Amidst all conflict, strife and murder, you and yours have lasted long by simply sidestepping most of it. Some of the family die far from home, in ports on other coasts. Some of the family die nearby and all too young. But the family endures.
And so does the family business. Beneath the notice of Leadenhall Street and atop the arteries of subcontinental commerce, you and your dynasty have lasted for more than long enough by staying out of notice.
Perhaps it is time to change history.
* * * * * * * * They are always sober, modest, thrifty, and cunning in identifying the source of their profit, which they are always at pain to maximize. They have an exceptional capacity of discovering the humour of those who are in a position to help or hurt them. They flatter those they know they need to be in the good books of. In case of loss, they console themselves easily and can hide their sorrow wonderfully ... In general, they are a people with whom one could get along well so long as one is on one's guard.
- Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein, heer van Mijdrecht, about the Bania merchants of Bengal, 1687
* * * * * * * *
There are sails on the horizon, marked by a great red cross. The sails are purest white, marred by sea-foam and the winds of half the globe, and the cross is red as wine, red as blood, red as the ledgers aboard. They coast into harbor with half their sailors sick or flea-ridden, the captains on the quarterdeck tall and proud and zealous as they bark the orders to dock. Cannon are rolled out just in case, as the teeming mass of dhows, coastal luggers, and the occasional junk are all too close for comfort – the port is larger than the newcomers are used to, the accoutrements of its officials glittering with gold thread and more suited to a duke than a port-captain.
The captain has a great black beard and a crucifix hanging from his neck, a doublet and hose richly fastened with what silks he brought with him and yet worn by the voyage from across the world. He steps down from the ship almost gingerly, and the port authorities – such as they are – come to meet this voyager with trumpets and elephants and ceremonial. The governor of the region is curious, and wishes to know what the newcomers want. Where they came from. What tax they will pay.
Most of all, the latter.
The governor meets the adventurer-captain in a meeting hall older than half the kingdoms on the other side of the world, pillars scarred by age and warfare shrouded with silks and tapestries. He is seemingly gracious, an avaricious glint in his eye as he examines the letters that the adventurer hands him. Letters written in courtly Arabic and other languages besides, speaking of spice and trade and most of all silver.
The adventurer is a Christian, but there are few of that breed here in any case. When asked about his faith, about conflicts with the port, about the piracy haunting the seas, he swears he comes in peace to trade. In the name of his king, his nation, and his God, he comes in peace. And in the name of the family of da Gama, whose name he bears, he comes to trade.
The governor nods slowly, an advisor whispering in his ear as the court begins to murmur. The haze of novelty hangs over the day like a pleasant whisper in the senses, and the court itself sees a main chance. For some, it is an opponent that has already ravaged the Mediterranean and about whom tales have been sung in souks from Cairo to Tunis. For some, it is a new trade captain and envoy, another power bloc on the great chessboard of the continent. For yet others, it is silver coinage gleaming bright and pure, perhaps marked by the odd cross that the captain wears on a necklace. None of them can hear what the governor's advisor says.
The advisor draws back. The governor smiles, teeth stained red by betel-nut and the gifts of the captain lying at his feet. A fine cloth cap or six. Coral, with the sheen of the seas. Sugar, oil, honey, the work of artisans thousands of leagues away. The governor frowns. The captain himself smiles a smile that fails to reach his eyes, and warily watches the court as he answers a final question with an apologetic tone. There is no silver, no gold, no tax that he shall give. He comes as a royal envoy, and will be treated as such.
A stamp rises. A stamp descends. A trumpet begins to sing.
The fleet leaves with damaged ships and sixteen fishermen impressed by force into its ranks, sailing towards the setting sun. The captain has anger in his eyes and vengeance on his lips, and in time his God will grant it.
Two year later, another captain with sails of white blazoned with a cross as red as blood comes across the oceans. There are no gifts that he brings save war.
In this, he fails. For now.
* * * * * * * * * *
On Leadenhall Street in London, where the Thames flows thick and dark and muddy beneath a cold and rainy sky, there is a building with a richly carved frontage and polished wooden doors. There is a doorman at that portal, his uniform splendid in comparison to the port-workers around him, opening the door and saluting the sober gentlemen in dark clothes who seem to almost inhabit that building. If one asked the doorman, he would tell you that this was the Honorable Company, and gesture to the wrought iron signage that adorns the building's frontage. If one went inside, past the doorman and the doors of exotic teak, there is a secretary. If one asked him what went on here, in the den of the wealthy abutting the Thames, he would say that it was Trade with India. If one asked the director, chief among those who inhabited the building and spun webs of commerce and speculation to beguile kings and lords alike, he would tell you that the great trial and greatest loss ahead was War.
Far, far from Leadenhall Street in London, there are mountains on the coast of India that shield a plateau in the interior. The clans of the mountains and their king have called for aid from Leadenhall Street, and the Honorable Company has found it profitable to answer. Ships come from across the world, bearing red-jacketed soldiers who march like marionettes with motions drilled time and again. Their uniforms are almost a target, bright red coats with long tails, pipeclayed cross-belts white in the subcontinental sun holding cartridges for the muskets that are fired in volleys from the line. The mountain kings are the same ones that once almost held India, and the ones that face them have allies who fly the fleur-de-lis.
The Company's soldiers initially do not do well. Profits shrink, the army is thinned as its outposts are taken by the illiterate king of the Carnatic at the head of his French-trained army. Despite the rains of the monsoon and the biting heat of the summer, the campaign presses on until at last, on the coast and facing more of Leadenhall Street's prized infantry, it does not.
More Company troops come from the mountains to the north, and the promise of loot and a black ledger drives the Company's mighty and its generals as much as it calls to the private soldiers with the song of clinking coin. There are peace offers made by the king, offers of gold and land that are rejected. Leadenhall Street has scented blood, with the long experience of the London Exchange and the finely honed noses of the near-pirate commanders in the field.
Needless to say, much blood is shed. The fields of the Deccan are well-fertilized under the summer monsoon.
Peace comes, but it comes under a red-and-white striped flag with a Union Jack on its canton.
The southern subcontinent slowly, slowly burns as gold flows first into pockets and thence to London.
* * * * * * *
.... All the city's people found within the walls of the city of Delhi when our troops entered were bayoneted on the spot, and the number was considerable, as you may suppose, when I tell you that in some houses forty and fifty people were hiding. These were not mutineers but residents of the city, who trusted to our well-known mild rule for pardon. I am glad to say they were disappointed...
* * * * * * *
Pune is a hot place in summer. The plains of Maharashtra in summer have a humid heat, prickly and irritating. When one wears a uniform made of wool and with high-collared coats, when one spends time on a parade field under a bright, glaring sun, the heat does more than irritate. Tempers fray. Tension spikes. Some turn to drink, some to lassitude, some to the city's fleshpots.
That, perhaps, is why the incident began. That, most certainly, is why the buildup to it was not noticed. After all, when one is barely coping with the heat and the humidity and fresh from the green fields of England, the fine points of native language and customs are not what one observes.
Excuses? Probably.
On the coast of the subcontinent, the weavers are hungry. Cloth has begun to flow into the nation far faster than before, and the Honorable Company has begun to push prices well below starvation wages for the native weavers. There are mills in Manchester that have workers and magnates to support, and to feed the great industrial cities across the world there are costs to be borne.
They are borne by starving families across the subcontinent, farmers indentured to grow dye and nothing else, by weaver-families who have known their trade for more than a century. Dreams, heritage, and what little pride there was is rendered dust in the name of Progress and Company, the pittances of thousands upon thousands paying for the mansions of Lancashire and the ornate gardens of the Home Counties.
In the interior, the princes are restless. The throne in Delhi is a puppet of a Resident who hands out favors with the careless ease of one who does not know their significance. The great game of court ceremonial is a hollow one played by a blind emperor and his puppetmaster as the taxes and lands that were the emperor's gift are now used to feed the bloated ships that gently rock in harbor.
On the parade ground, the troops in their red uniforms under the Pune sun are handed muskets. New muskets, with new cartridges. There is a smell of lard in the paper wrapping, and the powder is slick with grease. The firing drills are a failure. The troops refuse to work the guns.
For the Muslims, it is pork that they must bite into for unwrapping the cartridge. For Hindus, it is meat that they have to bite into. Neither does it. The lines of redcoated infantry stand rigidly stiff in the sun as their officers shout and threaten and cajole. They do not move.
An example is chosen. A whip whistles. The whip is caught before it lands, and a gun goes off.
An officer dies.
The subcontinent catches fire. In the name of a blind emperor, in the name of affronts too many to mention, there is a war. There are atrocities against those viewed as oppressors and those who are innocent, the settling of more grievances than just those born of the Honorable Company. And across the world in London, there is a hue and cry. A royal hand in London signs a law, a strident voice in Parliament tells tales of terror, and a nation marches to the call of Leadenhall Street.
Peace, when it comes, is on the wings of blood and terror.
A blind emperor is herded from a threadbare, decaying hall by bayonet, put on trial in a court that hates him and in a language that he cannot speak. He is old and sick. He is made to leave his country. He will die in exile, among those who refused to desert him.
Soldiers in red uniforms herd sepoys in rags to a stand. Dozens are tried at a time, a justice system and laws that they cannot read or understand without explanation. Muslims and Hindus, Sikhs and others are brought up on trial in the name of Christian principles of the King's law, and summarily given a choice. A bullet or a noose.
