Empire Conquest
Chapter 372 - 368: Returning to the Country

Chapter 372: Chapter 368: Returning to the Country

On the early morning of October 18th, Bai Zhizhan and Zhou Yongtao left Nagiu Port on an air transport arranged by the Imperial Family.

During the layover in Puzhou, Zhou Yongtao disembarked.

According to Bai Zhizhan’s plans, he was to head to the Imperial Naval Academy to address personnel issues concerning newly recruited officers, then on behalf of Bai Zhizhan, visit wounded officers and soldiers from the battle, and afterward, inquire at the shipyard about Battleship maintenance work. In short, he was to handle these trifling miscellaneous affairs.

There was no helping it, someone had to take care of these matters after all.

Li Mingbo would return to the Empire in a couple of days, and after arranging the maintenance work for the "Imperial Capital," he would meet up with Zhou Yongtao.

With the two of them on the case, there was no need for Bai Zhizhan to worry.

By the time Bai Zhizhan returned to the Imperial Capital, it was already the afternoon.

Even though he had taken a plane, the journey had taken over ten hours, mainly due to the refueling delay in Puzhou.

Zheng Jiangming was at the airport to meet Bai Zhizhan.

He brought with him three pieces of news.

A submarine lurking to the east of Wei Island had spotted the Newland Navy’s "Lek," confirming the carrier had not sunk in the naval battle on the 12th.

Although the submarine had attempted to approach, it was detected by the escorting Destroyers and missed the opportunity for a stealth attack.

According to the submarine’s report, the "Lek" was still listing, but the condition had been stabilized, so there was no risk of it sinking.

The second piece of news was that the "Fenjin" had appeared near Transfer Island and sent out a telegram.

The Imperial Navy’s wireless interception stations had captured this telegram and identified it as having been sent by the "Fenjin’s" radio.

Sixth Bureau intelligence personnel confirmed that the Newland Navy had been transporting a batch of ship-borne aircraft to Treasure Harbor via cargo transports, likely to resupply the "Fenjin."

Crucial to note, intelligence personnel also confirmed the sinking of the "Sara," "York," and "Wasp."

The third matter related to this as well.

After proving the sinking of three Newland carriers, the Navy headquarters had assessed the combat merits, attributing the main accomplishment to the 41st Special Mixed Fleet commanded by Bai Zhizhan.

The justification was straightforward: the 41st Special Mixed Fleet’s ship-borne aircraft not only sank the "York" and "Wasp" but also heavily damaged the "Lek," while the 41st Aviation Mixed Fleet’s ship-borne aircraft only sank the "Sara," at most contributing to the attack on Newland’s 16th Special Mixed Fleet.

Furthermore, the Navy had long ago revised the evaluation criteria.

Fleet carriers rank above Battleships.

Therefore, the one sinking the most Fleet carriers inevitably held the primary merit.

Otherwise, the main honor would have to go to the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet, for they were the ones who sank five Newland Battleships in the Gun Battle.

Because Liu Xiangzhen had yet to return to the Imperial Capital, the Navy headquarter had not yet made this assessment public.

Of course, there was hardly any controversy.

In the preceding days, using the combat reports submitted by the Fleets, three groups of staff officers at the Navy headquarters had conducted a simulated reenactment of the entire naval battle and concluded that both Liu Xiangzhen and Bai Zhizhan had not made any major mistakes, though both had some rather obvious errors.

Liu Xiangzhen’s biggest mistake was his incorrect assessment of the scale of Newland’s 18th Special Mixed Fleet, thereby expending a vast amount of precious forces in that direction. If it had been realized in time that the 18th Special Mixed Fleet consisted of just one carrier carrying only Fighters, the outcome would have been quite different.

Not to mention anything else, if the Attack Aircraft Group assigned to attack Newland’s 18th Special Mixed Fleet had been deployed against the 16th Special Mixed Fleet instead, the "Lek" would certainly have been sunk.

Moreover, if he had contacted Bai Zhizhan in time, Bai Zhizhan could have employed two Plane Groups to attack the 17th Special Mixed Fleet.

