LIGHTNOVELONLINE 141 Secret Society?
By the time Vijay waited for the arrival of Roshan and the rest of the military generals, he took out a paper and wrote down all the intellectuals' names he could recall from his memory who were still alive. Unfortunately, the really famous ones have already passed away, but there were still a few. After fully writing down whoever came to mind, he called for Vinod.
"Hey, Vinod. Send someone to fetch these people on the list. The matter is very important. So, first, invite them to Vijayanagara with hospitality. But if they resist, just pick them up with their families and quietly send them to the Vijayanagara Empire. Make sure that the Mughals catch no wind of it."
Although this approach seems excessive, Vijay is running out of time. He wants to fully integrate the Empire as soon as possible. If A longer time is taken, and the newly occupied territories will no longer be able to be suppressed by peaceful means. Violence will have to be used, and once violence is used, a clear line will be drawn between the newly occupied territories and the Vijayanagara Empire. Obviously, Vijay does not want that to happen.
Vinod, the butler, looked at the list and quickly accepted the orders.
"It will be done, Your Highness."
"Oh yes, Vinod. Make sure to send only the people working in the castle on this mission. I don't want even the Secret Service to know of this news. Alright?"
"It will be done, Your Majesty."
The people Vijay wrote on the list were renowned intellectuals he could find in the current era, including great sages like Tukaram, who was supposed to be dead in 1650 due to an assassination. But given that the timeline has changed a lot, he is positive that there is a high chance this great man is still alive. Even people from other faiths, like Sikhism, were invited. Even the potential scholars who are yet to show their colours, like Bhai Mati Das, who was still 13 years old, and Bhai Nandlal, who was still 21 years old, were also invited. Along with religious and cultural saints from Parsi, Jain, and Buddhist cultures.
He even invited major language scholars throughout the nation. Scholars of the 22 recognized languages of India in the 21st century were invited. Scholars of Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Maithili, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Telugu, Tamil, and instead of Urdu, more tribal communities were invited. While Vijay may say that he is inviting them, it is basically closer to kidnapping. All these things should be done under the radar of the Mughal Empire, and he is on a tight schedule. Fortunately, Vijayanagara still has a good intelligence network in the Mughal Empire.
While the most important figures were left for Vinod to deal with, the rest of the scholars were left to the Secret Service to deal with. Going through all the details, he finally confirmed his plan and needed to wait at least a month until all the people arrived.
Finally, Roshan, along with the Top Secret Service agents like Selvan, quickly arrived at the palace, followed by the four military generals—Ramaiah Senapati, Narasimha Nayak, and Yogendra Singh, followed by Kiran Pujari. After everyone arrived, Vijay had them sit in front of him.
"Look at this. What is this?" Vijay demanded. Everyone in the room was taken aback as they sensed the anger in Vijay's words. They had been summoned hastily, and the urgency of the situation was palpable. As they delved into the details of the report, the reason for the summoning became apparent. The contents of the report revealed that during the Separatist riots in the newly occupied territory, spontaneous uprisings erupted in various corners of the region. A staggering 1,600,000 people participated in these riots, and an army of 130,000 soldiers proved insufficient to suppress the chaos. Fortunately, the riots were scattered and lacked unified control, preventing a coordinated resistance. Otherwise, capturing the three states would have been an impossible task.
"Hey, tell me. Why did so many people participate in these riots? Weren't they getting freedom from the Mughals? Now tell me what the reason is."
Vijay sternly questioned everyone. They looked at each other's faces, unable to understand why His Majesty was asking a question that was already answered. But still, they had to answer this question. With a grave expression, Narasimha Nayak answered, "Your Highness, isn't that because of the instigation of some people from behind?"
Hearing this vijay denied, "No. They just gained freedom from the Mughals. And they won't just suddenly start rioting when a random person comes along and promises them such lofty things as an independent kingdom. The people who have been suffering for so long will be looking for more stability, not more fights to break out."
Next, it was Yogendra Singh who asked, "Your Highness, then couldn't it be because the Mughal Empire instigated them to do so? Could it be that they really wanted their own kingdom?" Yogendra said, which left everyone deep in thought.
But Vijay shook his head as he replied, "No, that is not possible. Ever since we captured the new territory, we have been spreading the message of equal rights, equal opportunities, freedom of cultural beliefs, and all such things. On top of that, even if some people really want an independent kingdom, as I said earlier, they want stability first. And then, when stability is reached, they would strive for their own kingdom. But not like this, where 1.6 million people stood up to resist our rule."
Everyone became silent, especially Roshan, who bowed his head, as he had a vague guess about what could have happened. But he did not have any evidence to prove his theory, so he stayed silent. But it was the new rising star, Selvan, who rose up to the task as he said, "Your Majesty, I know the reason."
Vijay was surprised when Selvan stood up. If he remembered correctly, Selvan was the new rising star in the Secret Service who fully helped integrate Sri Lanka into the Vijayanagar Empire. Due to this credit, he was promoted to the first echelon of power in the Secret Service. That was the reason why he was allowed to sit here with all these prominent figures.
