Chapter 339: Novice in Psychological Warfare
The marriage alliance between Mysore and France came too abruptly, surprising everyone involved.
Marquis Lafayette was among them.
Emerging from Amba Vilas Palace, he looked at Salah, his voice filled with bewilderment and astonishment. "You're actually going through with this marriage alliance with the natives?!"
Salah returned a polite smile. "This is a bargaining chip His Royal Highness the Crown Prince left us, and of course, it must be played when necessary. You yourself said the monsoon season is approaching."
"Furthermore, this is merely a marriage alliance between Bey Haj—oh, no, Duke Haj—and the Kingdom of Mysore. It has no bearing on the royal family."
"According to the secret pact just made between both parties, the marriage will not be publicly announced until the British withdraw from the Indian Peninsula. Only a secret wedding will take place, and the dowry delivered. This way, it won't affect Anglo-French diplomatic relations in the short term."
"Oh, and there's the 600,000 Pound Sterling betrothal gift! That sum is enough to cover the expenses of bringing two regiments from France to participate in the war here."
Indeed, Salah, with his silver tongue, managed to persuade Tipu Sultan to add another 100,000 Pound Sterling to the betrothal gift during the marriage negotiations.
"Have it your way..." Lafayette, completely uninterested in these political maneuvers, still spoke with an anxious expression. "But Tipu hasn't responded to my suggestions about attacking the British. Your marriage plan doesn't seem to be having much effect."
"By the way, Marquis, I also need to request 100,000 Livres in funds from you."
As the primary person responsible for the India strategy, Lafayette had full control over both personnel and finances. Joseph had allocated a substantial 700,000 Livres for him this time.
"What do you need so much money for?" Lafayette looked at his Tunisian colleague with surprise. If Salah hadn't been a disciple of Elder Alayi, with a prominent status and a powerful family, he would have suspected Salah wanted to abscond with the money.
"To deal with those Mysore officials who side with the British," Salah replied, "such as Jahan Zeb."
"Although hiring people here in Mysore is relatively inexpensive, you know there are no newspapers here—or even if there were, they wouldn't be very useful, as most people are illiterate. Therefore, any propaganda effort will be very costly. I'll have to hire many people to spread the word by mouth."
"Propaganda? What do you intend to publicize?"
"Hmm, in His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's words, this is called psychological warfare." Salah maintained his smile. "We'll put the pro-British faction in a difficult position. Then, General Sheikh Khan will deliver the killing blow!"
Lafayette had no other way to sway Tipu Sultan at the moment, so after a moment of thought, he could only nod. "Very well, I hope you succeed. However, you will need to submit daily reports on the expenditure of funds to me."
"You will receive daily financial reports, Marquis."
Soon, centered in Mysore City, stories about the British began to spread to cities like Seringapatam and Gongu.
Thanks to General Sheikh Khan's connections and resources, the news spread very rapidly.
In reality, Salah only spent a third of the requested funds. As an ally, Sheikh Khan, eager to quickly topple Jahan Zeb's faction, personally contributed 5,000 Pound Sterling—equivalent to over a hundred thousand Livres—and mobilized many nobles of the same political persuasion to help.
On the streets of Seringapatam, a dozen Hindu citizens gathered, excitedly discussing something. "My relative at Amba Vilas Palace heard the generals say that over three million people died back then! But most of them were from Madurai, so we didn't feel it much here."
"The British actually killed so many people!"
"You didn't know? It was to intimidate us." A short, pale-skinned man in a red robe interjected conspiratorially. "Have you heard? To control North America, a very distant land, the British killed every Indian they could find—the original inhabitants there! There were over ten million of them!"
"Hmm, I've heard about that," a middle-aged man nodded. "My business partner went to North America; he told me what happened there. The British would trick Indian chiefs into a house, claiming they wanted to discuss matters, and then set fire to it, burning them all alive. Oh, they would also give blankets used by plague victims to the Indians, causing entire villages to die from the disease."
"I heard that the British are preparing to invade Mysore, and what happened to the Indians, they'll do to us too..."
One person, still shaken, clutched his chest. "Thank goodness for Tipu's army, otherwise, in the two wars with the British, not just over three million people would have died. Perhaps even we would have..."
Another elder added nervously, "I've also heard that the British like to eat children, especially high-caste children—clean and fleshy. They only eat the limbs and heart, throwing the rest to the dogs..."
The people around them immediately looked terrified. Though not high-caste themselves, their children were still plump and fair. If the British invaded this time, their children might end up gruesomely on a dining table.
What they were saying, naturally, was the 'script' Salah had compiled with his accompanying writers.
Joseph, not fully understanding the specific situation in Mysore before, had only generally outlined the ideas for psychological warfare, leaving the rest to the executors of the "India Project" to improvise. As a novice, Salah ultimately concocted such terrifying fabrications.
However, he did grasp His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's principle of "eight parts truth, two parts fabrication."
Using the psychological trauma left by the previous two Mysore Wars as leverage, most of the content was based on real British actions, with numbers slightly exaggerated. For instance, in the wars between Mysore and Britain, fewer than 130,000 people died in total. And nowhere near ten million Indians were slaughtered.
Of course, the part about eating children was something he attributed to the British based on horror stories he heard in his childhood, falling under the "two parts fabrication" category.
Given the extremely limited information sources available to the Indian people, it was difficult for anyone to verify the truth or falsehood of these claims. Salah, having unleashed a massive wave of propagandists, quickly dominated the narrative during this period.
Meanwhile, in Madurai to the south, people were discussing the same topics, with added rumors about the British extensively selling slaves.
As the area was coastal, everyone began to worry that they, too, might be sold to America as slaves, forced into endless labor like the Africans.
In even more places, news that the British would abolish Hinduism and Islam in Mysore, forcing everyone to convert to Protestantism—with dissenters facing execution by cannon—sparked widespread panic.
In an instant, the memories of the previous two Mysore Wars, combined with the flood of rumors about the British, filled every Mysorean's heart with hatred and dread towards Britain.
All that was needed was a single spark to ignite the powder keg.
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