I Reincarnated as a Prince Who Revolutionized the Kingdom-Chapter 155: Battleships

The air inside the Admiralty War Hall smelled of salt and coal dust. Blueprints sprawled across the long oak table, weighed down by brass paperweights shaped like sea serpents and galleons. Lanterns flickered against the stone walls, casting shifting shadows over naval charts and elevation sketches of hulls that had yet to touch water.

King Bruno stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, eyes sharp. The admirals and shipwrights surrounding him were among Elysea's finest naval minds—grizzled veterans of past maritime conflicts and craftsmen who had shaped the very hulls that once ruled the Gulf of Theros.

But those ships were relics now.

Wooden decks, cloth sails, and iron cannonballs had defined the Elysean navy for generations. Glorious, yes. Elegant, perhaps. But vulnerable in a world beginning to change. Bruno knew it better than anyone—he had watched iron leviathans cut through seas in the world he once called home. Steam, not wind, had ruled those oceans. And if Elysea was to survive the coming century, it needed more than legacy. It needed reinvention.

He tapped the table with a gloved finger, drawing all eyes to a new set of diagrams.

"These are not galleons," he said plainly. "These are warships made of steel. Powered by coal and steam. Armored. Unrelenting. Capable of moving against wind or current. This is our future."

Murmurs filled the chamber. One admiral cleared his throat. "Your Majesty… we respect your vision, but this is far beyond our current capacity. The forges alone—"

Bruno held up a hand. "The forges are already being expanded. The Ironworks in Ardrin will double production within the year. I've authorized the construction of three new drydocks along the coastal strip near Port-Luthair. Timber will remain part of auxiliary construction, but the keels—make no mistake—will be iron."

The naval minister, a man named Rovann, adjusted his spectacles. "And what of propulsion, Sire? We do not yet possess engines strong enough to drive a vessel of this size against the tide."

"We will," Bruno replied. "The Royal College of Engineers has already begun adapting boiler systems similar to the freight engines we use in the Elysea Central Railway. Their efficiency has tripled since last year. The steam drive is no longer theory—it is readiness waiting for command."

One of the younger admirals leaned forward, a skeptical expression softening into curiosity. "And armaments, Your Majesty?"

"Rotating turrets," Bruno said. "Elevated guns. No more broadside-only volleys. These ships will move and strike like fists, not floating fortresses. Armor will protect the powder bays. The bridge will be enclosed. I've seen ships with no sails still outrun squalls and hold course during cannonade. That's the fleet I want for Elysea."

He let the words settle.

No grand declarations. No poetic flourishes.

Only the unshakable certainty of a man who had lived the future and returned to make it real.

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The meeting adjourned with half the room still reeling from the gravity of it all. Bruno remained behind, pacing slowly along the long windows of the war hall, looking out to the sea.

Amelie found him there, several minutes later, holding Prince Louis in her arms.

"You made waves again," she teased, smiling softly. "The palace halls are already buzzing."

Bruno didn't take his eyes off the horizon. "They'll understand, in time. We no longer live in an age where elegance and heroism alone can defend a coastline. War evolves. And Elysea must not fall behind."

Amelie approached, letting Louis reach out toward the window. The toddler giggled as a gull swept past in the distance.

"I don't doubt your vision," she said. "But vision without hearts behind it… ships without sailors, minds without belief…?"

"They will believe," Bruno said. "Once they see what's possible."

And so, the Royal Navy's transformation began.

Construction sites boomed with the hammering of rivets and the roar of furnaces. The city of Port-Luthair became a second heart to Elysea—an engine town of steel, soot, and determination. Apprentices from the royal university volunteered in droves. Miners in the southern highlands dug deeper, knowing that their coal now fueled more than warmth—it fueled purpose.

Bruno visited the docks weekly.

Sometimes, alone and hooded.

Other times, with Amelie and Louis in tow.

He walked the scaffolding around the first ironclad's hull, his boots echoing on steel plating. He sat in briefings where shipwrights explained hull curvature and stress tolerances. He listened. He asked questions. He corrected design flaws drawn from memory, comparing battleship configurations long since vanished from this world.

By month five, the first prototype was named.

ECS Lionheart.

Its bow jutted like a blade.

Its decks bristled with polished turrets. Its engines—two tandem steam boilers—hummed with power yet to be unleashed.

On the day of its launch, the entire royal court gathered by the sea. The docks teemed with citizens holding flags and throwing flower petals from balconies and railings. Bruno wore the navy's formal uniform—black with silver trim—while Amelie stood beside him, wrapped in a sea-blue cloak that billowed in the wind.