Eventually, the choice is withdrawn. Bullets are more convenient.
A year later, an empress comes to the throne of the subcontinent. The Honorable Company is dissolved.
Beneath the surface of peace and the endless whirl of a new colonial aristocracy, some embers yet simmer. Slow, sure, and enduring.
Yours are not those. Amidst all this conflict, strife and murder, you and yours have lasted long by simply sidestepping most of it. Some of the family die far from home, in ports on other coasts. Some of the family die nearby and all too young. But the family endures.
And so does the family business. Beneath the notice of Leadenhall Street and atop the arteries of subcontinental commerce, you and your dynasty have lasted for more than long enough by staying out of notice.
Perhaps it is time to change history.
* * * * * * * * *
Pick one: You are a merchant dynasty that will play through the Raj's existence, from 1858 to 1947 or whenever independence comes. While you have to maintain profits and keep yourselves alive, remember that history is rarely changed by those who do not act. At the same time, calamities and the folly of nations can cripple you for decades, so be wary and keep a weather eye on your rumor mills and spy networks. Different commodities will have different markets, uses, and price fluctuations:
Dye: Sold mainly to Europeans in the form of indigo as well as other more esoteric natural dyes from the subcontinent, this is grown in plantation by sharecroppers. Its growth is backed by the edict of the Viceroy and the Raj is implicitly required to maintain a certain productivity to feed England - however, note that the security of the dye trade is often weighed against the havoc it wreaks with the lives of rural India. Asia is also a market for indigo, but pays a tad less.
Spices: Sold to Europe and to a lesser extent the rest of the world from India, spices are lucrative but becoming less so year on year as production from European colonies goes up. However, they are not at all likely to be replaced in Europe and will always have a market. Some spices are grown mainly in India and sold onwards in Asia as well.
Cotton: Grown in plantations to feed the mills of Lancashire, the hunger for cotton is only growing. Cotton is sold mainly to British merchant houses in the Mediterranean and the Indian coast, who aggregate the influx from more than one middleman merchant like yourself and sell it onwards to Britain. Or, of course, to some of the new small mills in China, India, or elsewhere in Europe.
Coffee: Coffee is grown in Africa, in India, and in Arabia, and is sold onwards to a thirsty population in Europe. You deal with plantations that you might have a stake in, plantations that might be run by Europeans, and native plantations that all sell to you, and you in turn will sell onwards to Europe or elsewhere. There is a market for coffee outside of Europe as well.
Tea: Grown at present in small amounts in northeastern India and being slowly expanded by British fiat, tea is increasingly in demand in Europe and most of all in Britain. Almost all of your tea will be sold onwards to Britain using British factors through trade stations in the Mediterranean and India due to the prices at present, although that can and probably will change. Of course, there are again markets for tea outside of Britain.
Grain: What is described. The coastal grain trade, from raw grain to the milled, finished product. Usually rice, wheat or millet. Bulky and usually sold off nearby rather than internationally.
Iron: Iron from India is often worked into more valuable finished products such as ships' parts, ploughs, and the like, and sold within the nation. Iron and most other metals don't travel far along the great routes that encircle Asia and the globe, being far too commonplace for that.
Bear in mind that other goods and routes will become possible, not just the usual middleman to England or the Med/Africa that is popular at present.
[]Bengal: You are one of the Bania merchants of Bengal, traders in spice, grain, and tea besides. Ships leave the ports on the Ganges for destinations as varied as Britain, China, Malacca, and Burma, while at the same time gold flows into the cities of Bengal from England, paying for its soldiers and supplies on the subcontinent. Bengal is perhaps the wealthiest part of the Raj at present, yet also a home for agitators aplenty. You must be judicious here, but there are plenty of contacts to be made. Primary trade: Dye, Tea, Spices. Staple Trades: Grain, Textiles. More British scrutiny, more agitators locally, more prosperous area initially.
[]Bombay: The primary Company port in the subcontinent and thus far more connected to British trade to Europe, and growing rapidly. New industrial developments north of the Presidency are intended to feed the mills of Lancashire and generate raw materials for the Empire, and there are always London merchants willing to sell here. As a result, import-export businesses with contacts in the interior of India have sprung up like wildfire, as have traders in cotton from the massive plantations in northern India. Primary trade: Cotton, Spices, Coffee. Staple Trades: Iron, Textiles. More rapid growth, less initial scrutiny, more European influence and contact.
QM Note: The above narration, I will admit, has a certain bias. On the other hand, it is factually correct in broad strokes. If someone wishes to inform me on the merits of colonial rule in India and the like, this is not the place. Please take it elsewhere.
Last but certainly not least: There will not for the moment be a Discord for this quest or for other quests of mine. Please do not coordinate votes and so on using Discord. If there is discussion to make, keep it in thread.
Bombay was central, had been so from the moment of its creation: the bastard child of a Portuguese-English wedding, and yet the most Indian of Indian cities. In Bombay all Indias met and merged. In Bombay, too, all-India met what-was-not-India, what came across the black water to flow into our veins. Everything north of Bombay was North India, everything south of it was South. To the east lay India's east and to the west, the world's West. Bombay was central; all rivers flowed into its human sea. It was an ocean of stories; we were its narrators, and everybody talked at once.
-Salman Rushdie
It's humid in a Bombay summer, almost unbearably so. The city wakes late and wakes slowly, the rising hubbub of millions greeting the blue salt-tang of the sea at morning's tide. In the faint, faint background of one's ears is the song of wind seeking the seas as choppy water washes against the docks far, far from the bungalow that squats green-painted, walled off and somehow defensive amid the muddy roads and sporadic Government traffic of Bandra. The bungalow itself is scarred, scorchmarks on the great barred wooden gate where a watchman paces to and fro, magnificent mustaches and a uniform bedecked with braid. It is tall and solid yet somehow rickety, leaning ever so slightly to one side with its second story balconies opening out to the roads and looking across the frontage to the sea. For the Brahmin who raps on the gate in the morning, it's a familiar, somehow comforting sight amid the tumult of the last few years.
There's a rattling as the windows of the balcony open up, weathered green shutters greeting daylight and the casual salute of the gate-watchman. With a bleary blinking and a twitch of a thinning moustache, Vijay Chandekar stares outwards from the bungalow's balcony to the barely-visible masthead in Bombay Harbor. Ever so faintly visible and far, far from the muddy streets of Bandra with its wealthier 'native' population are the great tea-clippers rocking in harbor, their mastheads soaring above the roofs and buildings that obscure the ships and giving forth a Union Jack that flutters in the morning breeze. Chandekar looks at them as if remembering something, and then shakes his head sharply before heading back inside.
There is work to be done.
In the room is a writing desk, sunbeams filtering in through mosquito netting on the windows to land limpid on letters from a dozen different small traders. Vijay sits down heavily in a cushioned chair, takes a calming sip of the tea that Renu laid out for him before heading downstairs and looks up sharply when there's a rapping at the door. He sighs, straightens in the chair, and calls out "Who is it?"
"The Brahmin is here. About the ceremonies." Renu's head pokes inside as she opens the door ever so slightly, worn wood on old hinges groaning as it opens. Her hair's thinned and gone more and more gray ever since last year, and Vijay just wishes she would slow down a little and come to terms with things instead of herding the rest of the family. She shakes her head, "You know what I'm talking about, husband of mine. The funerals."
"Oh." Yes. That. "I thought it was for the cleansing." And to be honest, Vijay would sooner forget about the final anniversary ceremonies.
Renu, however, does not. "That was two of your brothers. It's been a year since then, and we need to remember them. We-"
"We'll remember them." Vijay's hand tightens on the chair's armrest and he leans forward on the table, swallowing before he speaks. A portrait hangs above the door, and he points at it. "I won't forget them. You know that. Not my brothers."
"Y-Yes." Renu nods a little before pausing, a little defensively. "It's still the thing to do. To help them rest."
"Yes." It also helps Renu come to terms, and that's the only reason the avuncular Brahmin is allowed inside the house. So Vijay Chandekar sighs heavily, gets up from his ledgers, and heads outside. At least Renu relaxes a little when he does, so there's that.
The portrait of the six brothers above the door smiles at an emptying room as the merchant leaves, a happier moment caught like a fly in amber. A moment to always remember. A time before '57.
You have 3 Profit. Check the Informational on Dynasty Status for your income. The following are the actions you will choose to work on as priorities for1858-1870. Unless otherwise stated, as many per category as you can afford may be taken.
You may borrow another 2 Profit, paying back one and a half times what you borrow, rounded up to the nearest half.
Trade Actions:
[]Shift Trade to a different commodity: There are other things that are more profitable than dyes in Calcutta, and it might be a good idea to shift to a different market on that route. For all that dyes are profitable, they're also being grown more and more on the large European-owned plantations that lock you out of the middleman business. Shift commodity on the Calcutta station to one of: Tea (1-3 Profit), Spices (0-2 Profit). Costs 1 Profit, reduces Contacts by 1 in the area.
[]Expand the Calcutta Station: Indrajit has been agitating to get more of a presence in Calcutta, whether that means dealing in different goods or expanding the number of commodities that the family outpost there can handle. This will add one more commodity to the Calcutta trade station. Each added commodity makes upgrading your contacts more expensive, and downgrades the existing Contacts by 1, to a minimum of 1. Costs 0.5 Profit.
