Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 750: Design Firms Gather (2/2)

Southern United Naval Design Bureau

Naveen Ambani, Bajrang Dharani, Indrasina Reddy, and Ashwin Ambani all sat in the conference room of the Southern United Naval Design Bureau, currently headquartered in Chennai.

The headquarters was previously located in Mumbai, but after learning of the government’s clear focus to develop trade and commerce in the Southeast and link the economy more closely with Southeast Asian nations, it was shifted to Chennai, given that it is a major port on the southern part of the eastern coast of the Bharatiya Empire, as well as the fact that there isn’t much competition from other designers and manufacturers.

The closest competition being The Ashoka Shipyard located in Visakhapatnam and Berunda Shipyard in the close vicinity, but fortunately, these shipyards usually do not take small orders from local customers. Instead, they only take large orders from international as well as local clients for ships of tonnage of at least 500 tons.

Puneet Shetty, the chief designer of Southern United Naval Design Bureau, is giving a presentation on the very first 1500-ton merchant ship the design bureau had ever designed. Besides Puneet Shetty, Balakrishna Pujari and Bhargav Reddy gave their own inputs, as well as simulation data and model testing data, in order for the project to look more promising to the bosses.

Naveen Ambani, Bajrang Dharani, and Indrasina Reddy had big expectations for the design, so they listened carefully. After the presentation, they talked with each other for a whole 50 minutes until eventually, the three of them greenlit the project.

The three shipbuilding companies owned by Ambani, Dharani, and Reddy, which used to be called the small 3, meaning the three largest shipbuilding companies under the first echelon, have come a long way from a few years ago. They have become much larger, with profitability not too different from the big five of the empire. The general public has a tendency to categorize these shipyards among the big dogs at the top of the food chain in a similar hierarchy with the likes of Raya Shipyard, Berunda Shipyard, Shivaji Shipyard, and others. Maybe in a few years, the Bharatiya Empire would have 8 shipyards in the first echelon, monopolizing the shipbuilding of the Bharatiya Empire by occupying orders of up to 70% or more.

Their profits from doing small ships but in large quantities have already caught up with some of the ill-performing top five shipyards in the empire, and the number of ships they manufacture completely dwarfs the top five shipyards put together. All this cannot be separated from the Southern United Naval Design Bureau. After the design of the Khaki-class grain transporter and the building of several frigates and Clippers for the Bharatiya Navy, all three shipyards had accumulated a lot of experience and took on more ambitious projects, expanding the scale by many folds.

The Southern United Naval Design Bureau continuously came up with three different designs of 1000-ton sailing ships, focused on three different aspects: one transporting grain, one transporting mineral resources, and one transporting normal cargo. This happened to be a big hit among the merchants who were doing trade from state to state.

Given that the Southern United Naval Design Bureau is a jointly owned design bureau by three different shipyards, the growth opportunity for all three was equally distributed. However, with the ingenuity and managerial capabilities of Naveen Ambani—a person who came up step by step from a grassroots labour contractor to one of the richest persons in the Bharatiya Empire—he had a slight edge in growth when compared to Reddy Shipyard and Dharani Shipyard.

Suddenly, a knock was heard in the conference room.

"Knock knock."

"Come in," Puneet Shetty frowned and ordered.

Who came in was a young man who looked to be just out of college, without any experience, and with a panicked expression on his face.

Looking at this boy, Puneet’s frown deepened. This was none other than his assistant, who helped him handle various matters in the design bureau.

"Hari, you better have a good reason."

Hari was startled, but looking at the letters in his hand, he took a big gulp and blurted out, "Sir, three letters have been sent in the names of the owners."

Puneet Shetty immediately became silent. He was still unhappy because if it was simply about a letter, couldn’t it have waited until the final discussion was over? But he did not voice his dissatisfaction because, no matter how wrong the boy was, at the end of the day, he did something very convenient for the owners, so it wouldn’t look good on him if he scolded such a person. Thankfully, his dilemma was solved by Naveen Ambani himself.

"Even if we receive a letter, you don’t have to bring it so urgently, Hari. You could have waited till the meeting was over." His face looked stern. Stay updated with novelbuddy

Hari immediately felt wronged. "But sir, this is a letter you receive directly from the emperor’s office."

"What! What did you say?" Even before Naveen and the others could respond, Puneet himself exclaimed.

"Yes, sir. It says so right here on the letter." Hari held the letter vertically and pointed at the emblem which symbolized the emperor’s office.

Indrasina Reddy, Bajrang Dharani, and Naveen Ambani all forgot the dissatisfaction they felt moments ago and immediately jumped up from their seats as they snatched their respective letters.

