I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1160 The Prototype of the Invincible Armada

Faced with Su Yao, who seemed to have descended from the heavens, the remaining Roman fleet completely lost the will to resist.

Tiberius ordered the white flag to be raised and surrendered, and soon after, the other warships also gave up resistance.

Thus, the unexpected defense of Antioch Port ended in a complete victory for the Han army.

The more than eighty warships of various sizes that had come to attack either sank in the cold sea, burst into flames, or raised the white flag in humiliation. Emperor Severus's allied fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean, which he was determined to conquer, was completely annihilated.
In the final tally, one of the two naval eagle banners of the Roman legion was burned and the other was captured. Apart from the sixteen warships that survived due to Tiberius's decisive surrender, more than eight thousand naval officers and men, including the naval commander Marcus, perished at sea.

The Han army suffered only minor losses, with one wheeled boat sunk, several ships slightly damaged, and a little over a hundred casualties. Their coastal defenses were not even damaged.

This stark disparity in casualties completely shocked everyone.

"Long live the Emperor!"

"Divine Might! This is the true Divine Might!"

The Syrian artisans in the port, the sailors who had been forcibly conscripted, and the local residents who had originally been uneasy about the rule of the Han army all knelt on the ground at this moment, worshipping the golden figure bathed in sunlight and smoke on the port watchtower, shouting words of praise and submission in various languages.

Even Guo Jia, who knew about Su Yao's preparations, couldn't hide his joy after seeing the initial report of the battle results:
"Your Majesty, in this battle we captured twenty-one warships of various sizes that were in good condition or could be repaired, including five quinqueremes and ten triremes... In addition, we have nearly two thousand skilled sailors and shipwrights. If we reorganize them properly, the strength of our Mediterranean Fleet will surely increase dramatically!"

Guo Jia held the preliminary battle report, his tone filled with excitement.

While wheeled boats are good, these mere dozen or so were frantically built over two months.

Now that the shipyard has been upgraded and occupied by new warships, the ships sent by the Romans are truly a godsend!

In particular, the five massive five-oared warships, with their sturdy hulls and enormous carrying capacity, are exactly what the Han navy urgently needs.

"More importantly, this is the first time our army has defeated the main force of the Roman fleet at sea. After this battle, they will certainly not dare to lightly attack our city of Antioch again, and Your Majesty's shipbuilding plan can finally proceed smoothly!"

Shipbuilding plan, that's right.

A powerful naval fleet was essential to destroy the Roman imperial crown.

According to the prisoners' reports, the Romans possessed more than 800 naval vessels, with over 600 in the Mediterranean alone.

Therefore, whether it was used to block the Bosphorus Strait for Byzantium and cut off Roman aid to Asia Minor, or to contend with the main Roman fleet in the Adriatic Sea and advance into the Italian peninsula, these wheeled ships could not have been accomplished by simply building them hastily.

What Su Yao needed was a "Great Han Navy" that could truly control the Mediterranean and dominate the Western Ocean, an absolute force capable of launching a frontal attack and destroying the Romans' main warships without relying on coastal defenses.

To achieve this, coastal defenses using wheeled ships were insufficient, and the Romans' large galleys were even less capable—relying solely on the limited shipyards in places like Syria and Egypt, it was impossible for them to compete with the Romans in terms of the number of ships they could build.

Therefore, after Antioch, Su Yao immediately chose a path of quality over quantity. Was there any ship that could, with only a small number, crush and destroy the Roman galleys and dominate the seas?

In an instant, images of those colossal warships that changed the history of naval warfare from his past life flashed into Su Yao's mind—sailing warships, the protagonists of the Age of Exploration!

Those giant ships with their sails billowing and cannons fully loaded were a devastating blow to the Romans' primitive galley ships that relied on rams and crossbows.

Therefore, after capturing Antioch, Su Yao did not rush to launch a full-scale attack on Asia Minor. Instead, he sent Guan Yu and others to sweep across the coast and conquer Egypt, while gathering more than 20,000 skilled craftsmen from all over the world and mobilizing 150,000 laborers to turn most of Antioch into a construction site.

The original dry dock in Antioch was expanded into three giant dry docks side by side. Each dock was 60 paces long and 15 paces wide, with thick bluestone slabs paved at the bottom and reinforced with rammed earth and bricks on both sides. A diversion channel was also specially dug so that seawater could be controlled to enter and exit through the gate, which would facilitate the launching and maintenance of warships.

Around the dock, a continuous area of ​​workshops was built, with carpentry workshops, blacksmith workshops, canvas workshops, and gunpowder workshops arranged in an orderly manner. The workshops were connected by stone-paved roads, and carts carrying timber and metal shuttled back and forth day and night.

The power of the "World Conqueror" was brought to its fullest extent at this moment. Under Su Yao's guidance, artisans from the Han Dynasty, Kushan Empire, Parthia, and the Roman Eastern Province gathered together and worked together to fuse his timeless knowledge with ancient techniques.

In the massive base of Antioch, Su Yao spent only two months building more than a dozen cannon-equipped wheeled ships and coastal fortifications that terrified the Romans, and even completed the experimental construction of the world's first sailing warship.

The experimental warship, named "Dingyuan" by Su Yao, is currently quietly moored in the largest dry dock, undergoing final outfitting and inspection.

Its appearance is completely different from the Roman galleys moored in the harbor: the long and smooth hull lines, the towering masts, and the enclosed gun emplacements on both sides of the hull that have not yet been fitted with gun ports all demonstrate a beauty and power that transcends time.

The design of this warship incorporated knowledge from Su Yao that spanned over a thousand years. It abandoned the shortcomings of traditional oar-powered warships, such as reliance on a large number of rowers, low freeboard, and poor seaworthiness, relying entirely on sails for propulsion and pursuing long-range ocean-going capabilities and powerful firepower projection.

The only drawback was that, in order to put it into service as soon as possible, the hull and service life of the warships were affected to some extent, and compromises were also made on the number and caliber of the cannons.

To expedite construction, relatively thin timber was used in some structural parts of the hull, and the connections between the keel and ribs were not subjected to the most time-consuming repeated reinforcement process. While this allowed the "Dingyuan" to be launched in a short time, its structural strength may not be able to withstand long-term, high-intensity naval combat or harsh sea conditions, and its expected service life will be far shorter than that of similar warships built according to standard procedures.

Even so, the firepower and naval deterrent of the "Dingyuan" were far superior to those of the Romans' manpower-powered oar-powered ships.

The twelve cannons mounted on just one side alone equaled the firepower of the current coastal defense, and this was only the beginning.

The large galleys sent by the Romans provided him with a "shipbuilding base" that far exceeded his expectations.

The sturdy keels and intact hulls of those warships will be thoroughly modified and utilized by his craftsmen, accelerating the formation of his invincible fleet.

Therefore, after the great victory, Su Yao did not incorporate those warships into the fleet, but instead had them dragged to the shipyard by laborers for a complete overhaul.

Antioch was brightly lit day and night, with thick smoke rising and turning the sky above the port into a gray haze.

Several days later, in Byzantium, Emperor Severus, after much searching, finally learned of the devastating news of the complete annihilation of his navy.
(End of this chapter)