-[]Tea: The station ought to focus on tea, grown in eastern India and shipped in from China and the Far East before collection and transshipment to Britain. 1-3 Profit, more British competition.
-[]Spices: Spices such as saffron, cardamom, or cumin grown inland and then sent onwards to Britain and to other markets such as East Africa, the Middle East, and at times the Mediterranean. Calcutta will be exporting these. 0-2 profit.
[]Rebuild the Bombay Station: Vijay Chandekar can deal in commodities himself, rebuilding the family warehouses and infrastructure in the city – what little there was, at least. That can allow purchasing agents to go up to Gujarat and inland Maharashtra to buy cotton for export, and potentially later on process it here and now. After all, if the Parsis can talk about setting up a mill why can't you? Costs 1 Profit, sets up a station in Bombay run by the family head. This will focus on Cotton initially (0-3 Profit barring a market fluctuation). Begins with Contacts in this station at 2/5.
[]Networking: Spend some money on networking, on entertaining guests, and on making the right sort of friends in the area they're needed. If you do them favors – anything from entertaining them to forgiving some loans of theirs – then you might have the backing you need later on. Costs 0.5 Profit.
-[]Write in station: Yes, a new station is acceptable.
--[]Focus on:
---[-]British Establishment: Locked. You are not famed enough.
---[]The Local Merchants: Wherever in India one goes, there are enough smalltime traders in the feeder routes that agglomerate to your warehouses, the ones who ship from the villages or even the village market-stall men themselves. These men and women are a useful source in the chain, albeit one that has little official power.
---[]The Other Shippers: There are also large traders, of all stripes. There are other Hindus in the commodity trade, dealing in grain and spice and tea. There are the Islamic horse traders of the peninsula, selling the magnificent horses of Persia and Arabia in the subcontinent. There are Parsis, dealers in cotton and silks and sellers of opium to China. All that and more, and it's best to know one's competition – and potentially gain allies there.
Family Actions: Take up to two:
[]Recruit Family: There are four young men reaching adulthood, four boys who haven't made a decision in life yet. Surely the same business as their forefathers is a better choice than wild fancies of poetry or culture or paying one's way to Britain for university? Will pressure one boy to work for the family business, gain one Family Member. Starts with trait: Discontent (Pressured into working for the family business, he needs time to gain a balance in life. Be wary of heaping too much pressure on this boy's shoulders, lest he collapse or worse). One more trait will be rolled from a table.
[]Rebuild the Inland Estates (Step 1): The estates from which the family runs its grain trade were damaged in the chaos of the Uprising, albeit only in part. It is time to rebuild them and seek to cement the title we held, lest we lose money and potentially land later on. Costs 1 Profit, improves grain trade output (now moves to 1-2 per turn). This will also rebuild ties with the landed branch of the family.
[]Reward Indrajit: Indrajit has been a bulwark in these times, for all that you disagree with his notion of what the family ought to do. It is best to show that appreciation here and now lest he be taken for granted, although a suitable reward is expensive – he has been away for long enough that he wants a house in Calcutta and his wife to travel there from Bombay. Costs 0.5 Profit, will establish Indrajit as the head of the Calcutta station (until he retires or you have cause to remove him), marries him off. Special Actions: Take up to two:
[]Entertaining: Vijay has been more or less withdrawn from public life following the death of two of his brothers with their families in '57 and the aftermath. Perhaps now that it's been a year, now that the funerals are long since done and most of the city is slowly going back to its routine, perhaps reentering the public sphere is a good idea. Will rebuild one old contact (rolled in background), and allow actions to entertain or engage in charitable giving, thereby raising the profile of your family and gaining access to more opportunities.
[]Family Ties: While the public sphere is still hard to manage after the chaos and crisis of the last few years, perhaps it might be good to focus on rebuilding ties to the inland, landed branch of the family as well as the local merchants with whom the family has been working with for a long, long time. While that will be a time-consuming effort, it'll pay off in the long run. Increases ties with inland branch of the family, unlocking more actions in the hinterland. This will expire this turn, as ties are rebuilt slowly, more gradually and perhaps not as closely as before.
[]A Goan Opportunity: One of the iron mines in Portuguese Goa has gone bankrupt, the owner a wealthy Parsi in the Bombay Parsi community. While his community would normally have first dibs on the mine, the fact that he married a non-Parsi has made him persona non grata and therefore allowed the mine to be put up for sale more openly. Why not bid? After all, iron is always in demand. Unlocks the Iron staple route, a second one in addition to grain. 1-2 Profit per turn. This will mildly displease the Parsi community of Bombay, a rich and influential group who control a large chunk of the opium trade as well as other routes. Costs 1 Profit.
AN: Please vote by plan. Feedback is, as always, welcome. Tag me with questions.
As someone with a parent from Calcutta, I mildly disagree with the opening quote
Decision: Cotton mills? Industry?
--Muslim ties due to Parsi-Muslim riots and resentment, part ownership and part funding
--Parsi noncompete offer, to stay out of cotton mills and supply them
Outcome Bonus: 1 Profit one-time gain over and above below, can be burned for cotton mill unlock.
Outcome bonus: Family Connections: Singapore (Minor)
--Decision: Trade Station Singapore? Potential contacts: Singapore Tongs
Profits: 2+1+0.5*(1+1+1 (Iron+Grain+Cotton, halved from setup time))=1.5+2+1=4.5
1860
At the coast of Maharashtra, where the sea crashes angrily against the rocky coast of the western mountains, is Bombay. Its island are like the gems on a necklace, gleaming with cities and light even as their inhabitants come from all over India and from across the world. Yet the vast potential of Bombay, the teeming sweat-ambition tang of opportunity that seems to suffuse its air from the heights of the British mansions to the sweepers' hovels, would not ever be realized without the Presidency's hinterland. Or at least, that's what the branch of the family that stayed in the countryside always told Vijay Chandekar.
The Presidency of Bombay is more than just Bombay, they said, more than just the ports like Surat that feed the voracious commercial engine born of a Portuguese marriage and yoked to the Honorable Company. As Vijay Chandekar leans back in a rocking railway carriage and drowsily stares out the cabin's windows, the lands that once ruled Bombay and Maharashtra pass by like the ephemeral flotsam of history. The train – the new train, built to ferry British troops from the cantonment at Poona to the port and barracks at Bombay – passes by the dry, hot Marathi highlands at speeds that would have been unbelievable a bare decade before. Vijay sighs a little, looks across at his sleeping wife and asks the bearer that came with them for a cup of tea. It'll be a long way to the highland farms and orchards near Poona, where family awaits.
It turns out to take the better part of a day, the train clacking along from just after dawn until the sun begins to dip beneath the horizon in the humid Marathi dusk. Past farms and villages, along new-laid tracks and with the same train food that damn near gave Vijay a heart attack a year ago, the train moves onwards until the old merchant falls asleep. Renu wakes up sometime along the way, and Vijay wakes up two hours from Poona to the smell of tea and a wife who's imperiously ordering the train's tea-wallahs around.
The family's ancestral lands aren't in Poona, but a few hours from it. Once there, gates that swing open before Vijay, his wife, and the few servants that came along are scratched and scarred. Vijay doesn't bother with the theatrical tutting of his wife at the way things are in the 'country', but just walks inside. He's met at the door by a collection of family members, the solemn bearded face of his cousin Shiv front and center. There's a ceremonious greeting as the servants come out to see to the luggage, and Vijay and Renu are soon inside at a table laid for dinner while Shiv drones on and on about the repairs being made to the estates.
Still, there is one detail that catches Vijay's attention. "You were saying something about the weavers, Shiv?"
Shiv pauses for a moment in the middle of a long-winded speech about the field drainage, nodding with an abashed look on his face. He takes a moment to help himself to some more of the rice and dal, before continuing. "The weavers have not had an easy time of it, I'm afraid. The last two years have had more of those British cloth sellers coming up here, and it's cheaper than what they have."
"How bad is it?" Renu's soft interjection gets heads turning in her direction, not least from Shiv's wife Geeta. Vijay sighs internally and keeps a polite face on things as Geeta's eyes sharpen a little when his wife speaks. Renu on the other hand carefully ignores the other woman at the table while some of the relatives further down – cousins of some form or another – and continues. "I know that the Bombay weavers are out of work and indigent. How are things here?"
"Things are better than Bombay, dear." Geeta smiles at Renu as she serves Shiv some dessert, "The Britishers aren't here in force yet, and their cloth still isn't selling yet."
Shiv nods absently as if to confirm his wife's words, "Yes, yes. On the other hand, we have more than enough from the estate in terms of income to give them some charity. And some work. We can keep our lands afloat, Vijay, don't you worry about that."
"I never was, cousin." Vijay holds up his hands as if to say perish the thought, and gets a reluctant smile from his cousin. Things have been tense with Shiv lately, with the family being scattered across India for the madness of '57, but things are slowly being patched. Vijay takes a sip of buttermilk before continuing, "We're two parts of the same family, and you know as well as I do what happened to family left alone. Adit and Murali, well…."
As Vijay trails off, his cousin just nods soberly. "Six brothers to four, and Indrajit over in Calcutta. You and me are all that's here at home, Vijay. I understand." Shiv doesn't go into detail or relitigate the events that led to that, and for that Vijay is thankful. The last few years were bad enough.
