Empire Conquest

Chapter 485 - 481: Across the Land Heart Sea

After gaining the highest level of support, or rather, once the supreme leaders of the Liangxia Empire, Tiaoman Empire, and the Raleigh Kingdom had reached a consensus, by mid-March, the Tiaoman and Raleigh military forces officially commenced their military operation to advance into the Xuan Continent. However, it was far from smooth sailing.

Just as Bai Zhizhan had worried, the Bulan Kingdom did not sit and wait for death.

On March 14th, the Bulan Royal Air Force, supported by the Navy, dispatched a fighter wing of about 40 aircraft to Malta Island.

There was sufficient intelligence to confirm that these fighters had been transported to Malta via the "Royal Ark."

Subsequently, the Bulan Royal Navy began to transport troops and combat materials to Malta, intent on turning this isolated island south of the Raleigh Kingdom into a military fortress.

Prior to this, the Imperial Navy Headquarters had issued a warning, hoping the Raleigh Navy would take action as soon as possible to capture or disable Malta.

Unfortunately, the Raleigh Navy evidently didn’t take the warning seriously.

The result was that when they were preparing to advance into the Xuan Continent, it was discovered that the main sea routes were threatened by the Bulan Air Force stationed in Malta.

Not to mention civilian ships, even warships were under threat of bombardment.

Because of this, an attack on Malta had to be prioritized.

Starting on March 27th, the Tiaoman Air Force took the initiative and deployed hundreds of bombers to bomb Malta.

However, the subsequent bombing campaign did not go smoothly.

Indeed, the Raleigh Kingdom must bear a lot of the blame.

After entering the war, the Raleigh Kingdom not only failed to take timely action or mobilize, but they also neglected to repair their domestic military infrastructure.

At that time, in the southern regions of the Raleigh Kingdom, no more than 100 combat aircraft could be deployed.

It was not for lack of airstrips, but rather due to the terribly poor transportation infrastructure, which made it impossible to deliver supplies to the airfields, hampering the deployment of many combat aircraft at the frontline airstrips.

The Tiaoman Air Force had to deploy from further back, significantly extending their operational radius.

This not only reduced combat efficiency, but also made it difficult for bomber groups to receive cover from fighters; sometimes it was impossible to arrange for fighter escorts at all.

Fortunately, this embarrassing situation lasted only three days.

On April 1st, the Imperial Army Strategic Air Force arranged a special operation, dispatching over 300 heavy bombers in five groups from the northwest direction to carry out the first shuttle bombing operation. After dropping their bombs, they continued flying west, heading for airports in the eastern part of the West Continent controlled by the Tiaoman Empire.

Strictly speaking, it was actually a mission to support the Tiaoman Empire.

For that purpose, half of these bombers were not equipped with bombs but instead had fittings in their bomb bays for carrying spare parts.

Ultimately, nearly 300 bombers arrived in Tiaoman Empire territory.

These were all equipped with four engines, capable of carrying up to six tons of bombs, and had a maximum operational radius of 2000 kilometers.

With their vast operational radius, these bombers could be stationed further back without competing for frontline airstrips with fighters.

Furthermore, the heavy bombers had very strong defensive firepower, and when executing missions in groups, even without fighter cover, they had a robust penetration ability.

While bombing the Luosha Federation, the Imperial Army Air Force had compiled many useful tactics.

Now, these tactics proved to be invaluable.

In addition, the Imperial Army formed an Expeditionary Air Force Squadron with these bombers.

On April 4th, the Imperial Land Air Expeditionary Air Group launched its first large-scale bombing campaign against Malta, with 248 bombers dropping over 1200 tons of bombs.

Due to the direct cover from Tiaoman fighters, only 4 bombers were shot down in the end; in addition, 3 were damaged.

The key point was that Malta was just an isolated island.

Three days later, the Expeditionary Air Force Squadron launched a second bombing operation, deploying 252 bombers to drop more than 1,300 tons of bombs on over ten military targets.

After these two bombings, the Royal Air Force of Malta had been completely paralyzed.

At that time, the Tiaoman Authority had proposed deploying airborne troops to attack Malta.

After weighing the options, the Tiaoman Authority still made the wise decision. First, they sent troops to Xuan Continent and after firmly establishing themselves there, they would turn back to attack Malta.

One of the main reasons was that the Tiaoman Air Force needed time to gather transport planes.

In addition, several main airborne forces were playing a fire-fighting role on the Eastern Front, and it would not be until summer, once the front lines had stabilized, that troops could be drawn from the Eastern Front.

Before the Imperial Land Air Force engaged in combat, the Tiaoman military had never thought about attacking Malta, at most bombing it. Therefore, not only were transport planes not assembled, but the airborne troops were not rallied either, making it definitely impossible to launch an operation to attack Malta at this time.

On April 10, the Imperial Land Air Expeditionary Group launched a third and final large-scale bombing of Malta.

The following day, on the morning of April 11, the Raleigh Naval Landing Fleet and the transport fleet departed from Taranto, commencing the operation to march into the Xuan Continent.

On the morning of April 13, the advance force of the Raleigh Army landed near Benghazi on the eastern coast of Surt Bay.

After landing, they encountered only sporadic resistance.

By the next day, after the Raleigh forces had seized the port of Benghazi, the armored forces of the Tiaoman Army arrived.

It was not until then that the Royal Bulan Army suddenly realized they had been deceived.

Previously, the Royal Bulan Army had believed that the Raleigh forces would land on the west coast of Surt Bay, near Tripoli, because it was closer to the Locke Republic’s colony, and after landing, they would be able to control most of the North Xuan region, avoiding a deadly battle with Bulan forces on the beach.

Regardless, during landing operations, the troops are most vulnerable when coming ashore and can be easily defeated by the defending army.

Last year, during the invasion of the Kingdom of Viking, the Tiaoman troops had suffered the setback of a landing failure. If not for the Tiaoman Air Force’s exceptionally valiant performance, the defeat would have been far more severe. Thus, in the battle to deploy troops to the North Xuan region, the Tiaoman forces would certainly aim to avoid the strong and strike at the weak.

Moreover, from Raleigh Kingdom, Tripoli was closer, while Benghazi was, in fact, farther away.

With Malta suffering devastating bombings, reaching Tripoli would require passing nearby Malta.

Taking all these factors into account, the Bulan Authority was firmly convinced that the Tiaoman and Raleigh forces would head towards Tripoli.

For this reason, the Royal Bulan Army had even secretly transferred two main infantry divisions to Tripoli, ready to strike hard at the enemy attempting a beach landing.

However, the Royal Bulan Army’s realization came a bit too late.

The most significant characteristic of the North Xuan region was that aside from the coastal areas, it was all desert!

In other words, both residents and armies could only move in coastal areas; inland lacked the necessary conditions to sustain life.

Life itself was hard enough; how could one wage war?

Even during the Ancient Roman Empire period, the mighty Carthage Empire had not ventured deep into the interior.

The landing of Tiaoman and Raleigh forces at the port of Benghazi meant that roughly 150,000 Bulan soldiers in Tripoli were now completely encircled!

Of course, the Royal Bulan Army was not the only one affected.

In a sense, as the Tiaoman and Raleigh forces successfully set foot on the Xuan Continent, and the Royal Bulan Air Force failed to hold Malta, the Land Heart Sea Fleet of the Royal Bulan Navy was even more inactive, hiding inside the port of Alexandria, dealing the greatest blow to the Locke Colony Government that had been struggling to survive in the North Xuan region.