The region had already made plans for the disbandment of the Shiksan folk. There would be some soldiers who were unwilling to retire and wanted to continue serving in the military.
As a matter of fact, the region had just gained 3.8 million Shiksan immigrants. Having a Shiksan corps would help stabilize their emotions and make them understand that the region didn't view them as outsiders.
So, Claude gave the volunteer corps to the eight Shiksan homecoming folk and had Derivik pick 90,000 of the best out of the 300,000 Shiksan soldiers to form the corps.
As for their weapons, they would be the same as Thunderclap and Monolith's. For example, they would be equipped with new rifles instead of Weyblon matchlocks.
Now that the families and relatives of the Shiksan soldiers had migrated to the region, Claude didn't have to worry about them rebelling.
So, they would be treated the same as Thunderclap and Monolith in terms of equipment and salary to show that they were treated equally.
However, the soldiers who had just been equipped with the new rifles still had to undergo marksmanship training to learn how to use them and avoid needlessly wasting bullets.
Of course, the Shiksan corps couldn't be put to use for the time being. Only four returning folk were sent back. There were still four more waiting for the final migration fleet.
The region had already decided that the Shiksan corps' future battlefield would be on the western coast. Even after the war ended, they would be stationed in the various port cities on the western coast to protect the region's interests.
Year 607, the 17th of the 8th month. The pamigal Republic had leased Filimiz Port to the region.
Today, a patrol team of six ironclad warships arrived at the port. According to the agreement reached between the Dominion's military and the pamigar's higher-ups, the six ironclad warships were more suitable to be called instructors. This was the pamigar's first step towards establishing their own navy.
The region's navy would personally teach the pamigals how to operate the six ironclads. After half a year of internship, the six ironclads would be handed over to the pamigals and they would form the pamigals' first patrol squadron.
It could be said that the autonomous region had spared no effort in supporting the pamigars.
Ten days had passed in the blink of an eye. The officers and men of the six ironclad warships were getting along well with the pamigars who were learning from them.
Coincidentally, one of the captains and the two Pamigal cadets shared the same birthday, so everyone decided to hold a grand birthday party to celebrate their shared birthdays.
Because of the aphrodisiac potion and the many young, beautiful, and enthusiastic pamigal women at the banquet, the birthday celebration lasted for an entire night. It wasn't until noon the next day that the soldiers woke up one after another.
When a naval officer accidentally looked at the place where the six ironclad warships were anchored, he was shocked and screamed, "Where are our warships?
Where did the warship go? "
The six ironclads were gone, and all the naval officers and pamigar trainees were detained. Even the pamigar women who attended the banquet were not spared.
At first, the higher-ups of the Pamigal Republic thought that it was the Dominion's navy that was stealing from them.
They didn't want to hand over the six ironclad warships to the pamigars, so they created this farce.
But as the investigation progressed, especially the confessions of the pamigar women who attended the birthday party, and the naval officers who had sex with them that night, they came to the conclusion that all the officers and men of the six ironclad warships had attended the birthday party. They all had sufficient alibis, and the pamigar women were the witnesses.
But if it wasn't the Dominion's navy that did it, how could the six ironclad warships have disappeared?
The pamigar trainees had only been learning for a few days, so they couldn't operate the six ironclad warships on their own.
Because of this, the naval officers and men on the warships were so arrogant that they didn't even arrange for sentries on the ships. Everyone went to the birthday party.
They all thought that no one could operate the six ironclad warships. Besides, this was a port base rented by the autonomous region, so safety was guaranteed.
In the end, the six Iron-armored Warships disappeared without anyone knowing.
The investigating officer sent by the autonomous region finally found a witness. He was an old pamigar sailor who got up in the middle of the night to bait some seafood and sell it to the tavern in the morning for some money.
He said that he did see the six ironclad warships slowly moving out of the port in the middle of the night. They didn't seem to have started the engines, so he couldn't hear any rumbling.
The old pamigar sailor didn't think much of it. He thought it was a night training.
The moonlight was bright at the time, so he could clearly see many figures moving on the six ironclad warships.
That was why he thought it was a night training for the ironclad warships. He didn't expect that the six ironclad warships had been hijacked and left the port.
The investigating officer became more and more puzzled. Obviously, the six ironclad warships wouldn't disappear for no reason. The only people who could operate the six ironclad warships were the navy, not the pamigars.
But if everyone in the autonomous region navy swore that they didn't do it, then who could it be?
No one else knew how to operate an ironclad warship!
The Royal Navy did know how to operate the six ironclad warships, but did they have the guts to come to Nubissia?
The disappearance of the ironclad warships was listed as one of the top ten most mysterious cases.
Three months later, the fleet of the Blacksail Pirates and a sail fleet of the Fochs Islands United Kingdom met in the waters of the Nubali Islands. The Blacksail Pirates refused the order of the Fochs Islands United Kingdom's sail fleet to stop their sails and anchor for inspection. Both sides began preparing for battle.