"Six brothers to four, and no children from one of them." Geeta's voice is high and clear, her hawk-nosed features suddenly shadowed as she relights the oil lamps at the table. "We are a dwindling family, Vijay."
Renu bristles again, and her husband sighs. Sometimes family can drive him mad, but it certainly beats the alternatives. Deftly changing the subject – at least by his standards, deftly – Shiv coughs and cuts into the brewing argument. "Speaking of sons, one of my boys wants to go abroad. After that Parsi, Naoroji, got elected to the British Parliament he's been all about foreign places."
Vijay nods again, more carefully. "I'll see if I can find him a place. I might know some people, and somewhere closer to home would be better."
Shiv nods again, worry clear in his eyes all the same.
1861
The docks of Bombay are busy at all times of the day, even this early in the morning as the sun begins to complete its rise. Even with the hot weather of summer just beginning to turn to the humidity of the monsoon, the docks are crowded with people. In this case near the dockyard officials' offices where British excise personnel and the trade board are housed, the docks are crowded with a rather more prosperous class of person. Rather than the worn coarse clothing and work-hardened muscles of dockworkers, the frontage of the Trade Offices once housing the Honorable Company are home to the silks and paunches of Bombay's traders.
Vijay Chandekar is among them, leafing through a pamphlet that was passed to him by another trader closer to the building. Printed on it in cheap lettering is what purports to be the COTTON STIMULUS ACT OF 1861, and on further reading isn't an act of Parliament but a motion made by a number of British trade associations. Vijay snorts at reading their 'entreaty to India' and makes as if to throw it before instead passing it behind. The man who takes the leaflet is a great bearded bear of a trader, belted knife at his waist and colourful green turban drawing the eye.
Vijay nods at the pamphlet as he passes it along, "It isn't a law. This is some sort of call for cotton from England, something to do with the American war."
The big man grins at that, laughing at a joke only he knows. He shakes his head when he sees Vijay's raised eyebrow, "No, no, Lutuf Ullah owes me five annas. I bet him that the Americans wouldn't sell cotton now that they're at war with themselves, and now they're not. There's a gaping hole in the English cotton supply chain now."
"So an opportunity for someone who knows the cotton trade, then?" Vijay's leading question is asked with a smile, the shorter Marathi having to look up at the Muslim. On a second's further thought, Vijay extends a hand the way the English do all too often, "Vijay Chandekar, cotton merchant."
The tall trader shakes it roughly after staring at it for a minute, "Ibrahim Abbasi, Hajji and merchant. I deal in cotton, yes, but through Egypt. And horses, which is why I am here. I bring a shipment of Arabians to India, and I am met with good news. A wonderful day."
"They're desperate for cotton, then?" One of the other traders nearby cuts into the conversation, round face tense and sweaty.
Ibrahim Abbasi nods ponderously, beard rustling against the front of his shalwar. "In Egypt they are all abuzz with it, the cotton shortage is making the Khedive a very rich man. If you have cotton of the right sort, babuji, it will make you much money." The merchant seems to bristle a little at being called babu, like a clerk or a Government assessor, but thanks the foreigner all the same.
Abbasi for his part just nods again, seemingly satisfied that all is right with the world.
1862
Gurudas Gheewalla is a tense, pale man, made to seem more so by the thick dark beard that so contrasts with the rest of him. As he sits down in front of Vijay Chandekar in the chill of a Bombay November, he's all pale, balding head and voluminous shalwar-qamiz. He huddles a little as if trying to warm up, but hesitantly turns down Vijay's offer of tea or sweets to instead pull out a thick sheaf of documents from his leather case.
The documents are passed across the table with a rustling of vellum, with Vijay starting to leaf through them as one of the servants brings in tea and sweets regardless. Gurudas slowly takes a cup of the tea before helping himself to the sweet, fried jalebi, chewing ruminatively before asking "I trust the documents are as expected?"
The documents are as expected indeed, which is to say that Vijay did not expect to understand much of them. They're in Portuguese, marked repeatedly with the seal of the Portuguese Viceroy at Goa and signed by Gheewalla as well as another foreign name. The text itself is also in Portuguese or in the local Goan dialect, and despite it being written in Hindi it isn't something that Vijay can quite grasp. All the same, though, it'll head for a solicitor before anything else is done. That much is something that Vijay can tell to the Parsi in front of him, the younger man's beard moving as he grimaces on hearing that.
"I was hoping that we could conclude something soon." Gheewalla spreads his hands apologetically after setting the teacup down with a click of porcelain on wood that's loud in the still, quiet study. In the distance, there's the call of a fishmonger taking his cart past the Bandra bungalows. "You see, I've had some financial difficulties. I used to keep what I had with the community, but they're being slow with things. After that marriage-"
"I know." Vijay interrupts a tale he's heard before, one that's been the talk of the Bombay Parsi community for a month and a half now and that after it's been public but quiet knowledge for a year. "You married a Hindu and the Parsi community here is angry. I understand that. But you do understand that I can't risk what I have on an unknown deal." He gestures at the stack of paper on the desk, the iron mine's purported deed. "That is Portuguese. I cannot read Portuguese. You will have to wait, Gurudas. At least for a week, while the solicitor sorts things out. You knew that when we began talking."
"Yes, yes." Gheewalla shakes his head as if to dismiss that, "I knew that then, but now that I can't get my old assets easily, well." He shrugs helplessly, and Vijay slowly nods.
The older man takes a chequeboook from a desk-drawer, scrawling something down and signing before tearing off the leaf. "That should do for some of this. You know my banker, that should get you some of the payment."
"Thank you." Gheewalla seems about to say something more, and just takes the cheque instead. Vijay waves aside the thanks, and conversation turns instead to other matters. With the deed to the mine and the bills of sale stamped with the Goan governor's seal, all that remains is for the solicitor to look it over. In the meantime, Vijay changes the subject to plans for the future, and Gurudas obliges him with no little relief. The Parsi regales the older man with stories of opportunities in Singapore, where a new port and a new city on the Straits are still undergoverned, the new frontier of the empire.
Well after Gurudas leaves, when the sun begins to set that November, Vijay gets a letter. A thick envelope with his cousin Shiv's handwriting on the front, Renu passing it over to him at the dinner table.
12th November, 1862
Vijay,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. Myself and Geeta are fine, here near Pune. The estate has grown in the time it has had, and the money that you've spent on it will soon repay itself. Of that I can assure you – the harvest has been a good one this year. We have no little trouble elsewhere, though, with my boy Adit constantly hassling us about going abroad. He's been of great help here in managing things, and we have done our best to get him an education, but he isn't content to get married and settle down yet. I hope that he won't turn out like Indrajit and settle far from home and family, but I worry that he will. At any rate, we are fine but have some issues.
Geeta has told me to tell you about the weavers, as well. I can tell you that things are slowly getting worse here, the British cloth has slowed due to their cotton shortages but they're still slowly drawing off the market. We've done what we can for them, but that isn't much. Most of the weaver community is heading for the cities. Like Bombay.
Anyways, Adit is intent on going to make his fortune. He has heard too much about Indrajit and the buildup of the Calcutta trade, and wants to make a fortune in the same manner. He keeps talking about Singapore, about the new port being built there and the city's recent expansion. I don't think he will go on his own, but if you know anyone in Singapore or you are setting things up in there, I ask that you keep my son Adit in mind…
[…]
...In the meantime, I hope that you remain well, as does Renu. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your bearer Bahadur, after he had been with you for twelve years, and I hope that his family has been looked after.
Yours faithfully,
Shiv
1864
Diwali is a festival of lights and sound, the bursting of firecrackers a rhythmic accompaniment to the lamplight and elaborate statuary on display at public celebrations. The British military police on duty tense up at each firecracker burst, and the elaborately dressed merchants of Bombay at the Bandra celebrations very carefully do not notice. There are a hundred different celebrations in Bombay on Diwali evening, from the ones in the oilseed-mill slums to the Governor's mansion throwing a ball for the local British officers, every one of them carefully ignoring most of the others.
Vijay and his wife are soon sucked into the great whirl of the festival of lights, incense and offerings placed before the idols at the back of the pavilion a stark contrast to the new-made wealth on display by the merchants anxious to show it off. A familiar voice from behind calls out to him, and he turns to see Hajji Ibrahim Abbasi smiling with a trace of discomfort in his eyes.
"I didn't expect to meet you here, Chandekar." He pauses a little as if to take in the scenery of a Hindu festival, "Although I don't suppose you expected me here as well."
"No, that I did not." Vijay racks his brain for a moment before remembering where they had met earlier, "So how has the Egyptian cotton trade been treating you, Hajji? I personally have made a decent bit off the Indian one."
"Good, good." Abbasi drains his mug of lassi before setting it down on a nearby table, the cheap wooden surface already crowded with used dishes. "On the other hand, I have an offer for you. At least, since you seem to have some assets to spare and you have a good reputation in my community."
"Your community?"
"Muslims." He sighs for a moment, "We have been having some difficulties with the Parsis and the Hindus after that riot two years ago, although that was not our fault."
