Empire Conquest

Chapter 605 - 601: Worrying About Nothing

After receiving the message, Bai Zhizhan’s first thought was to warn Liu Xiangzhen.

However, he controlled the urge to send a telegram.

The reason was simple, there were no longer any enemy fleets in the Land Heart Sea, at most a few submarines from the Bulan Royal Navy. As for threats worth worrying about, the main concern was the air forces deployed in the western area of the North Xuan region. Since the Newland Navy had withdrawn its fleet, and because ground transportation was extremely challenging, the actual threat from the Alliance Group’s Air Forces in North Xuan was not very significant.

Moreover, the 31st Special Mixed Fleet was not acting alone.

Prior to this, the 32nd Special Mixed Fleet, consisting mainly of four small carriers, had already headed to Malta and had been active in the western waters of the Land Heart Sea.

If anything, it was the air cover provided by the 32nd Special Mixed Fleet that allowed the Raleigh Navy to dispatch their fleet, including two fast battleships.

By cooperating with the 32nd Special Mixed Fleet, the Raleigh Navy decided to possess their own carriers.

According to the message sent back by Liu Xiangzhen, the Raleigh Navy proposed to directly purchase several active-duty carriers from the Empire, even the small type like those in the 32nd Special Mixed Fleet would do.

For this matter, the Raleigh Navy Commander even specifically sought out Liu Xiangzhen, seemingly believing that if he could convince Liu Xiangzhen, he could acquire carriers from the Imperial Navy.

Unfortunately, that was still far from reality.

The Imperial Navy’s response was very direct: no active-duty carriers would be sold to any country during wartime, not even to allies, nor would they accept orders from other countries. If the Raleigh Navy wanted carriers, they could follow the example of the Gaoju Kingdom and the Damman Kingdom, and purchase carriers through subsidized construction from the Empire.

Clearly, the Raleigh Navy would never agree to such a proposal.

Not to mention anything else, why should the Gaoju Kingdom and the Damman Kingdom be mentioned in the same breath as the Raleigh Kingdom?

Although both the Gaoju Kingdom and the Damman Kingdom were allies of the Liangxia Empire and were Eastern countries, they were both typical agricultural kingdoms. Forget industrialization; they scarcely even had factories, and they certainly had no standing to compare with the industrialized Raleigh Kingdom.

Key to note, the industrialization level of Raleigh Kingdom was not low at all.

Taking the most representative Navy as an example, there were only seven countries in the world capable of constructing fast battleships. Of these, the Locke Republic and Saiyi Imperial Kingdom, prior to their defeat, had not managed to commission fast battleships into service, while the Raleigh Kingdom was one of these seven industrial powerhouses.

If being completed was the standard, then it was among the top five.

The Raleigh Kingdom was the first country in the West to build a fast battleship, with its "Vittorio Veneto" being completed a few months earlier than the Bulan Royal Navy’s "George V". Before officially entering the war, the Raleigh Navy had always taken great pride and felt supremely confident in being the first to possess a Treaty Type fast battleship. But this also led them to become extremely arrogant, otherwise, the tragedy at Taranto would not have happened.

The fact that the Raleigh Kingdom had not built carriers was not an industrial issue but rather a lack of related technology.

To put it bluntly, they lacked the ability to design fleet carriers.

In fact, the Raleigh Kingdom had always lacked the capacity to design large warships.

Take the "Vittorio Veneto" class for example, with a standard displacement of over 40,000 tons and ostensibly strong combat capabilities on paper, their reliability was very poor. Most of the time after their completion, these battleships were either lying in drydock for repairs, waiting outside the dock to be fixed, or rushing out to test after maintenance, with an operational readiness rate, including time at sea, of less than twenty percent.

Even the infamously malfunction-prone "George V" class had an operational readiness rate of over sixty percent.

In many cases, the Raleigh Navy was actually wrongly blamed.

It wasn’t that they did not dare to come out and fight, but rather that they could not, as the absolute core of their fleet was all laid up.

