Chapter 1070: The Arrival of the Japanese
October 23rd, 1688
The sky of the subcontinent was lit up with beautiful colours, and the whole subcontinent momentarily turned night into day. Today was the day Lord Ram, along with his wife Seetha and brother Laxman, returned to Ayodhya after defeating the Demon King Ravana. It was the day of joy, it was the day of good triumphing over evil, and it was the day all the Bharatiya Sanathanis welcomed joy and happiness into their life. Not only that, it was also the day of Nirvana for the Jains, as it was the day of Lord Mahavira attaining Nirvana, and it was also celebrated by the Buddhists across the subcontinent as the day of Ashoka, the Great King, returning to Buddhism.
In every household across the stretch of the land, from Dondra in the south to Nagqu in the north, from Tinsukia in the east to Kandahar in the west, joy and happiness could be found. Women wearing beautiful and traditional clothes following the culture of the region cooked delicious snacks, sweets, and pastries, while the father and kids were outside bursting firecrackers.
Several years ago, the people of Tibet didn’t celebrate any festival, but as the people of the subcontinent started to settle in Tibet, and when even the construction workers celebrated Deepavali in Tibet, it slowly began to gain influence over the years, and now it was widely celebrated across the region of Tibet. It was the same situation in the west. The edge of the empire has a high population of Muslims, New Testament Muslims to be more exact.
Around 80% of this population, despite realising that someone else’s faith matters just as much as their own, had not celebrated Deepavali before. But as time moved forward and the cultural infusion became irresistible, over the years they started to celebrate Deepavali as well, and because of this, the skies in the western border of the empire could be seen lit up in bright colours once a year, making it possible for a few minorities in the Middle East to pick up the culture and celebrate the day as an auspicious day themselves.
Travelling by ship, the coastline of the Bharatiya Empire looked absolutely mesmerising, it was as if the sky had lit up with thousands of stars, and the reflection of the stars in the water gave rise to a mesmerising scenery.
Tokugawa Lenobu, standing on the deck of the ship that was getting closer to the shore, saw exactly this. Their travel was long and tiring, so most of them slept, but he was startled awake by the sound of gunfire he heard from somewhere, and when he came out to take a look, what he saw left him cemented in the place, unable to move an inch, becoming one with the ship rising and falling with it.
His eyes reflected the light of hundreds of fireworks shooting to the sky and bursting out in beautiful radiance, and the silhouette of the infrastructure and the land that is Bharat, that was revealed in this vague moment of light and smoke, left him completely mesmerised.
A few minutes later, his associates who had travelled with him for the last several months slowly woke up one by one. In the end, all of them joined him, gazing at the shore of the Bharatiya Empire and looking gobsmacked at the skyline.
“No matter where we go, anything associated with the Bharatiya Empire continues to surprise me.”
“So this is the heartland of the Great Bharatiya Empire, ha?”
Tokugawa sighed, as all the tension in his body left, and he went into the cabin. He was completely stimulated and wanted some time to relax.
The large 1000-tonne merchant ship finally docked in Pondicherry, and all the Japanese, along with their luggage, got down with curiosity. Maybe the sailor of the boat was in a hurry, he directly led the Japanese to the immigration office, and after the immigration procedures were done, they left.
Finally, standing outside the port administration office, Tokugawa and others took in the full view of the beautiful city they had seen while on the sea.
As Tokugawa took a deep breath, he keenly remembered the smell he was sensing. It was the same smell as the black powder. This made his eyes widen in shock. The sailor had said that the Festival of Light is celebrated throughout the empire, throughout the more than 5 million square kilometres of it. So do all the people have access to such fireworks made of black powder? Then how massive could the production capability of the ordnance be?
Although he had an idea of the Bharatiya Empire being a behemoth, and this idea was constantly being reinforced in every affiliate kingdom of the Bharatiya Empire they visited, which brought them new surprises and new understandings, things were finally put into perspective when he saw that the black powder his country used as a protected resource was used to celebrate festivals and was widely accessible.
