"Qing'er, do you know the history of the human navy's development before the Great Cataclysm?"
After a brief silence, Zhang Tie stopped asking how many of his secrets Yan Feiqing still knew and suddenly posed a strange question.
Yan Feiqing's worried gaze turned puzzled. She did not understand why Zhang Tie would ask this.
Without waiting for Yan Feiqing to answer, Zhang Tie continued.
"For several hundred years before the Great Cataclysm, during a period before humanity's reach and ambition extended into the skies, human navies followed the doctrine of great ships and big guns. Back then, whichever nation had warships with greater tonnage, thicker armor, and guns that were bigger, thicker, and more numerous could dominate the four seas and sweep aside all before it. Under those circumstances, battleships—with their enormous tonnage, thick armor, and ferocious artillery—were the overlords of the seas. Other than battleships of the same kind, almost no warship could contend with them!"
Under Yan Feiqing's puzzled gaze, Zhang Tie gathered his thoughts and continued speaking to himself.
"Yet although battleships were powerful, they were also expensive, and not everyone had the ability to build them. Therefore, besides battleships, the navies of various human nations also had all sorts of warships that were smaller, less heavily armed, and more lightly armored—cruisers, destroyers, and so on. Any one of these warships alone was no match for a battleship, but if there were several cruisers, for instance, then by fighting desperately and using many against few, they could likewise heavily damage or sink a battleship. These vessels were also part of a nation's maritime supremacy and naval strength, and each had its own advantages. A cruiser, for example, could sail faster at sea than a battleship!"
"When battleship development had reached its peak, someone proposed an idea: apart