13th March 1657
"It looks like the Venetian fleet is entering Butrint Lake. Why did they have to take a detour and go such a long way to reach the same place they could have reached if they hadn’t split up the fleet?" Marcus Aquilaus said with a confused expression on his face.
Listening to his brother’s words, Felix Aquilaus did not comment and stayed silent. Although he felt that things were not so simple, he could not understand what was going on. However, Aaron Hartthorne, the experienced merchant, was different. He immediately guessed something and a smile appeared on his face. ’It looks like the Venetian commander is really cunning,’ he thought to himself.
Felix, noticing Aaron’s smirk, couldn’t help but ask, "Mr. Aaron, do you have any idea what is happening?"
Aaron was taken aback by the question, but considering the help the young men had provided, he did not hide anything and boldly divulged his speculation. "Mr. Felix, if I am not mistaken, the two Venetian ships that split apart in the Ionian Sea were used as bait to draw out whoever was laying an ambush for the Venetians.
If I’m not wrong, the current fleet, the larger one, is on its way to flank the ambushing enemy. I have to say it is a very clever tactic."
The Aquilaus brothers were taken aback. They did not expect a simple trip to Venice could lead to such an exciting adventure.
"Whoever is laying an ambush for the Venetians is unlucky today," Marcus said with an expression of pity.
"Who else would it be if not the Ottoman Empire? But I have to say, the Ottomans have kicked an iron plate this time. They deserve it," Felix said with a smug expression.
Hearing this, Marcus changed from feeling a little sorry for the ambushers to laughing at their misfortune.
Aaron Hartthorne, noticing the smug expressions on the brothers’ faces, couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth. But he knew that this was natural. After all, the Romans naturally hated the Ottomans, who were responsible for the fall of the Byzantine Empire, which was the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire.
So the Holy Roman Empire, which is the Ideological and symbolic descendant of the Western Roman Empire, is naturally at odds with the Ottoman Empire.
Putting the thoughts of the youngsters aside, Aaron had something else in mind. ’How was the Venetian commander able to discover the ambush from as far back as a few kilometres away? Does he have divine eyesight or something?’ He clearly remembered the moment the Venetian commander chose to take action and split up the fleet.
he was sure he hadn’t seen any enemy ships preparing to lay an ambush, so he was extremely confused by this action of the Venetian commander. However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t figure it out, so he gave up for the time being, making up his mind to find out about this when he reached Venice.
Eventually, the Venetian fleet and the following merchant fleet exited Butrint Lake.
---
Commander Ferruccio Da Romano immediately took out the telescope, got on top of the viewing platform, and gazed into the distance, eager to find out what had happened to the San-Marco class battleships.
Just then, in his field of vision, he could see three Ottoman ships sailing towards the Ionian Sea at full speed. He was startled as he considered the possibility of his ships being sunk or destroyed. Then he looked around, which made him relieved as he saw the two San Marco-class battleships chasing the Ottoman ships.
"Hard to port, ahead full!"
With the roar of Ferruccio, the fleet of eight battleships, moving in a line formation, immediately turned to the left and adjusted their course to take them forward at the fastest speed.
The action immediately caught the attention of the merchants following behind.
"Something interesting is about to happen."
"Hey look those battleships don’t look Venetian, are they the ships of an enemy country "
"Ha ha no wonder the Venetian took such a long detour, so they had already noticed an ambush "
"I wonder who is so unlucky."
"It must be the Ottomans."
"Ha ha, they deserve to die."
Various shouts and exclamations were heard from these merchants as they started shouting loudly to communicate with one another on different boats.
---
Nazaruddin Hyder Khan looked anxious as the fleet of Venetian ships approached him at full speed.
As if the world were against him, the wind was blowing north while he was travelling south, greatly hampering the speed of his ship. Meanwhile, the main fleet sailing west was not slowed down by much, and the ships chasing him were constantly closing the distance, picking up speed as more distance was covered.
To make matters worse, the battleship had already begun to take in water, causing the formation to slow down even more.
Nazaruddin gritted his teeth in hatred, held on to the railing next to him, and shouted, "Brace for impact!"
---
Three different battle groups, two belonging to the Venetians and one to the Ottomans, got closer and closer. The cannons were aimed, ready to be fired at any time.
Robert Luigi and Martinez Luca, the two Venetian captains, chasing the enemy from behind, decisively ordered the cannons to be fired.
"Boom boom boom boom!"
The Bharatiya cannons roared into action as the projectiles, covered in red-hot flames, spewed out of the barrels, tearing the air apart as they hurtled towards the Ottoman battleships.
"Bang!"
A crunching sound was heard as the cannons struck the deck, immediately putting a hole through the first layer and killing a few soldiers beneath.
The onslaught was brutal as the Ottoman battleship, which was at the end of the retreating fleet, took the most damage from the Venetian ships.