A woman briefly bumps into Vijay and apologizes, and he catches Renu's eye from across the room. She raises an eyebrow as if to ask whether Vijay needs a socially acceptable exit, and Vijay shakes his head a little as if to say Let me talk before turning back to Ibrahim Abbasi with a calculating gleam in his eye and a tense feeling in his gut. "The riots were supposedly because of a newspaper editorial."
"A newspaper editorial attacking the Prophet, three days after Eid." Abbasi's voice is a low rumble now, the big northern trader suddenly a bit more menacing.
All the same though, "I won't be used as a stick to poke the Parsis with. You understand that?"
"Yes, yes." Abbasi waves a hand dismissively, "You won't be. I want a Hindu to run it because of the way things are, and you have a good reputation. I would have gone and found you later if we hadn't met today, you know."
"Mhm."
Abbasi nods deeply as if to reinforce his point, "I want to start a cotton mill. There's a market for the raw cloth as well as the crop, and we might as well save ourselves the shipping costs to England."
"A mill?" Vijay frowns at that, "And the permits for the mill? The Viceroy's order? What do we do about the British?"
"There are rumors that the Parsis have that in hand." Abbasi looks down at him with a distant, calculating look in his eyes that belies the bluff Sindhi trader facade, "If Jamsetji Tata can build a cotton mill, or at least talk about it, why can we not?"
Vijay looks down at his half-finished lassi and nods slowly, "Maybe."
1866
July 15th, 1866
Dear Vijay,
I hope that you and Renu are fine, and that business is good. The fact that the American war has ended means that cotton prices have begun to drop, but there is talk in the Pune bazaar that the British will try to keep their cotton trade to the empire rather than deal with the Americans again. Or so some of their officers have said. Things are fine over here, we have had a good monsoon so far and the fields have had enough water and more. Some of the cattle have taken sick and died, and the sharecroppers have begun to seek work in the cities. There isn't enough land to go around, and the weavers – some of them the wives of our tenants – do not have any work. There is no-one buying their cloth, no market for the handloom fabrics…
[…]
...My son Adit has recently taken a ship for Singapore, to seek his fortune he says. Most probably out of disagreement with us as to what he would do in life. I had suggested the army, but he does not wish to serve under an English officer and does not like the strictures of Army life. Singapore, to him, is a chance to seek another path far from the life on the land. If you know anyone in Singapore, please do let me know. I will put them in touch with Adit, and perhaps he can do some beneficial work for you…
Yours faithfully,
Shiv
September 19th, 1866
Sir,
Once again, I have to thank you for the payments regarding the mine. The mine is now fully paid off, and I wish you the best with its output. The modernization and the Portuguese taxes had sapped my ability to pay, but it still makes money despite all that…
[…]
...Singapore is a place of opportunity for now, with the British Governor still struggling to get the colony set up. They are bringing in Sikhs to be the police and garrison, but there are as yet not very many of them, and the English are ravaged by fever and disease. They do not seem to be a very clean people...[…]…The city itself is a hub of the Indies trade, with the Dutch and the Indies merchants shipping to Europe from here. There are a large number of Chinese merchant associations here, called tongs, that do business with the Qing. Lucrative, but risky business, chief among them the opium trade. I have read your earlier letter about your nephew Adit, and have taken him in hand here in Singapore. He is a reckless but brave young man, with a tendency to say the wrong thing at times. I would suggest that he not be given too much responsibility at present, being young and with the flaws of the young…
[…]
I remain,
Gurudas Gheewalla
1869
The new name of the building being ceremoniously opened is the Alexandria, the first converted cotton mill in Bombay. An old oilseed mill now converted to process cotton from the Gujarati flatlands north of the Bombay Presidency, the Alexandria Mill is the pride and joy of its young new operator. Jamsetji Tata stands in front of his new cotton mill, in his eyes the emblem of the future. He turns to give a speech to the assembled crowd, speaking of advancement and wealth for India as much as Britain from this technology. A strong nation will have a strong industry, its clothes made in India from Indian cotton. Swadeshi, he says, and the crowd either nods along – or like the few Englishmen in attendance, watch from careful guarded eyes.
Vijay Chandekar is there in the crowd, and meets the young Tata heir later in the ceremony when the ribbon's been cut and the mill is being toured. The Parsi looks at him intently, and makes an offer. I hear that you are considering opening a mill, he says, and I will warn you that it isn't easy.
A raised eyebrow from Vijay has Jamsetji elaborate, and he tells of the trouble it took to get the permits from the Governor. It's hard to establish Indian industry, says the Tata, and that was with what contacts I had. With Naoroji as an MP in Britain, at that. I don't want you to bankrupt yourself doing it when you can supply me instead.
Vijay's followup question makes the offer clearer. Supply me, the Tata says, and don't bother with the industrialization yet. I'll handle that. You'll make money. We will build the future.
Votes: You are making 4.5 income this turn
1) The Mill Offer: On one hand, Ibrahim Abbasi offers to go shares in building a cotton mill, and you already have cotton sources in the Presidency's hinterland. On the other hand, the Tatas offer a supply contract with their mills as long as you don't compete with a mill of your own. Note: Neither option will offend a community in this case. Pick one:
[]The Abbasi Offer: Go with Abbasi, half shares, and build up your own mills. Begin with 1 less Profit next turn, gain Finished Cotton (Bombay) as the second route in the station. Profit at present is pegged at -1 to 4 (the range will narrow with time). You will have actions to compete with the Tatas.
[]The Tata Offer: The Tatas offer an exclusive contract for now, and this can get you an in with Jamsetji as well. Gain 1 Profit/turn from next turn onwards until the Tatas pull out of textiles (if they do). You will not build cotton or textile mills.
[]Neither: Keep your cash ready and your powder dry. Gain 1 bonus Profit (one time) next turn from cotton market scalping.
2) The Singapore Deal: With Adit and Gurudas in Singapore and the Parsi asking for capital, you have an opportunity. In the year of 1866, what did Vijay choose?
[]To Expand into Singapore: Your second trade station will be Singapore: The people in charge of the Singapore station are Gurudas and Adit, together with the guaranteed trait Dubious Friends, which gives a bonus to the opium and smuggling trade at the cost of potentially getting embroiled in legal trouble with the governor. The governor will not act against you, just them. Singapore will initially trade rubber, with a profit of 0 to 2 per turn. It can be switched or used as a base for opium trading. This will cost another 1 Profit from this turn's income.
The city of Bombay is overcrowded yet again, its neighborhoods slowly divided amongst one another and the merchants' societies of the city splitting along lines of religion and caste instead of cooperating. Such is the verdict of the paper delivered to Vijay Chandekar, the Marathi-language Bombay Herald that in its strident language and its burgeoning circulation is a conduit to the teeming city that's growing faster than the old merchant can keep up with. Today, though, is different.
As he leafs through the Herald, there's a banner at the top of each page that catches his eye. On the thin, cheap paper of the vernacular newspaper is a bolded black statement. The same statement on each page, catching the morning sunlight as Vijay reads on his balcony. Today is the last issue of the Herald, it says, The Herald is in breach of the Sedition Act.
Chandekar sighs at that, reading the issue more slowly as if to savour the last time he'll see the newspaper. Each new paper seems to fold so fast, even if it's not even in a language the English can normally read.
The articles are the same fare that he's seen before, at that. The usual worried editorializing about the villages emptying their skilled men to the cities, the poor and poverty stricken coming to the cities to escape the census bureau's stamp of caste in the countryside. Worries and ribald complaints about taxes and tariffs and restrictions. And most of all, the occasional insult aimed at the Viceroy. Nothing out of the ordinary barring the actual issues examined, which is why Vijay had bought it in the first place.
It seems that the issue for the police, then, is actual substantive complaints rather than just insults. Vijay sighs and folds the paper carefully, setting it down next to him on the chair. He'll try to get it filed and framed later, the last issue of the Herald after six law students and a printer founded it a few months ago. Things haven't gotten easier by much since '57, even if the violence has stopped. More migrants, rumors of grain prices rising and the poor having no food, and the paranoia about nationalists in every corner. Hopefully things don't get worse.
In the distance, Vijay Chandekar can see the Union Jack flying in the breeze.
It is the policy of the Crown to govern in pursuit of that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government….It is the earnest desire of the Crown to stimulate the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to administer the government for the benefit of all of our subjects resident herein. In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward…
-Queen Victoria, 1858
You have 2.5-0.5(Debt Service)-1(Family Upkeep) = 1 Profit
You may borrow another 2 Profit
You have 1 Profit of debt
Trade Actions: Take as many as you can afford
[]Expand Bombay's Facilities: The Bombay infrastructure – the warehouses, the clerks, all of it – needs to be able to handle more of the local trade. Similarly we need to have the lawyers on call to deal with the English, since as it is the courts are biased. Before anything else, we need to expand the family's assets in Bombay. Costs 0.5 Profit, increases income from Bombay trade.
[][CALCUTTA]Shift Trade to a different commodity: There are other things that are more profitable than dyes in Calcutta, and it might be a good idea to shift to a different market on that route. For all that dyes are profitable, they're also being grown more and more on the large European-owned plantations that lock you out of the middleman business. Shift commodity on the Calcutta station to one of: Tea (1-3 Profit), Spices (0-2 Profit). Costs 1 Profit, reduces Contacts by 1 in the area.
