met free Chapter 117 The Power of "Monarchical Authority"
Chapter 117 The Power of "Monarchical Authority"
The Minotaur-class warships of the Navy were indeed powerful warships, Yug Lat thought. After the Flying Cloud fast cruiser, the Minotaur-class ironclad battleships of the Navy, this 124-meter-long ironclad warship with a displacement of tons, were completely unmatched. After the destruction of the Church's invincible navy, it was the southern rebels who once again challenged them. The southern rebels began to build a small single-masted schooner similar to the Flying Cloud but smaller, and a wooden fast clipper warship that did not use iron frames. They began to plunder merchant ships sailing to and from the port of Hira. This war aimed at disrupting merchant shipping routes began. The southern ships were not slow. At the request of Ekevich, the Royal Capital Magic Association built a water magic propulsion device for the southern ships, which could reach a speed of 14 knots when using magic crystal propulsion.
These fast-moving small boats quickly replaced the pirates on the western ocean. This strategy was proposed by Captain Nagumo Shichijou of the Southern Navy Department. Moreover, this fanatic, who had been promoted to admiral, also recruited most of the pirates in the western ocean, providing them with ships and legal status to legally privateer every merchant ship heading north.
Merchant ships from the North kept reporting attacks to the Amerlane Admiralty, forcing Alice to allow them to purchase defensive weapons. However, Southern spies among them took advantage of this policy to buy these weapons and then load them onto privateers.
However, Alice did introduce a policy that allowed anyone to legally execute pirates anytime, anywhere. If a pirate ship was captured, a bounty could be collected in a port controlled by the North. The generous rewards attracted a group of bounty hunters.
Ultimately, the goal was to establish the Amerlane Navy's position in the Western Ocean and maintain its naval superiority. To this end, the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Yug Lat, approved the construction of a batch of light fast destroyers. The new light fast destroyers incorporated the advantages of the Type 037 inland river paddle tugboats and comprehensively adopted advanced technologies already mastered. It was decided to design and manufacture a new type of 100-ton destroyer using a large number of new technologies.
After absorbing the steel plate riveting and welding technology used in building the "Monarch" class battleships, the new 100-ton fast light frigate of the Navy adopted an all-steel hull, oil-powered propulsion, and an armored rotating turret with steel cofferdams that was manually rotated. In terms of design, the new 100-ton frigate of the Navy adopted two rotating turrets with twin Maxim machine guns and one turret with a quadruple 37mm QF 1 Maxim cannon, also known as a "pom-pom cannon".
The new 100-ton light fast destroyer, codenamed Type 0105, was designed and built based on the Type 0105 boat. It was constructed by Hilla Naval Shipyard and Trian Advanced Shipbuilding Port. This ship quickly became the most advanced vessel in the Amerlane Navy's fleet. Its quadruple 37mm cannons used five-round clips for ammunition. Both the slug guns and the twin Maxim guns used a large number of high-explosive incendiary shells, which could inflict devastating damage on single-masted sailing ships with wooden hulls in naval battles.
But that was far from enough. It wasn't until the launch of the Imperial-class battleships, the steel behemoths of the sea in Amerinsia, that things got interesting. In early December 655, the Imperial-class ships were announced in the Amerinsia United Daily News, and the ships were launched on the same day.
"Your Highness Alice, Your Majesty Alicia, welcome, welcome to the Hilla Naval Port."
On the day the Sovereign-class was launched, Alice and Alicia arrived at the Hilla Naval Port. The giant steel monster with a full load displacement of 15,230 tons lay quietly in the dock. The Sovereign-class built by Amelansi was about 10 tons heavier than the original version, mainly because it had full-coverage protection installed on the fore and aft twin-mounted main gun turrets. It could effectively block fragments and high-explosive shells, and could also protect against high-explosive shells from guns with a diameter of 100 mm or less, but it was difficult to withstand specialized armor-piercing shells.
The moment the Monarch was towed from the secret naval dock to the dry dock, it caused a huge uproar. In this era, steel behemoths of this size were unheard of. Even though trains loaded with steel entered the unloading area of the Hilla naval port every day, the final product still instilled fear in everyone who saw it.
Yog Latto and Lachman stood tall, proud of this steel behemoth. The entire factory worked day and night. The project took more than two years to complete. For this project, they sacrificed one engineer and twenty workers, transported more than 10,000 tons of steel by train, and consumed more than 200 No. 20 magic crystals and hundreds of tons of coal.
Such a miracle was accomplished. Among those who came to witness it were prominent figures and the dwarven envoy, Lolaran. From the moment he entered the naval port, he fell silent, his eyes fixed on the steel behemoth with fervent eyes.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Today we gather here to proudly announce the launch of the Navy's great warship, the naval trendsetter of the next twenty years—the Royal Sovereign!"
"This magnificent warship embodies the hard work of all of us and the greatest minds of Amelansi. Therefore, we can proudly declare—we have conquered the seas! This colossal, steel-built ship will annihilate all enemies that stand in the way of Amelansi's resurgence! Long live Amelansi! Long live the Amelansi Navy! Long live Her Majesty Alicia! Long live Princess Alice!"
Champagne bottles were smashed on the hull, a worker pulled a lever, and the ship slid down the slipway toward the sea, crashing into the water. The Hilla naval port was a rare deep-water port, naturally capable of accommodating battleships of this size.
"Long live!"
Alice smiled and nodded. The era of cannons and giant ships had arrived. The era in which international order was determined by steel monsters on the sea was slowly unfolding. This chaotic, dangerous, but ever-changing era had come.
The "Kingdom" class was towed closer to the shore by steam tugboats, and sailors and the newly appointed captain boarded the ship one by one, beginning to familiarize themselves with this massive steel behemoth together with the engineers.
Yog Lat smiled as he surveyed the magnificent warship, barely glancing at the former flagships, the Minotaur and the Hiun-class, standing nearby. As the Sovereign-class raised the blue Morning Star flag and the Amerlane tricolor flag, symbolizing the flagship, he exclaimed with satisfaction, "Perfect!"
Alicia had never seen such a large warship before, especially one made of steel. She could already imagine such a warship crushing the enemy; it was a creation that would change the course of the war.