Munitions Empire

The sun rose as usual every day, and the first to welcome the light was the naval fleet of the Great Tang Group lying across the sea.

At this time, the Great Tang Group and the rapidly approaching navy of the Shen Country almost simultaneously discovered the billowing smoke lying across the sea.

Indeed, when both sides had steamships participating in the battle, it was quite easy to discover the enemy's fleet from a great distance.

The next second, the fleet of the Great Tang Group discovered that they seemed to be caught in the middle—their south and north were simultaneously approached by an imposing fleet that clearly harbored ill intentions.

Bernard put down his telescope and made a tactical deployment, ordering all the slower Brunas-class ironclads within his fleet to stay behind and protect the transport and landing troops, while the faster Wolf-class cruisers were grouped separately and charged toward the Shen Country fleet in the direction of Fengshun City to the south.

According to Bernard's plan, he should command the faster cruiser fleet to swiftly move south and devour the supposed weaker Shen Country fleet coming from the direction of Fengshun City.

After completely eliminating the threat to the south, using their faster sailing speed, he would lead the fleet in a loop to join the remaining Brunas-class ironclads and pincer the enemy fleet coming from the north.

Quickly, Cruiser Wolf 1 together with Wolf 3 and Wolf 4 broke away from the landing fleet, the three warships arranged in a linear formation and charged rapidly toward the enemy fleet to the south.

At the same time, the fleet of Shen Country advancing from the direction of Fengshun City toward the north also discovered that enemy ships were closing in on them.

As a result, the experienced Shen Country commander immediately ordered his fleet to cross the bows and array side-on to face the enemy, centering on the Ming Wheel Ships to prepare for the imminent clash with the Great Tang fleet.

The atmosphere suddenly tensed up, waves crashed against the hulls, all gunports on the ships were flung open, and one after the other the Shireck breach-loading cannons were rolled out, with their barrels aimed at the distant plumes of smoke.

Through the telescope of the Shen Country ship captain, three dark warships were rapidly advancing towards them with a speed that seemed almost inconceivable.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Those warships, which appeared very distant, seemed to be subtly turning their bows, as if they were preparing to give chase and bite the tail of the Shen Country fleet.

"Their sailing speed is very fast..." a middle-ranking Shen Country officer lowered his telescope and started to say with a worried heart.

The approaching warships looked more slender than their Ming Wheel Ships and their speed also seemed faster, clearly not easy to deal with.

This wasn't about Zheng Country's backward and powerless sail warships—just from the momentum, the enemy's forces out there were definitely more than ten times harder to tackle than the Zheng Country navy.

"It seems they have great confidence in their own sailing speed, actually ready to bite our tail," said the commander standing next to the middle-ranking Shen Country officer, also lowering his telescope. He was the captain of this warship and also the overall commander of this fleet.

"Clearly, their sailing speed is indeed fast enough to be trustworthy," the middle-ranking commander replied, eyes on the ever-nearing smoke, seeming uneasy.

"Do not fear, we are ironclad warships, they are not our match!" retorted the captain with a cold laugh, showing disdain.

He too placed great trust in the warship under his feet, for it was a wooden ship with an iron hull, whose defensive capability was obviously several times stronger than that of an ordinary sailing ship!

What's more advantageous, this type of Ming Wheel Ship warship not only has a slight speed advantage over sailing ships, being a bit faster, but also lacked the sailing ships' most vulnerable targets—the sails and masts.

Without these easy targets, his warship was even more low-lying, completely describable as a technical leap ahead of sailing vessels.

The 130mm caliber main guns he relied on used the latest breach-loading technology, with a higher rate of fire and the explosive shells had greater power, so even if there were only two guns fore and aft, their firepower was still vastly superior to traditional sailing ships.

In fact, his warship was not merely equipped with two 130mm caliber main guns but also had four 75mm caliber guns on one side.

These guns were Shireck's imitation of Great Tang Group products, with significantly reduced power, serving merely as additional weaponry.

However, even these lesser secondary weapons had a larger punch than the earlier Shireck breach-loading cannons.

At least they were breach-loading, allowing the crew to load the shells from inside the safety of the cabin with high rate of fire and protection.

What they didn't know was that each of the approaching enemy ships was armed with 10 150mm caliber naval guns, which could concentrate 6 guns on the broadside, a considerable amount stronger.

At 5 a.m., the two sides had already closed to a very short distance, and under Bernard's command, the warships of the Great Tang Group began to turn, revealing their flanks.

Thanks to their absolute advantage in sailing speed, the slender Wolf-class cruisers quickly bared their fangs.

At 5:11 a.m., the prepared cruisers of the Great Tang Group started firing a barrage, unleashing a fierce volley at a distance of 1300 meters.

