Pirate Kingship.

Chapter 519: The War of Stealing the Country: The Ultimate Gamble of the Sea Power Kingdom!

The Strait of Dover is located at the southernmost tip of the North Sea, surrounded by the Kingdom of Hastings, Anchor Bay and the Kalmar Union. On one side is the Kingdom of Hastings, and on the other side is their century-old enemy, Iris.

Although it is only about 40 kilometers wide and less than 100 meters deep, it has been the site of many famous naval battles in history.

This included the final battle of the "War of the Red and White Roses" in which the entire Lancaster family died overnight.

On March 1473, 3 Silver, this ancient battlefield, which had drowned countless souls and buried countless warships, became bustling again.

Not only did merchant ships and pirate ships stay away, but even seabirds and various marine creatures seemed to sense the danger and fled for their lives in the direction away from the strait.

At the same time, a large fleet set out from the port of Felixstowe near the royal capital of Kingston, and another set out from the port of Folkestone, which was actually controlled by the Earl's party.

It took nearly a day for both fleets to sail out of the anchorage, and it was obvious that they had almost emptied their resources.

When an entire fleet was moving together, countless flags of King Hastings, fleet flags, noble flags, and captain's long gilded flags were fluttering in the wind on the sea.

The vast white sails even made people feel dizzy as if the fleet stretched all the way to the horizon with no end in sight.

Led by their two flagships, which were also quasi-legendary warships, the Earl's [Royal Oak] and the Royal's [Centaur], they sailed into the waters of Dover, one from the east and the other from the west.

"Northeast wind, force 4, wind speed 12 knots, wave height 1.2 meters, the entire fleet is sailing with full sails."

The fourth-level [Navigator] accompanying the army reported the weather conditions to the entire fleet.

The captains of each ship immediately led their sailors to tighten the supporting ropes and adjust the number of sails and the windward angle of the warships.

During this period, they would rather take a detour than any bold enough captain dared to suggest going through the North Sea.

Until now, one of the tentacle clones of the sixth-level old god, the Kraken, is still wandering throughout the entire North Sea, punishing all the "betrayers" according to the killing rules of the Pied Piper's Shepherd's Flute.

And at this time, if you ask which country is stronger in betrayal, the island country, York and the king!

The White Rose Family, who once enslaved the Kraken's Touch, is definitely a "bathing artifact" for fishing octopuses.

If they dare to leave the coverage of the [Silver Law] and go deep into the North Sea, they will definitely attract the terrifying old god wandering in the deep sea.

The two fleets sailed along the coastline. From the time they left the anchorage to the time they arrived at the Strait of Dover to deploy their troops, it was already early morning of the next day.

The commanders of both sides were very cautious and did not engage in night battles. It was not until the first rays of dawn appeared in the sky that everyone could see the enemy ships on the opposite side.

The scale of ships participating in the war was unprecedented, with hundreds of large warships equipped with tens of thousands of cannons moving slowly forward, leaving the sea full of murderous aura.

If it had happened a few years ago, a war of this magnitude would have immediately attracted the attention of all countries on the continent and attracted countless onlookers.

But now that the two kings of Castile and the Star-Moon Empire are fighting, and the Holy Silver Empire is killing people in a bloodbath, the scale of the civil war in Hastings has immediately become second-rate.

Except for the Iris next door which was on guard, most forces only sent observers to witness the outcome of the battle so as to adjust their diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Hastings in a timely manner.

Among the Strait Fleet of the Kingdom of Hastings Navy, except for the First Fleet which had been completely wiped out in Anchor Bay and had almost no reconstruction rate so far, all the other local fleets were intact.

The second, third and fourth are the main fleets, the fifth and sixth are the security fleets, and the seventh is the colonial fleet in Byron's hands.

Except for the Seventh Fleet stationed overseas, other fleets have been suffering from continuous blood loss due to the [Touch of the Kraken], with varying degrees of loss of personnel, weapons and equipment, and are no longer in their prime.