Selvan quickly stood up and responded, "Yes, Your Highness, It's Like This. I noticed an unusual activity just after the riots started taking place. So, I investigated deeply and found out the reason. I prepared a detailed report; please take a look, Your Highness." Saying that he passed on the document he had prepared before. After Vijay got the document, he motioned Selvan to continue.
"When the riots started happening, I noticed a lot of these rioters seemingly had some sort of hatred towards the Vijayanagar army. They seemed to think that we were similar to the Mughal Empire. Surprisingly, a lot of members of the separatist forces also thought the same. So, I went around investigating the civilians and found out about the atrocities the soldiers committed during the battle. But when I further investigated the internal situation of the Secret Service, I was relieved to find that all the top officers and leaders had nothing to do with these atrocities.
However, when investigating, I ran into a group of suspicious agents nestled in lower ranks. And when I further investigated, I was shocked to say that these people were living such a lavish lifestyle. Following the thread these agents left behind, I was also able to trace this group inside the army. So, Your Highness, I highly suspect a dark organization entrenched inside the Vijayanagar Army and the Secret Service is slowly formed."
This revelation took everyone by surprise. Even the generals were shocked, glaring at him, as claiming that there was a secret organization lurking in their army was tantamount to accusing them of harbouring criminals. Vijay, on the other hand, raised his eyebrows, taken aback. However, Selvan soon continued his speech.
"The secret organization was not formed under anyone's leadership. It originated during the one-year battle. Some greedy officials, soldiers, and agents of the army and the Secret Service wanted to enjoy more benefits than they had at the moment. The amount of money they were seeing every day, which was confiscated from the Mughals and did not belong to them, fueled their lust for money. So, spontaneously, they started to form a huge network of contacts within a certain part of the army to successfully steal money, jewels, and property. This society started within the army, but when the Secret Service got wind of the news, unfortunately, it did not reach the ears of Master Roshan. On the contrary, even the Secret Service was getting corrupted.
With the availability of both information and power, these activities became more rampant. However, they were still controlled during the war. But just after the war, they saw an opportunity and started to rob the nobles on their own. This granted them more wealth than they could imagine. Seeing the wealth, the greed to overpower their senses was stimulated highly. Because of this, they started to rob villages and even commoners' homes. Since there was still no judicial or police force in the newly occupied areas, they took it as an opportunity to run rampant.
I've looked into the matter with the civilians in the occupied territories, and many of them reported incidents of their neighbours' homes being robbed by the Vijayanagara army. There are also distressing reports of Rape of a few girls in their town, and the wrongdoers were identified as individuals wearing the Vijayanagar emblem on their uniform. Your Majesty, from what I've gathered, it appears that due to the lack of direct oversight in their society, lower-level soldiers and officers believed they could go unnoticed, especially with the assistance of The Secret Service agents. Typically, these agents are the first collectors of news, so by cutting off information about the society and filtering out complaints from the people, they made it easier for these actions to occur without immediate detection.
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I've looked into the matter with the civilians in the occupied territories, and many of them reported incidents of their neighbours' homes being robbed by the Vijayanagara army. There are also distressing reports of Rape of a few girls in their town, and the wrongdoers were identified as individuals wearing the Vijayanagar emblem on their uniform. Your Majesty, from what I've gathered, it appears that due to the lack of direct oversight in their society, lower-level soldiers and officers believed they could go unnoticed, especially with the assistance of The Secret Service agents. Typically, these agents are the first collectors of news, so by cutting off information about the society and filtering out complaints from the people, they made it easier for these actions to occur without immediate detection.
Fortunately, with the help of Sir Aditya, who had a lot of subordinates who were very local to the occupied areas, we noticed this problem soon. And collected all the information about the members of this hidden society. If left alone, this could form into a real organization that is completely entrenched inside the armed forces of the Vijayanagara Empire, including both the army and intelligence."
After hearing the whole news, Vijay was shocked as he couldn't help but remember a similar organization in his previous timeline. It was none other than the KGB of the Soviet Union, which had the power of intelligence collection, assassination, espionage, and in some cases, the ability to arrest anyone without proper evidence. At one point, the KGB was so powerful that even the Secretary General of the Soviet Union had to get the support of the head of the KGB to secure his position. Vijay really did not want such an organization to appear in Vijayanagara, so he fully decided to take strict measures. He quickly opened the document Selvan gave him and was relieved that only 5000 people in the army were part of the secret society, along with 445 Secret Service agents. Although it is a lot, now that they have successfully identified this cancer growing inside the Armed Forces and Security Agency, by taking swift action, the problem should be solved for the moment. But to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again, there should be a department to check and balance the intelligence department. Thinking of all this, a plan started to run in his mind.
"Roshan, this is your responsibility. Your six-month salary will be cut. As for you, generals, the same punishment. Six months of your salary will be cut."
Everyone sighed in relief, as the punishment was acceptable. It's not that Vijay was going easy on them, but by further reading the report, he got to know that top officials were really clean and were not involved in this event. On top of that, he could not make this disaster public, as the newly occupied territory would get restless. So he decided to let the news be that they were punished because of corrupt officials in their ranks.
That night, Vijay ordered the execution of the top members of the secret society and the arrest of all the participants in the looting and massacring of civilians in the One-year battle.