[]Expand Calcutta's Facilities: The Calcutta station can be expanded by allowing Indrajit to tap into his network of contacts in the nearby fishermen's communities. While this isn't strictly legal (since the Shipping Act forbids it), the fishermen can use the money while the fact of smuggling can hide other sins. Indulge your brother this, for he'll turn a profit and sate his nationalism as well. Costs 0.5 Profit, increase Calcutta income, and add modifier Smuggling: Raise floor of profit on all goods by 1.
[]Cementing things in Singapore: Get a company registered in Singapore and get Adit set up in the right area of the Straits Settlements, and make sure that you have a proper network in the rubber trade before you think about diversifying. While the opium trade is tempting, you don't have much history in the city to begin fiddling with that yet. Costs 0.5 Profit, registers legal front in Singapore, opens networking options in Singapore. I will roll a d100 for local contacts from this option.
[]Sell your stake in: You need the money for other ventures, and liquidation is thus the order of the day. -[]The Iron Mine: Sell the iron mine in Goa, the same mine that Gheewalla sold you. Jamsetji Tata is making noises about wanting to build a steel mill, so let him have it. Gain 2 Profit.
-[]The Stake in the Abbasi Mill: You have a half share in the Abbasi mill. With the Tata mill, it's one of the few Indian-run textile mills in Bombay. Recent increases in the excise on textiles produced locally will affect profits in the long term in any case. Gain 1.5 Profit.
[]Networking: Spend some money on networking, on entertaining guests, and on making the right sort of friends in the area they're needed. If you do them favors – anything from entertaining them to forgiving some loans of theirs – then you might have the backing you need later on. Costs 0.5 Profit.
-[]Write in station: Yes, a new station is acceptable. Singapore is not yet acceptable.
--[]Focus on:
---[-]British Establishment: Locked. You are not famed enough.
---[]The Local Merchants: Wherever in India one goes, there are enough smalltime traders in the feeder routes that agglomerate to your warehouses, the ones who ship from the villages or even the village market-stall men themselves. These men and women are a useful source in the chain, albeit one that has little official power.
---[]The Other Shippers: There are also large traders, of all stripes. There are other Hindus in the commodity trade, dealing in grain and spice and tea. There are the Islamic horse traders of the peninsula, selling the magnificent horses of Persia and Arabia in the subcontinent. There are Parsis, dealers in cotton and silks and sellers of opium to China. All that and more, and it's best to know one's competition – and potentially gain allies there.
Family Actions: Take up to two
[]Adit's Letters: Use the time to cultivate a proper relationship with Adit, and get some idea of how things are over there. A young man in Singapore, one who's made intemperate statements about Englishmen before, at that. Renu is worried, your brother Shiv is worried, it's almost enough to make you worried.
[]Getting Into Cambridge: One of the local boys has gone to England to study, and word has trickled back that the English universities are willing to take candidates. An English education can be useful for making connections with the British, albeit at the cost of losing connections to one's home. Sends one nephew overseas to England to study at university.
[]Shiv's New Friends: Some of Shiv's friends are murmuring about the new land use laws and the English district collector's antics near Poona. Best to let them vent at home, and if that means you gain some trust so be it. Improves relations with Poona branch, potential networking chances (a d100 flat). Special Actions: Take up to two:
[]Entertaining: Vijay has been more withdrawn from public life than before following the death of two of his brothers with their families in '57 and the aftermath. Perhaps now that it's been a year, now that the funerals are long since done and most of the city is slowly going back to its routine, perhaps reentering the public sphere is a good idea. Will rebuild one old contact (rolled in background), and allow actions to entertain or engage in charitable giving, thereby raising the profile of your family and gaining access to more opportunities.
[]Make in India: Tata has been floating ideas of Indians doing things themselves, especially hotels. While the hotel thing is more from him being refused entry to English clubs and the rest of it is from the restrictive laws, he has a point. Why not put him in touch with some of the other nationalists? Chatterjee, Naoroji, and the others might as well hear him out. Prosperity can help the nation as much as political consciousness. Outcome unknown.
[]Istanbul: The completion of the Suez Canal has made Ibrahim Abbasi a very happy man. His network in Egypt and the Hejaz means that he can still engage in the horse trade and cotton trade, while he now can explore the wealthy milieu of the Ottoman Empire's European side. He's offered to put you in touch with some of them, and to take one of Shiv's sons along. DC30 for nothing happening to the boy, potential Turkish contacts.
[]Benevolent Society: There are a number of Chinese benevolent societies that pool resources among the port laborers and are in open conflict with the Malay and Indian workers in Singapore. See what you can do as someone who has the money and the contacts – through Adit and Gurudas – to tamp it down and bribe your way into their trust. DC30, outcome unknown.
Free Actions: []Pay Down Debt: You have debt that you might as well pay rather than roll over with more interest to be paid in the coming years. Cost at present: 1 Profit. If this is not taken, omit this option from a plan. This need not be taken.
AN: Yes, turn time has been halved due to the paucity of funding and paucity of options due to that.
[X] Plan: Gray Market
-[X] Expand Bombay's Facilities
-[X] Expand Calcutta's Facilities
-[X] Cementing Things in Singapore
-[X] Adit's Letters
-[X] Getting Into Cambridge
-[X] Make in India:
→ Rolls: 88
-[X] Benevolent Society
→Rolls: 85
-[X] Borrow Money (0.5 Profit)
Base Income before expansions: 3+3+1+1+2+1=10-1(Dynasty Upkeep)-1(Interest)=9 Profit.
1870
Bombay in 1870 is something touted as a shining example of the sheer wealth and reach of the British Empire. Seen from afar as one rides a ship into port, it comes into view as a long, dense string of islands and inland cityscapes linked by causeways and reclaimed land, a great teeming human scar carved into the jungles and hills of the Western Ghats. A ship coming into Bombay Harbor will see traffic from all across the rest of the empire, all of them British-built British-owned vessels in a wide range of styles from a series of destinations that seem taken from a world-tour guide. There are light, swift packet steamers from China, carrying high-value freight, cargo, and mail under the White Ensign and with their stern crews of former sailors. There are the vast, black-painted, steel-hulled monsters of the cargo lines, the giant steamships that will make a grand circuit past old, old Egypt through the Suez in the Sinai to England herself, and then back from there to India. There are all these and more, intermixed with the smaller, darting forms of coastal shipping, the captains of these ships not speaking in English and far less inclined to obey the laws of the port than most. It's these captains that Vijay Chandekar meets on the quays of Bombay Harbor, hailing those who've hauled his grain and iron before.
The old merchant nurses an achy knee in the monsoon season as he comes to the docks to inspect what should be a straightforward expansion of the warehouses he owns. As he walks, Vijay's eyes are drawn to a half-built warehouse on a plot marked off as his, a simple wooden shell that's taken far too long to build. The builder is Nathuram Thakur, someone who he's worked with before, not someone to shirk like this. Which is why Vijay Chandekar is polite enough to show up at the construction site with its temporary bamboo fencing around the warehouse, its collection of laborers being shouted at by the site foreman, and simply corral Thakur off to the side for a talk.
The construction manager is a slim, young man with a thin moustache. Right now he's as barechested as the rest of his men, his presence as someone who doesn't need to go up the scaffold obvious with one look at the white dhoti wound around his waist. Vijay looks him in one very nervous eye and points at the warehousing, "I know that you were supposed to finish this two weeks ago, Nathuram. What happened now?"
Nathuram Thakur looks out to the building again, short-cropped hair parted by a long, ropy scar on the side of his head. "The storms, sir. Monsoon has been bad for work this year."
"Don't lie to me." Vijay's cane thumps on the ground as if in emphasis, one or two eyes turning in their direction from the gangs of longshoremen unloading the ships at dock. "I knew your father, and he worked through worse monsoons. There was more than enough to finish the building this season and begin work on the next one after that. Your father for all the ten years I knew him would not have overseen things this shoddily. What happened, boy?"
"My father was here before the Government's new rules." Thakur's tone is sharp and brittle, the word Sirkar, or Government, coming out like some ugly thing. He points at the workers and the scaffolding, "You see those men? All new. The Government is paying more than I can for labor on their new railways and cantonments, all the way in Pune. I cannot get good men, and given how food prices are going I will not be able to pay most of my men enough to eat well. I cut the work crews to the number that I can feed."
"It's just the food?" Vijay's knee twinges again as he turns to the building with fresh eyes, and he can see something of what Nathuram is pointing out. The workmen are less than he thought, one side of the scaffolding empty of builders and the adjacent side's workers being shouted at for clumsiness. One of them drops a plank, sending it crashing twenty feet beneath even as Vijay watches. Vijay amends his question after seeing that, "Food and the men, then?"
"Materials." Thakur's hand scratches at his moustache, smoothing it over afterwards in a mannerism that Vijay can remember the boy's father doing. "Wood is more expensive. And the new directions from the Government for taxing land mean that the landlords aren't selling wood to us easily anymore. We can finish this one in wood, but the other one will be brick."
"I see." Vijay can indeed see where this is going, "The money should cover this anyways, but you were saying that there are new laws on wood and land tax?"
"Some of the men have been saying that." Nathuram shifts uncomfortably, conscious of his youth beside the man that knew his father and at the same time unsure of the truth of what he's saying. "They said that some of the District Collectors have handbooks printed for Delhi and they're using them everywhere. Wood tax is different from grain and has to be paid on cutting. Or so some of the Englishmen in the districts are saying."
