High-Speed Cruiser: City Defense-class

"Return fire! Load scorching bullets in every battery! Mortars, prepare! Fire!"

Amid the billowing smoke, the bloodied middle-aged Sirius Empire army commander brought down his command saber with a hoarse shout.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Orange-red cannon flashes flickered.

The air trembled as solid cannonballs, like a swarm of locusts, threw up enormous splashes around the steel warship in the distance.

But even with their terrifying volume, the few shells that managed to hit the enemy hull were no more than mosquito bites.

Once the enemy warship pulled back slightly, it had completely left the coastal batteries' range.

Only a limited number of breech-loading rifled guns "imported" from Tulip could still threaten it.

They wanted to send out sailing warships to drive it off, but there was no wind!

The ash-covered garrison responsible for coastal defense seemed to hear bursts of mocking laughter from that warship. Every one of them wore a black expression.

Indeed, Sirius, once the world's foremost naval power ten years ago, still fielded vast numbers of outdated muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons. It was hard not to sigh at the sight.

It was not that Sirius did not want to modernize its equipment.

Rather, its decades—perhaps even centuries—long rejection of industrialization had left it severely behind in metallurgy, warship design, weapons manufacturing, and other fields.

It could not even guarantee acceptable production yields for the breech mechanisms of breech-loading rifled guns, much less build all heavy gun battleships, whose dominant status had already been acknowledged by every nation.

During the Sail Era, technology had not yet become so decisive, and elite personnel could still make up the difference. But now, ten years later, they could not even see the other side's taillights.

Even though the Sirius Empire still possessed three legendary battleships—the Royal Alfonso, Glory of Divine Grace, and