Schemes and Intrigues

Year 1563, November, Castle within the Deoyakhand county

In the main hall of the Deoyakhand castle sits count Shamsher Choudhry with his county's nobles and loyalists. As he reads and discuss the reports of all the changes going on within crown ruled lands he has a frown on his face. Though he don't see any big implication towards his plans of usurping the Khurda throne but his Mughal ally has taken notice of this changes and wants to expedite the plans for his direct confrontation with the crown to usurp the throne.Now the question remains when he will make his move against the royal family.

In a corner of the same hall a man stands with a tray of food waiting to be served to esteem guests of the count, although this man seems meek and silent with obediently keeping his head down, his eyes betray the attentiveness he is giving to the discussion going on in the hall.This man is none other then an agent of Third Eye who has been sent by the headquarters to infiltrate the count's inner circle and found out the plans of the count.

A week later, Rudradev Khurd Company in Badrak, Army Traning ground

As the prince watches his army training, one think that surprised him the most is that the flintlock musket used by the line infantry is being fired in volleys 4 times a minute and sometimes even 5 times a minute. The rapid rate of fire is good news for prince Viraja since he knows that more bullets fired means more enemies killed before they can even engage in melee. Soon the newly manufactured light 6-pounder bronze muzzle loading cannon is brought in the training ground pulled by 2 horses to demonstrate to the prince by Chief weapon officer Hariharan. As the prince saw the easy deployment of the cannon which requires about 9 people to prepare the canon it really exceeded his expectation and then finally the cannon was primed and fired both canister shot and round shot which has devastating effect on the target dummy's, especially the canister shot which is basically a can of musket balls fired from the 6-pounder to kill a group of enemies was quite deadly but the firing distance was short.The details of deployment and use of the 6 pounders with the infantry in a battle was already provided to Major General Virendra so that the soldiers can start training with the same.His private army has become a professional army and soon the same professionalism will be applied to the entire royal army instead of just 15000 soldiers but his father is taking it slow to maintain discretion for now.

With the demonstration done he started walking back to his office where Spymaster Suryasen was waiting for him. As the prince entered his office and took his seat the spymaster handed him the reports on the count Shamsher's activities. It turn out the Mughals can no longer wait as seeing the reforms being implemented within the crown's administered land especially how common indu people are being favoured and treated with respect by the king which is making there loyalty towards the king becoming more unflinching is making the Mughals irritated and hence is pushing the Count Shamsher to take action directly.

As he saw this the prince had a smirk on his face and said "Well it seems the count is apprehensive to move openly well since he likes to scheme so much lets scheme against him and give him the push he needs.".Then the prince looked at the spymaster and said "Tell me Elder is there any barony bordering Deoyakhand County whose baron is a staunch ally and sycophant of Count Shamsher and whom the count trust a lot". As Suryasen listened to the prince and with a thoughtful expression on his face said "Your highness there is a person like that baron Himchandra Sena of Subapur. He is a childhood friend of the count and also in many ways is a partner to counts schemes against the crown".Hearing this the prince nodded said "Elder I want to know every small details about this baron".With his order recieved he excused himself from prince presence.

A month later, Prince Mansion, Badrak

The prince is currently in his personal traning ground in the backyard of his newly built mansion where his guard is demonstrating the swords, shield, mace, daggers, spears etc along with repeating crossbow and single shot torader (matchlock musket) to merchant who has been invited to visit the mansion for this weapons demonstration. Prince Viraja has decided its time to start earning revenue by selling his weapons to outside powers instead of only the royal army though he has decided to only sale those which is already prevalent and will not be seen as a threat or attract undue attention from the surrounding powers. The reason for this is he is already producing large quantity of iron, steel, bronze and brass from all the furnaces he had setup so he decided to start earning revenue out of them by making and selling weapons made with these metals. Once the demonstration was over his personal attendant Bhimrao took over the negotiation to be done with the merchant.

After sometime the prince was sitting in the dining hall once again with Suryasen and general Virendra and discussing the details of baron Himchandra. It turns out that baron Himchandra is a greedy snake who has been scheming money from his dear friend count Shamsher to fund his lavish lifestyle and gambling and courtesan addiction. "Well this is a surprise the schemer is being scammed".All the prince could do is laugh seeing this. He has already gotten permission from his father to proceed with his offensive plan against the traitorous count Shamsher Choudhry. Once again he decided to use him as a bait and goad the count to attack him while he himself set a trap for the count. 

He looked at Suryasen and started describing his plan. He ordered Suryasen "Elder you are to send an agent to the Baron Himchandra and blackmail him that we will leak all his thievery from the count to him, but if he cooperates with the crown then he will be given 10k gold mudras and the barony Varunpur bordering his barony within the county Deoyakhand for him to rule. Basically use the stick and carrot and give him 1000 mudras as a sign of goodwill should he agree along with this letter".As Suryasen nodded to this, general Virendra asked for permission to speak freely as the prince nodded he said "Your highness isn't as per the reforms, the royal family will no longer award new lands and what if he reveals your plan to the count instead of betraying him". Hearing this prince laughed and said "General I in my personal capability as a prince is merely providing empty words of promise to him and if you think that I will go through with it you need to think again. This baron is as much a traitor as the count to the crown and as far as revealing my plan is concerned, well either way once this trusted friend of count tells him that prince is within his reach to be captured I assure you the count will not let this opportunity go as he is under a lot of pressure from his ally the Mughals to act which I am betting on".As the general nodded he ordered him to prepare the army for march as he will he taking 15000 soldiers along with his royal elite guards of 900 cavalry men and leave behind close to 4700 soldiers for guarding his branch company fort.

Year 1564, January, Subapur Barony

The third eye agent was sitting in-front of the baron Himchandra who have a frown on his face. The agent has already conveyed his message to the baron who seems to have acquiescence to the demand and has taken the 1000 mudras as payment and is reading the letter. It reads as follows

"Baraon Himchandra,

Since you are reading this letter I guess you have agreed to my terms its simple I will be arriving at you barony with the excuse of opening a new branch of my company. All you have to do is bring count Shamsher to me and we will arrest him for treason to the crown, in return you will be pardoned of your crimes and given reward of another 9000 mudras along with another barony Varunpur to rule.

Prince Viraja"

After reading the letter the baron agreed to prince terms and asked the agent to leave his presence with a unhappy face. Once the agent exited his room his face immediately turned from a frown to a smile, as he thought that the brat of a prince thinks he is stealing mudras from his friend the count to spend on his lavish lifestyle, what a fool. Infact it was all a ruse, the mudras were being used to raise an army of 5000 men in secret within his barony as a shock troops for Count Shamsher to be used against the royal army when he inevitably start the conflict to usurp the throne. Now the prince has decided to deliver himself right into their hand thinking he is laying a trap for the count, how intriguing, the baron couldn't stop laughing at the prince foolishness. As he started writing a letter to count Shamsher regarding the new developments.

A few days later, Castle within the Deoyakhand county

As the count reads the letter from his friend baron Himchandra all he could do is laugh at the brats stupidity, the prince is practically handing himself over to him and he is going to use the prince to end the war with the king swiftly and take hold of the throne.