A novice at the public opinion war

The marriage between Mai and Fa came so suddenly that it caught everyone involved off guard.

This also includes the Marquis de Lafayette.

Emerging from the Ambavilas Palace, he looked at Salah, his voice filled with incomprehension and surprise. "You actually intend to arrange a marriage alliance with the natives?!"

Salah responded with a polite smile, "This is a bargaining chip left to us by His Crown Prince, which we will certainly use when necessary. You yourself have said that the rainy season is coming."

"Moreover, this is merely a marriage alliance between Haji Bey, oh no, Duke Haji, and the Kingdom of Mysore; it has no impact on the Royal House."

"According to the secret agreement between the two parties, the marriage will not be made public until the United Kingdom withdraw from the Indian Peninsula. Only a secret wedding and dowry will be held. This way, it will not affect Anglo-French diplomacy in the short term."

"Oh, and the Pound Sterling 600,000 dowry! That's enough to cover the cost of bringing two regiments from France to fight here."

Yes, Salah, with his silver tongue, managed to persuade Tipu Sultan to add another 100,000 Pound Sterling to the dowry during the marriage negotiations.

"Whatever you say..." Lafayette had no interest in these political maneuvers, and still looked anxious. "But Tipu hasn't responded to my suggestion about attacking the United Kingdom. Your marriage plan doesn't seem to be working."

"This is only part of the plan." Salah followed him into the Carriage, closed the door, and continued, "It has brought us closer to Mysore and also gained an important ally—General Sheikh Khan."

"By the way, Your Excellency, I also need to request Livre in funding from you."

As the main person in charge of India's strategy, Lafayette had full authority over personnel and finances. This time, Joseph allocated him a full Livre.

"What do you need so much money for?" Lafayette looked at his Tunisia colleague in surprise. If the latter were not a disciple of the Elder Alayi, with a prominent status and a powerful family, he would have suspected that Salah wanted to run away with the money.

"It's used to deal with Mysore officials who speak for the United Kingdom," Salah said, "Such as Jahan Zeb."

"Although it's cheaper to hire people in Mysore, you know, there aren't any newspapers here. Oh, and even if there were, they wouldn't be of much use. Most people here are illiterate, so any publicity would be very expensive—I can only hire a lot of people to spread the word."

"Advertisement? What do you want to advertise?"

"Yes, in His Crown Prince's words, this is called a propaganda war," Salah said with a smile. "To put the pro-British guys in a difficult position, and then have General Khwarazm deliver the fatal blow!"

Lafayette had no other way to persuade Tipu Sultan at the moment, and after thinking for a moment, he could only nod. "Alright, I hope you succeed. However, you need to submit a daily report on the flow of funds to me."

"You will see the daily financial reports, Your Excellency."

Soon, stories about the United Kingdom began to spread from Mysore City to cities such as Seringapatam and Gonggu.

Thanks to General Sheikh Khan's connections and resources, the news spread very quickly.

In reality, Salah only spent one-third of the requested funds. As an ally, Sheikh Khan, in order to overthrow Jahan Zeb's forces more quickly, paid out 5,000 Pound Sterling out of his own pocket, equivalent to more than 100,000 Livre, and mobilized many Nobility from the same Political Faction to help.

On the streets of Seringapatam, a dozen Hinduism citizens were gathered together, discussing something with excited expressions. "My relatives at the Ambavilas Palace heard those generals say that more than 3 million people died back then! But most of them were from Madurai, so we don't feel it here."

"The United Kingdom killed so many people!"

"Don't you know that? This is to intimidate us." A short, fair-skinned man in a red robe continued mysteriously, "Have you heard? To control North America, a very remote land, the United Kingdom killed every Native American they could see—the original inhabitants! Tens of millions!"

"Yes, I've heard of that." A middle-aged man nodded. "My business partner has been to North America, and he told me about it. The United Kingdom would lure Native American chiefs into a house, saying they wanted to discuss something, and then set it on fire, burning them all to death. Oh, and they would also give the Native Americans Blankets used by plague patients, causing an entire village to contract the plague and die."

"I've heard that the United Kingdom are preparing to attack Mysore, and they'll do to us what happened to the Indians..."

One man, clutching his chest with lingering fear, said, "Thank goodness for Tipu's army, otherwise, the deaths in the two wars with the United Kingdom would have been far more than three million. Perhaps even we would have..."

Another elderly man added nervously, "I've also heard that the United Kingdom like to eat children, especially high-caste children, because they're cleaner and have more meat. They only eat the limbs and heart, and the rest are fed to dogs..."

Those around them immediately showed expressions of horror. Although they were not of high caste, their child was still quite chubby and healthy. If the United Kingdom were to invade this time, the child would likely die a horrible death on the dinner table.

They were referring, of course, to the "play" written by Salah and the Writers who accompanied him.

Joseph hadn't been very familiar with the specifics of Mysore, so he only outlined the general strategy for the propaganda war, leaving the rest to the "India Project" implementers to figure out as they saw fit. Salah, being a novice, ended up coming up with this terrifying concoction.

However, he did understand the principle of "eight parts truth, two parts falsehood" that His Crown Prince had mentioned.

Using the psychological trauma left on the locals by the two previous Mysore War as a starting point, the content mostly recounts actual actions taken by the United Kingdom, only with slightly exaggerated figures. For example, the total number of deaths in the Mysore war between the British and the United Kingdom was less than 130,000. The number of Native Americans killed was also far less than tens of millions.

Of course, the idea of cannibalism was something he added to the United Kingdom narrative based on horror stories he heard in his childhood, and thus falls into the category of "two parts falsehood."

Because India have extremely limited sources of information, it is difficult for anyone to verify the truth of the matter. Salah, who deployed a massive online army, quickly gained control of the narrative during this period.

Meanwhile, in Madurai in the South, people were discussing the same topic, and also mentioning the large-scale United Kingdom slave trade.

Because this place is by the sea, everyone began to worry that they would end up like the Africa, sold to the Americas to do hard labor day and night.

In many other places, news that the United Kingdom would ban Hinduism and Islam in Mysore, forcing everyone to convert to Protestantism, and that those who disobeyed would be executed by cannon fodder, sparked even greater panic.

For a time, the memories of the two previous Mysore War, coupled with the flood of news about the United Kingdom, filled the hearts of every Mysore with hatred and fear towards the United Kingdom.

Just one spark was needed to ignite the Gunpowder keg.