Empire Conquest

Chapter 559 - 555: The First Shot Westward

In fact, Bai Zhizhan didn’t delay for long in Sri Lanka.

By the time he returned to Colombo, on September 24, Li Mingbo led the 21st Special Mixed Fleet, which was now designated as the 11th Special Mixed Fleet.

In order to secure the number "eleven," the fleet did not stop while passing through the Lion Spring Strait and even rushed for 3 days during the voyage.

As a result, they only managed to pass through the Lion Spring Strait half a day ahead of Liu Xiangzhen’s fleet and entered the Fan Flame Ocean.

Since the deep water pier at Trincomalee was not yet operational, the 11th Special Mixed Fleet could only dock at Colombo.

Historically, Colombo has always been a military port of the Empire’s Navy.

Initially, when Chen Bingxun led his fleet to march into the Fan Flame Ocean, the first port captured after forcing the Lion Spring City defenders to surrender was Colombo.

As mentioned before, the Bulan Royal Navy used Trincomalee as its home port.

Avoiding Trincomalee and attacking Colombo was actually an easier choice to conserve valuable military strength before achieving a decisive victory.

Since then, until the last great war, Colombo had been the headquarters of the Empire’s Navy in the Fan Flame Ocean.

According to the plan, the 11th Special Mixed Fleet was to stay in Colombo for 3 days.

During that time, the garrison organized an exchange evening party and arranged for local expatriates to mingle with the fleet’s officers and men, and some of the fleet’s officers and men were taken to tour the city.

On the night of September 27, the fleet left Colombo.

By that time, the 12th Special Mixed Fleet, which was resting and reorganizing at Lion Spring City, had also arrived and was waiting to the southwest of Sri Lanka for the 11th Special Mixed Fleet.

According to the latest plan, the two fleets were to jointly attack Socotra Island and provide cover to support the landing of the Marine Corps.

If necessary, they were also to consider moving northward towards Boss Bay to support the Army in attacking the Boi Country.

The Army had already deployed a Tactical Air Force Squadron in Gwadar, with over 500 combat aircraft, capable of providing cover for the transport fleet for the entire journey.

The key point was that Boss Bay was very narrow, and the Hormuz Strait that led into Boss Bay was even narrower.

Even if the Special Mixed Fleet was sent there, there wouldn’t be much room for them to employ their weaponry.

In that case, it might be better to dispatch a support fleet.

Inside Boss Bay, a support fleet, mainly consisting of fast battleships and heavy cruisers, could actually be more effective in combat.

Of course, the Navy’s top priority was the landing and capture of Socotra Island.

Before the fleet departed, Bai Zhizhan received a message from the Navy headquarters.

To ensure the "oil route" remained unobstructed, Xue Yuanzheng had approved the plan proposed by Liu Changxun to arrange the Army Air Force to bomb the military airports in the northwest of Aus. The Navy needed to land and establish a base on Bali Island before that, to allow the Army Air Force to deploy nearby.

That meant they could only rely on the Lion Spring City airport before this.

In other words, the soon-to-be-delivered "Divine Eagle" would first be used to bomb the northwest region of Aus, and the operation to attack Socotra Island would have to rely solely on the fleet.

However, there was also some good news.

The Sixth Bureau had already confirmed that the Bulan Royal Army had withdrawn its main forces from Socotra Island last month—accurately, at the beginning of this month.

For a clear reason, after Newland’s Navy lost its strategic capability for reprisal, the Bulan forces could not possibly hold Socotra Island no matter what.

Rather than leaving the troops on an indefensible isolated island, it was better to withdraw them back to Jibu Fortress.

In fact, the Bulan forces stationed on Socotra Island were not numerous, totaling less than 5,000 people, and nearly half of them were colonial residents recruited after the outbreak of the war.

These temporarily armed colonizers could at best be considered as militia.

Now, the only forces left on Socotra Island were a semi-militarized security force, mainly there to watch over the plantations that belonged to private property.

In other words, other than being vigilant against any threat from the direction of Jibu Fortress, there wasn’t much to worry about.

Of course, the mission of the Fleet this time was not just to attack Socotra Island.

On September 30th, two Special Mixed Fleets executed their first mission in the waters of the Maldives Islands, deploying over 200 long-range fighters to Male and several other sufficiently large islands with completed military airports, to strengthen air superiority in that direction.

These long-range fighters belonging to the shore-based air force were all catapulted into the air from the carriers in a light-load configuration.

Only large carriers could accomplish this.

Because the flight decks were spacious enough, and the equipped catapults also had greater power, large carriers were able to launch and catapult twin-engine fighters.

But for now, it was impossible to recover twin-engine fighters.

It wasn’t that the flight decks were not long enough, but there was no twin-engine fighter sturdy enough to withstand the force of impact when landing on a carrier.

Afterward, both Special Mixed Fleets replenished their ship-borne aircraft.

That day, the Army’s Air Force stationed in Gwadar launched over 40 heavy bombers to bomb the Jibu Fortress.

With this, the military operations to attack Jibu Fortress and advance into Boss Bay officially began.

The Army’s Air Force took the initiative to satisfy the Grand Secretary’s request, which was to officially launch the offensive before the end of September.

In any case, both Special Mixed Fleets were unable to launch an attack on September 30th.

Not until October 4th did both Special Mixed Fleets arrive on the eastern side of Socotra Island.

That morning, the Twelfth Special Mixed Fleet sent out three Plane Groups to bomb the airports and barracks on Socotra Island.

According to the plan, the Eleventh Special Mixed Fleet kept watch in the northeast direction, responsible for handling threats from Jibu Fortress.

However, they waited all day and did not encounter any attacks.

It wasn’t until the evening that they received a message from the Navy headquarter.

The Royal Navy of Bulan Kingdom’s "Royal Ark" was still near Malta, and the Bulan military had, a few days prior, reinforced their efforts towards Malta.

Clearly, the Bulan Kingdom wanted to quickly capture Malta.

This was also easy to understand.

Only by taking Malta promptly could they secure the maritime routes through the Land Heart Sea, hence reinforcing the Xifan Canal and strengthening the defenses of Jibu Fortress.

Without Malta, the Royal Navy of Bulan no matter what, could not hold Jibu Fortress.

But the problem was, this was easier said than done.

Although the Raleigh Navy once again turned into a shrinking turtle, the Tiaoman troops were very formidable, and the Tiaoman Air Force was as resilient and active as ever.

Additionally, the Empire’s Expeditionary Air Force Squadron also increased its involvement.

But rather than bombing the landing Bulan troops, they deployed transport aircraft to air-drop ammunition and combat supplies to the Tiaoman troops on the island.

After the maritime shipping routes were cut off, the Tiaoman Air Force had consistently been air-dropping combat supplies to Malta.

Due to a lack of reconnaissance means, the Tiaoman Air Force had not yet had the opportunity to strike the Bulan Fleet, at most dealing with ships transporting troops and supplies to Malta.

According to the battle reports provided by the Tiaoman Air Force, they had already sunk over a dozen large battleships.

Of course, there were surely exaggerations.

Given the involvement level of the Royal Navy of Bulan, the number of sunk battleships wasn’t high, but rather, there were heavy losses among various small fast transport vessels.

The key point was, with the support of air-dropping, the Tiaoman troops’ morale remained high and their fighting spirit wasn’t bad, with no possibility of a rapid collapse.

As long as the Tiaoman troops were still fighting, the Bulan military could not quickly capture Malta.

To put it plainly, there was no hope for this year.

With the Royal Navy of Bulan not even in control of the Land Heart Sea, what could they use to reinforce Jibu Fortress?