Chapter 63: Economic Influence – Resource Control

Having established a foundation of trust, Adav quietly initiated the next phase of his Tibetan Gambit: economic influence and resource control. Through Bharat Corporation's subsidiaries, disguised as civilian geological survey teams and development agencies, Adav began to gain exclusive rights to develop potential mineral resources within Tibetan regions.

The Codex's [Geographical Mapping] and [Resource Analysis] modules provided invaluable data. While lithium and rare earths weren't fully understood for their future value in the 1930s in the way Adav remembered, the Codex identified other valuable minerals – copper, lead, zinc, and crucially, strategic deposits of boron and tungsten, vital for advanced metallurgy and the burgeoning chemical and defense industries. Adav presented these ventures as opportunities for Tibet to modernize its economy, offering significant royalties and employment to local populations, far more substantial than any previous arrangements.

These agreements were carefully structured to give India precedence in extraction and processing, ensuring a steady supply of these critical raw materials for Bharat Corporation's expanding industrial base. While technically joint ventures, the expertise, capital, and logistical infrastructure provided by India meant that Bharat Corporation effectively controlled the entire value chain, from extraction to processing. This gave India a crucial strategic advantage, securing vital resources that would be in high demand as the world teetered on the brink of another global conflict.