3rd March 1657


    Akhand Bharatiya Empire, Imperial Capital Bengaluru


    In a luxurious hotel


    "I am deeply sorry, Your Excellency, but your appointment with His Majesty has been cancelled and postponed to the 15th of March." Ganesh, with an apologetic expression, exined To the Russian prince Pyotr Alekseyevich Romanov.


    "What!"


    "Preposterous! How dare he? Does your emperor look down on our Prince, or does he look down on our illustrious Tsarist Russian Empire? What audacity hath he to tantly disrespect our Prince in such a humiliating way?" Simeon Brezhnev immediately went into a fit of rage as soon as he heard that his Royal Highness’s meeting with the emperor had been postponed.


    What is this if not a soreck of respect for the great Russian Empire?


    Brezhnev continued, his face livid. "If this is the way you treat us, then there is no need to talk any further. We will be leaving, Your Highness. Let’s g—" Brezhnev’s voice immediately stopped as Peter raised his hand and gestured for him to shut up.


    Peter’s face was calm on the surface, but anyone who knew him closely could tell he was absolutely furious. Who is Peter? He is the second Prince of the Great Russian Empire, the empire that seeded the legacy of the Great Roman Empire, the mightiest vic Empire before which all of Europe would tremble in fright, with and area more vast and expansive than this Bharatiya Empire.


    Now, for a prince who came from such an empire with a Roman legacy to humble himself and represent Russia personally, was this how he was treated? If it weren’t for the difficulty of bringing in troops, Peter would have turned away immediately and returned with an army of thousands in tow for the utter disrespect and disregard he had suffered.


    Fortunately, Peter knew that he was in a foreign country, so he did notsh out. Considering the overall situation, he reined in his emotions and the humiliation he felt. In a voice devoid of emotion, he asked, "You owe me an exnation, Bharatiya." His tone was ice-cold.


    Ganesh, who was used to interacting with all sorts of military leaders and ministers, suddenly felt a sense of dread that he had only experienced from his own monarch. Looking into those blue eyes that seemed to hold the darkest parts of the ocean, Ganesh felt that if he did not give a proper exnation today, he woulde to regret it.


    So he did not hesitate and directly stated the bottom line his majesty had given him.


    "Your Excellency, please don’t be angry. We in no way intend to disrespect you or have any intention of doing so. We have a saying in our nation, ’Atithi Devo Bhava,’ which means ’The guest is like a god.’"


    "Psht," Brezhnev immediately sneered, but he quickly shut up after being red at by Peter.


    "The reason the meeting has been postponed is due to some unforeseen circumstances that immediately arose for His Majesty, which he personally has to deal with. So, this is not the right time for the meeting. Also, His Majesty had invited another guest to the meeting, and that guest is on their way, hence the dy."


    Ganesh finished exining in one breath, but seeing the anger that still burned in Peter’s eyes, he quickly added, "Your Excellency, His Majesty does indeed know that this matter is quite disrespectful to you, so he sent something you might be interested in aspensation."


    Peter’s frosty expression finally showed a change, though he was still enraged by how he had been treated. He still wanted to know what thepensation was. "What is it?" he asked, without any respect in his tone.


    Ganesh did not mind, as he was relieved that the foreign prince would at least listen to thepensation and not leave, souring rtions with arge empire for no apparent reason.


    Although the Bharatiya Empire did not have to fear any single nation in the world, it was not wise to make enemies everywhere, and given the geographic conditions, the Tsarist Russian Empire and the Bharatiya Empire were unlikely to be enemies unless they became neighbouring countries, in which case matters would be different.


    "Your Excellency, His Majesty has granted the Russian Empire the right to buy five st furnaces from our empire."


    "PA! Ahhh haha.. hahahahaa!"


    Brezhnevughed out loud, but it was not augh of happiness; it was augh of anger.


    "So this is your so-calledpensation? What do you think of us Russians? Do you think we are mountain barbarians who don’t even know how to smelt iron? Do you think we are in the Bronze Age, or perhaps you think we are in the Stone Age, huh? Do you think these st furnaces are something we do not have? How dare you!" Brezhnev was even angrier.


    Before, he was furious at the tant disregard for his nation’s prince; now, they were directly looking down on their military capabilities by offering this so-calledpensation. Wasn’t this a p in the face?


    Ganesh panicked as he did not expect his words to be misunderstood again. "Your Excellency, if you don’t mind, could you please tell me the iron smelting capacity of a single st furnace in Russia?" he quickly added, afraid it would be toote.