Of course, the Raleigh Kingdom also lacked technical equipment like catapults.

The most critical issue was actually experience.

From this perspective, the Raleigh Kingdom’s plea to the Liangxia Empire was more about hoping to enhance its relationship with the Liangxia Empire through the purchase of carriers.

To put it bluntly, it was essentially paying protection money to the Liangxia Empire.

At least that’s how the leaders of the Raleigh Kingdom saw it.

Regrettably, the Imperial Authority didn’t care about the "protection fee" at all; and the Navy’s response was not wrong—there simply were no spare carriers available at the moment.

The arrival of the Special Mixed Fleet gave the Raleigh Navy a significant boost of courage.

Now, in the West Continent’s Land Heart Sea, besides the Empire Navy’s two Special Mixed Fleets, there was also the Raleigh Fleet, leading with two fast battleships.

Although not strong enough to support the Marine Corps in a direct assault on Nara Fortress, or to currently take Tangier by force, they certainly had more than enough power to secure naval supremacy and aerial superiority over the battlefield.

As for anti-submarine warfare, there was even less to worry about.

After the surrender of the Bulan forces in Malta, the Empire Navy reached a temporary agreement with the Tiaoman forces, deploying a group of anti-submarine patrol aircraft using the docks of Malta Port to bolster their anti-submarine patrol efforts in the Land Heart Sea, preparing to clear the sea lanes to the Tiaoman Empire.

Of course, it served to protect the sea lanes from the Xifan Canal to the Locke Republic as well.

Before the direct sea lanes to the Tiaoman homeland were opened, the most efficient way to transport goods was to send ships to Marseille and then via the Locke Republic.

The reason was simple: Locke’s homeland had a vast and well-developed railway system, with ample transport capacity.

Although landing on the Balkan Peninsula would be closer to Tiaoman’s mainland, the entire Balkan region’s transport infrastructure was extremely underdeveloped.

Moreover, following the departure of the thirty-second Special Mixed Fleet to the West Continent’s Land Heart Sea, the Empire Navy also deployed a dozen escort destroyers to Malta Port.

Strictly speaking, it was a temporary stationing.

According to the agreement reached by both parties, Alexandria was the only base of the Empire Navy in the Land Heart Sea, and all other ports had nothing to do with the Empire Navy.

This was why Malta Port was under the watch of Tiaoman forces, and the Empire Navy’s destroyers and patrol aircraft were only temporarily stationed there.

The management of the port was in the hands of the Tiaoman Army, not the Tiaoman Navy.

The reason was that the Tiaoman Navy hadn’t yet dispatched a fleet to the Land Heart Sea!

With this in mind, the issue of anti-submarine warfare was practically nonexistent.

With the current forces, even if there were a few submarines from the Bulan Royal Navy or Newland Navy active in the Land Heart Sea, they were likely located near the Strait of Nara.

Bai Zhizhan thought of these things and discarded the idea of sending a telegram to Liu Xiangzhen.

Liu Xiangzhen had sent the thirty-second Special Mixed Fleet first and even reached an agreement with Tiaoman military authorities to send anti-submarine destroyers and patrol aircraft to Malta Port ahead of time, preparing for the next operation in the West Continent’s Land Heart Sea, showing he had already recognized the potential threats.

This was the Liu Xiangzhen that Bai Zhizhan knew well.

Zhu Shijian’s evaluation of Liu Xiangzhen was the most accurate.

Not aggressive enough in offense, but more than sufficient in defense.

Because of his conservative leaning, Liu Xiangzhen always showed a steady performance in battle, which at times appeared to lack initiative.

What the Land Heart Sea needed now was not initiative, but stability!

Hence, it was clear that Liu Changxun valued Liu Xiangzhen’s steadiness by asking him to stay and by summoning Bai Zhizhan back, indicating his trust in Liu Xiangzhen’s solidity.

The fleet only stayed in Lion Spring City for two days, to be exact, two days and one night, and didn’t allow the officers and men to go ashore, nor was there any need to delay here any longer.