‘Maybe this one city has blown up as much black powder as our soldiers have used in the whole year for training.’ A wry smile was etched on his face as he couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer difference in strength.
He patted the shoulder of Matsudaira, who had a deep worry on his face, and stepped forward.
“Come on, we are already a little delayed at sea, we have to quickly find a place to sleep, or else it might become too late.”
All his colleagues who were standing at the port administration office like statues finally moved with their luggage.
Walking on the streets of Puducherry, they immediately realised that this city was completely different from every other place they had ever been. The streets were clean and neat, which was the same everywhere they went, but unlike the streets they had visited until now, this street was not paved with tar. It looked to be laid down by cobblestone, each cut in precise proportions and cemented together, giving the streets a premium feeling. Not only that, for every few metres they walked, they saw an exquisite lamp, and each of the lamps had different etchings, different inscriptions, and different motifs on it. It was written in a language they could not understand, and the people spoke a different language as well.
Moreover, every few metres there was a monument of some kind, be it a monument commemorating someone in the city or simply a monument of an animal. From the way the monument was adorned with flowers and vermilion, it could only mean that even the monuments were well taken care of. And the highlight of them all, the whole street was garlanded with floating lamps right above them which looked like they were entering a city of lights .
What shocked him more and made him continue to question his sanity was the amount of wealth he was seeing. It was not only the fabric the people wore, which was so exquisite that he had only seen the elites of the Vassel Kingdom wear, and even he, despite being an important son of a minister back home, only had a few pairs of such garments, it was the ornaments as well. All the women he saw were wearing several hundred grammes of gold at the very least on their bodies, and that is not mentioning the men wearing it in the form of chains and little boys and girls wearing it in their ears and hands.
Just how prosperous can one empire be?
Tokugawa learnt a second important lesson since he set foot in this land, and that is that the Bharatiya Empire has no interest in Nippon, because if it did, then they would have no way of resisting its advances.
He made his heart firmer and stated solemnly, “No matter what, a diplomatic relation has to be formed.” All his colleagues didn’t object and readily nodded. Despite everything they had seen, if they were in denial of the insignificance or the weakness of their own country and the need for external forces to provide it some defence, then they would be fools.
What Tokugawa was thankful for was that although sounds of fireworks could be heard everywhere, and the sight of colourful fireworks could be seen in every street, their path was not hindered nor occupied. The footpath they were walking on, nor the road through which the carriages passed, was taken over for celebration. All the people lit up fireworks in front of their own spacious homes.
Thankfully, when they went to ask for directions to a hotel or a lodge, the people actually knew how to speak Bharati. Tokugawa was worried for a moment. Also, seeing that they were foreigners, they were fed quite well. They were handed out several sweets, pastries, and desserts. There was one sweet called Kajjaya which Tokugawa liked quite a bit.
They were about to reach the hotel mentioned by a kind family, but suddenly they were shocked when they saw a car moving on the street. Tokugawa stood still in place. They had always heard that in the mainland there were metal chariots that moved on their own. They only thought that they were rare and could only be seen in capitals, and even then only in the houses of ministers or top nobles. But what was he seeing now? A car, actually! It passed right in front of them. Does that mean there was a noble in that car? But hold on, his memory suddenly rewound from the time he had stepped forth in Pondicherry, and he was shocked to realise that almost all houses he had seen had a similar chariot in front of their homes.
Tokugawa might have ignored it as a weirdly shaped carriage and chalked it up as one of the eccentricities of the Bharatiyas, but now that he saw that this weirdly shaped chariot was actually the legendary car, he was astounded to realise each and every house he had seen was rich enough to afford a car. The same car, the same one where not even a single one was present back home.
“Kaibara, when we get the chance to negotiate, I want you to negotiate about the possibility of exporting one of these cars and taking them to the kingdom along with us. I’m sure the emperor would be pleased.”
Kaibara Ekken, a representative of the merchants of Nippon, nodded in understanding, “You don’t have to tell me twice, Tokugawa-San, I will put it on the top of the list of products we seek to import.”
P.S. Happy Deepavali Folks