The second, fourth and sixth fleets flew the flags of the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence and belonged to the Earl's party.

The third, fifth, and seventh fleets brought by Byron flew the royal flag of Edward IV and belonged to the royalist party.

Judging from the data on paper, there is no doubt that the Count's Party, which owns two main fleets and a large number of battleships, has the advantage.

This situation is not surprising at all. In the final analysis, it is just one of a series of sequelae brought about by the White Rose Family's use of trickery to seize the royal power.

In name, the navy is indeed the king's private army, and its loyalty should be to the king.

Byron took advantage of this and made the First Fleet, which had betrayed Lancaster, suffer the consequences.

But after helping Edward IV to ascend the throne, Warwick the Kingmaker was appointed Admiral of the Fleet (Chapter 98), giving him ample time to place people in the fleet, cultivate his confidants, and turn the navy into a private army.

Except for the fact that the commander of the First Fleet was Norwich York, a member of the York family, he was able to rise to the third-level rank by relying on blood ties.

The commander of the Third Fleet was Edward IV's [Guardian Knight] and fourth-rank artillery expert [Star Shooter] Robert Barrett.

The second and fourth fleets in the main fleet were actually controlled by Warwick the Kingmaker.

The Second Fleet was led by him personally, and the Fourth Fleet was under the command of his confidant, the Angry Fox, Fox Douglas.

With the complete annihilation of the First Fleet, there was naturally a visible imbalance in the naval strength between the two sides, and the naval power of the Earl's Party in turn suppressed the Royalist Party.

The royalists could only rely on Saint Byron, a loyal minister of York whose "shelf life" had begun to count down, the Seventh Fleet under his control, and the private armies of the royalists and neutral nobles to barely balance the imbalance in combat power.

The current situation is that one side has a strong fleet, while the other side has a large number of extraordinary people, and the outcome of the war is unclear.

At this time, the pirate fleet of the Pirate King [Wild Hunt] Byron Lancaster, as a special force that had reached a tacit understanding with the Earl's Party, was still temporarily in a silent state in the "Border Maze" and did not enter the sight of both sides.

Warwick and Edward IV would have been horrified if they had seen this.

The Guardian Knight [Iron Wall] Bruch, who was assigned by Byron to be the commander of the squadron, reported to him:
"Captain, the pirate fleet is in place!

In addition to the headquarters' 35 pirate ships of level five and above.

A total of ninety-eight pirate ships of level five or above were summoned to Black Sail Port, including thirty-one level four nominal battleships and exotic warships, and a total of six thousand three hundred and seventeen pirates. "

Byron is now the Pirate King [Uncrowned King]. Even if he does not have the power to enforce control over other pirates who are not his direct descendants, he is still the undisputed leader of the pirates.

If those big pirates dared not respond to his call when he raised the royal flag, it would not only be a matter of distribution of interests, but the only outcome would be liquidation after the war.

This is the value of the title of Pirate King.

It was because of this invisible prestige that the Pirate King of the Storm Ocean [Ocean Throne] Barbarossa Hayreddin was able to organize the first colonial war.

Violet’s voice also rang out:

"Byron, a total of fifty-one heavy cruisers are already in place, with a total of 15,842 crew members, ready to go into battle at any time."

This was the strongest trump card he had been carefully preparing since arriving in the colony. Together with the five ships that were manually modified years ago, a total of fifty-one ships were launched in three months.

Most of the sailors serving on these warships were pirates carefully selected using the Seventh Fleet’s naval funds and the “Captain 721 Fission Model”.

Although the money was spent by Edward IV, only Byron was known, not the king.

Give the pirates basic conditions, the strong ones survive and the weak ones are eliminated.

To pan out gold from a large group of mixed slag, the worst that can be found is usable pig iron or brass.

Now these people are no longer pirates in the strict sense, but real navy!

