Munitions Empire

In the timeline familiar to Tang Mo, on November 27, 1853, a small Turkish fleet arrived at the port of Sinop, and the commander of this Turkish fleet ordered his subordinates not to fire first.

Soon, this Turkish fleet discovered six Russian battleships patrolling outside the harbor, and the commander sent urgent requests for reinforcements, but these pleas fell on deaf ears.

These Russian battleships, hailing from a hundred miles away in Sevastopol, were part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and were commanded by Rear Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov.

On the morning of November 30, the Russian fleet entered Sinop Bay and demanded the Turkish fleet to raise a white flag and surrender. The Turkish commander refused to surrender and ordered to open fire. Minutes later, the Russian battleships responded with cannon fire.

This was both the final glory of wooden sailing battleships and the last shining moment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and this naval battle also went down in history as the last large-scale engagement of the age of sailing fleets.

It was during the Crimean War that steam-powered warships were widely used by the United Kingdom and France, greatly showcasing the advantages of technological weaponry.

The Russian warships used explosive shells, marking the first use of such munitions in a naval battle, with astonishing effects. Despite the Russian artillery not being very accurate at the time, the new explosive shells caused massive damage to wooden warships after exploding inside upon impact.

Half an hour into the battle, the outcome was already sealed. An hour later, the entire Ottoman Turkish fleet was annihilated, with warships ablaze with towering flames.

Afterward, Nakhimov directed his fleet's fire towards the Turkish coastal batteries, which quickly fell into a sea of fire as well. The raging flames reflected off the charred wreckage of Turkish warships, with corpses strewn everywhere along the shore and in the water.

In this battle, the Russian troops suffered over 200 casualties while annihilating more than 3,000 Turkish soldiers and capturing 150, including the Turkish fleet commander, Osman Pasha. Only one small steamship, the Taif, managed to escape, bringing the dire news back to Constantinople.

Then, as fortune would have it, this Russian Navy, which had cruelly dominated the Ottoman Turkey with explosive shells, found itself hopelessly outclassed in the face of the incoming British and French fleets powered by steam warships.

As times advanced, the importance of technology in warfare was vividly illustrated in this conflict.

In the world that Tang Mo now inhabits, the ironclad warships of the Great Tang Group were virtually using technology from around 1890 to crush the warships of 1750.

This was truly not a battle, but a brutal massacre. By the time the commanders of the first Taren Kingdom sailing warship realized this, it was already too late.

Their warship blew apart, splitting in the middle as the water, like a savage beast, surged into the cabins, dragging the grievously injured sailors into the vortex.

As they watched the mast of this warship beginning to break and its sails twisting and falling, the sailors aboard the second warship, hot on its heels, were so shocked they were rendered speechless.

As they pondered how to rescue their allies from the water ahead, explosions and screams rang out from behind them.

The third warship was also struck by a shell, with most of its side hull blown away. Before its sailors could recover from their stupor, the ship began to list heavily.

Soon after, the oncoming cannon fire baptized nearly all remaining Taren Kingdom's sailing warships while their fleet commanders were still trying to grasp the situation, sinking four warships in short order.

Among the remaining three warships, the commander of one was the wisest. Abandoning any idea of fighting or fleeing, he immediately drove his warship towards Dragon Island.

Before being sunk, he managed to run his ship aground beneath the cliffs, giving his crew a chance to escape to shore for refuge.

The other two warships continued to resist stubbornly, with predictable outcomes.

One of them was the flagship of the fleet, whose commander had previously dreamt of attacking Dragon City.

His warship was shattered by cannon fire, and the exploding gunpowder blew most of it to pieces, leaving hardly any sailors alive.

The last warship attempted to flee but was overtaken and sunk during the turn, leaving only a clutter of wreckage on the surface of the sea.

The entire naval battle lasted 27 minutes, without any dawdling. The Taren Kingdom's fleet managed only to fire two shots before losing all combat capability.

One warship was run aground and written off, while the remaining six were completely sunk without exception. The closest distance during the entire artillery duel was over 700 meters, far exceeding the Taren Kingdom warship commanders' familiar engagement distance.

This was why the Taren Kingdom's warships only managed to fire two shots before the battle ended—neither of those hastily fired shots hit their target.

