Chapter 58
People always find hope even in the worst situations.
And in the worst-case scenario of the convoy being wiped out, the only hope Edward could find was one thing.
The navy.
Five ironclad 1st-rate ships of the line, an army of hundreds of assorted sea monsters, and the giant sea monster Tusoteuthis.
What's more, there was something that could cloud Edward's judgment.
"You're saying two Tusoteuthis returned unscathed?"
"Yes. There are traces showing they were hit by the attack, but their lives are not in danger. It seems that sea monster also found the Tusoteuthis too troublesome to mess with."
Right. The two Tusoteuthis had returned alive and well without suffering any damage.
That meant that the unidentified monster the South was using couldn't beat even two Tusoteuthis.
Isn't it?
If not, Tusoteuthis would have died there too.
So it was clear that the South still lacked the ability to defeat the ruler of the deep, Tusoteuthis, head-on.
"...If that's true, then we can solve this situation."
Most of the South's industrial base is concentrated along the coast. That's because the Sarsen-Lutetia region is effectively an island, with a land connection only there.
Coastal cities are advantageous for exports, but...
"That also makes them vulnerable to losing naval supremacy."
"All we need is to seize naval supremacy. Wrecking the ports was the sailing ships' job."
"Ironclads and the mages aboard them would be more than enough to blow the coastal cities apart."
"At this point, it's all or nothing."
Edward also instinctively knew this setup wasn't entirely in his favor.
But he already had no other choice.
The situation was far too different from the picture he had first imagined. The South he had wanted to turn into the aggressor had become the victim before he knew it, and trying to wither it to death was causing the East to wither away as well.
"If this keeps up, I'll end up the same way as that idiot Charles Raymonds."
He had never thought much of Charles Raymonds.
From Edward's perspective, Charles Raymonds, who seemed closer to a wild animal than to a human being, was no different from a beast.
And he had no intention of meeting the same end as Charles Raymonds.
"Charles Raymonds had stupidly tried a night raid without proper preparation."
Charles Raymonds hadn't put everything on the line for his surprise attack. At least, that was how Edward saw it.
Otherwise, how could the South's casualties have been so low?
"I'm not going to make the same mistake as him."
At the very least, that's what he believed.
Unlike the West, where the air force was everything, the Eastern army was far more complex and systematic.
His fleet, which dominated both the seabed and the sea, was certainly worthy of calling itself the empire's strongest.
The South's army that supposedly smashed the Western army? He had never even considered that.
Of course, it would be disastrous if the army landed, but the West and South didn't have any land routes connecting them to the East in the first place.
Some wyvern units acquired by annexing the West? Those weren't even worth considering.
Wyvern units were frightening only to ordinary infantry.
The power of the 1st-rate ships of the line, converted into ironclads and carrying mages, was too sturdy to be broken by something like a wyvern unit's breath.
It didn't matter that they were that slow.
Most cannonballs would simply bounce off the ironclads.
So his belief that 'I'm different' had its own reasonable basis.
Unaware that every one of those grounds had been orchestrated by Kyle Leopold, Edward secretly began preparing for war.
***
News of the East's war preparations quickly reached my office.
No matter how secretly they were preparing, it was useless.
From the moment I knew war was coming, every secret move the East made had lost its meaning.
"If both sides start a naval blockade, all that will happen is that the empire's power will be weakened. How about trying to reconcile?"
The moment the East, which had seemed utterly unwilling to back down, said something like that, the war was already as good as certain.
The East's situation itself had already become a choice between war and Edward's downfall. Edward, who had in his own way seen through the essence of 'peace in our time,' wasn't someone who would fail to understand
even that.
Then this was deception.
And in any era, war came after deception.
After all, isn't it most dangerous when people suddenly start talking about peace instead of snarling at each other?
"War will begin soon."
So I immediately called a meeting.
We needed to have proper preparations on our side too.
We definitely had the technological advantage. But technological superiority didn't guarantee absolute victory.
"In this naval battle, we have to deliver a perfect victory no one can dispute."
Let's take another look at the South's and West's geography.
The South doesn't connect to the imperial center by land. The sea is the only route.
The West is also cut off from the imperial center by the Arbel Mountains. It's not that there isn't a land route, but only a small mountain path that could be cut off whenever needed.
Even if the empire launched military intervention now, it would still desperately need the navy and air force to strike the West and South.
But the navy got wrecked, didn't it?
From that point on, the empire would no longer be able to intervene against us directly.
"So if we win this fight, whether we annex the West or openly prepare for war, the center won't be able to do anything right away. They won't have the pretext or the strength."
There's no way they'd try to settle such a decisive battle with just a few ships.
They'd probably try to bring everything the East has to bear against us.
"Then we should make sure to take full advantage of our technological edge."
"Exactly. To do that, we need to minimize the variables."
There were variables in this world that could offset technological superiority. A monster the size of a battleship roaming underwater was a pretty heavy burden for a battleship.
That's why I wanted to eliminate any encounters between battleships and sea monsters in this war.
"By minimizing the variables, you mean...?"
"Surface ships fight surface ships. Undersea forces fight undersea forces. We make it a one-on-one battle."
In the meantime, a few more submarines had been produced, bringing our total to sixty.
I figured that number would be enough to take on Tusoteuthis.
You ask whether submarines were always something that could be produced this quickly?
Surprisingly, yes.
Just look at Germany in World War I: they had 375 U-boats. In World War II, they even churned out nearly 1,100 during the war itself.
As for us, we just don't mass-produce them because we have no reason to churn them out that recklessly.
The only thing sixty submarines had to face was Tusoteuthis. Our air force could wipe out the smaller monsters with depth charges.
"But... I don't think the enemy will obediently follow our intentions."
"That's the air force's job—to make them do that."
The wyvern bombers armed with 20mm machine guns and depth charges were on a completely different level from the wyvern knights of before.
Of course, they had mages on their side too, so it wouldn't be possible to shred the fleet all by themselves... but being able to restrict movement alone was enough.
"The submarine unit will ambush the sea monsters and then withdraw. While the sea monsters chase the submarines, the air force will pin down the surface fleet with air raids."
If we just tie them down, the enemy fleet will naturally split apart.
Then the fight becomes a fair engagement between surface ships.
"How many ships can the East commit to this war?"
"We estimate roughly a hundred ships. Five 1st-rate ships of the line refitted as ironclads, about ten 2nd-rate ships of the line, about forty 3rd-rate ships of the line, which are their main force, and forty-five frigates of 4th rate or lower."
Of course, the East didn't earn the title of the empire's strongest navy by playing at children's games.
It's not on the level of the British Empire in the 1800s, which operated a massive navy of 800 sailing ships totaling 320,000 tons, but it's still a formidable naval force.
"What naval forces can we prepare within a month?"
"One battleship, three 4,000-ton light cruisers, and fifteen destroyers under 2,000 tons."
Perhaps this would become the largest war the South had ever faced.
But I didn't particularly feel burdened.
Even with that many ships, the range difference between a destroyer's 5-inch naval gun and a ship of the line's muzzle-loading cannon was more than tenfold.
What's more, we also had the wildcard of a seaplane carrier specialized for wyverns.
"It'll be the most one-sided fleet battle in imperial history."
Of course, I didn't think war would break out immediately. Gathering a giant sailing fleet of nearly a hundred ships would take time on their end too.
What we had to do in the meantime was simple.
Continue the naval blockade, produce more warships, and make full use of the intelligence bureau to gather their operational plans.
"Let's end the meeting here for today. Staff headquarters, come back with an operational plan, and Intelligence, I expect meaningful information on my desk within a month."
And then, a month passed.