    Brezhnev was about to continue ridiculing him, but Peter knew things were not so simple. The technological capabilities of this empire were open for disy, and now that he thought about it, the smelting technology of Bharat was not disyed at the Expo and was not avable for sale.


    ’Could it be much more advanced than the ones in Europe?’ he wondered, but he kept his face expressionless and simply answered the question. "300 tonnes per year."


    Ganesh, who got the answer, let out a sigh of relief and calmly stated, "Your Excellency, if I’m not wrong, the overall iron production of the Russian Empirest year was around 14,000 tonnes, isn’t it?"


    Peter nodded. "Although these numbers are not centrally calcted, it should be around this range."


    "Then what if I say that with the st furnaces we provide, the Russian Empire could produce 17,250 tonnes of iron per year, a whole 23.12% increase in iron production per annum? That is an increase of 3,250 tonnes of iron production."


    Peter’s eyes immediately widened in disbelief, and Brezhnev, who had been acting unconcerned until now, dropped the napkin he was holding in shock.


    "Wha—You mean..." Brezhnev asked, immediately thinking of something.


    "Yes, Your Excellency, the st furnace our empire produces is capable of smelting 650 tonnes of wrought iron per year. With the five st furnaces His Majesty promised to give you, the Russian Empire would immediately be able to increase its iron production capabilities by 3,250 tonnes, almost catching up with the iron production of your rivals, the Ottoman Empire."


    "You have to know, Your Excellency, that our st furnaces are a whole 30% more efficient than those in Western European countries like the United Kingdom, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Italian city-states."


    Peter immediately became serious after hearing all these details and asked with a stern expression, "Are you certain of this number? And are you certain that this is thepensation given by His Majesty Devaraya? You’re not deceiving us, are you? If so, I will make sure that you will regret it."


    Ganesh, listening to these words, immediately nodded his head and exined, "What I said is true. Take a look at this letter. With this letter, you could directly purchase the st furnaces from the Raya Ironworks." Saying that, Ganesh quickly handed over the letter, that Vijay had written.


    Peter took a look at it and read the letter, surprisingly written in Russian, and nodded his head. With a smile on his face, he dered, "Well, if His Majesty is inconvenient to meet us right now, then there is nothing we can do but wait. Don’t you think so too, Brezhnev?"


    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Brezhnev, reading the letter, did not deny it and nodded. "Well, of course, Your Highness. The head of state is busy. After all, we can’t expect him to have no emergency affairs. That would be ignorant of diplomacy."


    ----


    Simhasana Bhavana


    "So they finally agreed, huh?" Vijay said after hearing the report from Ganesh, his expressionplicated. If he had another choice, he would naturally not be willing to part with the st furnaces of the empire that had finally reached the world’s most advanced level after many years of development.


    Before the war with the Mughals started, the st furnaces had caught up with the best technologies and reached 500 tonnes. However, with the improvement of metallurgy and basic physical knowledge, the performance of the st furnaces had broken through 600 tonnes during the war.


    Due to the high demand during the conflict, this efficiency further improved, and by the end of the war, it had reached 650 tonnes, indisputably bing the best st furnace in the world.


    But unfortunately, in order to calm down the Russians, he had to part with five st furnaces, which constituted 6.25% of all the st furnaces in the empire.


    He was needed for the next actions taking ce within the empire; otherwise, he would not have agreed to this deal no matter what. On the other hand, he did not want to offend the Russian Romanov family for no reason either, so he was stuck between a rock and a hard ce. He could only do the best of his ability.


    And that is exactly what he did. Initially, he invited Peter to discuss the deal of buying their intelligence about the hidden funder of the Swiss mercenaries and also to sign a deal with the Russians to support them logistically if they fought in a war against the Ottomans. But now, things were changing.


    Given the price he paid, he wanted to extract more benefits from the Russian Empire, specifically in the form of damaging the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, Vijay promptly sent a letter inviting a Vian representative to discuss a tripartite agreement with the Bharatiya Empire and the Russian Empire.


    Vijay ultimately wanted these two nations to be his tools to take down the Ottoman Empire.


    "Maybe giving the st furnaces was a great chance to hook the fish to the fishing line," he thought.


    "But it’s a pity once these st furnaces reach Europe, they will be imitated within a few months by the Russians and within a year by the European countries. These bastards have spies within each other’s ranks like house guests, after all."


    "But no matter. Research for the next iteration of the st furnace is underway. When this technologyes to fruition, we will still have the advantage," heforted himself.


    P.S. Thank you, godofsparta for the Pizza


    P.S. Thank you, I_am_truck_kun for the Ice c