An officer stepped forward with a ceremonial bottle of wine.

Bruno shook his head.

He took the bottle himself and walked to the bow, raising it high.

"To a new era," he said simply.

And he shattered it.

The crowd roared as the Lionheart slid into the waves.

It did not bob like wood.

It cut forward like prophecy.

The day after the launch, Bruno convened a new military commission. Their orders were clear: train new crews, develop updated naval tactics, and begin drafting designs for two more ironclads—this time with faster propulsion and longer firing range. Merchant captains were recruited to transition their fleets toward steam support, and the first naval academy in Elysea's history was founded within the year.

Other kingdoms noticed.

Envoys from coastal empires arrived, veiling questions beneath compliments. Bruno, as always, answered with smiles and silence.

And in Elysea, young boys and girls no longer dreamed of riding waves on sailboats—they dreamed of standing atop armored decks, guiding steel beasts through the sea.

Bruno's vision had taken root.

The kingdom had stepped into the modern age.

Not just with fire.

But with steam. And iron. And will.

And the Lionheart was only the beginning.

By winter's end, construction on her sister ships had already begun. The Vanguard and Resolute rose from scaffolds like steel monuments—each iteration slightly leaner, faster, and more advanced than the last. Their hulls bore the weight of design improvements informed by Bruno's relentless reviews and field simulations, run in secret among the engineering corps. Nothing escaped his scrutiny—fuel intake, exhaust ventilation, armor belt angles, the firing arc of the turrets.

Elysea's first modern fleet wasn't just being built; it was being forged in the fire of Bruno's experience.

Naval drills followed quickly. Crews from the royal navy were reassigned to intensive training camps along the southern coast. Sailors learned to navigate with coal instead of canvas, their arms now wielding levers and gauges instead of ropes and sails. Many veterans resisted the change, at first. But Bruno made sure they understood something clearly: tradition without adaptation would lead only to defeat.

At sea, the Lionheart proved herself time and again. She outmaneuvered the fastest cutters in the Royal Fleet during her first training exercises and easily sustained forward thrust against open waves, even in foul weather. Her gunnery crews, drawn from artillery detachments, practiced on iron targets set adrift far off the coast—learning to adjust for roll, recoil, and range in conditions none of them had ever faced before.

And inland, at the newly established Naval Academy in Port-Luthair, a new class of officer cadets studied everything from steam propulsion principles to tactical theory. Models of engines and turrets lined classroom walls. Maps covered in grid patterns replaced traditional sea charts. And somewhere in a quiet lab near the back of the facility, two cadets had begun experimenting with signal lamps—hoping to send silent light across water faster than any voice could carry.

Back in the capital, the cultural effect was even more surprising.

Children began carving miniature ironclads instead of toy galleons. Blacksmiths refined new steel alloys in anticipation of the military's demands. Painters and writers spoke of the new fleet with reverence—depicting the Lionheart not just as a war machine, but as a symbol of modern unity and might. Bruno saw it clearly: the spirit of invention and reform had spread beyond university halls and navy yards—it had entered the hearts of the people.

One morning, a group of young apprentices arrived at the palace gates with a proposal.

They had spent the last season designing a hybrid vessel: part transport, part patrol ship, capable of river operations and port defense. Their plans were crude, their math even cruder—but their eyes burned with the same light Bruno had seen in the early inventors of the Royal Science Exposition.

He summoned them to the planning hall and reviewed their sketches himself.

"Ambitious," he said. "But promising. You'll build your prototype with resources from the Port-Luthair foundry. Send progress reports to my desk directly."

The boys were speechless. One stammered something about not being nobles.

Bruno only smiled. "Steel doesn't care about bloodlines. Only pressure and purpose."

Later that week, while walking through the palace gardens with Amelie and Louis, Bruno paused near the reflecting pool. The boy, now old enough to walk on his own, waddled up beside the water and pointed at his own reflection.

"You think he'll remember any of this?" Amelie asked softly.

"No," Bruno answered, kneeling beside his son. "But he'll grow up in a kingdom that doesn't fear the future. That means more than memory—it means legacy."

Amelie watched Louis lean forward and splash at the surface.

"You've changed the navy," she said. "But more than that, you've changed Elysea."

"No," Bruno replied, standing again. "We all have. Every hammer stroke, every blueprint, every student who dared to draw something new. I only opened the door."

And as he looked out across the gardens, where the wind carried the faint smell of coal smoke from distant foundries, Bruno knew something else:

The world beyond Elysea would one day come knocking. And when it did, they would find a kingdom no longer sailing on tradition, but steaming ahead—unafraid, unbroken, and ready.