Utilizing the advantage of their aiming devices, the hit rate of the Brunas No. 4 battleship reached an astonishing 60 percent at a distance of around 800 meters.

A battle came and went like the wind, arriving swiftly and departing just as quickly, leaving behind a lingering taste of something unfulfilled.

Surging waves slapped against the cliffs, roaring like thunder. It was as though the crisp sound of explosions on the sea were still pounding on the panicked chests of those caught off guard.

It was oppressive and made hearts skip a beat.

A white wave enveloped a rock, retreating and leaving behind a sailor in a sorry state. He struggled to sit up, poking his head out above the water before the next wave hit.

He breathed deeply, relishing the unlikely second chance he had grasped in his hands. After savoring the joy of life for a moment, he abruptly turned his head and saw the shattered wreckage on the sea surface, along with that fearsome black battleship amongst the debris.

That was no ordinary ship; it was a beast sprawled across the ocean, spewing lightning, with an air of domination, as if it were the ocean itself, controlling the life and death of everything within it.

"Heh… heh…" The sailor greedily gasped for air, having narrowly escaped disaster. He climbed up onto a rock, letting the seawater splash and roll beneath his feet.

Not far behind him lay the cliffs, and not far ahead lay the wreckage of the once-beached Big Redfish battleship, which had then been bombarded into pieces by several cannon blasts.

The battleship now lay with its fallen masts and burning hull still visible above the waterline. Through the burning flames, one could barely make out the brown royal flag embroidered with a helm.

Everything was over. A massive fleet of seven battleships vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving behind nothing.

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Thousands of sailors had perished at sea, with perhaps not even a single digit's worth of survivors. As a sailor, he still didn't know what force he had provoked.

"Help, save me." At his feet came a weak shout from a sailor who had been washed against the rocky shore by the waves. The sailor from the Taren Kingdom, who was staring dumbfounded at the Brunas No. 4 battleship, quickly looked down to find the source of the voice.

Then he saw an injured sailor struggling in the water, one hand gripping the rocks, the other hand bloody.

In a panic, he pulled his comrade onto the rock and saw a piece of wood impaled in the man's shoulder.

The sharp plank, like shrapnel, was embedded in the sailor's shoulder, from where the blood on the arm was flowing.

"You're hurt! I can't bandage you! There's nothing here! Hold on! I'll think of something..." the young sailor nervously looked at his wounded companion.

The injured unfortunate, at this moment, had the energy only to gasp for breath. After a while, he regained some strength and struggled to grip the arm of the young sailor, weakly cautioning him, "Go back! Go back! Tell them to move quickly… quickly…"

After speaking, his hand lost strength and drooped onto the rock. The young sailor looked up bewilderedly to see the terrifyingly powerful battleship with sailors using long poles to fish out sailors floating on the sea.

"They don't intend to eat them, do they?" This absurd thought popped into the young sailor's mind and frightened him so much that he lay flat on the rock, not daring to lift his head again.

The salty seawater washed over the cuts on his face, the stinging pain bringing him somewhat back to his senses. When he mustered the courage to look up again, the battleship had already sailed far away.

In front of him, all that remained was a cold body and some broken planks washed ashore by the sea.

Unlike the attack on the Southern Waters, this time the sailors of the Great Tang Group did not eradicate to the last man but instead fished out a few prisoners from the water.

Because Brunas No. 4 needed intelligence, they needed all the information on the Taren Kingdom's operation this time. Including the fleet's size, the fleet's movements, the size of the landing troops, and the specific movements of the landing troops, among other details.

The captured sailors of the Taren Kingdom kneeled on the deck, staring in shock at a pair of gleaming black leather shoes walking back and forth in front of their knees, beneath a pair of white trousers.

Then, a middle-aged man's voice rang out, "Whoever is willing to answer my questions gets something to eat and a chance to live... It's alright if you don't cooperate; I'll just throw you back into the sea. You can choose for yourselves..."

"I'll talk! I know everything!" "I'll speak first! We are sailors of the Taren Kingdom!" "I'm an officer! I'll talk first!…" Several prisoners nearly fought with one another until they each received a reassuring pat from the sailors of the Great Tang Group, which calmed them down.

"Since you are all willing to cooperate... then... I will ask the questions..." The captain stopped pacing, looking down at the prisoner who had just claimed to be an officer, and asked, "How many ships do you have in total?"

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