The Hunter Beneath the Sea
If someone were to ask what the greatest weakness of the Southern army was, I would answer without hesitation: numbers.
An army is never a productive organization. It devours more money than any other group, yet offers no way to recover those costs. Unlike my previous life in South Korea, we could not export defense equipment.
Selling weapons that would eventually be turned against our own soldiers would be utter foolishness. That was why, even after declaring a wartime regime, we had not significantly expanded the army’s size. The reason was simple.
“After all, we will hardly face any land conflicts for the time being.”
The Empire feared civil war. Of course the mages were eager to strike at us by any means, but they could not recklessly start a war without the consent of the nobles and the corrupt Imperial generals. After all, a true ‘war’ required the Imperial army and the nobles’ private troops.
Therefore, at the present moment, an army of this scale was sufficient to defend our territory. Everything else? We had factories to run, railroads to lay, and the West to modernize.
Having declared a wartime footing and begun military production, there was no shortage of work.
The remaining manpower was being funneled into logistical support rather than the army itself. The Southern military simply required overwhelmingly more supplies than the Imperial forces.
Swords and spears could be used many times. Firearms and shells could not. Once a bullet was fired it could not be recovered, and an exploded shell was useless.
For modern armies, logistics were as vital as life itself. We had not reached the American level of ten support personnel per soldier, but we could not allow a situation where troops ran out of ammunition and could no longer fight.
Thus, the current strength of the Southern regular army stood at one hundred and fifty thousand. For a region of ten million people undergoing an industrial revolution, it was a remarkably small force. It was also precisely why I had staked everything on modernizing the Western army.
The Western forces, listed at one hundred and seventy thousand on paper, along with the potential conscript population of the West, would prove invaluable in the full-scale imperial civil war to come.
The chance that the Western army might get strange ideas once they held machine guns? They would not suddenly lose their minds while fighting their mortal enemies, the barbarians, and turn on their Southern allies. Even if such a thing occurred, suppressing them would not take long.
The true power of the machine gun lay not in its overwhelming rate of fire, but in the logistics capable of sustaining that rate. Until the West could be fully trusted, all military supplies would be produced exclusively in the Southern heartland. That was sufficient.
“You have secured the consent of all the Western nobles?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. Not a single lord voiced opposition.”
“Good. Then the staff department will draft an operation plan for the barbarian subjugation. I will also participate, so ensure there are no shortcomings in the preparations.”
With this, the West was now effectively within the South’s grasp. Politics, economy, finance, manufacturing, military—every field had become dependent on Southern involvement.
And it was not a structure we had forced upon them; the West had created it themselves because they wanted it. A solid framework that would not easily collapse. Once completed, we simply needed to keep moving forward.
Therefore, before the barbarian subjugation began, there was one problem that had to be addressed during this brief window of time.
“It’s about time we turned our attention to the navy as well.”
The moment we absorbed the West, the fragile peace we had enjoyed on thin ice would shatter. The enemies who had been hesitating would immediately turn their blades toward me. And at the forefront would be Eastern Grand Duke Edward. The option he would choose was obvious: a naval blockade.
Building warships to counter a naval blockade would require at least several months. Preparations for next-generation naval power therefore began immediately.
“This is the design proposal sent by the Design Bureau, Your Excellency.”
As the name suggested, it was a submarine. Since it carried the label ‘Southern Special Design Bureau Proposal,’ it was a design produced directly by the bureau rather than by me.
The reason I had specifically commissioned them with submarine designs was simple. Surface ship construction and submarine construction were entirely different domains. I wanted to gauge the bureau’s current technological capability.
The result was quite impressive.
“Oh, they’re quite capable.”
The blueprint I received resembled an early 19th-century submarine. It was similar to the Nordenfelt II launched by the Ottoman Empire in 1886. Its streamlined hull, shaped like a torpedo, and the prominently protruding conning tower were its defining features.
The design was the fruit of shipbuilding advancements gained through Dreadnought construction, steel Magic Stone alloy technology, and the development of mana engines.
