Herald of Steel



Standing in front of the miniature prototype, Alexander began his explanation, pointing to the small ship on the table with his hands, and saying,

"As you have already guessed, the ship on the water is this very toy ship just bigger."

"And I'm sure you have questions regarding the shape, particularly about the hull."

"So let me explain."

Alexander finally began, stating,

"One the of problems that I see with wooden ships is they are unstable."

"They are constantly swaying which causes many on them to be seasick, and just a slight gust of wind or a bit of light rain makes you feel like the entire thing is going to topple over."

"There is a reason why the saying goes, "If you want to learn how to pray sincerely, go out to the sea."

"Because it feels the ship is constantly in danger of toppling over any moment and drowning its crew."

"And the reason for this has always troubled me."

"Why do ships tend to flip so easily? And how to stop them if possible?"

Alexander posed these questions in a very philosophical tone, before answering his own question in a triumphant tone,

"And I believe I have found the answer.."

"I believe one of the reasons is because wooden ships have most of their weight above the waterline."

"And so when the winds hit, they are easily toppled over."

Here Alexander then chose to give an explanation of how he came to that conclusion, saying,

"And the reason I think so is because I believe ships are like houses."

"Just like then building a tall house, we need to build a deep foundation, so too when building a ship, we should have a part of it underwater."

"I got this idea from Diaogosis who was one day explaining to me that the apartment blocks would need a deep foundation to keep from being toppled in strong storms."

"Just like the ships would!"

By the end of his explanation, Alexander had a very confident, jovial tone, as if he had made a great discovery.

But truthfully, Alexander knew this ages ago from his previous life.

Even in middle school, he was taught Archemdies's principal which taught buoyancy, while during his engineering major, he had a full mechanics course that dealt with just this kind of problem, the problem of stability of solids in fluids and how to solve them using quite extensive mathematical equations.

In particular, it involved calculating the center of mass, and then finding the range of angles up to which that particular shape had stability- i.e., it won't fall over.

Which in the case a ship was angled perpendicularly as much below the waterline as possible without hampering its operations.

As a side note, those equations could also be used to prove why some shapes like a sphere were always stable and some shapes were not.

And in his recent construction endeavor, Alexander had indeed used those equations to calculate the size, and weight of the additional hull, only keeping just enough of the ship above water to be able to ram other ships and then board them without difficulty, while also making sure the oarsmen did not drown.

As Alexander declared his hypothesis, the two nobles found it quite convincing, as Lady Inayah nodded her head and said, "I see. What you say does make sense lord Alexander. A ship is kind of like a house in this sense."

"I presume that's why you decided to add this second hull? To be the ship's foundation?'" Lady Inayah cleverly made the connection.

"Yes," Alexander replied quickly and enthusiastically, elaborating, "With this, the ships sink much deeper into the water, and so if a strong wind wants to topple them over, they will not only have to flip just the wooden structure but will also have to contend with the huge amount of water the lower hull will push against as it is forced up to the surface"

"Now water is quite heavy to push through, anyone who has done any kind of swimming will certainly know how tiring that activity that.

"And so this ordinary-looking trireme will likely be able to transverse through most rough seas except perhaps the harshest one, and through most storms expect being impeded only through really bad weather, like a hurricane or typhoon."

Although untested, Alexander felt confident to make that claim.

And it seemed to have a particularly strong effect on Lady Inayah, who cried out in ecstasy,

"Great! Great! With this I can then have my ships run through much more dangerous naval routes and have them operate all seasons."

"Haha, my trade will soon triple!"

"Hehehe, today is possibly one of the best days of my life,"

She had a rapturous face that Alexander had only seen on that memorable day back in Adhan, and he could easily tell just how drunk with pleasure the woman was.

But if one thought about it, this was actually a normal reaction.

Rough seas were the bane of every naval merchant, and so if Alexander could build a ship that was much safer with the same amount of cargo capacity, which likely was given the size of the ship Alx was showing, then any merchant would be willing to pay through the nose to obtain it.

So it was little wonder that Lady Inayah was so happy.

While Pasha Farzah was a little more composed and skeptical, as he traced his index on the second hull and asked, "What is this hull made of? It cannot be made of wood because it is not easy to shape wood like this."

"And more importantly such a wooden structure cannot hold itself together as the ship sways and the large amount of seawater hits it. It will break too easily."

It appeared the experienced man had a lot of experience with a lot of things.

Alexander was certainly impressed by this display of deep knowledge and observation here.

This was not an easy thing to notice and it again reminded him that these people might be backward, but not stupid.

"Yes, you are right. Wood can't do it. So it's made from a mixture of cement, stone, and wood. Just like a house." Alexander frankly replied.

Yes, the second hull was made of solid concrete.

The way it was constructed was that at first a few holes were cut into the first hull of the trireme, through which massive wooden beams were inserted and then those beams were used as the skeletal backbone to attach and expand the framework, firmly securing and reinforcing the first hull with the to be built second hull, before finally pouring in concrete and letting it solidify to form the secondary hull.

This means the second hull was as much as part of the first hull, as the first hull was the second hull's.

As Alexander said this he also thought back on the challenges faced during the construction of this revolutionary ship as it had been a laborious one, and one that needed many tries.

With Alexander even asking Diaogosis to stop his harbor construction for some days to come and see oversee its production.

And even then it took quite a few tries and many good triremes ruined just to get a presentable prototype.

And after all that, still, though the ship that Alexander was showing could certainly float, but it also had massive teething issues, mostly with its riggings and crew quarters.

But they were nothing unsolvable and could be fixed slowly over time.

But although those problems might be small, Alexander's immediate problem was not, as with the revelation of the use of cement as an important ingredient in the ship making, Lady Inayah turned to make the same request she had made earlier, saying,

"My lord, I have already asked for it, but I will say it again."

"When will you sell us the cement-making technique."

"And if you are unwilling to do that, then at least sell us the product. "

"Don't deny us both of it!"

She sounded even a bit irritated at this point.

Which was understandable given how much she wanted those ships.

And this put Alexander in a dilemma.

There was no way he would reveal this concrete recipe to anyone as the ability to rapidly build houses and more importantly, forts using it was too great.

He also could not sell any excess even to his closest allies because he was already using every single ounce of the 250 tons of cement produced daily.

He had no spare capacity and he was also not able to scale up production due to various factors such as waterwheel limitations.

But downright rejecting Lady Inayah was also not an option.

She was a valuable ally and a rich client.

And so Alexander stalled, saying, "Okay, okay, we will give the technique. But please wait till the end of this year. We currently have some issues but will give it to you by then."

Now, it was not like Alexander did not have sort of a backup plan for this kind of eventuality.

As a matter of fact, he did, and it involved selling fake recipes for the cement, or more accurately the Roman concrete recipe instead of the Portland cement one.

And since the Roman concrete needed volcanic ash, which was hard to get, Alexander was sure it would not cause too much problem.

While with Alexander's promise, Lady Inayah seemed to calm down, because the new year was less than six months away and she could at least wait that long.