Naveen Ambani carefully read the letter word by word. By the end, his eyes were widened and his mouth agape.

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He looked at his colleagues, and they had similar if not more exaggerated reactions.

"What!!! Is this true?" Indrasina Reddy cried out in disbelief, while Bajrang Dharani constantly rubbed his eyes to check whether he was dreaming or not.

"Four hundred million... four hundred million," Naveen Ambani kept muttering in a low voice. All of his assets added together would only make him reach the 30 to 40 million mark, but that was only his fixed assets and not liquid money.

Now, the emperor directly allocated grant money of up to 400 million for a multi-invention project. Even though Naveen knew that all of this money could not belong to him alone, he was still drooling. Even a small piece of this pie was so large that he could only earn the same amount by selling dozens of battleships and hundreds of patent usage rights.

Naveen Ambani, Bajrang Dharani, and Indrasina Reddy all three looked at each other with a hint of fighting spirit in their eyes. They were no longer business partners but rivals competing to see who would produce the results His Majesty required faster.

Similar reactions were produced from owners of several military design firms like Narasimha Nayak, Lachit Borpukhan, Major Arjun Verma, Devendra Rao, Sita Ramachandran, Commander Akhil, Designer Sai, and Manuj Reddy.

Some got the news a little late, like Lachit Borpukhan, who was all the way back in the Middle East, but within a week, everyone was definitely informed.

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2nd July 1661

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive influx of theoretical and applied research and engineering talents was seen in Nagpur, the military capital of the Bharatiya Empire.

Not only that, along with the Nagpur regiment consisting of 41,000 soldiers focused on regional defence and security, the whole Satavahana regiment consisting of 28,000 soldiers focused heavily on heavy cavalry, as well as the Kalachuri regiment focused on guerrilla and mountain warfare consisting of 14,000 soldiers, were all transferred to Nagpur, bringing the total military presence in the area to a whopping 81,000 soldiers. This was a strength enough to wipe out several European principalities and duchies.

Not only that, unknown to everyone, nearly 25% of all intelligence personnel—be it internal, external, or Sainik—were deployed to Nagpur.

What’s more, in order for the security personnel not to be traitors, the whole system was arranged with the concept of isolation in mind.

In the outskirts of Nagpur, in the area where Devaraya Atmospheric steam Engine research took place, a small village was constructed, and in the vicinity of the village, plants were grown—enough to sustain the researchers working inside. A few kilometres out of the agricultural crop perimeter was the military perimeter. The military’s whole objective was to protect against any interference from outside and to make sure that anything inside was not lost.

Even the labourers who are required to help out in the research have been asked to migrate with their families to the village until the research is completed.

Fortunately, in order to make this happen, a lot of time was not necessary since Vijay had already anticipated such a day would come sooner or later, so he had already ordered for such a special area to be constructed.

Naveen Ambani, the owner of Astra Dynamics, Bajrang Dharani, the owner of Garuda Defense Labs, Indrasina Reddy, the owner of Vajra Technologies, Gangadhar, the owner of Adni Precision Systems, Narasimha Nayak, the owner of Shastra Innovations, Lachit Borpukhan, the owner of Raksha Defense Works, Manoj Reddy, the owner of Trishul Arms Consortium, Major Arjun Verma, the owner of Indira Forge, Devendra Rao, the owner of Varuna Designs, Seetha Ramachandran, the owner of Vyūha Strategic Solutions, Commander Akhil, the owner of Sri Manjunatha Research Firm, and finally Designer Sai, the owner of Sai Design Bureau, were all standing outside the security perimeter, sending in their researchers and wishing them all the best.

Among these owners, Designer Sai and Manoj Reddy were the only two people who were both the owners and designers, so they led their teams themselves as they went into the Shrushti Village, named by the insiders due to the impact it has on innovation at a strategic level in the empire.

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Getting inside, everyone saw Ganesh waiting for them on top of a dais in what could only be called a village square. Ganesh pulled down the curtain from a massive board upon which a list of over twenty different weapons, their requisites, and their rough technical drawings were written.

"Each of the weapons has a detailed road map. Once a certain component of the weapon shown in the road map is completed, the grant will be allocated depending on the difficulty of their research. "

"This research is a multi-year project, so keep in mind that the 400 million Varaha grant is only for this year, and next year there will be a separate grant. But also keep in mind, if you are seen as underperforming, you will be decisively kicked out of the project. "

"If you have any doubts regarding how merit will be distributed, how the tasks can be claimed, and how patent rights will be handled, you can ask the personal manager allocated to each research group. They are informed of all these details—make good use of them. "

"With that being said, I wish you all the very best of luck. Thank you."