Harry Rex
Henricus "Harry" Rex (1656 AN – ). Ransenari naval officer. Born at Avakair, during the reign of King Ryker Everstone, Rex came of age in the period when Shireroth, the hegemonic power of Benacia, rent itself apart during the Kalirion Fracture of 1672 AN. Rex prudently escaped the War in Wintergleam via the timely expedient of emigrating to Ran, where the Imperial Democratic Party had usurped control of the county from the moribund imperial government, along with parts of neighbouring Ynnraile and Lunaris. Wishing for a steady career, and to avoid being embroiled in the confrontations against the Revolutionary Army of Crisco, Rex enlisted with the Navy of Ransenar from the year of its inception in 1673 AN, being taken on as a midshipman aboard the fleet auxiliary vessel RFA Treesian Spirit where he would remain for three years before transferring to the Elwynn-class corvette HRMS Kernwick. He would be aboard the Kernwick during the Second Amokolian War (1678 AN – 1679 AN) where the corvette would be engaged in chasing down Verionist blockade runners seeking to enter the port of Chryse. Although he would pass the examinations which would secure his lieutenancy, he would spend the next few years on half-pay and rotating through shore postings, as post-war financial retrenchments bit deep into the naval service.
As the Second Elwynnese Civil War (1692 AN – 1696 AN broke out, he would be returned to active service aboard the Natopia-class destroyer HRMS Harvey Steffki during the Battle of the Rockwind Passage (4.VIII.1692 AN), earning a citation for his role in onboard repairs as the ship began to list heavily following a torpedo detonation below amidships. His first command, the Seafox-class corvette HRMS Seraphim as part of the Shire Sea Flotilla of Benacia Command, watching against feared Jingdaoese or Calbionese interventions. Rex would leave the Seraphim in 1703 AN to become Executive Officer for Commodore Daniel Malone aboard the Eisboyle-class amphibious assault ship HRMS Centaur until 1708 AN. Rex would subsequently accept the offer of a secondment to the Maritime Armada as part of his career development from 1708 AN to 1711 AN. Returning to Goldfield during the accession of Ransenar to the Benacian Union, Rex was promoted to Captain and appointed to serve as liaison for the Navy with its counterparts in the Maritime Forces of the Benacian Union Defence Force during Operation Harvest Moon, the commencement of the integration of the Military of Ransenar into the BUDF following signing of the Treaty of Goldfield.
In addition to the preparatory work for the integration of the Military of Ransenar into the BUDF, Captain Rex was also tasked with the marshalling of a number of Ransenari and allied warships in Aureate Bay for the Goldfield Naval Review of 1712
Promoted to the bespoke rank of "Magister-at-Sea" and appointed to command of the Eastern Fleet upon his formal induction into the Maritime Forces of the Benacian Union. His rapid promotion was to ensure that the Shire Sea would be controlled by a politically reliable officer whom the Ransenari would nonetheless be reassured by seeing as one of their own. Rex would hold this commission for a decade, until 1723 AN when he was appointed Grand Admiral and placed in sole charge of the Maritime Forces, directed by the High Presidium of the Benacian Union to implement the naval expansion programme mandated by the Congress of Chryse in 1723 AN.
As Grand Admiral, Harry Rex would discover the ship building industry of the Benacian Union to be in a fractured, moribund, and technologically stagnant condition. The failure of the Black Legions to capture a major naval shipyard during the Kalirion Fracture had left the Benacian Union ultimately reliant upon dockyards in Natopia, Nouvelle Alexandrie, Sanama, and even Sathrati. Indigenous shipbuilding capacity had been limited to the Rothaven Boatyards of the Unified Governorates, which suffered from deficiencies in technical proficiency as well as manufacturing capacity. A previous Benacian programme to develop a class of modern U-boats capable of matching the Sanaman Awake-class diesel submarine had been an expensive failure. An attempt to remedy the inadequacies of Benacian shipbuilding had already begun in 1716 AN with the founding of the Vijayanagara Fleet Construction Yards, but Harry Rex soon discovered the offerings in development there – the Carnifex-class cruiser and the Dredger-class gunboat were technologically regressive and represented efforts at developing a new Elwynnese tradition of warship construction to replace the one that had been burnt away by the Scouring.
The Grand Admiral was also confronted with the commitment his predecessor had made to the troubled Manco Cápac-class cruiser construction programme of Nouvelle Alexandrie, where the Benacian Union had placed an order for double the number that the Alexandrian government itself had sought to procure.
A further challenge awaiting him would be competition with the Land Forces of the Benacian Union for the available quantities of Gloomburg steel, as the long delayed programme for delivering a replacement for the venerable Horjin AFV would also begin to get underway in the decade leading up to 1733 AN.
In spite of these difficulties, the Naval Construction Office would gain strength, and by 1730 AN, with his support and direction, was beginning to deliver a coherent fleet expansion programme built around Corvettes for coastal defence and trade fleet protection alongside U-boats for aggressive patrolling into the contested waters of the Shire Sea and the Great Western Sea.
After a string of unsuccessful marriages, Harry would find himself subject to the machinations of Ayesha al-Osman and suddenly wed to the delectable Shahrnāz al-Osman in the fifteenth month of 1730 AN. He would soon however discover the price that came attached to being permitted access to a noble lineage far above his station.