Byron knew from the beginning that the rules always favor the rule makers. The strength of a sword can only last for a short time, but the rules of the game that can unite everyone can last forever.

They redefined the order and based on their own [Ten Commandments of Pirates] and the ancient [Pirate Code], they have re-established the pirate order in the Bantaan Islands.

The king, the law and the country are a trinity, and establishing one's own [Iron Law of Royal Authority] is the only way to be crowned [the title of king].

From pirate to king, his ancestors had done it once, and now he was just doing it again from scratch.

Byron's [The King's Right Hand] was also disbanded and deployed to the various fleets under his command.

Queen [Mithril Dragon] Catherine, Queen [Witch] Violet.

Prime Minister [Dead Knight] Andrew, Knight [Blood Red Whiskey] Alfred, Chariot [Iron Wall] Bruch, Chariot cousin [Lich] Edward.

Guard [Honest Man] Eight Fingers, Guard [Phantom Blade] Gus, Guard [Chameleon] Jacqueline, Guard [Gunner Expert] Wyandotte, Guard [Shipwright] Little Hans.

There is also an additional knight, cousin [Sea Mage] Salant.

The King's Right Hand consists of twelve people in total, and each of them is at least at the third level, which is more than enough to serve as the skeleton of senior military officers.

Of course, it was not just them who were in silence, but also the second-class battleship "King Edward" and the ghost fleet of 63 ships it led.

This was not Byron's original arrangement, but his father also received an edict from Edward IV and came here to act as the ultimate trump card in the eyes of His Majesty the King.

After the first-class ship [Blue Dragon King] and the second-class ship [King Edward] exchanged their identities by "calling a zebra a zebra" in [The Emperor's New Clothes].

In the eyes of Edward IV, this was his "First Fleet" returning from the underworld!
It had been prepared long ago as a big surprise for Warwick after the war began.

What else could Byron say to his father who loved to play? He could only say, "As long as you are happy," and then continue to play along with him for the time being.

Playing the role of trump cards for both sides, the father and son feel that the responsibility is huge!

If I don't kill them, I will be letting down their trust.

The main fleets of both sides continued to approach each other at an average speed of three knots, and the time came to ten o'clock in the morning.

"Scouts go out."

call out!call out!call out!
When the two sides were still dozens of nautical miles apart, countless flying beasts in the fleet soared into the sky and flew over the enemy fleet for close reconnaissance.

The composition of the enemy's fleet and key personnel information are continuously gathered to the rear.

Fights between beast tamers broke out from time to time, and blood, feathers, and tattered corpses fell from the sky every minute.

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quack quack
The atmosphere was already somewhat tragic even before the battle started.

Only the two ravens, Fujin and Muni, who had reunited in the sky, looked down at their fellow ravens like emperors commanding the intelligence battlefield.

The most detailed battlefield information was delivered to Byron. "This is a formal naval battle. There is a constant no-fly zone over the large fleet, which completely covers the high and far airspace that can be used to drop alchemical bombs or poison from the air.

The power of the Air Force has obviously been greatly weakened. It is almost impossible to gain everything by gaining air superiority, and there is no solution to this situation.

Because of the fear of the sky rulers of the Dragon King's Court in the mythological era, humans, who were originally just the ruled, have now upgraded their no-fly ability to the maximum level.

No one can defeat the dragons in the sky; the only way to defeat them is to knock them down to the ground.

Commands, battle songs, prayers, halos... numerous powerful no-fly capabilities that can shoot down dragons have long turned the airspace into an iron barrel.

The air force that once dominated the skies in the mythological age had no presence in the Silver Age, and its greatest role was only close-range reconnaissance.

It is precisely because of this that I feel that sky knights, whale oil airships, airplanes and other air force arms may not have much future in the future. It would be a blessing from God if they can be used to transport troops, but don't even think about using them to participate in wars.

