Britannias Spartan Antoine Vanner by Antoine Vanner 9781943404049, 1943404046 instant download after payment.

1859: a terrified 13 year-old boy has survived the shredding of a flotilla by enemy gunfire, the first defeat suffered by the Royal Navy for four decades. Now he cowers in a muddy ditch, waiting for the signal that will launch a suicidal assault on Chinese fortifications. It is Nicholas Dawlish’s blooding in combat and its memory will stay with him throughout his future career as a naval officer. 1882:now a captain, Dawlish is returning to China command of Britain’s newest cruiser, HMS Leonidas. Her voyage to the Far East is to be a peaceful venture, a test of this innovative vessel’s engines and boilers. It should bear no relation to that nightmare of failure in China that Dawlish remembers since boyhood and so there is no forewarning of the whirlwind of land and naval combat ahead. But soon after arrival in Hong Kong Dawlish is required to undertake a diplomatic mission in Korea. It seems no more than a formality but he finds a country racked by riot, treachery and massacre and the focus of merciless international ambitions. For a new balance of power is emerging in the Far East – Imperial China, weak and corrupt, is challenged by a rapidly modernizing Japan, while Russia threatens both from the north. They all need to control Korea, frozen as it is in time and reluctant to emerge from centuries of isolation. British interests are at stake also and Dawlish finds himself a critical player in a complex political powder keg. He must take account of a weak Korean king and his shrewd queen, of murderous palace intrigue, of a powerbroker who seems more American than Chinese and a Japanese naval officer whom he will come to despise and admire in equal measure. And he will have no one to turn to for guidance.