Under such circumstances, there was even a chance to sink five Newland carriers.

However, the responsibility did not lie with Liu Xiangzhen.

The battlefield itself is not transparent, and no one can predict the future. If it were any other commander, they also couldn’t have anticipated in advance that Newland’s Navy would load all the fighters onto the "Sara" to provide air cover for the battleships and transport fleets instead of grouping it with other carriers.

In fact, this approach itself violated basic tactical principles.

Put another way, if the "Sara" had been assigned to Newland’s 16th or 17th Special Mixed Fleet, the outcome of the naval battle would have been different.

As for the mistakes made at Bai Zhizhan, it was also unforeseen that the Newland Navy would divide five carriers into three special mixed fleets.

Given the situation at the time, if Bai Zhizhan had anticipated in advance, more focus would have been put on searching east of Newland’s 16th Special Mixed Fleet, definitely sending more shipborne aircraft on reconnaissance missions, and perhaps finding the Newland’s 17th Special Mixed Fleet after daybreak. If Bai Zhizhan had complete trust in Liu Xiangzhen, or if Liu Xiangzhen had made a similar judgment, he might have kept both attack aircraft groups to deal with Newland’s 17th Special Mixed Fleet.

Of course, this was just a mistake.

For the same reasons, Bai Zhizhan could not have known in advance about Newland’s three carrier mixed fleets.

Moreover, there was no way for him to communicate with Liu Xiangzhen.

That was, indeed, the key issue.

Because of concerns about revealing their location, the long-wave radio signals sent by the long-wave radios, if intercepted by the enemy, could be used to triangulate their approximate position. Hence, during military operations, especially after entering combat status, Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen would keep radio silence as much as possible.

Unless necessary, neither of them would take the initiative to use long-wave radios.

In fact, it wasn’t just Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen who encountered this problem.

In all of the battles before, communication had always been the biggest challenge.

Without the ability to effectively connect and communicate, fleet commanders often had to guess the movements of the allied forces upon entering the battlefield.

After the war began, in the decisive battle with the Saiyi Navy, Bai Zhizhan almost guessed every move Liu Xiangzhen made.

It was precisely because he anticipated that Liu Xiangzhen would turn towards the north of the Flame Sea that he led the Third Aviation Mixed Fleet to preemptively strike into the West East Ocean and seize the opportunity to annihilate the Saiyi Permanent Fleet.

To put it another way, it was just that not all the guesses were correct this time.

Likewise, Liu Xiangzhen did not guess Bai Zhizhan’s actions.

The same went for the other two special mixed fleet commanders, Zhang Guozhu and Li Jie, whose mistakes were also related to their incomplete grasp of battlefield information.

If a method of communication could be found that wouldn’t be discovered by the enemy, allowing fleet commanders to contact each other, it could greatly improve the fleet’s operational efficiency.

Unfortunately, such a method did not currently exist.

The shortwave radios that operated on the shortwave bands had a maximum working distance of just tens of kilometers.

Although increasing the transmission power could extend the communication distance of the voice radios, it could still be intercepted by the enemy and potentially reveal their position.

According to the Navy’s headquarter, the idea was to construct a dedicated flagship to undertake command work and act as a communication relay platform.

When Zheng Jiangming was discussing these matters, Bai Zhizhan was almost falling asleep.

Seeing Bai Zhizhan’s exhausted state, Zheng Jiangming did not continue to ramble on.

He came to take Bai Zhizhan home, incidentally informing him of these relatively unimportant matters.

According to Liu Changxun’s arrangements, Bai Zhizhan had a two-day leave, accurately speaking a day and a half, after which he was to report back to the Navy’s headquarter on October 20th.

It wasn’t a matter of there being nothing important, but rather that Liu Xiangzhen would not be returning until the 20th.

A lot of matters had to wait for Liu Xiangzhen’s return.

If it weren’t for the Imperial Prince Consort, if he did not have the privileges of the Imperial Family, Bai Zhizhan would also have to wait until the 20th to return to the Empire with the battleships.

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