Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 1159

Capítulo 1159: WW1: Cape Town (5)

South Africa

The sea view of Cape Town had changed entirely. Once, it had been a bustling port town, with countless merchant ships and warships docked side by side, commerce and culture thriving together. As Europe’s gateway to the East, the harbour was always filled to the brim, crowded with people, its liveliness such that if sand were dropped, it would not even reach the ground.

Now, however, everything was different. The scene was stripped of all that had once made it great. The sea was choked with debris and half sunken ships, and the harbour was no longer crowded with European merchantmen and battleships. Instead, it was dominated by a line of imposing metal vessels, upon which people, no larger than ants from a distance, could be seen working tirelessly.

As for the harbour, well, the harbour of Cape Town has been completely occupied by the Bhartiya Armed Forces. A large perimeter composed of a whole division of 12,000 soldiers had been formed, and a temporary command centre for the ground troops had been set up right on the platform.

Vijay was still on the deck of the Ramachandra class warship. Surrounding him were numerous military officers, who stood silently until his majesty, the emperor, called for them or asked something they had knowledge of.

Vijay put aside the report he got from the empire about the laying down of the telegraph lines and looked at the military officers as he asked, “How bad is the damage to the battleships?”

Admiral Balwant Chauhan immediately stepped forward and reported, “None of the wooden battleships or the warships had been hit by the enemy during the battle, so they have not been damaged, your majesty. As for the Ramachandra class battleship and the Magadha class battle ships, they have sustained damage to varying degrees.”

“Out of the ten Ramachandra Class battleships that spearheaded the fleet, two are in poor condition and had to be towed back to port, while the remaining vessels are still operational.”

He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth as he continued, “But unfortunately, their combat capability has been reduced by an average of forty to sixty percent. As for the Magadha Class ships, they remain operational, having sustained only minor structural damage and minimal degradation to their offensive systems. They are still maintaining roughly sixty to eighty percent combat effectiveness.”

“How did the battleships stop working? This is highly unlikely to happen, right?”

Balwant Chauhan nodded. “You are correct, Your Majesty. The hulls of the ships have been hit over a hundred times, and even the turrets and the naval guns have been hit several dozen times. Parts of the hull have to be replaced, while others need serious work. The guns are all bent out of shape, and the whole assembly module has to be replaced. Even with these damages, the ships should theoretically function without a problem, but…”

He hesitated. The actual reason the ships had stalled was due to a flaw in the ship’s design itself, and he knew it was His Majesty, the Emperor, who had personally supported the construction of the battleships. Because of that, he was a little hesitant to speak the real reason. But when he saw the Emperor’s curious expression, he knew he could not shrug off his duty. Gritting his teeth, he told the truth.

“Due to the bombardment, although thanks to the kind of metal the ship is using, there has not been any catastrophic damage, the vibration and the impact seem to have jammed the crankshaft, making power delivery impossible.”

“Huh!” Vijay’s brow furrowed, “Are you sure?”

Balwant took a big gulp and nodded, “I have confirmed this matter with the chief technician himself.”

Vijay was lost in thought, wondering how such a problem did not show up during the battle-worthiness trials. But then again, no matter how comprehensive a trial is, accounting for all possible faults is nearly impossible.

‘Crankshaft is jammed, huh? Tch.’ Looking back, he suddenly remembered that no buffer had been added to the crankshaft at all. It simply sits in a metallic pipe that is directly attached to the hull. It was previously built in such a way to increase the structural integrity of the ship, by using the crankshaft casing as two separate ribs that give sturdiness to the rear of the ship, but now it looks like it has become the very thing that brought the ship to a halt.

‘Thankfully, only twelve ships have been produced,’ he thought, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. If this flaw had been discovered after dozens more had rolled out of the docks, the consequences would have been far more severe.

In the Maharaja Ramachandra Class battleships currently under construction, the gear assembly was similarly mounted directly onto the hull. The realisation made his brow furrow. It would likely be far better to introduce a dampening element between the hull and the core components, something to absorb vibration and shock before it could propagate through the system.

The ships were nearing completion, but not yet beyond saving. There was still time, just enough, to implement modifications before the mistake became permanent.

Thinking up to this point, Vijay wrote a letter and passed it back to the empire.

“How long will the repairs take?” Vijay asked.

“The structural integrity of all the ships has been maintained. Some core and critical components have been damaged, but the damage is not beyond fast repair. We can simply replace the affected parts, and the job should be done as soon as they arrive. I have already received reports that the replacements have been shipped from the empire, so if nothing goes wrong, we should receive them within a week at most.”