The sudden barrage made all the sailors of the Shen Country's Navy flinch, as they had never seen an opponent open fire at such a distance.

However, reality soon tensed them up—as the enemy's continuous gunfire ensued, the sail warships at the rear of the Shen Country's Fleet began to sink one after another as they were hit.

It was clear that the naval warships of the Great Tang Group had achieved effective attacks; the Shen Country's Navy was caught off guard, without even the chance to adjust, and thus fell into a state of passivity.

A few minutes later, Bernard began bombarding the Ming Wheel Ships in the middle of the enemy fleet, and by this moment, the distance between the two sides had closed to around 1200 meters.

The Ming Wheel of the Shen Country's Ming Wheel Ship was protected by iron armor, with an outer layer of water wheels that were constantly rotating and covered by iron plates varying from 4 millimeters to 20 millimeters in thickness.

In theory, these ironclads should be able to withstand attacks from enemy artillery fire at a longer distance, with a defensive power far superior to wooden boards.

However, obviously, such iron plate defense was not prepared for the Great Tang Group's 150 millimeter caliber cannon.

The wolf-class cruisers of the Great Tang Group, already having an excess of firepower, suddenly found their feel when attacking the wooden Ming Wheel Ships protected by ironclad defenses.

Those contact fuses, which were somewhat unsuited for attacking wooden sailboats, released their power perfectly when bombarding the Ming Wheel Ships with iron-armored wooden hulls.

Originally, the contact fuses detonated inside the ship after striking a wooden hull, but due to the characteristics of the wooden hull being ventilated on all sides, the destructive effect could only be described as average.

Achieving the practical result of destroying a sailboat with a single shot was entirely dependent on the excessive power of the shells, not because the type of shell was suitable.

Now, with contact fuses that detonated upon impact, the timing of the shell explosions was perfect as they penetrated the hulls, so the destructive force was fully applied to the ship's structure, making the damage all the more conspicuous.

As a direct result, when a shell hit a Shen Country's Navy Ming Wheel Ship, the explosion instantly blew off one side of the ship's paddle wheels!

It's not an exaggeration at all—the explosion cut off the paddle wheels on one side and it fell directly into the sea.

In the face of solid-shot that was virtually invincible against wooden ironclad Ming Wheel Ships, all sorts of problems were exposed the instant they collided with true steel cruisers.

Nevertheless, as the main force of the Shen Country's Troops, the Shen Country's Navy was still very tenacious in battle; even though they found themselves in a passive position and at a disadvantage as soon as the battle erupted, they continued to fight stubbornly.

They kept firing at the warships of the Great Tang Group, even causing considerable trouble to the latter for a time.

For the first time, a 130 millimeter shrapnel shell hit a warship of the Great Tang Group, blasting a fist-sized hole on the side of the hull.

The explosion made the wolf-class cruiser shudder, but as it did not cause more significant damage, the warship continued to fire and fight.

Compared to the sail warships and muzzle-loading cannons, the newer Ming Wheel Ships and breech-loading cannons did indeed pose some trouble for the Navy of the Great Tang Group.

The sturdier hulls indeed slowed down the pace at which the Great Tang Group's Navy sank enemy ships. Even the worst ironclad ship is certainly much sturdier than a wooden one.

One ironclad Ming Wheel Ship even remained afloat after being hit by 13 shells, which vexed Bernard greatly.

Watching the Shen Country's Navy warship being blasted to the point that it was almost reduced to a mere hull, but still not scuttled or capsized, floating on the sea like a tomb.

However, the Shen Country's Fengshun City's Northern Fleet had now entirely lost its combat effectiveness, with all 15 sail warships having been sunk here.

Two Ming Wheel Ships were now also crippled, one slowly sinking and another seeming to be just a hull floating on the sea.

Bernard, already very anxious, immediately ordered the wolf number 3 warship, which had just been hit, to stay behind and continue firing, ensuring the sinking of all Shen Country warships, while he himself took the wolf number 4 warship northward immediately to reinforce the landing fleet caught in a fierce battle. Discover exclusive content at empire

Because, at the moment when he had annihilated the Northern Fleet of Fengshun port, news came from the landing fleet that the enemy's fleet had broken into the landing zone and started attacking the free-wheel ships.

This news made Bernard burn with impatience because if his landing fleet encountered problems, even if he annihilated all the enemy's fleets in this battle, it would still be a devastating defeat.

Therefore, he hurriedly led two cruisers back to the battlefield, rushing north to chase away the enemy's fleet that had entered the landing zone.

For a while, the sea was covered with clouds of war, and who would win this naval battle was still a question mark. At this very moment, the sunlight had crossed the coastline, shining onto Dongwan Island, as the land forces of both sides finally clashed.