"They're not sure of what they're enforcing."
"The collectors are new, sir." Nathuram shrugs as if to dismiss the problem, tired of the topic. "They will learn in time as the laws are learned. The laws are new and the English are new."
"Maybe." Vijay's cane taps on the ground again, and the two of them head back to the building site. The foreman glances their way before turning back to the builder teams, and begins to ostentatiously shout orders. And in the far, far distance, the bells of Government House begin to toll for noon.
Indrajit Chandekar is aging, and doesn't like it. He steps out of his Ballygunge townhouse with carefully dyed hair and a bright purple kurta, every inch the prosperous trader and ignoring any way his wrinkles and lines are clashing with the peacock-like garb he's wearing. Ballygunge stretches out in front of him, a dense jungle of buildings leaning over the street, each one barely wide enough to fit a shop-front and six people before it, each building tall enough to tower three floors overhead. Billboards in curling Bengali are on each shopfront – the sweet-shop, a tailor, a loud advertisement for the best grain and food, on credit – and the shops themselves are crowded with people. Indrajit walks the street to the civil service office near Government House with careful steps, avoiding the odd bit of horse dung and making sure that the heavily built bearer and assistant who's been with him the last decade and a half remains in sight behind him.
The civil service office is a spare, brick building with a Sikh policeman at the door, and the bearer Bipin Bhattacharya hands Indrajit a thick folder from the bag he's carrying before squatting down on the roadside in front of the building and lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. The Sikh makes a move towards Bipin as if to shoo him away, and ceases when Indrajit tosses him a few copper annas and a murmured Leave him be on the way through the doors.
The office itself is divided into little rooms with a secretary at the lobby asking people who come inside for their appointments. Indrajit doesn't bother with the usual formality of haggling, whining about the appointment schedule, and bribing him, and instead hands him a letter with the stamp of the British collector for Calcutta on it. The letter itself is genuine, although it cost a good deal to obtain, and makes the secretary's expression change from haughty glare to smiling compliance as they rise from their desk to lead him to the office of one Arijit Lal, who is the clerk in charge of company registration.
The clerk looks up from his paperwork and gestures boredly at a seat, his office desk a cheap wooden one piled high with folders and papers while a certificate from the Civil Service Board is framed on one all. A clock ticks away on one wall while the rest of the room is bare, the one other personal touch a spittoon in one corner for betel-nut. After a few minutes of waiting for the babu at his desk Indrajit drops his file on the desk and clears his throat, deciding that the best thing to do in this situation is show a bold hand. "I have an appointment, Mr. Lal?" In rough, stilted English, the Chandekar merchant calls the clerk Mister like he would an Englishman, and Arijit Lal blinks in surprise as he straightens up from his paperwork.
"Yes, yes. Let me see that." The clerk takes the file with its applications and its seals of approval on forms in triplicate, and leafs through it with practiced ease. "You have come here to apply for official recognition as a trading company based in Calcutta, a branch of one based in Bombay, and you want to have the authorities give permission for industrial activity?"
"Yes." Indrajit leans back a little in the hard rattan chair, back aching a little from the wood and from a decade of bad posture. He resists the temptation to pull out a pipe and smoke, instead answering the clerk in Marathi-accented Bengali. "I work with family in Bombay, and the permission is for milling. Not for steel or guns or other English business."
"I can see that." Lal turns pages again, riffling through the stack in the file as if to illustrate his statement, before pulling a large rubber stamp out of a drawer in his desk. "And what is this business going to be selling to? I understand that the sahibs in Government House have changed the law on tariffs recently."
"None of your business." It isn't what his brother would have said, but Indrajit doesn't feel like saying anything to a babu who looks through everything with an avaricious eye while speaking all too fondly of the Englishmen in Government House.
Arijit Lal, however, doesn't take that well. "I am a representative of the Sirkar, Mr. Chandekar." He says Mister in the middle of the Bengali sentence with a certain relish, "I need to know these things to make sure that things are legal. I know the law that the sahibs make in Government House, and you do not."
"Ah, but I do." Indrajit resists the temptation to tell the babu to go to Government House and fuck off, and instead smiles in Arijit Lal's plump jowly face and hands him a letter from the district collector. The Englishman's signature and the official stationary change things quite a bit, and Lal sullenly stamps the application for registration with no little resentment.
"Surprising that you're registering, that's all." Lal hands back the file and begins putting together the handwritten letter of authorization that Indrajit needs, talking quickly as he does. Whether that's from a desire to make friends with someone who hobnobs with Brits or out of a sense of shame, Indrajit can't tell. "I've had three smugglers in here, all of them trying to register companies and none of them able to tell me what they sell. I've had more failing companies than you would know, as well."
"Such as?"
"Oh, dozens." The plump little babu hands him the letter and gestures to the door, asking him to leave. "The price rises have made things hard, and a rupee won't go as far as it used to. Not to mention that the Sirkar is cracking down on those who aren't operating with licenses."
"I'll keep that in mind." Indrajit walks out of the babu's office without turning back, but his mind's already turning over what he heard and seeing about taking advantage of it.
You can begin an acquisition spree in Calcutta, of businesses that are unlicensed and unauthorized. This will add one random route and increase notoriety in Calcutta, as well as boosting contacts in the area by 1. It will cost 2 Profit.
[][CALCUTTA]Yes
[][CALCUTTA]No 19th June 1870
Dear Uncle Vijay,
I write to you from the far eastern shore of Singapore, where things are very different from back home. The city is built on an island, they call the whole thing the Straits Settlements in English but most of us just call it Singapura. The place has been growing fast as more and more people come in to trade and to build what the British want to make, that is the seaport, but that also means more and more of the whites and their police are around. Most of those are Sikhs from the Punjab or the north, where they have nothing better to do than enlist under the Sirkar and come across the seas, but some of them are Marathis like us. The port itself is massive, the basin larger than the one in Bombay and the ships here from every land under the sun. I have seen junks from China, the small coasters that the Indonesians use to move between the islands, the British steamships that come into Bombay, and the smaller Dutch steamers that go to the East Indies where the Dutch are pressing people onto rubber plantations…
[…]
Enough of me, though. I heard that father wants to send my brother Neeraj to England for an education. Is this true? It was difficult enough for me abroad and that was with your friend Gurudas there to guide me, for Neeraj to go to England and face them there is not an easy thing. He is a more gentle sort than I am, and you know how bad the English can be. You have met some of them, as have I…
[…]
As far as trade is concerned, I think that Gurudas has attached the ledgers to this letter, but I think I should give you a summary. The rubber trade goes on well to middling, that is to say we are able to buy from the smaller producers on the mainland kingdoms and then collect all that and sell it onwards to British traders, but there is more and more noise about Englishmen and Dutch building their own plantations to compete. We cannot compete with them, for they have more ties to buyers in Europe than we do. We may want to diversify later on, or even now. There are a few opportunities coming up, although few of them are very strong. However, some of our newest contacts in the Chinese workers' associations, called the tongs, have an idea. We can probably take part in the same duty-free trade that they do. While this is technically illegal, it is almost impossible to police thoroughly without inspecting every ship in Singapore harbor, and that is impossible. The size of the place…
[…]
I hope that you and Aunt Renu are well, and I will try to come home to see you later on if I can. Things are very busy now.
Yours,
Adit
You may investigate smuggling opportunities. A route that is marked as smuggling will roll for detection each turn, and if detected will generate no profit and be broken up. You will need to rebuild the route afterwards or change goods. A route marked as smuggling if discovered may lead to legal expenses and fines for the trade station heads. Smuggling routes generate far more profit than regular ones, and are useful avenues to move contraband around the empires.
[][SMUGGLING]Yes: You will have an option to take a smuggling route from Singapore in the 1873 section of the turn, at no extra cost.
[][SMUGGLING]No
AN: Votes are open, and feedback welcome. We have 1871-73 tomorrow and 1874-75 after that. Smuggling puts you more in touch with subversive elements as well as criminal ones, keep that in mind.
The countryside has changed since the last year, and changed yet more since the uneasy days just after '57. As the train took Vijay Chandekar up to see his brother again, past the Marathi countryside, he can see those changes at second hand. Not at firsthand, not with the fencing around the railway tracks and the way every station is home to police and the bored, jaundiced gazes of ticket-collectors. But second hand information, through casual conversation with the sort of people Renu would have chased out of his train compartment had she been here, is enough.
There are more idle men in the villages even as land grows scarce. There are walls being put up, says the old man in the train compartment who's headed to work in Pune. He tells Vijay that the walls are to mark off the landlords' ownership, that the old rights enjoyed by most of the sharecroppers aren't in the new laws. It is all in some book, he says, a book that one of the new collectors in the area has. What goes in the book is the law, but one has to be rich enough to put things in the book.
Or British, says Vijay. He gets a bitter laugh at that, a nod of agreement as the sun dips beneath the horizon and the train rolls slowly into Pune railway station.
Shiv's home has likewise changed. The same walls that the old man on the train spoke about are here as well, rough-hewn stone surrounding the expanse of lands that Shiv's branch of the family claims as its ancestral fief. When asked about it Shiv looks slightly uncomfortable, answering in terms of the British tax collector and the new laws. If it is not in the law and in the papers, it does not exist he says, and Vijay is again reminded of the conversation on the train. When Vijay asks his brother about the old rights of appeal, of the sort of informal deputation that used to go to the governors in the cities, he gets a shrug. There are paper laws now, government by kitub as some of the laborers call it.
