Chapter 339 Novice in the War of Public Opinion
The marriage between Mai and France came so suddenly that it surprised everyone involved.
This also includes the Marquis de Lafayette.
Coming out of Ambawela Palace, he looked at Salah, his tone full of puzzlement and surprise: "You actually want to promote a marriage with the indigenous people?!"
Salah returned the favor with a polite smile: "This is the bargaining chip His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has left for us. Of course we will throw it out when necessary. You yourself said that the rainy season is coming.
“Moreover, this is just Haji Bey, oh, no, it is the marriage of Duke Haji and the Kingdom of Mysore, and it has no impact on the royal family.
"According to the secret agreement between the two parties just now, the marriage will not be made public until the British withdraw from the Indian Peninsula. Only a secret wedding will be held and the dowry will be paid. This will not affect British and French diplomacy in a short period of time.
"Oh, and the bride price of 600,000 pounds! This money is enough for you to bring two regiments from France to fight here."
Yes, Salah used his sharp tongue to persuade Tipu Sultan to add another 100,000 pounds as a bride price during the marriage contract discussion just now.
"Whatever you want..." Lafayette had no interest in these political operations and still looked anxious. "But Tip has just not responded to what I said about attacking the British. Your marriage plan does not seem to have What effect."
"This is just part of the plan." Salah followed him into the carriage, closed the door, and continued, "It brings us closer to Mysore, and at the same time we gain an important ally - Sheikh General Khan.
"By the way, Lord Marquis, I still need to apply for 100,000 livres from you."
As the main person in charge of India's strategy, Lafayette has full management of military personnel and finances. This time Joseph allocated a total of 700,000 livres to him.
"What do you do that requires so much money?" Lafayette looked at his Tunisian colleague in surprise. If the latter was not a disciple of Elder Alayi, with a prominent status and a powerful family, he would have suspected that Salah wanted to make money and run away.
“Used to deal with Mysore officials who speak for the British,” Salah said, “such as Jahanzeb.
"Although it is cheaper to hire people here in Mysore, you know, there are no newspapers here, oh, even if there are, they are of no use. Most people here are illiterate, so if you want to do some publicity, the cost will be very high - I You can only hire a lot of people and use their mouths to spread the news.”
"Promotion? What do you want to promote?"
"Well, in the words of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, this is called a war of public opinion." Salah was still smiling, "Let the pro-British guys get into trouble. Then General H. Khan will give them a fatal blow!"
Lafayette had no other way to persuade Tipu Sultan. After thinking for a moment, he could only nod: "Okay, I hope you can succeed. However, you need to write a report on the flow of funds and give it to me every day."
"You will see the daily financial reports, Your Majesty the Marquis."
Soon, with the city of Mysore as the center, some stories about the British began to spread to Salingabatan, Gongu and other cities.
With General Sheikh Khan's connections and resources, the news spread very quickly.
In fact, Salah only spent one-third of the funds applied for. As an ally, Sheikh Khan spent 5,000 pounds of his own money, equivalent to more than 100,000 livres, in order to bring down Jahanzeb's forces more quickly, and launched a Many nobles of the same political faction helped. On the streets of Selingabadan, a dozen Hindu citizens were gathering together, discussing something excitedly, "My relatives in Ambawela Palace heard what the generals said, more than 3 million people died at that time. People! But most of them are from Madurai, so we don’t feel it here.”
"The British actually killed so many people!"
"Don't you know this? This is to shock us." A small man with fair skin and wearing a red short robe answered mysteriously, "Have you heard of it? In order to control North America, the British used it to control North America. In a very distant land, kill all the Indians you can see, including the people who originally lived there!"
"Well, I've heard about this." A middle-aged man nodded, "My business partner has been to North America and he told me about things there. The British would trick the Indian chief into a room and say... They want to discuss things, and then they set fire to them and burn them all to death. Oh, they will also give the blankets used by plague patients to the Indians, so that a whole village will be infected with the plague and die."
"I heard that the British are preparing to attack Mysore. What happened to the Indians, they will do to us..."
One person stroked his chest with lingering fear and said: "Fortunately, there is Tipu's army, otherwise more than 3 million people would have died in the two wars with the British. Maybe even we will..."
Another old man added nervously: "I also heard that the British like to eat children, especially high-caste children, who are clean and have a lot of meat. They only eat the limbs and hearts, and throw the other parts away to feed the dogs... …”
The people around him suddenly looked horrified. Although they were not of high caste, their children were fat and fair. If the British came this time, the children would probably die tragically on the dining table.
What they were talking about was of course the "script" written by Salah and the accompanying writers.
It's just that Joseph didn't know much about the specific situation in Mysore before, so he only briefly talked about some ideas for the public opinion war, and left the rest to the executors of the "India Project" to act accordingly. As a novice, Salah finally made up such a terrifying thing.
However, he did understand the principle of "eight points of truth and two points of falsehood" mentioned by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.
Focusing on the psychological shadow left by the previous two Mysore Wars on the locals, most of the content is about what the British actually did, with only slightly amplified numbers. For example, in the war between Mysore and the British, less than 130,000 people died in total. The Indians were far less massacred than tens of millions.
Of course, eating children was something he imposed on the British based on the horror stories he heard when he was a child, and it fell into the category of "two cents off."
Since Indians have extremely limited sources of information, it is difficult for anyone to verify whether this is true or false. Salah, who sent out a large number of naval forces, quickly took control of the speech during this period.
Meanwhile, in Madurai in the south, people were talking about the same topic and were joined by the British in their massive slave trade.
Since this place is close to the sea, everyone began to worry that they would be sold to the Americas to work as coolies day and night like Africans.
In more places, the news that the British would ban Hinduism and Islam in Mysore and force everyone to convert to Protestantism, and those who disobeyed would be shot, triggered a wider panic.
For a time, the memories of the first two Mysore Wars, coupled with the news about the British, filled the hearts of every Mysore person with hatred and fear of the British.
Just one spark left to ignite the powder keg.
(End of chapter)