Vijay nodded. Then he turned his gaze toward the Lieutenant General commanding the army.

“About the next stage of the war, Padmanabham, what is your plan?”

Lieutenant General Mugund Padmanabham relayed the battle strategy that he had in mind, “I’m thinking about implementing the scorched earth policy, your majesty, destroying anything and everything the enemy might find useful, whether it is crops, livestock, granaries, houses, anything.”

Hearing the plan, Vijay was not surprised. This was one of the textbook responses when an enemy resorted to guerrilla tactics. In fact, after suffering repeated defeats at the hands of the Boers while relying on conventional warfare, the British had eventually turned to scorched earth policies, establishing concentration camps and conquering South Africa piece by piece.

But Vijay felt it was too wasteful, not to mention that there are a lot of civilians in Cape Town who would definitely be dragged into the conflict.

So he put forward his own plan.

“Let us have the troops surrounding the main regions of Cape Town from the three directions. Let’s send a few air balloons up into the air to locate the enemy target.”

“Once they are located, I reckon they will try to change the location as quickly as possible, so give or take we have one hour or less.”

“Within this time span, surgically get into the city and deal with the gorilla groups with as many enemies as possible.”

“For the remaining, let’s put a huge bounty, 10,000 Varaha, for anyone who informs us about the location of the enemy. Even if a neighbour informs us that the house next door is acting suspiciously, once confirmed, we can grant part of the money.”

Padmanabham’s eyes lit up, but they dimmed instantly. “But your majesty, this strategy appears to need more troops. I’m not sure if three divisions alone are enough.”

Vijay didn’t deny it, “Correct, but don’t worry, I have already called for more troops to be sent. In a few days, two more divisions should be here.”

“So, for the next few days, get to know about the terrain as much as possible.”

Padmanabham immediately understood that his majesty had decided on the strategy beforehand and had made all preparations, so he did not hesitate and saluted as he left.

“Both of you,” Vijay pointed at Rear Admiral Tejashwi Rathore and Commodore Aparajita Shende, “have the remaining warships and battleships join the Atlantic Fleet. There are a few colonies of the Europeans on the west coast of Africa; you will be taking care of those.”

Tejashwi and Aparajita were both excited and immediately saluted. “I’m sure to get the job done, your majesty, please leave it to me.” Both of them shouted in unison.

Vijay nodded and continued to make his plans.

In a secret laboratory.

A middle-aged man looked slovenly with his messy hair, dishevelled clothes, and broken eyeglasses. Behind him was a large pile of trash filled with glass, metal, wood, tiles, bricks, and so many other things.

It looked like the man was living in a dump, but the boards hung around the room told a different story. They held complicated writings of chemistry, physics, and mathematics, the complexity well beyond the range of any college or university.

And it is these boards that give the room some semblance of it being a laboratory, and the person, a man who ran the laboratory, was none other than Binoy, the genius who invented the Dynamo, and the genius who is the father of electricity.

The reason he had become so “miserable” is naturally because of the idea his majesty had given, a light-emitting device using the principles of electricity.

Ever since then, he had been in relentless pursuit of the right materials. He tried every possible combination, and at one point even delved into metallurgy itself, hoping he could craft an entirely new metal with his own hands. All of it, however, proved futile.

Yet those thousands of failures were not meaningless. Little by little, his design matured. He eventually settled on high-temperature-resistant glass for the outer casing of the light-emitting device, and realised that a vacuum had to be maintained within the glass for the device to function properly. That left only one final obstacle, the material to be used inside, something with sufficiently high electrical resistance to emit light when current passed through it, yet with a melting point high enough to withstand the extreme temperatures without collapsing into molten ruin.

“Experiment 1923, Bamboo string as a filament.”

He carefully attached a bamboo filament to the two antennas and screwed it into the bulb. He attached the bulb to a vacuum machine and used it to pump out all the air manually.

After he sealed the contraption, he took it out and attached it to the holder he had designed.

The dynamo was already turned on, so he simply pressed a switch on the inverter he had invented, without any expectation.

He had thought the filament would burst, like the thousand or so times before, or give out no light at all, like the five hundred or so times before, or give out light but be so dim that it lit up nothing.

But what happened next brought him to his feet. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open as a bright, dazzling light burst forth from the contraption, as dazzling as the sun. The warmth of the light hit his face, reminding him that this was not a dream or an illusion, but reality.

“hahahahah”

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