Chapter 86 - Chapter 86: The Hostile Acquisition

The transition from a defensive currency stabilization to an unrestricted international hostile acquisition did not begin with a public declaration on the exchange floors. It announced itself at four o'clock in the morning as a synchronized hydraulic shudder through the subterranean floorboards of the Eastern Syndicate's naval design bureau. One by one, the massive, steam-driven drafting looms—which had spent the last three dynastic cycles mechanically printing the master blueprints for the empire's armored ironclads—came to an abrupt, metallic halt. The long zinc punch-cards governing the structural hull templates locked rigidly into their copper feeders, their teeth biting into the metal with a final, unyielding snap.