“Well, it has been a hundred years since the industrial revolution began. It was stranger that military technology had remained at a medieval level.”
Technological progress naturally leads to advances in weaponry. In this world, however, that progression had been impossible. The mage and knight classes had desperately blocked weapon development.
After Kaiser III, the mages had threatened Southern companies at the dawn of the industrial revolution: produce weapons, and we will stop purchasing your goods.
For the past century, corporations had deliberately avoided manufacturing arms. Companies, after all, place profit above all else.
Yet the corporations had not left me empty-handed. The Southern Special Design Bureau. From weapons to civilian technology, it was a repository of every kind of experimental design that had never seen daylight during more than a century of industrial revolution.
Although those technologies had been completely wiped out in the wave of communization in the original Mona-joh, that fate would not repeat here. Because I existed—someone who could put them to excellent use.
The accumulated knowledge in the Southern Special Design Bureau had provided enormous help in realizing Earth’s blueprints in this world. Moreover, this world possessed one cheat material that 20th-century Earth had never known: Magic Stone.
It was a mysterious substance with several times the efficiency of fossil fuels of equal mass. Alloyed with steel, it produced armor that was both light and strong.
Ground into powder and mixed with gunpowder, it dramatically increased explosive force. Thanks to its ability to emit and detect mana, it could even serve as a limited substitute for semiconductors. It was truly a magical stone.
Of course, it could not completely replace petroleum. Solid Magic Stone could not power jet engines, and the countless byproducts and asphalt derived from oil could not be ignored. But that was a matter for later.
Jet engines were far too advanced for a world that had not even grasped the concept. For now, this level of technology was more than enough to build the submarine I had envisioned.
The submarine—the terror of the seas during the First and Second World Wars. The wolf pack beneath the waves.
Recently the engineers of the Southern Special Design Bureau had been extremely busy. The total war regime had caused a sharp increase in demand for new weapons.
“Hmm… the machine gun manufacturing process is too complicated. The design itself has too many frequent malfunctions. Revise it.”
“Reports indicate the weight of equipment used by frontline heavy infantry is becoming burdensome. Reduce the weight as well.”
“Oh, a submachine gun? This is quite a decent weapon. Continue development.”
“This is a direct order from the Grand Duke. Begin conceptual design of a new 88mm dual-purpose cannon to replace the 76mm field artillery and 76mm anti-aircraft guns currently used by the army.”
With the establishment of the wartime economy, overwhelming financial support flooded into the Design Bureau. It also became possible to develop weapons that had never been attempted before.
As many corporate factories converted to military production, countless opportunities emerged. The numerous design concepts that had been locked away for a hundred years under the pressure of the mage class finally saw daylight again.
Naturally, for the engineers of the Design Bureau, it was a time of pure happiness.
“Aah, we shall carry on the will of our predecessors.”
“Hah, this vault is finally opening.”
“We don’t have to watch our backs around those old mage bastards anymore?”
Countless concepts and blueprints secretly created while evading the mages’ eyes poured forth. Among them were ideas related to submarines—the traces left by predecessor engineers who had dreamed of conquering the ocean depths using only human ingenuity.
Following my orders, the Design Bureau’s engineers incorporated every theoretically feasible element from existing technology and completed the blueprint.
“Ugh…”
“Senior, I think this is as far as I go…”
“I definitely drank coffee… why am I so sleepy…”
The pinnacle of Southern engineering, created by dozens of the finest technicians working together. The submarine blueprint. Though it had many shortcomings, they were not worried. If it was Southern Grand Duke Kyle Leopold—the man who had designed the Dreadnought—he would surely resolve the problems.
How he would solve issues that dozens of people working together could not? Such questions did not matter to them. Kyle Leopold would definitely supplement the blueprint’s deficiencies.
And Kyle Leopold did not betray their expectations.
“This is the initial draft of the next-generation submarine as conceptualized by His Excellency.”
Several weeks later, a man from the Grand Duke’s castle arrived at the Design Bureau carrying a sealed document.
“He has named this vessel UB-1.”
U-boat. The name of a small, stealthy hunter beneath the sea.