Times have changed.
Dinner is similarly disconcerting, a melange of the familiar and the different. Shiv and Geeta are the same, aging but reliable and aging but waspish respectively while their table is as traditional as it used to be. Alongside the old paintings of the family as things were before '57 is new decoration – British-bound books on the shelves, a map of the estate with the spidery English lettering of a notary's signature and a fine English clock. With the new decoration is a new person at the table, a nervous-looking young teenager at the 'private' family dinner. This, thinks Vijay, is his nephew, little Neeraj now grown up. It's been a long, long time indeed.
A sidelong look from Shiv as they sit cross-legged at the low table gets Vijay to stir a little and address the elephant in the room, "So, Neeraj, you want to go to England?" The boy stiffens up at being addressed directly, wispy facial hair on a plump face making him seem younger than he is.
"Y-yes." The boy stammers once before meeting Vijay's eyes, looking down at his food before he does as if searching for answers in the dal and rice. "They brought the railway with them. The English, I mean. I want to learn about that. About the railway, about the things they have done with steam."
"Those are useful skills to have." Shiv's not-very-casual observation is an obvious one, "But the English may not teach that. Look at the ones who have gone there. Satyendranath Ghosh – that Bengali who came to Bombay – he studied law, apparently. Others also did law. What makes you think the English will teach you the tools they use here?"
The question seems rehearsed, and it likely is. Neeraj blinks once before answering far more smoothly, eyes flicking in Vijay's direction now and again as if to gauge his uncle's mood as well as answer his father's question. "Either I learn that or I learn law and the legal system. I'll have to do some studies here anyways before I go. The professors at the university here can tell me whether or not I can study sciences."
"Here?" Vijay's question is more to gauge how much Neeraj has thought this one out at the age of fifteen rather than to genuinely know, but nevertheless. It's always useful to know where to find English-educated people.
Neeraj bites his lip once, eyes distant as if remembering something before answering as if reciting a list. "There's Stephen's in Delhi. The college at Pune. The other college at Calcutta – Presidency. Those three are the big ones."
"And you can study sciences there?"
"I can try." Shiv nods at that as if satisfied by his son's wariness and reluctance to overpromise, and Vijay just grimaces. Uncertainty is never good to have, especially with one's ambition on the line.
Still, best to let the boy go. "I will help him, then. I have some few contacts here in Bombay, Indrajit has a few more in Calcutta. We have the money." Shiv smiles a little at the confirmation and Neeraj relaxes a little.
Shiv's smile is wary, though. "Not like you to decide this so fast, brother." He ladles more dal onto his place as he talks, wife calling over one of the servants to refill the buttermilk. "You were more cautious with Adit than this."
"Adit moved faster than I did, partly because of that." Vijay grimaces before nodding in Neeraj's direction, "Anyways, it would be very useful to have more English-trained engineers. Or at least someone who can be trained as one. Education is useful. Mostly."
"Mostly?" Neeraj's curious question is almost blurted out, getting an angry stare from his mother.
Vijay just smiles, thin and cold this time.
"You've seen the sad little babus who line the ticket counters and the ones that cannot enter the ICS? The ones that buy their education and come from Bengal never to find a home?" The question is addressed more to Neeraj than Shiv, but gets nods from both of them. Vijay continues with memories of Indrajit's angry letters from Calcutta in his mind, "Always remember your home. Don't go to England and come back a little Englishman who stays in the cities. You are a Marathi from this family and from this land. Remember that."
"Maintain connections to home." Shiv once more states the obvious, prompting Vijay to roll his eyes before nodding.
Always keep your ties to home. Hopefully the boy will remember that, if he goes abroad later on. The admission can be handled, but the boy cannot be.
[Rolled: Singapore: 72]
21st August, 1871
Dear Uncle Vijay,
I write to you from the Straits Settlements where the English are now coming in greater and greater numbers. They have now formally divided the city into police zones with Sikhs from Punjab and Marathis to police it, with more of those damned Bengali babus to handle paperwork. The collectors themselves are all Englishmen from England, their wives unable to exist in anything outside of a luxury bungalow and the Englishmen unable to string together a sentence in Malay or Chinese. As such, we have books of laws that are never truly fair or enforced outside of the times it involves English against English, because they cannot even understand us speak…
[…]
I digress, though. There is more Government here now that they have been bringing in workers from India. The workmen tell me that they are here because the crops are failing in Bengal and Oudh, the harvest was a bad one this year. If things do not improve, we will see worse yet I think. The islands here are full of Englishmen but the mainland parts of the Straits Settlements are where we live. The Indians, the Chinese, the Malays. The Bengalis and the other workers are pressed into that same space and have been quarrelling with the Chinese for space and for work. There have already been brawls between the Indians and the Chinese gangs for control of the docks, the Chinese have the edge there. The opium trade here is half illegal and smuggled, with most of that being under the thumb of the Chinese, giving them the money to buy off the police and the government for now. Unless some zealous Englishman comes or something too obvious happens, at which point they will immediately take action…
[…]
We have built something good here, I think. Gurudas has an eye for the docks and the warehousing, and we are making good money by renting out warehouse space as well as buying rubber from the Malays and shipping it onwards to the Straits. Gurudas has been pushing me to ask you about a broader arrangement in Singapore than just rubber. With the Dutch and more Englishmen acquiring plantations either in Indonesia or the Malay interior, we are losing ground in rubber and may well not be able to grow any more. Gurudas has proposed copying what he has done and moving into the business of teak wood, shipping teak wood from the Malay States and what rubber we can ship along with perhaps a dose of smuggling illicit opium. There is also the strategy that Gurudas himself has been engaging in, that of smuggling tea and hardwood from India and Malaya into Indonesia, and then selling onwards to the Dutch at a markup. With the English moving into the markets here and the Dutch tariffs being very high, we stand to make good money this way even avoiding the opium business…[…]...There is also a little silver and more tin in the Malay States, although that requires a British partner to act as the face of the business for a nominal fee…
[…]
I hope that all of you are well. It has been hard here with the Straits Settlements not being the most peaceful of places for now, but things are getting better. I hope that Neeraj has abandoned that mad idea of studying in England, any place that produces and promotes people like the local collector is not a place to go to for studying…
Yours,
Adit
Pick one option for your free second Singapore route. Due to the high roll, you may choose a legal option as well as the illegal ones: You have 7 Profit at the moment after the Calcutta acquisition spree:
[][LEGAL]Tin: This one requires an Englishman to act as the face of the business and sell onwards to England, with the concomitant hazards of expropriation if one missteps too much. On the other hand, tin is lucrative and the Malay States are slowly being forced to give up more and more independence to the British. Including mineral concessions. There are rumors of a British Residency – perhaps we might act before that is cemented and more Englishmen stream in? Costs 1 Profit from this turn, DC30 to establish a tin concession in the Malay States with an English 'partner'. Failing the roll forfeits the fee. Tin produces 1-3 Profit per turn and can be expanded, and is a feedstock good for canneries. If the DC is failed but this option is taken you will have the option to attempt it again in Turn 3 Actions for a similar fee and DC.
[][ILLEGAL]Teak: Smuggling teak into Indonesia and selling it onwards to the Dutch has a certain appeal, especially as it's cheaper in Malaya than it is in the Dutch colonies. However, if caught this will wipe out the route in Singapore and put Adit in legal jeopardy. Gurudas has offered to handle this side of things in exchange for a cut, and you can allow that to give you some legal cover. DC5 each turn to avoid detection, this turn there is no roll. Provides 1-3 Profit per turn.
[][ILLEGAL]Opium: This means partnering with the Chinese gangs that control the good and have the gateways to China proper, and they're in need of cash at the moment. Fork that over, and hopefully they'll keep to their end of things. You have enough dirt to potentially coerce them if they don't, at least. And opium….opium is profitable. Costs 2 Profit, DC20, opens illicit opium trade with no detection DC for now. Generates 1-2 Profit per turn, allows expansion of illicit actions and smuggling networks.
It's rare that Vijay puts thoughts to paper and sticks his neck out by writing something in a public forum, but Jamsetji Tata stirred things up enough that the older merchant feels he has to. The Tata heir has been more brash and cavalier, spinning golden dreams of a wealthy, industrialized India as he tells his investors about the good they are doing while he makes money, but that is not all of it. There is the cost of the industrialization, the great changes being wrought on the land by the English, the massive expense of simply satisfying the English laws and the uncertain nature of the justice system. All of that and more.
The question, to Vijay's mind, is how to justify the changes? Are they good? Are they simply making a nation like the babus from Bengal who don't know the nation they come from and are treated like dirt by the English they serve?
The thoughts come slowly, the writing takes longer, and making it something that Renu won't kill him for because he irritated the Governor takes even longer.
But eventually, the article takes shape in the local newspaper. Vijay takes time before deciding on a title, something that calls attention to the core statement of 'learning from the English to build our own things'. He calls it Rich nation, strong people.
It gets attention, notably a letter three weeks later asking to meet the following year. The letter is signed in impeccable Hindi from a man who was educated in England. It's signed Yours sincerely, Satyendranath Tagore. AN: Getting back into the routine of writing, this is an interim while I prep the next few.
