Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 1200: WWI: The All-Out Atlantic War (1)

Vijay roughly understood what was happening within the Empire. He was well aware that while he was away, the Empire was slowly stepping into the Second Industrial Revolution, and because of his absence, he felt a lingering worry about the direction in which these various technologies might develop. It gave him the feeling of a father sent away on deployment, troubled by the thought that the daughter he had worked so hard to birth would grow up without his presence. But it could not be helped. He had to do what needed to be done.

If the Europeans had played into his game as expected, they would still be accumulating strength, and the final battle in the Mediterranean would only come after the Americas were fully lost, giving him the chance to witness the miracle of humanity, electrification and combustion engines with his own eyes. Yet once again, the Europeans proved the old truth that no plan is ever perfect, because something always goes wrong.

So he had no choice but to be present himself, to personally command what could very well be the final naval battle, one fought on a massive scale, involving thousands of warships at the very least, and win it for the Empire.

Several months had passed, and the strength of the Bharatiya fleet recovered. The battleships had been replenished, the warships had been repaired, and while at it, the naval guns were also upgraded on the Delhi class battleships to a new generation, leading to better aim, range, and power, while the length of the barrel and the calibre remained the same.

With the reinforcement fleet integrated into what remained of the Atlantic Fleet after the battle, and with additional newly constructed ships arriving from the Empire, the strength of the Atlantic Fleet returned to five hundred and fifty warships, enough to launch a major war once more.

However, the Europeans had not been idle either. Intelligence on their movements kept arriving without pause. Not only had they repaired the ships damaged in the previous battle, but they had also merged the surviving vessels of the Mediterranean Fleet into the Atlantic Fleet. Since the European Atlantic Fleet itself had not taken part in the earlier battle, its strength had only increased. Now numbering over a thousand warships, the situation had returned to the same starting point, with European forces once again fielding nearly double the number of warships compared to the Bharatiya fleet.

This time, however, Vijay was not too worried whether there would be too many losses or not, because the reason for so many losses in the last battle was not the sheer numbers of the enemy. Well, that is not right, numbers were also the reason, but only a small part of it. The main reason was the superiority in the number of battleships the Europeans had, over 2.6 times what the Bharatiya Empire had.

And the Europeans played a very clever game with these battleships. Most of the time during engagements, the battleships were surrounded by smaller warships, be it a heavy frigate, light frigate, or a light clipper, which would take on the majority of the punishment dished out by the Bharatiya battleships. The only time they got destroyed in a truncated manner was during the charges the empire’s fleet made or during the torpedo attacks. At any other time, they would simply resist a handful of shells that came their way, nothing more serious.

Due to such a situation, the Bharatiya battleships had to resist bombardment from battleships numbering 2.6 times their own. But this time the situation is entirely different. There was a sizeable amount of battleships surviving from the Bharatiya Atlantic Fleet even after all the hell the fleet went through, especially the full metal battleships that were riddled with holes and clinging onto their life.

These ships were all repaired and added back to the fleet, and with the addition of reinforcements, containing over 96 battleships alone, which was the total might the Bharatiya Empire could squeeze out after expanding all the major shipyards several times and absorbing all the resources it could, the number of battleships in the new Atlantic Fleet easily broke through the 100 mark.

Whereas the Europeans, although they now have 1000 warships, their battleship composition was not that strong. The previous fleet that attacked the empire, the Mediterranean fleet, had a large number of battleships, but many of them were destroyed and sunk. What was left was only a fraction of the 210 battleships the whole fleet had.

These remaining battleships, when added to the original Atlantic Fleet, which was already a loosely organised force containing many merchant vessels retrofitted with naval guns and around forty battleships, did not create a fleet that was as overwhelmingly superior as it had been before.

So, it was easy to see why Vijay was pretty confident that he could handle it.

Given the things that were going on within the empire, and given that his fleet was once again battle-ready, Vijay did not wait for the enemy to make their move and decided to make his move instead, not to mention that making a move now felt right. His instincts were rarely wrong, so he trusted them and gave an order to set sail immediately.

The destination, the Canary Islands, is the largest island chain in the Macaronesia Island Group.

The European Fleet.

The fleet headquarters received intelligence from the reconnaissance vessel about the movement of the Bharatiya fleet, and it immediately put all the European officers on edge.

"Senior, are you sure you do not want to command the battle?" A middle-aged man, skin tinged with a slight tan, eyes as deep as the ocean, and hair like that of the mane of an albino horse, asked.

The man was none other than the newly promoted admiral of the Atlantic Fleet, Luther Van Gogh from the Netherlands.

Edward Russell, the previous admiral of the European Mediterranean Fleet, hesitated when he heard the question, but ultimately nodded with determination.

When he retreated, Edward had expected ridicule, even execution. He thought he would be dragged to the guillotine. To his surprise, none of that happened. He was allowed to remain in the Navy and was even given the chance to take up the position of admiral once again. Yet he knew, deep down, that he was no longer fit to stand at the helm.

His state of mind was like a cracked spring. All the energy and tension it once held had already been released. Now, even if someone tried to compress it by force, it would no longer bend; it would only break.

Hearing the refusal once again, Luther felt a deep sense of regret and let out a long sigh. After reading the battle report detailing how the conflict against the Bharatiya Empire had unfolded in the Atlantic, he was left shaken. More than anything else, what struck him was the realisation that he did not believe he could have performed any better than Admiral Russell.

If placed in the same position, he might have attempted different approaches at certain moments, but it was nearly impossible to say whether those choices would have led to a better outcome or an even worse one. To be completely honest, the battle itself and the sheer scale at which it was fought terrified him. He had taken part in hundreds of naval engagements before, but never in one where the majority of a fleet was destroyed and sunk, and certainly never in one where thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of his subordinates were killed.

So he still hoped that Admiral Edward Russell, the person who already had experience in fighting against the Bharatiya Empire, a person who came so close to eliminating one of their fleets, would take on the position of leadership, because he could no longer kid himself; he really was getting cold feet. Unfortunately, the reply he got was still the one he had heard several times already, "No, I am sorry, I am not suitable, I cannot command the fleet anymore." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Nodding with a sombre expression, he gathered the senior officers nearby and started a brainstorming session as to how they would handle the Bharatiya Fleet that made the first move.

In such a way, several days passed in the blink of an eye.

The Bharatiya Fleet.

Vijay could see the El Hierro Island in his telescope. Looking at it, he was left with a thoughtful expression as he lowered the telescope and stroked his chin.

He could feel that the Europeans had laid an ambush behind it. The sense of threat when he decided to advance gave it away.

"Send a battle group forward from the port side, and send two more from the starboard side."

He studied the map once more and quickly reached a conclusion. If his fleet fell into a trap and was flanked from the rear, enemy ships hidden behind La Palma Island and La Gomera Island could surge forward at any moment. Taking this into account, he issued another order. "Send the remaining battle groups toward La Palma Island from the west."

Hearing this series of commands, Yashvardhan felt a flicker of panic. Yet in the end, the authority of His Majesty was absolute within the military, leaving him no room to advise otherwise.

Vijay noticed the hesitation in Yashvardhan’s expression and understood that he did not fully agree with the plan, but he did not mind. To someone unaware of his supernatural intuition and heightened sense of danger, these orders might have appeared reckless. But that was of little consequence to him. As long as the desired result was achieved, everything else was secondary.