Under such circumstances, steel battleships driven by high-power steam turbines are likely to be developed to the extreme.

Become the ultimate force that rules the sea and write a glorious chapter of the 'Multi-Turret Cult'."

Byron's attention did not stay on the flying beast for too long. He quickly raised his field of vision to include all the troops of both sides in his field of vision.

The focus was on both sides' flagships, the Centaur and the Royal Oak.

The former was the ship that Edward IV sailed on.

The York king, dressed in military uniform, with a gorgeous ribbon and a beaver fur cloak, stood on the rear deck with a wide view, surrounded by a large group of officers and nobles of all ranks.

When I saw him again several months later, he had obviously changed a lot.

He no longer had the heroic spirit he had when he led the Yorkists to the throne, but instead exuded a sense of weakness and fragility.

His face was pale, his eye sockets were sunken, and he had an unhealthy paleness, as if his body had been hollowed out by something.

But the brutality and cruelty on his face were already so intense that it made people tremble with fear.

Those in the know knew that over the past few months, His Majesty the King had turned his grief and anger into lust, and had been spending most of the day personally comforting the beautiful queen who had lost all her relatives.

The rest of the time is spent either eating, drinking, having fun, or killing people on the spot.

Apart from instinctively keeping the most critical army firmly in his hands, most of the other government affairs were handed over to his most trusted brother, Richard, the Devil Duke.

Gradually, he gathered all the qualities of a tyrant or even a king who lost his country.

If there were no external enemies around, no one would be surprised if a "candle shadow and axe sound" suddenly happened one day.

But no one dared to remind Edward IV to take care of his health or concentrate on state affairs.

No one dared to mention in front of him Elizabeth Woodville, the "Most Beautiful Woman in the Channel Islands" who had already been given a new title, the "Vampire Queen".

Because so much time had passed, anyone who had reminded or advised Edward IV, whether they were eunuchs or ministers, was killed by him.

However, as the "founding monarch" of the York Dynasty, Edward IV still had the prestige he had accumulated over a long period of time, and no one in the royalist party dared to openly defy his orders.

As the two fleets closed in, the other side's flags could be gradually seen with the naked eye. Edward IV put down the brass telescope in his hand, coughed, and looked at his brother beside him:

"Richard, the daughter and son-in-law of the Marquis of Norwich are here as special envoys to welcome my King Edward and the First Fleet.

Is it in place now?"

The ugly dwarf Richard, the Devil Duke, said to his brother with the same respect as always:

"Your Majesty, news has just been sent back that they have arrived at the designated location with the 'First Fleet'.

You can jump into the material world at any time through the edge of the world, join the battlefield, and strike hard at the Count's party. "

Upon hearing this, Edward IV's sinister face showed a rare hint of satisfaction:
"The First, Third, Fifth, plus Lord Tudor's Seventh Fleet, four fleets against Warwick's three fleets. The advantage is mine!

You are all heroes of the York family, and you will all be rewarded after suppressing the rebellion."

The members of the royal party finally showed some joy on their faces.

Regardless of whether Edward IV became a tyrant or not, as long as he could lead everyone to eat meat together, his tyranny could be temporarily tolerated.

Isn't this why everyone works for him?

They all roared excitedly:

"Four fleets against three fleets, the advantage is on my side!"

At the same time, the order was issued through the legal network:

"All fleets, level 4 and above battleships, form a battle line with the flagships, and prepare for battle. Head against the wind!"

The orders were passed down level by level.

"Fight the wind! Prepare for battle!"

On the other side, on the Royal Oak, which has always served as the Admiral's flagship.

The gray-haired [King Maker] Warwick seemed to have a second spring in life. He wore the uniform of a naval marshal, his back straight, and no longer looked as embarrassed as he did when he fled in a hurry from Ganquan Palace.

Looking at George, Duke of Clarence standing beside him, there was a flash of unknown cruelty and excitement in his eyes.