As the sail warships on the periphery of the Black Sail Pirates flashed away, twelve ironclad warships suddenly rushed out and rushed into the battle formation of the Fokes Islands United Kingdom's sail fleet, ramming and firing at all the warships in sight.
The Fokes Islands United Kingdom's sailing fleet was in chaos. They were pleasantly surprised that they had caught the culprit behind the attack on the Mount Weiders shipbuilding base, but disappointed that they could not do anything to the Blacksail Pirates' twelve ironclad warships …
The naval battle that took place in the waters of the Nubali Islands ended with the Fochs Islands losing nearly half of their sailing fleet.
In fact, the Blacksail Pirates also suffered great losses. The twelve ironclad warships were heavily damaged, and the forty or so sailing ships and warships that followed behind lost nearly twenty of them.
But compared to the 108 sailing ships and armed ships of the Fochs Islands, which lost nearly half of its sailing fleet and had to retreat from the battlefield, the Blacksail Pirates were the victors of the battle.
Eriksson, the leader of the Blacksail Pirates, had been called the Pirate King by other pirate factions. He could even call himself the Grand Duke of Nubali.
The Grand Duke of Nubali represented the most powerful pirate faction in the waters of the Nubali Islands, also known as the Pirate Paradise.
His triangular flag could even command all the pirate factions in the waters to follow his orders.
Or it could be said that the Grand Duke of Nubali that the pirates spoke of was just a legend circulating among the people. In fact, no pirate would willingly obey the orders of another pirate faction.
Eriksson's mind was still clear on that point. Although he had defeated the regular navy of the Fochs Islands, a powerful sailing fleet, he had also exposed the Blacksail Pirates as the mastermind behind the attack on the shipbuilding base of the Fochs Islands and the seizure of the six ironclad warships of the overseas dominion's navy.
Continuing to stay in the waters of the Nubali Islands was akin to selling their heads and waiting for the enemy to come and settle the score with them.
So, Eriksson's Blacksail Pirates suddenly left the waters of the Nubali Islands on a moonless night and disappeared without a trace under the eyes of the other pirate factions.
When the other sailing fleet of the Fochs Islands arrived at the waters of the Nubali Islands, they found that they could no longer find the whereabouts of the Blacksail Pirates.
The envoy of the Fochs Islands United Kingdom arrived at Lanu and met with Claude and General Birkin. He reported the outcome of the naval battle between their kingdom's sailing fleet and the Blacksail pirates.
This allowed the autonomous military district to understand the reason for the mysterious disappearance of their six ironclad warships. At the same time, it also confirmed that the Blacksail Pirates had mastered the repair and modification technology of ironclad warships.
The Fochs Islands United Kingdom was to blame. When their shipbuilding base at Mount Weiders was attacked, the technical atlases, blueprints, hulls of six ironclad warships, and more than ten technical experts and Rune Mages had all fallen into the hands of the Black Sail Pirates.
Judging from the fact that the Black Sail Pirates could stealthily drive away the six Iron-clad Warships of the autonomous military area, it could be inferred that the Black Sail Pirates had a deep understanding and mastery of the Iron-clad Warships.
It was extraordinary …
The naval battle in the Nubali Islands had made all the pirates and sea merchants understand that the future would be dominated by ironclad warships.
A sailing fleet of the Fochs Islands United Kingdom, with 108 sailing warships and armed ships of varying firepower.
The Black Sail Pirates, on the other hand, only had more than forty sailing warships and armed ships, as well as twelve ironclad warships.
However, no one expected that the outcome of the battle would be the Fochs Islands United Kingdom's sailing fleet withdrawing from the battlefield after losing nearly half of its fleet. The sailing fleet had no choice but to withdraw. Even if they failed to do so, they could still preserve half of their naval forces. If they didn't withdraw and continued to fight, even if they caused more casualties to the Black Sail Pirates, the sailing fleet would be completely annihilated.
The Black Sail Pirates lost eighteen sailing warships and armed ships. The twelve ironclad warships they owned were also heavily damaged, but they still had combat power.
Not to mention anything else, in this battle alone, the 12 Iron-armored Warships had destroyed more than 40 sailing warships, including the collisions and cannons of those warships.
The Fochs Islands United Kingdom's fleet commander was certain that he couldn't do anything to the twelve ironclad warships, so he had no choice but to withdraw from the battlefield and admit defeat.
Now, no one could find the whereabouts of the Black Sail Pirates, but everyone knew that when the Black Sail Pirates appeared again, they would still be showing off their strength with twelve ironclad warships. No pirate group or the navy of the West Coast colonial country would be their opponent.
The envoy of the Fochs Islands United Kingdom hoped that the Dominion would send its ironclad fleet to search for the Black Sail Pirates, but the request was rejected.