At this time, the main fleet of the Venetian Republic arrived in the vicinity and began to open fire.
"Boom boom boom boom boom!"
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Cannon shells from eight battleships flew into the air and fell like torrential rain, drowning everything in their path.
The merchants who saw the scene were left speechless. Before their eyes, two Ottoman naval ships were shredded into wood, blood and debris within minutes.
It was as if the Ottoman battleships were not sailing on the sea but had fallen into a millstone, being ground into rubble with nothing left to show for their prior existence.
All they saw was a lone ship sailing away towards the Ionian Sea at full speed.
---
Ferruccio Da Romano immediately regretted his decision to fully unload the firepower of the enemy. "Damn it, I was impulsive," he cursed at himself.
’Tsk’
If he had preserved some cannonballs and kept them ready, he could have wiped out the Ottoman fleet, even if the enemy used a covering formation—a suicidal tactic where a large number of people actively sacrificed their lives to act as meat shields for a smaller group.
It was the same situation in this battle. Out of the three Ottoman battleships, the one that Nazaruddin was commanding was in the middle, while the other two battleships were at the back and the left side, respectively covering the attacks of the Venetian ships from both fronts.
In this way, at the cost of completely destroying his battleships, he got a chance to escape.
---
Ferruccio Da Romano immediately wanted to give chase, but seeing the wind picking up towards the south, he reconsidered. By taking his fleet through the Greek waters, he had already alerted the Ottomans. If he entered the Ionian Sea unprepared, who knows if the Ottomans would set an ambush for him? So he reluctantly gave up and continued his journey to Venice.
---
The merchants all understood what had transpired, and they were shocked, to say the least. Although small naval battles between various countries were normal in this era, they were still a very rare occurrence. Most of the merchants present had never seen a naval battle of this scale. The best they had seen was nothing more than a few pirates being punished for their arrogance.
So, they were looking forward to the battle as soon as they knew it was a confrontation between the Venetians and the Ottomans. Unfortunately, they were disappointed as the battle ended before they even knew what had happened.
"Ha ha, do these fools think we are in the era of Vikings where we would board the ship and fight with swords and fists? How ridiculous! We have already moved away from that and have entered the age of cannon warfare," John Brown, hearing the dissatisfied comments from some of the merchant friends, couldn’t help but mutter.
Far away, on one of the largest merchant ships, Felix Aquilaus had his eyes on the two battleships that acted as bait. His eyes were firmly fixed on the hull of this new battleship the Venetians had purchased.
He was inspecting how the battleship held up after the cannon fire between the two nations was exchanged. Felix was surprised to find that, except for a few places with some holes, the rest of the ship was only cracked. The most serious damage he saw was to the hull near the bottom of the ship, almost at the keel.
However surprisingly, although water was infiltrating the ship, it did not penetrate beyond the initial point of entry. Is this the speciality of warships built in the subcontinent?’ Felix thought to himself. He could not remember any European countries having such a feature, so he naturally thought that this was a special design made by the Bharatiya Empire.
In fact, his speculation was indeed true, as Vijay, in order to appeal to more European buyers, thought of a feature that only he could make, one that would stand out even among other European countries.
The Dutch had innovative designs with efficient cargo capacity; the English had large ships of the line with standardized designs; the French had elegant and balanced designs with high-quality materials; the Spanish had heavy and well-armoured ships with significant firepower; the Portuguese were similar; and the Venetians had galleys and lighter warships suited for the Mediterranean waters.
Vijay questioned what Bharat could have that would make its warships more desirable.
So Vijay came up with a solution: cheaper ships of high quality with compartmentalization to make them resistant to water seepage.
This technology was popularized by the British in the early 18th century, so Vijay decided to use this as a trademark for his own warships and directly implemented it into the export model of the San Marco Class Battleships and the La Serenissima Class armed merchant ships.
Vijay knew that this could be copied very quickly, as compartmentalization is not a hard technology to grasp; it is a simple principle that could be copied with a single look. However, he knew it would take a long time for European countries to adopt new designs due to bureaucracy and existing interests.
Moreover, even if the technology proved effective, compartmentalization had its drawbacks, which would delay the widespread adoption of the new technology even further.
Due to compartmentalization, there was a problem with limited space, which made the ship feel more stuffy, along with other small issues. Despite these problems, the ship’s ability to be extremely resistant to water seepage was a great advantage for Bharatiya shipbuilding, which had taken modular shipbuilding as its core feature.
So, Vijay was happy to gain some popularity and attract customers who appreciated this speciality of Bharatiya shipbuilding.
Vijay’s plan could be said to have worked, as Felix immediately decided to buy a merchant ship from Bharat, clearing all his worries about the actual battle performance of the Bharatiya ships.
P.S. Thank You Lucifer_6671, for the Pizzaa