Because his daughter, Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, finally became pregnant thanks to the hard work of George, who suddenly became stronger.

This also means that as long as Warwick wins this battle, there will be no obstacles for him to completely seize the country and be crowned king.

“Just now, the fleet of Pirate King [Wild Hunt] Byron Lancaster has arrived in position.

The reason why the pirate fleet was able to successfully challenge the Treasure Fleet was that there was no strictly third-level or above battleship overseas.

But here we are in the old continent, and battleships are the main warships in the battle of the seas, and cruisers are just there to make up the numbers.

This is also the main reason why I dare to invite this pirate king to help me without fear of being stabbed in the back by him.

Moreover, in a large-scale group war, the power of an individual is infinitely reduced. By using him as cannon fodder to fight the royal party to the death, two troubles can be solved at once.

By then, I will be able to save the land promised by the North and become the true king of the entire territory!"

He also had a plan in mind: if Byron lost too much strength after this battle, his promise would naturally become invalid.

Benefits are often not distributed according to merit, but according to your ability to cause trouble.

"My main fleets, the Second and Fourth, the Public Security Fleet, the Sixth Fleet, plus the Pirate King's pirate fleet, a total of four fleets against the Royalist's main fleet, the Fifth, and the Colonial Seventh Fleet. The advantage is mine!"

Then he issued the same order as the royal party:

"All fleets, level 4 and above battleships, form a battle line with the flagships, and prepare for battle. Head against the wind!"

The two sides formed single columns with fleets as units. Each column had about ten battleships of level three or above, and more were nominal level four battleships.

Together they charged towards each other in a mighty force.

Boom!Boom!Boom!
The heartbeats of countless officers and soldiers sounded like drums.

Wood is not an industrial product, nor is it a common commodity that can be bought with money. To build a third-level battleship, at least 2000 high-quality oak trees planted a hundred years ago are needed.

In the navies of most ocean kingdoms, Tier 4 battleships are sufficient to enter the "main battle line" which is the backbone of the fleet, becoming the gear that can determine the ultimate destiny of the country in large-scale fleet combat.

Therefore, in this era, if the main battle line does not appear, then it is fine. But once it appears, it will be the ultimate gamble that will determine the country's destiny and maritime hegemony for the next several decades or even hundreds of years!

Even in the entire history of navigation, such battles of national destiny are rare.

The number of warships in existence is itself the greatest deterrent. Once too many warships are lost, it may be difficult to make up for the loss in the next few decades.

It is no exaggeration to say that this battle determined the fate of the country.

In addition, in addition to conventional warships, the flagship of each fleet must be a level three or above exotic battleship.

In spiritual vision, brilliant auras illuminate the sea.

As a maritime power, the Kingdom of Hastings lacks a legendary battleship that can suppress an entire sea and establish its dominance over the ocean. However, its conventional naval power cannot be ranked second, but it should have no problem ranking among the top three.

I just don’t know how much loss will occur after this war, and whether it will cause irreversible damage to the national strength.

Byron, who witnessed this scene, was almost heartbroken to the point of bleeding.

If this battle had not been unavoidable, he would have resorted to all kinds of tricks.

As a believer in "I am the pioneer", he has always adhered to the principle of using "monkey stealing peaches" instead of "black tiger digging out the heart" if possible.

He is also a follower of the famous Mad Dog Fighting Master - if you have an appointment to duel with someone, then do it one day in advance and drive a dump truck to kill him!

Unfortunately, his will is temporarily unable to withstand the attack.

Just as Byron was sighing for his battleship and comforting himself, "The old must go before the new can come, and steam battleships are my true love," the fastest vanguard troops of both sides had already approached within the 100-meter artillery range.

The commander also issued the order:
"Fire!"

"Fire!"

boom! boom! boom! boom! boom!
Countless heavy naval guns on the battleships roared, blazing flames burst out, and the huge roar almost shattered the North Sea.

(End of this chapter)