The ink on the Treaty of Tianjin had scarcely dried before Her Majesty's avenging fleet—without hesitation and with formidable dignity—turned its bows homeward. Under General Yili's command, the squadron began its long voyage back to the West.
Arthur Lionheart stood upon the high quarterdeck of the flagship, watching the mist-laden coastline fade into the horizon. His expression was unreadable, his thoughts anything but calm.
He understood perfectly what this Eastern expedition signified—for the age, for the Empire, and for the altered trajectory of history itself.
With methods that appeared courteous yet struck with unnerving precision, he had pried open the gates of two ancient states and forced them onto a world stage neither had been prepared to join.
Yet he knew cannons alone could never subdue a civilisation.
"General," he said abruptly to Yili beside him, "what do you judge to be our greatest gain from this campaign?"
"The indemnity of thirty million taels and the new treaty ports, Your Highness!" Yili replied at once, faintly disappointed that he had not marched on Beijing himself.
"No," Lionheart said, shaking his head. A harder, deeper light flickered in his eyes. "Our true gain is neither silver nor ports."
"It is information."
"Information?" Yili repeated, puzzled.
Arthur offered no further explanation. With a brief nod, he descended to the captain's grand cabin—a chamber closer to a first-class London suite than a naval room—and shut himself in for days.
There, he began a project of enormous scale.
Drawing upon every observation, every conversation, and every moment of scrutiny during the voyage, he compiled them all into a single monumental volume.
He wrote about the vast but ossified bureaucracy of the Qing Empire, dissecting its contradictory mechanism—an uneasy coexistence of centralised absolutism and entrenched provincial warlordism. He detailed the obsolete weapons and decaying military doctrine of the Eight Banners and the Green Standard Army, while noting that the sheer size of China's population, if ever properly organised, could become a formidable force indeed.
He then analysed the peculiar political ecology of the Tokugawa shogunate—an elaborate hierarchy of Emperor, Shogun, and Daimyō whose delicate balance concealed fundamental absurdities. Japan, he observed, possessed a near-pathological reverence for strength; once decisively cowed, it could transform overnight into the most obedient of allies.
He recorded geography, climate, commerce, customs, and even the deeper fears and aspirations he had gleaned from officials and merchants alike.
By the time the fleet approached the Strait of Malacca, the first draft of a vast compendium lay completed—an Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth-Century East Asia, unequalled in breadth.
Arthur examined his work, considered its weight, and then inscribed a title in elegant characters upon the cover:
Treatise of the Maritime Kingdoms
These insights, far more valuable than any indemnity, would arm him with the intellectual leverage needed to reshape British global strategy upon his return to London.
When the treatise was done, he summoned the Royal Navy engineers and naval architects travelling with the expedition.
He unrolled a vast blueprint across the table.
The officers leaned forward. What they saw was a vessel unlike any in service—sleeker than the Revenge Queen, its lines elegant and purposeful. Heavy armour was discarded; armaments reduced to a handful of quick-firing guns for self-defence. The interior was divided into multiple specialised compartments.
"Gentlemen," Arthur began, pointing at the diagram, "this voyage has exposed a fatal flaw : speed."
"Information, personnel, goods—everything takes months to cross the seas. Such delays are unworthy of a true British Empire."
He tapped the first compartment.
"This is the Royal Mail Cabin—watertight, fire-resistant, and secure. It will carry official correspondence and private letters between London and our dominions."
He indicated another.
"The Refrigerated Hold. Using a compression-cooling system"—another of Arthur's innovations purchased from system .—"we shall transport fresh Australian meat, tropical Indian fruit, and even the ice we received from the Qing court—delivered intact to London."
Finally, he encircled the engine section with his red pen.
"And this is the heart. A triple-expansion steam engine of the most advanced design. Combined with the refined hull, its cruising speed shall exceed… twenty knots."
Twenty knots.
The engineers stared in astonishment. It was nearly twice the speed of the swiftest clippers afloat.
Arthur straightened.
"I name this class the Royal princess of england."
"Within five years, I intend to commission a fleet of at least twenty such vessels, running on a timetable as regular as London's omnibuses. Monthly service. Every corner of the globe."
"From this day," he declared, "the ocean shall cease to be a barrier."
"It shall become a highway—linking the Empire as one."
Just as enthusiasm filled the room, an urgent news arrived from Calcutta, carried by an express ship of the East India Company.
The message was brief. Its meaning was dire.
Your Highness, circumstances have shifted.
Governor-General Lord Auckland, inspired—perhaps provoked—by your triumph in the East, has launched an invasion of Afghanistan, ignoring all objections. The campaign is failing. Casualties are severe. The army is trapped in the Afghan mountains.
"The Afghan War…" Arthur muttered, brows tightening.
He knew the history: the First Anglo-Afghan War—one of Britain's greatest disasters. Nearly twenty thousand men, wiped out.
And now, thanks to the ripples of his own actions, the catastrophe had begun early.
"Fools," he growled. "Vain, reckless fools."
He glanced at the sea chart. The fleet was in the central Indian Ocean. West led toward the Cape Route. East… to the Indian subcontinent.
"It seems our homecoming must wait." A cold, decisive light cut through his gaze. "Her Majesty's 'Crown Jewel' requires immediate discipline."
He summoned General Yili.
"Transmit my orders."
"The fleet will alter course."
"Destination—"
"Calcutta, India."