Empire Conquest
Chapter 141 - 137 Picking Up a Great Bargain

Chapter 141: Chapter 137 Picking Up a Great Bargain

Bai Zhizhan followed Zhou Yongtao up to the deck when the transport boat carrying a dozen people had been hoisted up.

In the distance, on the sea surface, a patrol aircraft was slowly sinking, about to be swallowed by the waters.

Two were Imperial Guard officers and soldiers from the "Imperial Capital," armed with submachine guns. There were also seven pilots, the last two being prisoners in Saiyi Navy uniforms.

Among them, the one with a grim expression was even a Major General!

That’s right, it was Major General Sawa of the fifth Air Corps.

The year before last, at the East Ocean joint exercise initiated by the Newland Federation, Bai Zhizhan had seen him. Although he currently looked disheveled and his demeanor was very despondent, his appearance had not changed much, and the astonished expression he showed upon seeing Bai Zhizhan also indicated that he was indeed Sawa.

Without a doubt, Zhou Yongtao’s earlier guess was right.

Before this, Sawa certainly did not expect that it was Bai Zhizhan commanding the third Aviation Mixed Fleet!

"You..."

"General Sawa, you don’t recognize me?"

Sawa’s facial muscles twitched a few times because at the banquet that followed the exercise the year before last, Bai Zhizhan had taken the initiative to greet him, but he refused to shake hands.

It was not because Bai Zhizhan was an officer in the Imperial Navy, but because Bai Zhizhan was only a Colonel at that time, and he was a Major General.

"Take General Sawa down, be sure to treat him well, and show no negligence."

As he issued this command, Bai Zhizhan suddenly felt a bit absurd, feeling like he had become a big bad villain, persecuting a righteous good man.

In the stories, isn’t that how the big bad villains always speak and sound?

Of course, that was just an illusion.

It was not until the Imperial Guard took away Sawa and the other captured Saiyi Navy officer that Bai Zhizhan stepped forward and greeted the pilots.

They came from one crew, of which the captain was Lieutenant He Weigu.

That afternoon, He Weigu’s luck was not very good. The cloud layer was not large and he quickly flew out of it, only to be attacked in turn by two Zero Fighters.

Fortunately, the "Fat Swan" was not only big and bulky but also robust.

Its three eight-millimeter machine guns were not just for show and posed a significant threat to the not-so-sturdy Zero Fighter.

After grappling for about fifteen minutes, hit by over a hundred 7.7-millimeter bullets and a dozen 20-millimeter cannon shells, the "Fat Swan" dove back into the cumulonimbus clouds. This time they were fortunate, the cloud layer was substantial enough. It was also by using this cloud cover that He Weigu and his crew shook off the two Zero Fighters.

However, there was no cause for celebration.

Three crew members were injured, luckily all with minor wounds and no life-threatening injuries.

The critical issue was that two engines were blown up, the left wing fuel tank, and three fuel tanks at the rear of the fuselage were punctured, leaking several hundred liters of fuel.

Furthermore, many devices were hit by bullets, including two radios that were damaged, and other systems were prone to failure at any time.

Even more crucially, while evading fighters, He Weigu, preoccupied with flying into the clouds, did not pay attention to the direction.

As a result, by the time it became clear that they had escaped the enemy aircraft, the "Fat Swan" had flown more than a hundred kilometers in a southeast direction, which is away from Zu Island.

Luckily, this was a seaplane, a genuine patrol aircraft!

After landing on the sea surface, it took He Weigu and his crew several hours and an enormous effort to plug all the bullet holes in the underside of the fuselage, preventing the aircraft from sinking. Afterward, they were occupied for quite a while and finally determined that flying the patrol aircraft back would require a miracle.

Repair?

Forget about it!

In those hours, the biggest gain was that the navigator managed to fix the damaged sextant and roughly calculated their location at sea.

For this reason, they also learned which direction they should fly.

As it neared four-thirty in the afternoon, "Fat Swan" glided for several kilometers over the sea surface, and after the crew had discarded nearly all unnecessary items, it finally took off.

More than an hour later, just before six o’clock, He Weigu and his team arrived above the battlefield.

The first round of strikes had long since ended, and the second had yet to commence. The sea was dotted with numerous enemy ships, while many of the enemy’s officers and men floated in the water.

He Weigu did not want to court trouble.

The fact that "Fat Swan" was able to fly at all was already miraculous, and if it got pounded by a High-altitude Gun, they would end up as shark bait in the sea.

For that reason, he decided to bypass the Fifth Air Corps.

Since the Fifth Air Corps was heading north, they definitely had to veer south to avoid them.

And it was precisely because of this that they stumbled upon an incredible stroke of luck.

Perhaps this was what they meant by "the sweetness comes after the bitterness."

After flying southwest for about ten minutes, at around six-fifteen, the co-pilot spotted two men floating on the sea surface.

Perhaps affected by the glow of the sunset, the co-pilot was convinced they were two Imperial Navy pilots.

Importantly, one of them had used a mirror or some other reflective object to catch the patrol plane’s eye with the light, gaining the co-pilot’s attention.

What purpose other than a distress signal would there be to reflect light at a patrol plane?

Naturally, this assumption was sensible and reasonable.

The "Wasp" was a two-man crew, and they were more than ten kilometers from the battlefield, with no Saiyi battleships close by. They had to be pilots.

Even if there was a possibility that they were Saiyi Navy fighter pilots, they would find out once they picked them up.

Moreover, "Fat Swan" had already been flying for over an hour and had burned through several hundred liters of fuel, so taking on two more people was still manageable for continued flight.

Without dallying, He Weigu piloted the "Fat Swan" back.

Upon fishing the two men out of the water, actually, before they had even retrieved them, He Weigu realized the co-pilot was mistaken. They were not Liangxia Navy pilots nor Saiyi Navy pilots, but two conspicuously high-ranking Saiyi Navy officers.

Why?

Neither man was carrying a weapon such as a sidearm, and upon capture, they both had an air of unyielding defiance.

During their resistance, the younger one even injured a crew member.

Had it not been for He Weigu’s understanding of the laws of war and his strong sense of responsibility, he would surely have tossed the two irritants back into the sea the moment he had the chance.

On top of that, he would’ve stabbed them repeatedly to attract the sharks.

Don’t forget, they were in the warm waters of Nanzhu Sea, where even in winter the water temperature doesn’t drop below fifteen degrees Celsius, teeming with hungry sharks.

And that wasn’t the end of their troubles.

Fortune was on their side.

Shortly after taking off again, around six-fifty, a group of fighters flew over.

In the night sky, the navigation lights on the fighters, shining brightly, were like the North Star guiding them home!

Since the fuel gauge had been damaged and it was unknown how much fuel remained, and considering the severely damaged "Fat Swan" would only be scrapped even if it flew back, He Weigu, after consulting with the crew members, decided to follow the fighters—precisely in the direction they were returning from.

Indeed, those were the fighters from the second Attack Aircraft Group!

Though significantly slower than the fighters, the direction was correct.

Due to this, He Weigu and his men managed to reach the airspace above the Third Aviation Mixed Fleet.

After sighting the "Imperial Capital," He Weigu flew directly toward it, landing next to the carrier and then launching distress flares.

Actually, flares were hardly necessary—the carrier’s lookout had already noticed them, even recognizing the aircraft as a patrol plane.