Claude smiled bitterly and told the envoy that if they happened to encounter the Black Sail Pirates at sea, the Dominion Navy's ironclad fleet would definitely attack them and not let a single one of their ironclad warships escape.
But if they sent their ironclad fleet to the western coast's colonial waters to search for the Black Sail Pirates, the Dominion Navy wouldn't have the time to play hide-and-seek with them.
It could be seen from the map that the main mission of the Dominion Navy's ironclad fleet was to maintain the safety of the shipping routes between the two continents.
Even though there were ironclad warships patrolling the waters of the Northern Bay of the Great Plains of Canas and the two rented port cities, they were more for defense than offense.
Ironclad warships were indeed powerful, but the cost of maintaining them was also very high.
The Dominion Navy had close to sixty ironclad warships in total, which was already the maximum amount of naval funds that the Dominion Navy could sustain. If they increased the number of ironclad warships, the Dominion Navy wouldn't be able to afford it.
So, under the current circumstances, even if they knew that the Black Sail Pirates were the mysterious culprits who took away the six ironclad warships, the Dominion Navy didn't have the time or energy to deal with them.
The sixty ironclad warships of the Dominion Navy were distributed on the map at a glance. The first was the Dominion Navy's waters, which required two to six ironclad warship squadrons to patrol and maintain the safety of the waters.
Next was the Northern Bay, which required two squadrons to take turns patrolling.
Each of the two rented port cities was guarded by a patrol squad of six Iron Armored Warships.
With that, the Dominion Navy had a total of sixty ironclad warships, 36 of them already had a place to go.
The remaining twenty-four ironclad warships formed the Dominion Navy's ironclad fleet, which consisted of more than three hundred sailing ships, had to protect the safety of the trade between the two continents.
The envoy of the Fochs Islands Union wasn't discouraged when he found out that the Dominion Navy couldn't deploy an ironclad fleet to hunt down the Black Sail Pirates. He suggested that the Dominion Navy could build a batch of ironclad warships for the Fochs Islands Union.
Claude smiled and quoted a high price of 300,000 crowns for an ironclad warship.
The envoy was shocked and asked why the price had risen so much.
Claude explained that the price he quoted was for the second generation of ironclad warships, not the first generation.
The cost of the first generation of ironclad warships was only half that of the second generation, but their combat efficiency was so low that they had already been phased out. The Dominion Navy's shipbuilding workshops no longer accepted orders for the first generation of ironclad warships.
The envoy left with the second-generation destroyers, cruisers and ironclad transport ships. He couldn't make the decision on his own and needed to contact the higher-ups of the kingdom. It seemed that he would have to wait for some time before he received a reply from the Fochs Islands Union on whether they wanted to purchase ironclad warships from the Dominion Navy.
The promotion of the second-generation ironclad warships was part of the Dominion Parliament's economic plan to revitalize Vebator Port.
Cobicus Port in Tyrrsim was one of the three largest ports in the Dominion Navy. It had become the main port connecting the kingdom and the Dominion Navy.
Port Patres in Robisto State had already become a military port and shipbuilding base. It was extremely busy.
Port Vebator, on the other hand, had always been low in popularity and didn't have much room for development.
Of course, this had to do with the expansion of the Dominion Navy's railways. The railway companies in the Dominion Navy were researching how to build a bridge over the Dorinibla River to connect the two sides of Henan and Hebei without the need to get off the train. They were also researching ways to dig tunnels in the Loki Mountains to transport all sorts of minerals.
Due to the development of the railways, most people who went to Port Vebator preferred to take the train instead of the ship. As a result, the port was becoming more and more deserted.
The Dominion Navy hoped to develop the port into another industrial base to boost the economic development of the neighboring provinces.
Port Vebator and the Loki Mountains were neighbors, so they had access to all sorts of minerals.
So, when it came to deciding on a way to revitalize Port Vebator's economy, the first and second generation ironclad warships caught the council's attention.
Some of the more interested councilors set up a few more shipbuilding workshops in Port Vebator. Their main products would be the first and second generation ironclad warships anyway.
Claude didn't object to the councilors selling the first and second generation ironclad warships, but the problem was that they had to sell them as well.
If they could, the price of selling a second-generation ironclad warship could be used to build a fourth-generation one.
There was no way Claude and the other high-ranking officers would object to such a high profit. The only problem was where to find such a rich man.
The Blacksail Pirates' twelve ironclad warships were docked in a remote shipyard in Port Vebator for repairs. Borkal had contacted the shipyard for Eriksson.
Apart from repairing the twelve first-generation ironclad warships, the shipyard also gave Eriksson another big job. At a price of fifty thousand crowns per warship, he was to cover the outer shells of the sixteen fast three-masted warships he picked from the pirate fleet with a finger-thick layer of copper. Then, he would refit the bottoms of the ships with the steam engines of the previous generation.