The Battle of the Brutish Sea
In A.Y. 1729, the Ma-makar separatists overthrew the democratically-elected government of Korrinth, replacing it with a violent military junta. Ethnic and political purges followed, and in the wake of it all the remaining populous seemed united like never before. The brutal power struggle terrified the then weakened Alliance, as they were powerless to put down the rebellion.
Then, in A.Y. 1732, the Ma-makar assembled a large fleet and sailed on Sun's Beacon, intending to sack the city. Sun's Beacon, which during the Mage Wars had relied on a series of Mage Towers for defense, no longer possessed enough skilled wizards to hold it's own. Their fleet was small, and their standing army relegated primarily to social projects. Even with ground reinforcements brought down from Arindell, the battle looked to be hopeless.
Sun's Beacon did posses a navy, but it was meant to be backed by mage towers. Reinforcements were dispatched from the Sword Coast and Modia but would not arrive in time. The Battle of the Brutish Sea was shaping up to be a major curb-stomp. However, the Ma-makar fleet was intercepted in route by The Mehkazie, a phenomena of unknown origin the survivors could only describe as a dark wind.
The Mehkazie decimated the Ma-makar fleet, the remainder of which was easily repelled by the ships of Sun's Beacon. One routed, the Ma-makar made to return to Korrinth, only to be intercepted by a wet-navy task force belonging to the Crimson Blade, dispatched from Modia. The Ma-makar were still using mostly Mage Wars-era tactics and weapons, their fleet was made of wooden sailing ships equipped with simple muzzle-loading cannons - enough to defeat and equally-under-equipped navy of Sun's Beacon, but no match for the advanced Crimson Blade equipped with naval artillery.
In rough figures, the Ma-makar left Korrinth with 200,000 soldiers and an additional 50,000 sailors with at least a thousand ships in various sizes. It's estimated that roughly two thirds, or 700 ships were sunk in the open ocean by The Mehkazie. The remainder, still numbering in the hundreds, were up against a flotilla of Crimson Blade ships. While the Foundation has never released an official report on the engagement, they did state that it was "a task force" that was dispatched, and some assumptions can be made based on what is known of their naval strategies at the time. Unlike Korrinth, Modia was fielding modern warships with steal hulls and turbine engines. The larger ships in the fleet were doubtless nuclear-powered. The task force would have included at least two dreadnought-style armored vessels equipped with radar-guided long-range artillery(able to hit a target accurately at thirty-two miles), surface-to-surface missiles, and torpedoes. The task force would have included submarines as well as destroyers and escorts, and was likely backed by a large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The battle, then, was less a conflict than an execution. The Bladers ruthlessly sunk every ship, most likely from well-beyond visual range. 250,000 men left Korrinth, the survivors were believed to number in the hundreds. This was a staggering blow to the Ma-makar, who'd staked much of their continued success on the planned sacking and pillaging of neighboring lands. The following year, the Ma-makar made a move on Rowen, and were again rebuffed.
Around the same time as the defeat in Rowen, a ground army led by the Slayer Dragons and the First File arrived from Arindell and marched on Korrinth, handily defeating the junta and re-instating democratic rule.
Aftermath
The Crimson Blade intersession, while relatively minor, was greatly appreciated by Sun's Beacon and helped to foster better relations between the two powers. It was because of this incident that, over a century later, The Handshake Document came about.
