Munitions Empire-Chapter 963 - 886 unstoppable

Chapter 963: 886 unstoppable Chapter 963: 886 unstoppable While the border between the Dahua Empire and the Great Tang Empire was in a state of unease, the rest of the world also began to notice the scent of gunpowder in the air.

Everyone realized that the Great Tang Empire might likely intervene in the inner strife of the Dahua Empire! After all, this was how neighbors were usually treated, and everyone was all too familiar with it.

Therefore, some countries began to persuade the Dahua Empire to quickly stabilize and preserve the hard-earned peace. Others, however, started to kick them while they were down, studying how to reap as many benefits as possible if war broke out.

In reality, Qin Country had already started stirring. Their Ambassador to the Great Tang Empire had frequent meetings with officials from the Great Tang’s Foreign Affairs Department, expressing their strong desire to support justice.

“Peace is hard-earned! The economic and trade exchanges between the Dahua Empire and the Great Tang Empire not only concern the two nations themselves but also relate to the economic development of our Qin Country,” the Qin Ambassador said righteously, looking deeply concerned.

“If there were internal strife within the Dahua Empire, it would seriously affect Qin Country’s trade exports to the Great Tang Empire… and would also impact regional stability!” While speaking, he secretly observed the facial expressions of the Great Tang official.

After confirming that there was no obvious attitude from the other party, the Qin Ambassador continued, “So they have gone too far! They simply have no regard for the Great Tang Empire or our Qin Country! Such behavior must be punished! We cannot let them act recklessly!”

...

To the ears of a Great Tang foreign affairs officer, that sentence roughly translated to: Wouldn’t it be a grand time for slaughter if you and I joined forces? Our Qin Country handles the mayhem, while you, the Great Tang, carries out the slaughter…

In the early years before the rise of the Great Tang Empire, Qin Country was still a vassal state of the Dahua Empire, even in a lower position than Chu Country and Qi Country.

At that time, why didn’t you consider attacking the Dahua Empire to guarantee the stable development of Qin Country’s foreign trade? Oh, it turns out you couldn’t beat the Dahua Empire, huh?

Now, with the Dahua Empire’s attention diverted by the Great Tang Empire by two-thirds or even more, you think you’re capable because the sky has cleared and the rain has stopped?

But the signal from the Qin side was very clear: once Dahua and the Great Tang went to war, they wouldn’t mind standing on the side of the Great Tang Empire this time.

Therefore, the Great Tang’s foreign affairs officer didn’t mind giving the other side some friendliness, smiling and casually changing the topic, clearly uninterested in the prospect of the Dahua Empire going to war.

The Great Tang Empire was about to fight its first real proxy war, and Tang Mo had no intentions of entering the fray himself.

If the already powerful Great Tang Empire continued to display a strong desire for expansion, it could once again provoke hostility from other nations, which would increase trading costs down the line.

This was not the result the Great Tang Empire wanted—Tang Mo was preparing to resolve the issue once and for all when he was ready. He wanted more and wasn’t prepared to take the benefits little by little, like cutting a sausage.

The diplomat from Qin Country was not a fool; he could tell from the Tang official’s lack of interest that the Great Tang Empire was unwilling to make a move this time.

Even if it was a façade, the attitude spread by the Great Tang Empire was enough to produce some subtle changes in the situation.

After assuring His Majesty The Emperor of the Dahua Empire that the Great Tang Empire would not wage war against the Dahua Empire, the Dahua envoy returned home contentedly.

Upon arrival, the envoy assured the Great Tang Empire of the Dahua Empire’s trading stance and explained directly that the investigation of the pro-Tang Prince Zhao Yu was all just a misunderstanding.

Subsequently, the envoy also promised the Tang diplomats that the Dahua Empire would ensure the safety of all investments by Tang merchants and agreed to the “extraterritorial rights” previously requested by the Great Tang Empire.

That meant citizens of the Dahua Empire who violated the law within the Great Tang Empire must be tried within the Great Tang’s territory, while citizens of the Great Tang Empire who violated the law within the Dahua Empire must be sent back to the Great Tang for trial.

This law had previously never been agreed upon by the Dahua side, and now they had directly consented. It must be said that this was also a pleasant surprise.

…

The view shifted back to the Endless Sea, Brunnis Port, where a new model of cruiser was being launched, looking very modern.

This cruiser had only two integrated smokestacks and looked very sleek. It was equipped with four large main turret guns fore and aft, each turret featuring a twin-gun setup, for a total of eight main guns.

It must be said that this design was quite sensible, with decent armor defense and an ample array of anti-aircraft guns.

This was the standard warship design model adopted by other nations of the era, aside from the Great Tang Empire: Install as many big guns as possible on a small ship and then keep stacking anti-aircraft guns on this warship.

As they never experienced the era of the great battleship, other nations of the world generally had little sentiment for battleships.

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Their memories of battleships were brief and embarrassing: their records of battleship usage consisted of either terrible defeats or being foolishly blockaded at sea, wasting time.

Thus, while all navies were building battleships, they put more of their efforts into cruisers with better overall performance.

Clearly, when facing aerial and underwater threats, the more numerous and self-sufficient cruisers were the more suitable choice.

After all, losing a battleship was far more heartbreaking than losing a cruiser.

The basic tactic of navies nowadays was roughly: endure the threat of land aviation airplanes, approach the enemy’s port, use heavy guns to cripple the port and paralyze the enemy’s war potential, and then leave.

To achieve this, cruisers capable of being armed with main guns of over 200 mm caliber and equipped with a multitude of anti-aircraft guns, as well as having some degree of armor, came into being.

Nations were frantically building such cruisers and gave them a nice name: general-purpose cruisers.

They resembled the gun-cruisers used as escorts for aircraft carriers in World War II, their combat effectiveness was indeed very considerable.

What’s more interesting is that, in practice, suffering from the lack of means for beyond-visibility gun-laying, the nations turned their attention to airplanes.

Several countries had begun experimenting with adding pontoons to old biplanes, retrofitting them into seaplanes to provide scouting capabilities for the fleet.

In the near future, there will emerge new warships equipped with seaplanes—though far from the level of the Great Tang Empire, facts prove that certain things, when they reach a corresponding stage of development, trigger the appearance of corresponding inventions, and this trend… is unstoppable.