry-picked secret service operatives, but also people with congenital deformities, accident victims, and even the odd affluent client who is willing to spend ludicrous amounts of money for the tiniest cosmetic corrections.
____________________________________________________
Minority Problem
Our course is true, and we must not steer away from it. We will implement a Punjabi learning program at the officer school, and train designated NCOs as translators. On top of that, recruits will still learn all the commands in Punjabi, as it has been done for a hundred years, so that their performance is not hindered by linguistic limitations. This will be the first step of a program to extend Punjabi learning formally to all enlisted men. Though of course the army life is already conductive to it and Sindhi, Pashto, and Punjabi soldiers have had little trouble fighting side by side for the last few decades, the multiplication of the sociolinguistic reality of recruits and conscripts will make it necessary to take an extra step in ensuring that all commands are understood and regular communication is smooth. Language classes will be part of navy training at every level, however, since it demands considerably less resources due to its sheer size.
In the administration, we will adopt a dual policy of merit and quotas. We will seek to fill out positions with the best men regardless of origin or religion, and so anonymous contests will be held amongst eligible candidates to a vacancy or promotion to determine the better suited. At the same time, however, to prevent alienating the people from the administration, we will strive to make sure that most mid and high-tier officials in a given region are of the predominant religion in that region. There will be a special appointed office outside the system of merit, which will be that of Imperial Overseer. This position will outrank any provincial official but will not have the power to override them or directly intervene in the normal functioning of the administration. It will be an advisory role to the regional government and administration and it will report to the Imperial government on any misdeeds and misgivings. It will be appointed by the Maharaja himself from amongst the notables of the region and should be of the predominant religion.
____________________________________________________________
Indostan 1900 Plan (Infrastructure)
Even when most of the work has been completed, much of it is still ongoing. With the first track laid to Balasore and the first docks erected, what is left to do is expand the docks, build a railroad cargo terminal, and finish doubling the track all the way from Rohri. Further work is also necessary at the Rohri-Jaisalmer sector to consolidate the railway and prevent the desert from burying it or destabilising the tracks. These works are the top priority, as they are already ongoing and will complete the Great All-India Railway, a strong connection between Orissa and the rest of the Empire, a new logistical backbone spanning the whole Empire.
Other very important works are the expansion of Surat port and its shipbuilding facilities, as it fell into neglect with the British focus on Bombay for shipping, so that it can become the export center for the Narmada Regency. Further down the list are the two projects that would culminate the Great All-India Railway: the direct connections Allahabad-Rewa and Patna-Daltonganj through the existing line Patna-Gaya. This would better connect the eastern section of the GAIR to the main cities of the lower Ganges and improve the connections between provinces of the Ganges Regency.
____________________________________________
Under the Yellow Banner
We shall proceed as we did last year. By now we have established a strong and secure grid of forts, outposts, and depots that allow us to track Kaabi activity and cordon off vulnerable areas to their raids. Our efforts shall be redoubled in completing this system, which is already seriously hampering Kaabi mobility. The project’s completion should allow us to encircle or corner them into a localised area where we can use the full might of our arms to crush them at long last.
________________________________________________
Imperial Victory Tour
There were parades and festivals at the end of the war, but between the scarred country and the logical insecurity that befits territorial transfers, there had been great official celebrations. This will change with a Grand Tour by the Maharaja of the Empire and its new provinces. The Tour will start at Lahore, where a small military parade will be held . The next day in Amritsar, the Maharaja will humble himself before Guru Granth Sahib before he formally starts his journey. He will travel to Delhi by land and there downstream on a river cruise. There will be frequent stops along the way, where he will hold audience and announce the most relevant plans of the reconstruction and development effort within the Indostan 1900 Plan. At Delhi he will honour some of the soldiers most distinguished in its liberation as well as the most prominent local nobles. At Varanasi, the most important of these will be made: the city will host Dharma, Indostan’s third analytical engine, once the connection to Orissa has been completed and funds can be allocated to the project. Resources have been allocated to start work on it, so that at least the Maharaja can visit the premises where it will be located.
Arriving in Patna, the Maharaja should be joined by the Konbaung Emperor to resume the cruise jointly down to the Bay of Bengal. In Calcutta, the Maharaja will formally sign the Treaty of Friendship with Burma, before boarding an Indostan Navy ship for Balasore. The Maharaja will travel along the Great All-India Railway stopping and visiting his newer domains and taking a detour at Katni to visit Malwa and then Khandesh. Finally, by way of Surat, the Maharaja will head north through Rajasthan. An announcement will be made at Ahmedabad of a fourth analytical engine; Muzaffar. Finally, the last notable stops will be at Udaipur and Jaipur, to inaugurate monuments in honour of those fallen for their liberation.
___________________________________
Heliograph
The Andes are not the only mauntains that divide a single country into a myriad valleys. The heliograph is a cheaper and much more simple to maintain system than the telegraph, and it is very well suited to the heights of the Himalayas. It is in our interest to collaborate in this Andean development in order to provide a back up to the telegraph alongside the Transhimalayan and other mountain railroads to Kathmandu or the roads to Lhasa. The heliograph will also be valuable for military applications as a system of communications reliant solely on the devices and not on ground infrastructure. A great boon would be to be able to produce signals with lamp lighting, as it would allow heliographic communications al through the night as well. Therefore we will focus our efforts on developing a magnifying system that allows for the accurate projection of such lights over the vast distances involved, as well as setting up a Himalayan heliographic network on which to test our own innovations.
