In the weeks following the birth of two inventions destined to upend the century—the arc lamp and the proto-computer—Prince Consort Arthur Lionheart moved through London with a calm that bordered on regal audacity. His innovations were no longer mere sketches on parchment; they had begun to breathe, hum, and glow. His technological tree had sprouted its first fruits, and Arthur knew—perhaps with a hint of dangerous satisfaction—that these fruits would one day be enough to bend an era.
And now, with the Empire preparing a grand expedition to the East, his influence had expanded far beyond laboratories and drawing rooms.
He had been appointed chief investor, technical director, and—thanks to a signature from his royal wife—the man with complete authority over the logistics of the expeditionary force.
It was a power few generals possessed.
And Arthur intended to wield it.
His first inspection took him to Plymouth—specifically, to the infamous storage halls sailors had nicknamed the Kitchen of Hell: the Royal Navy's food depot.
He arrived with his secretaries and a handful of chemists, boots echoing on stone floors still damp from the sea breeze. At his side waddled the Director of Naval Provisions, Earl Fletcher, a man round in both physique and complacency, smiling as if this were a social call and not a crisis.
"Your Highness, behold!" Fletcher announced, gesturing proudly at mountains of wooden barrels exhaling a sinister, briny smell. "The finest salted beef and the sturdiest hardtack the Navy has ever prepared. Enough to sustain our gallant men for a full year at sea!"
Arthur did not answer.
He simply nodded for a sailor to open a barrel.
The lid creaked—then came the stench.
A violent, putrid wave of rot and salt assaulted them: fat turned rancid, meat hardened to something between leather and fossil, streaked with a greenish film that seemed to pulse under the dim lantern light.
A secretary gagged. Another took a step back.
Arthur, jaw clenched, reached for a piece of hardtack. He pressed his fingertips against it.
It did not crack. It did not crumble.
It simply sat there—unyielding, almost mocking.
For a moment, he wondered if his fingers would break first.
At last he turned to Fletcher, his voice controlled but edged like a blade.
"Earl Fletcher… you truly intend to send the sons of Britain across an ocean—and into battle—fed on waste no livestock would touch?"
Fletcher gave a condescending laugh. "Your Highness forgets tradition. The Navy has eaten this since time immemorial. Salted beef keeps. Hardtack fills the stomach. War, after all, is no place for refinements—"
Arthur cut him off with a quiet, icy whisper.
"Do you know how many of our sailors die each year from scurvy? How many waste away from bowel diseases caused by this filth? More—far more—than have fallen to enemy cannon fire in all our naval battles combined."
Fletcher's cheeks trembled; the smile dissolved.
Arthur reached into his coat and drew out a parchment bearing two signatures:
Her Majesty's and the Prime Minister's.
"By supreme authority," he declared, "all food for the expeditionary force is henceforth under my jurisdiction. Effective immediately."
He pointed at the barrels.
"Burn them. They are fit only for firewood."
And without granting the Earl another glance, he walked out.
A new logistical empire was about to rise—one forged in steel, science, and vision.
Within days, his industrial complex roared with new machinery: presses, sterilisation kettles, vacuum sealers. A production line built at breakneck speed, dedicated entirely to food.
The first creation was nothing short of revolutionary for Britain:
canned meat.
Using tins manufactured in his factories and a vacuum-sealing method far beyond contemporary practice, Arthur produced compact cans filled with fresh minced pork blended with starch and spices. After high-temperature cooking and sterilisation, the cans could last for years.
When the first can hissed open and released a warm, savoury aroma that filled the tasting hall, the officers present stared in disbelief—then scrambled for forks like children at Christmas.
"Good Lord…" murmured a lieutenant, voice thick with emotion. "This—this is finer than my wife's Christmas turkey."
Next came compressed biscuits—dense, caloric blocks made of flour, powdered milk, sugar, and crushed nuts. Tough, yes, but nourishing; and infinitely more palatable than the stone-like hardtack sailors had long endured.
But the most transformative creation was the third:
Vitamin C tablets.
Drawing on chemical knowledge decades ahead of his time, Arthur extracted pure ascorbic acid from oranges and lemons, pressing it into long-lasting tablets.
He knew what this meant.
He had forged the true weapon against the sailor's plague—scurvy.
When all three products—Meal A, Meal B, and Meal C—arrived at the naval base, chaos erupted.
Sailors and officers crowded around the crates like wolves discovering prey.
Cans were opened with trembling hands.
Biscuits snapped with satisfying cracks.
Vitamin tablets were swallowed with the reverence of holy wafers.
And Earl Fletcher—once scornful—fell to his knees, tears cutting lines down his ruddy cheeks.
"Your Highness," he sobbed, clinging to Arthur's leg, "you are the very salvation of the Royal Navy. With rations like these, our men could challenge not only the Empire of Qing—but Neptune himself!"
Arthur looked at the ecstatic sailors, their hopes rekindled by food—a simple, basic dignity long denied.
A thought surfaced, solemn and powerful:
"Logistics is the true strength of an army."
The Duke of Wellington had spoken the truth.
Arthur Lionheart now controlled the expedition's stomach—its endurance, its morale, its very capacity for war.
This was power not won on a battlefield, but shaped quietly behind the scenes.
And he knew what would happen when these well-fed, well-trained soldiers met the armies of the East, whose rations were meagre, whose supplies were frail.
Sometimes, wars are decided long before the first cannon fires.