Empire Conquest
Chapter 336 - 332: Tanimoto Seeks Refuge in Newland

Chapter 336: Chapter 332: Tanimoto Seeks Refuge in Newland

The flagship of the 17th Special Mixed Fleet, "Fenjin," inside the command bridge.

Spru nodded at the young man with an Eastern face as he entered, a gesture of greeting.

It was none other than Major General Tanimoto of the Saiyi Navy.

He was now dressed in a Newland Navy uniform without rank insignia, not only because he was not a Newland serviceman, but also because of his connection with Spru.

Although Spru was currently the commander of the 17th Special Mixed Fleet, he was still just a colonel.

No need to be surprised, even Nizi was still just a major general.

After the victory, once back, he was certain to be promoted exceptionally, perhaps even skipping two ranks and becoming a vice admiral wouldn’t be strange.

Besides, military ranks didn’t mean much.

After the last great war, with twenty years of peace, of which fifteen years were Navy holidays, many officers in the Newland Navy hadn’t been promoted.

That meant many talented officers had low ranks.

In fact, the same was true for the Saiyi Navy.

Before the outbreak of the great war, Tanimoto was just a major staff advisor, and then within a span of a few months, he had skipped three ranks to become a major general.

Speaking of which, Tanimoto had Spru to thank for that.

A few months ago, Spru encouraged Hal, who then convinced Nizi, who presented a proposal to the Ministry of Navy, and finally, the State Department issued a diplomatic note inviting Tanimoto and a group of Saiyi Navy officers with combat experience to the Newland Federation under the guise of military exchanges.

Importantly, the diplomatic note directly mentioned Tanimoto.

Without this direct invitation, given Tanimoto’s position within the Saiyi Navy, the wartime cabinet led by Wen Wei certainly wouldn’t have let him go.

As the permanent fleet had already been destroyed, several major shipyards had ceased operations due to bombings, and although the Saiyi Navy had become a shell, there were still many smaller vessels and several dozen submarines of decent performance, which if pushed to the limit, could still provide considerable combat power.

Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of naval officers and sailors were all looking to Tanimoto.

In June, Tanimoto took a dozen senior officers and left the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom on a submarine.

Upon arrival at Treasure Harbor, they immediately changed into the uniforms of the Newland Navy.

Afterwards, Tanimoto participated in several war games hosted by Nizi himself and cooperated with Spru, the two together playing the role of pseudo-enemies.

Importantly, Tanimoto had crossed swords with Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen!

Among current naval generals, only Tanimoto had faced both chief commanders of the Liangxia Navy on the battlefield. At the start of the war, he joined the mobile fleet in the Flame Sea as a guest advisor and fought against the special mixed group commanded by Liu Xiangzhen. Afterward, he returned to the main battle corps and fought in the West East Ocean against the third Aviation Mixed Fleet commanded by Bai Zhizhan, even though both battles ended in bitter defeat.

In Nizi’s words, failure was also a valuable experience.

This was Tanimoto’s greatest value.

Compared to the Newland Navy’s generals, he knew Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen better, thus during his role as a pseudo-enemy, he was able to more realistically mimic the two.

It was during these war games that Tanimoto gained attention.

Indeed, the leading role was played by Tanimoto, not Spru.

Organizing war games, apart from serving to formulate battle plans, mainly allowed fleet commanders like Hal and Frey to understand their opponents.

It was Spru who played the role of the pseudo-enemy, as no other senior officer was willing to do so.

It was through this cooperation that Spru greatly valued Tanimoto.

In external propaganda, these naval officers from the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom didn’t exist, or rather, they were considered descendants of Saiyi serving as Newland citizens.

Tanimoto had another pseudonym, Tennessee Spear.

Of course, people he interacted with normally didn’t call him that.

Through several military simulation games, Tanimoto came to deeply understand Spur, considering him one of the most talented navy officers he had encountered.

The reason was simple: Spur possessed an intuition far beyond ordinary people, which was exceptionally accurate!

Although he usually appeared unconcerned and even a bit dull, he always managed to react and take decisive action before others when opportunities arose.

In this regard, he was very similar to Bai Zhizhan.

Spur’s upbringing, or rather his development, was also similar to that of Bai Zhizhan.

Over the past twelve years, the Newland Navy had emulated the Liangxia Navy, holding fleet exercises annually, with each lasting several months.

The difference was that the Newland Navy’s fleet exercises mainly revolved around strategic points battles, such as defending the Wangxi Canal, responding to surprise attacks in the Howay Islands, or crossing the East Ocean to raid enemy naval bases.

Relatively speaking, the Newland Navy’s fleet exercises lacked direct fleet confrontation or had never focused on fleet versus fleet engagement.

Even so, Spur had gained numerous training opportunities.

In the past five years of fleet exercises, Spur had always been Hal’s Chief of Staff, responsible for aviation combat in the fleet commanded by Hal.

It was during these five years that Spur was promoted from Major to Colonel by the high command of the Newland Navy.

Otherwise, he would have retired as a Major four years ago.

These exercises and training were by no means perfect and lacked real combat experience.

Tanimoto’s arrival compensated for this deficiency.

Now, he was Spur’s assistant, publicly claimed to be a Combat Staff Advisor for the 17th Special Mixed Fleet, but in reality, he was responsible for operational planning as the Chief of Staff.

In the afternoon, Tanimoto told Spur that Bai Zhizhan was definitely somewhere southeast of the Volcanic Islands, which is to the west of the 17th Special Mixed Fleet, near the sea area where the three "Sailor" aircraft were intercepted. Therefore, by tomorrow morning, they must focus their search on the western sea area.

Yet, up until now, they had not received any news related to Bai Zhizhan.

This morning, before receiving the telegram forwarded by Treasure Harbor, Tanimoto had bet with Spur that Bai Zhizhan had not attended the grand wedding domestically and had already returned to the fleet.

Based on this, Tanimoto deduced that the Liangxia 41st Special Mixed Fleet would boldly advance.

After all, if there was anything Bai Zhizhan wasn’t lacking, it was courage.

At the beginning of the year, with only one carrier, he had dared to charge towards the four Fast Battleships commanded by Lan Yun. What in the world would he not dare to do?

Of course, even now, this was still just Tanimoto’s speculation.

After dinner, Tanimoto went to verify a piece of information and then hurried over.

When Spur looked over, Tanimoto merely nodded.

Because of the language barrier, Tanimoto’s communication with Spur was usually concise, resorting to body language whenever possible to avoid unnecessary talk.

In fact, he had just gone to confirm the whereabouts of the 16th Special Mixed Fleet.

After nightfall, the 16th Special Mixed Fleet, commanded directly by Hal, had already moved forward at full speed and would deploy reconnaissance aircraft before dawn to intensively search the southeastern sea area of the Volcanic Islands to locate the Liangxia 41st Special Mixed Fleet. Tomorrow morning, after the President officially declared war on the Liangxia Empire, they would launch shipborne aircraft to attack the Liangxia 21st Special Mixed Fleet moving in the northwest direction, marking the fleet’s first engagement after joining the war.

If possible, they must also keep an eye on the potential appearance of the Liangxia 43rd Special Mixed Fleet.

Evidently, Hal had taken on a heavy burden, leaving the chance for glory to Spur.

The 17th Special Mixed Fleet’s mission?

That was to deal with the absolute main force of the Liangxia 41st Special Mixed Fleet, only to take action after a definite discovery.

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