Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 18: Big News

Claude slept deeply and didn't even wake him from his sleep until his mother found it a little late to wake Angelina upstairs.

He rubbed his face, picked up two slices of white bread in his backpack, and Claude ran out the door. Class hours are almost up, and if you're late in the morning, strict Wickham instruction doesn't mind him standing in front of the classroom for three straight lessons.

His breath rushed into the classroom, his luck was good, the bell in class had just rang, and the math instructor in the first lesson, Mr. Vincent, had not walked into the classroom, which was not too late.

“What took you so long?” The three of us waited half a day in front of your house, thinking you'd gone long ago, "asked Erickson next door." Who knew you weren't coming until school. ”

Claude answered while looking for mathematics textbooks in his bag: "Forget it. I overslept in the morning. I ran all the way here. ”

“Your eyes are a little red, your orbits are dark, your face is a little pale, you slept late last night?” Bok Al measured Claude's face and said.

“Really?” Claude touched her face: "Didn't we have a party at home last night? After that, my father and the guests were in the study discussing something, and I left late. When I want to sleep, I don't know where the two wildcats came from to call Chun on the roof. You know how I live in the attic. This made me sleep. I finally got rid of the two wildcats. I couldn't sleep after this torment. When I fell asleep, I couldn't wake up in the morning..."

“Oh, you're bad luck.” Verricolo laughed: “This is the spring season for wildcats, and that scream is quite disgusting. But there is a way that if you kill a wildcat on your roof, there will never be another wildcat on your roof again. Do you want me to lend you my gun from home? In fact, cat meat is also quite delicious, softer than chicken...”

“Pull it down.” Claude despised him: “You think my father would agree that I was going to bomb the roof with a gun, and the wildcat didn't hit it, and the roof was going to be rebuilt. If you want wildcat meat, you go hunting in the open. ”

“Vero, is it true that cat meat is softer than chicken?” Ericsson was successfully misled by Vericulo.

“Of course, I'm telling you, that time...” Then the two of us got caught up in a discussion about the quality of cat meat and how to cook it. If it wasn't for class, Claude wondered if the two guys would come home right away to pick up their guns and look for wildcats all over town.

“Claude, I know what they're talking about...” Bok Al whispered.

“Them? Who...”

“Your father, they, my father, were there last night, and they negotiated the opening of a route from White Deer Town to Tirsim on the mainland of Nubicia. If this route were to succeed, Bai Lu Town would be upgraded to Port City, no longer subject to the jurisdiction of Baromyse County, with independent budgetary and financial powers and under the authority of the Royal City, comparable to Port Neru…"

The more Bok Al said, the louder his mouth almost touched Claude's ear.

“Oh, that's a big deal.” Claude understands why Bok Al is so careful, and if the news comes out now and promises to cause a sensation, it turns out Father they planned this time of year to be a big deal.

Port Neru is the only large seaport and a military port in the Kingdom of Orvilas, where the only naval fleet in the Kingdom sits. The navy, also known as the Dauntless Fleet, is the guarantor of the security of the coastal waters of the eastern part of the Kingdom, and its mission is to defend the navy of the enemy against offenders in the waters of the Kingdom, sweep up pirate groups along the coast, maintain maritime commercial routes, and so on.

Located in the eastern part of the Farea continent, the kingdom of Ovieras has nearly a thousand miles of coastline, but there are no two suitable seaports. Apart from the port of Nero, which is a deep-water port with a few small shallow seas fishing harbours, other places are either sandy or coastal, or cliff cliffs that are not suitable for mooring by ocean vessels.

After the arrival of Sterling X, he changed the aggressive strategic repression of the countries of the eastern part of the continent, eased relations with countries, brokered trade routes, interacted with each other, and vigorously developed trade dealings with countries.

In a way, Sterling X is actually a crowned businessman who loves money and deals in profits. That did not mean, however, that Sterling X had not done his king's job well; he had merely turned his eyes to the Nubian continent.

Nu is bigger than the continent of Sia, at least twice the size of the Farea. Half of the countries of the Farea continent, or coastal States, have sent more or less troops to seize their respective lands as overseas colonial territories along the coastal zone of the Nubian continent and have the opportunity to expand inland.

Compared to a country on the Farea continent armed to the teeth, a battle involving tens of thousands of casualties can even cause nearly a thousand casualties in a small border conflict. The expansion of the open frontier of the Kingdom of Auveras in the Nubian continent was a smooth sail, which took more than seven years to strike an overseas territory more than twice the territory of the Kingdom, for which seven Nubian continental territories were established.

Most importantly, casualties in the overseas territories that have pioneered such a large kingdom are not high and are said to have injured as many as 3,400 so far, while the kingdom has sent more than 100,000 troops to the Nubian mainland.

The main reason was that the Royal Army was dealing with indigenous tribes with archery bullets and stone axes, which reminded Claude of the colonial era in the former West, when modern armies with guns were dealing with tribal armaments in primitive societies, a repressive war in which the Royal Army was victorious without effort by falling apart from the two eras.

