Chapter 84: Sleepless Night in Suez

On the bridge, Li Te was fully concentrated.

"Reduce speed to three knots. Helmsman to mid-position. Report distance from the side-mounted rangefinders."

"Port side, four point eight meters from the canal wall! Starboard, four point five meters!"

"Steady. Engine room, stand by to stop engines at any time."

"Understood!"

The Restoration Ship entered the narrowest section of the canal at a snail's pace. On both sides of the hull, the distance to the canal wall was less than five meters; at this distance, the slightest deviation would cause a scrape. Yet the hull was as steady as if gliding on rails, with barely any perceptible pitch.

In the sentry posts on both banks, the officers were all doing the same thing: recording.

Speed, draft, rudder response, stability... all data was hastily written down, ready to be sent to London. Some had even begun sketching hull details—the direction of the weld seams, the structure of the turret bases, the layout of the funnels.

"See those weld seams?" a middle-aged major whispered to his colleague. "Continuous welding, not riveting. Strength is at least thirty percent higher, weight twenty percent lighter. Our shipyards are still using the old methods."

"And the funnels," said another. "Three funnels, but the smoke output is only half that of the Dreadnought. Oil-fired boilers—thermal efficiency at least forty percent higher."

"The most deadly thing is the fire control." A third voice cut in, from an artillery-trained officer. "Look at the tracking speed of the main gun turret—impossibly smooth. There must be a central fire control computer, electrically synchronized. Ours still use hydraulics—large margin of error, slow response."

As they spoke, the pens in their hands recorded furiously.

This was not a tour; it was a live demonstration. A brutal lesson on "naval technology gap."

At the midsection of the canal, one observation tower was particularly tall. Several people stood atop it, all of considerable rank.

The one in the lead was a major general named Carmichael, responsible for the canal zone's defense. He held high-powered binoculars, had been watching for ten minutes, and had not said a word.

"General," his aide asked cautiously, "should we signal them to speed up? At this rate, it will take eight hours to pass; they won't even clear it by dawn."

"Let them go slow." Carmichael lowered his binoculars, his expression grim. "The slower the better. I want those lords in London to see clearly what we are up against."

He paused, his voice even lower:

"Did you know, I received a private letter from Arbuthnot. He trailed this ship in the Indian Ocean for over thirty hours. He said it was the most humiliating experience of his career—the enemy was right in front of him, but he couldn't catch up, couldn't fight, could only follow behind like a lapdog."

The aide did not dare to respond.

"Now I know." Carmichael raised his binoculars again. "It's not that Arbuthnot is incompetent—it's that this ship... simply does not belong to this era."

The Restoration Ship slowly passed beneath the observation tower.

The distance was close enough to see the sailors on deck clearly. They stood motionless at their posts, like statues. No one looked around curiously, no one whispered to each other—the discipline was frighteningly strict.

Carmichael suddenly thought of the discipline of the Royal Navy in Nelson's era. That proud, almost bone-deep professionalism.

Now, he saw the same thing in a group of Chinese sailors.

At four in the morning, the Restoration Ship sailed out of the southern end of the canal.

The moment they entered the Mediterranean, the whole ship breathed a sigh of relief. Li Te ordered the speed increased to fifteen knots, heading toward the open sea.

Wang Wenwu came to the bridge and handed Li Te a cup of hot tea: "Good work."

"Just doing my duty." Li Te took it and took a big gulp. "The hardest part is over. Next is the Mediterranean, then the English Channel, and we'll be in London."

"How are the Yingguo people reacting?"

Li Te pointed at several ships in the distance beyond the glass—they were vessels of the Yingguo Mediterranean Fleet, following far behind, not daring to approach.

"That is the reaction," he said. "Awe, but unwilling to accept it."

As they were speaking, a communications officer brought in a stack of freshly intercepted telegrams.

They were all sent by the Yingguo garrison to London. Wang Wenwu skimmed through them quickly and smiled.

"Look at this passage: 'The hull welding technology is more than five years ahead of ours. Recommend the Admiralty immediately organize a technical task force.'"

"This one is more direct: 'No existing vessel can defeat this class of warship in a one-on-one engagement. In the event of conflict, at least three times the force must be concentrated, and heavy casualties will be incurred.'"

"And this one," Li Te pulled out a sheet, "from Major General Carmichael himself: 'What I witnessed today overturns all prior assumptions. Recommend a complete reassessment of our overall strategy toward Lanfang.'"

Wang Wenwu set down the telegrams and walked to the porthole.

The first rays of Mediterranean dawn were rising from the horizon. The sea surface shifted from deep black to deep blue, and the Restoration Ship's wake trailed a long white line behind.

"Did you know, Li Te," he said softly, "three years ago, when the Young Master and I led the first group of people to the Persian Gulf, our biggest dream was to have clean water to drink and a roof that didn't leak. No one thought about building warships, let alone sailing them to Europe."

"And now?" Li Te asked.

"Now..." Wang Wenwu looked at the brightening sky. "Now I'm thinking, when we're old, how should we tell this story to our grandchildren. About how we started from a stretch of desert, built the best ships in the world, sailed them to the Yingguo people's doorstep, and made them open the door and invite us in."

Li Te smiled. "Would they believe it?"

"Probably not." Wang Wenwu smiled too. "But it doesn't matter. History will remember."

The communications officer came again, this time holding open news wire reports.

"Minister Wang, Captain, the European papers are out."

The two took them. French, German, Italian... though he couldn't understand some of the text, he could still recognize the words "Restoration Ship," "Suez," and "great warship" in the headlines.

The one on top was in English, from Reuters, with the headline in bold:

"Sleepless Night in Suez: Eastern Great Warship Crosses the World's Throat, Technology Gap Shocks Western Navies"

Below was a smaller subheading: "Witnesses say its Scale and sophistication far exceed expectations; the Yingguo Admiralty declines to comment."

Wang Wenwu handed the paper to Li Te: "Tomorrow, all of Europe will be talking about us."

"And then?"

"And then," Wang Wenwu turned to look ahead from the bridge, where the European coastline still lay hidden in the morning mist, "it will be our turn to perform."

The ship's bell struck six.

A new day had begun.

Meanwhile, in London on the other side of the Mediterranean, inside the Admiralty building, Lord Fisher was staring at the thick stack of witness reports on his desk, his face ashen.

Outside the window, morning mist blanketed the Thames.

For the first time in three hundred years, a warship that did not belong to a European navy was sailing toward this river.

And it was a warship they could neither catch nor defeat.