Chapter 54 - Fusion Reactor (1/2)
2 weeks passed. Aariv was back in Patliputra. He had defeated the Chera and Pandya kingdom. He once again took away all the administrative rights from the royal families and just let them live with some personal guards. They weren't allowed to hire more than 5,000 men.
He was currently writing books. He knew that soon his kidnapped philosophers will arrive and will want to see what they were offered. He buried himself in work and wrote more than a thousand books. He had created a small paper making factory for this purpose.
He also felt that the city was too cramped for making all the new workshops and factories. Hence he decided to start planning the city out. Also according to the history, the river would change its path in the future, submerging the whole city.
He needed to make cemented riverbanks to stop that from happening.
After writing books about every field that was withing the understanding of the current humans, he put them in a library. The library was quite big and a major part of it was underground. There were separate cabins for people to site and do their work without getting disturbed.
He also finished writing the constitution. Now he needed to promote it to people. Most of the population was illiterate so he needed to use Kautilya's men and people from local administration around the country to announce it to the public on a regular basis.
He hired stonemasons to make big stone edicts in hexagonal shape with their faces having the constitution carved on it. On the top of it was the Mauryan emblem, 4 lions sitting with their backs touching each other and their faces looking in 4 directions. The edicts were 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
He put them in each town center or any other public gathering in the empire. The constitution laid down the framework demarcating fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens. It also stated the fundamental responsibilities of the elected government.
It promoted JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY above all. He also wrote the book of law, It was a comprehensive book intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law.
He was going to bring democracy in some years but still he didn't abolish his own powers. He wrote a special case in which if the state fails to fulfill the fundamental duties and has become corrupt then Aariv Maurya has the right to dissolve the government and take things into his own hands and no one can remove this clause from the constitution by any means. He knew that in some years when he disappears from the public eye and starts acting from behind the scenes, the people will forget about this clause.
He limited the special right to himself as he didn't trust all his descendants to be good people. There was bound to be a rotten apple every once in a while.
This was going smoothly but as more people found out about the constitution, trouble started to come.
Aariv had not mentioned castes or gender in the constitution, he had just used words like 'mankind or humanity'. The people from lower caste were very happy with this. This meant that they would not be treated differently but there existed some people from Brahmin and Kshatriya caste who disagreed with it as it decreased their status and authority.
Hee was sitting with Kautilya, Chandragupta, and Black in the private meeting room.
”What should we do about the possible riots?” Kautilya asked with a tense face.
”I am sure that there are some people who are trying to influence others and start riots. Just arrest them and trial them according to the book of law. We will increase the surveillance and guard patrol. It will probably take some years to let them accept all this.” Aariv said.
There was no social media so it was not easy to organize a riot or a protest. He was not going to introduce internet and communication devices to the public till things aren't back to normal.
He left the meeting and looked for Surupa. He was going to give him books to let him study architecture and he was also going to hand him the job of extending the city. The first thing which was going to be made was the huge palace, the palace would not be just the residence of the emperor but also have administrative block, courts and stuff. It was going to an administrative hub.
He found Surupa in the library.
”Your highness, this is unbelievable... all this knowledge and to think that a single person wrote all this,” Surupa said. He was overwhelmed by the knowledge Aariv had.
Aariv smiled and sat down on a chair.
”This is just a small branch of a big tree. I know many more things, but current people cannot digest all that... that aside, I've come here to assign you a job,” he said.
Surupa straightened his back and asked about the job.
”I want you to design a big palace, with courts, halls, and many offices. It will not just be the place where I will live but also the place from where the administration will work. The residential part should not be accessible to the other areas....” Aariv said, he also told him about his other requirements like he wanted a very big bas.e.m.e.nt.
Aariv then got up and took some books with him and gave them to Surupa. These books consisted of knowledge about constructing big structures. He then introduced him to bricks, cement, concrete and how to make a strong foundation for a building.
he knew that he would need to do many new things to make the construction easy as he understood that the whole empire will heavily invest in building infrastructure in the future.