When a large ocean sailboat filled with gold and silver gems from the Nubian continent and a wide variety of specialty raw materials entered the port of Neru, the whole kingdom was struck. Nearly all the people of the kingdom, regardless of class, celebrated Sterling Sterling X's wise decision and extraordinary vision, and he insisted on spending huge sums of money and risking more than 100,000 troops and countless manpower to develop the overseas territories of the Nubian continent, which now seemed to be a lucrative investment.

Indeed, Sterling X restored peace and trade to the borders of the Kingdom with its neighbours. It also strongly advocated the expansion of the colonial territories of the Nubian continent and the empowerment of the country by obtaining from them all the raw materials and gold and silver wealth needed by the Kingdom. This series of measures and policies has proved him to be a very good monarch.

At the same time, however, the extension of the open frontier of the Kingdom of Auveras in the Nubian continent has also attracted the attention and vigilance of the rest of the Farea continent.

In particular, the Kingdom of Nasserli, in the eastern part of the Farea continent, which has always been the dead enemy of the Kingdom of Ovilas, although Sterling X finally reached a peace agreement with it over the course of several weeks, it was in fact several wars with the Kingdom that had been tragically defeated and trapped inside and outside, which brought the boat down the ladder handed down by Sterling X.

Unlike the major military and financial investment of the Kingdom of Ovilas in the mainland of Nubian, the Kingdom of Nasri, while seizing two plots of land in the mainland of Nubian, is not large and its colonies have not developed much because of the power struggle within its kingdom.

The Kingdom of Nasserli is finally in a hurry as it watches the expansion of the Overseas Territories and the constant delivery of goods and raw materials to the homeland. In more than a decade's time, the development of the Kingdom of Ovilas will be difficult, and the Kingdom of Nasserli will feel terrible for itself.

Even though Sterling X has repeatedly advocated the maintenance of stability and peace in the eastern part of the continent, peace agreements have been signed. But the kingdom of Nasserli, the enemy of the dead, is very self-aware. Now, Sterling X says he loves peace, and when Sterling XI comes to power and says he loves war, what do we do? Isn't that what a peace agreement is for? Just find a reason, and the winner will not be condemned anyway.

Several wars on land, the Kingdom of Nasserli, have failed, and now they dare not start wars lightly. Not to mention the overseas territories of the continent of Nubian, where thousands of troops were deployed, compared to the more than 100,000 troops invested in the Kingdom of Ovieras, a desperate gap that would be good for self-preservation.

However, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Kingdom of Ovilas has been captured by the Kingdom of Nasri, namely, the shortage of armed forces at sea. From the port of Nero in the Kingdom of Ovieras to the continent of Nubia, a great turn is required, and the ocean vessels have to follow the eastern coastline of the continent of Farea, through the waters of the Principality of Siddins, the Principality of Esquilin and the Principality of Rimodra, to the apex of the eastern continent, and then head north through the stormy sea and the silent ocean before reaching the western coast of the continent of Nubia.

The route is more than 2,400 nautical miles long, more than a month long, and the route is fraught with risks. Especially when the investment of the Kingdom of Auveras in the continent of Nubian finally reaps its reward, those oceanic sailboats that return full of wealth become the target of countless pirates.

The Kingdom of Nasserli united the remaining four principalities in the eastern part of the continent and formed a joint fleet, nominally to fight piracy and to maintain navigation, in fact placing a sharp blade seven inches from the Kingdom of Auvellas, because he could break the maritime link between the two continents at any time.

And the fact that the United Fleet surpasses the Kingdom's fearless fleet in strength and size is a reminder that, in the event of war, the United Fleet can seal off the port of Neru, trap the fearless fleet in the port, and even the United Fleet can land freely from the coastal areas of the Kingdom, as if it were a knife in the heart of the Kingdom.

For the Kingdom of Auvellas, this joint fleet has become an eye-catcher in the Kingdom's upper echelons, and since the establishment of the joint fleet, many ocean freighters to and from the mainland of Nubicia and the Kingdom's port of Nero have lost track of the sea.

Occasionally, some of the wreckage of a sea-going vessel can only be judged to have been encountered by pirates, but the kingdom's upper echelons are well aware and simply unable to find evidence. The sea is the best place to disappear, and any crime committed at sea can be perfectly destroyed.

The ocean vessels to which the Kingdom now returns from the Overseas Territories can only form a large fleet, together with an escorted formation of ocean warships, overstretches the Kingdom's only deep-water port, Port Neru. After all, the port of Nero is not only the only military port in the Kingdom, but also the only commercial port in the Kingdom, with a heavy foreign commercial trade and transport operation.

Every time a pelagic sea-going formation returns or sails, commercial transport operations in the port of Nero are forced to cease for several days in order to coordinate the task of the pelagic sea-going formation. In such circumstances, even if the Kingdom's senior level decides to invest heavily in the strengthening of the armed forces at sea in order to achieve the objective of countering or eliminating the combined fleet, it will have to stop because of the actual situation in Port Neru.