Empire Conquest

Chapter 607 - 603: Going Home

The fleet didn’t go to Nagiu Port but headed straight for Puzhou Port instead, mainly because the 2 large carriers and 2 fast battleships needed to return to the shipyard for necessary inspections.

It was only upon arriving at Puzhou Port that they received reliable information.

The fleet that had departed from the Bulan Kingdom and was bound for Nara Fortress didn’t head south; instead, it turned back to the Bulan Kingdom in Biscay Bay.

Thereafter, the Bulan Royal Navy began laying mines in the Dover Strait.

Strictly speaking, it was actually expanding the range of the minefield and increasing the density of mines deployed.

Not long after the outbreak of the great war, the Bulan Royal Navy had laid mines in the Dover Strait and used naval mines to prevent the Tiaoman troops from launching landing operations.

Naturally, the results were very good.

However, the mine-sweeping ability displayed by the Empire Navy surely surprised the Bulan Royal Navy and was enough to prove that the naval mines previously laid in the Dover Strait weren’t abundant.

Key to this, almost all of them were old-style naval mines.

The events that occurred in the Mand Strait and the Xifan Canal had long proven that those old-style naval mines produced during the last great war couldn’t trouble the Empire Navy’s minesweepers.

Even if they posed some threat, they could not deter the minesweepers.

Nara Fortress was about to fall, the Raleigh Fleet had already entered the Sunset Ocean, and the Empire Navy’s Special Mixed Fleet was in the West Land Heart Sea.

Perhaps in a few months, they could launch an offensive to attack the Bulan mainland.

Setting aside the number of forces to be deployed and not speaking of the difficulty of combat, the mere thought of allowing the Consortium Alliance to cross the Dover Strait and land on the Bulan mainland was utterly unimaginable.

Clearly, what could prevent the Consortium Alliance from crossing the Dover Strait was no longer the Bulan Royal Navy but the indiscriminate naval mines.

Moreover, the fleet could no longer reach the Strait of Nara.

Those tens of thousands of naval mines had to be used somewhere!

This meant there was no need to delay the operation to attack Nara Fortress any longer.

It was on this day that the fully prepared Tiaoman troops began their operation to attack Nara Fortress, with the Sban forces participating in the battle simultaneously.

To tell the truth, at least in terms of combat enthusiasm, the Sban forces far surpassed the Raleigh forces.

The reason was: the strategic bombings conducted by the Bulan Kingdom and the Newland Federation against the Sban Kingdom enraged millions of soldiers and civilians, uniting them against a common enemy.

Although their equipment was of poor quality, and the officers and soldiers were tactically unimpressive, the bravery shown by the Sban forces truly deserved admiration and respect.

Still taking the lead were the Empire Navy’s Special Mixed Fleet.

It wasn’t that the investment of the Tiaoman Air Force was insufficient; it was that the shipborne air force operated more efficiently.

To increase the sortie rate of ship-borne aircraft, Liu Xiangzhen arranged for the 32nd Special Mixed Fleet to move forward, sailing to within less than 100 kilometers of Nara Fortress, and the 31st Special Mixed Fleet followed about 100 kilometers behind. This controlled the to-and-fro flight time of the ship-borne aircraft to within an hour.

More importantly, it allowed the ship-borne aircraft to carry out patrol missions while armed.

Simply put, this meant patrolling above the battlefield with bombs and launching attacks upon identifying targets.

Clearly, this was beyond the capabilities of the Tiaoman Air Force’s Tactical Air Force.

Since the base was on the poorly furnished, rudimentary field airports of the Barry Ali Islands, hundreds of kilometers away from Nara Fortress, Tiaoman’s tactical combat aircraft had to drop bombs immediately upon reaching the battlefield, or they wouldn’t be able to fly back.

As for the heavy bombers with further ranges, there was an issue with bombing precision.

Nara Fortress was a narrow military stronghold, built on a peninsula, with an area less than one square kilometer—there was simply no need for large-scale bombings.

In Li Yunxiang’s words, letting heavy bombers drop bombs from high altitude would result in most of them falling into the sea.

Otherwise, the Imperial Land Air Expeditionary Group would have taken action a long time ago.

Additionally, the Tiaoman Air Force didn’t have many strategic bombers.

Don’t think that the Tiaoman Empire’s Land Air Force’s Strategic Air Force hadn’t already proven the power of strategic bombing, or the value of heavy bombers, and that the Tiaoman Empire itself was a victim of strategic bombings, but up until now, the Tiaoman Empire hadn’t produced many heavy bombers, relying more on the Imperial Land Air Expeditionary Group.

It wasn’t that the Tiaoman Empire didn’t prioritize strategic bombers, but it lacked the capability.

The difficulty in developing strategic bombers was no less than that of creating a Special Mixed Fleet.

Moreover, it also related to the situation of the Tiaoman Empire.

Whether on the western front, the eastern front, or even in the battles encircling the Land Heart Sea, what the Tiaoman military forces actually needed the most were Tactical Air Forces.

What allowed the Tiaoman Empire to sweep across the West Continent, withstand the ferocious onslaught of the Luosha armies, and undertake expeditions in the North Xuan region, was the blitzkrieg launched by Armored Forces.

Yet, how many people know that the soul of blitzkrieg is not just Armored Forces but also a powerful airborne strike force?

Exactly, the Tactical Air Force!

To put it simply, in the Tiaoman military’s offenses, the most prominent sound was the howling of the "Stuka."

Thus, the Tiaoman Air Force had always mainly consisted of Tactical Air Forces.

In a sense, the Tactical Air Force and the Armored Forces were two complementary forces in modern warfare; one could hardly function effectively without the other.

Of course, the Tiaoman Air Force’s lack of focus on developing the Strategic Air Force was also related to the assistance provided by the Empire.

The assistance from the Empire, along with the sale of electrolytic aluminum to the Tiaoman Empire, hadn’t been sufficient to develop a Strategic Air Force, let alone to a significant degree.

It was for this reason that the size of the Imperial Land Air Expeditionary Air Force Squadron had expanded to its current scale.

According to incomplete statistics, the Imperial Land Air Force had sent over 4500 combat aircraft to the Expeditionary Group, with more than 3800 being heavy bombers. Up to now, over 1800 heavy bombers deployed in the western region of the West Continent are still able to take off for combat.

This scale was a result of logistical constraints.

In order to fight in the West Continent, the bombers of the Expeditionary Air Force Squadron had been modified to ensure they could use bombs produced by the Tiaoman Empire.

Some combat aircraft had even had their machine guns replaced.

With the sea routes opening up, the Imperial Land Air Force will inevitably deploy more heavy bombers.

Not just against the Bulan Kingdom, but also to contend with the Luosha Federation.

Of course, all these were an aside.

Although they were fighting on Tiaoman’s home turf, in the first few days of combat, the true protagonists were actually the Empire’s Special Mixed Fleet.

When Bai Zhizhan returned to the Imperial Capital, the battle there was still ongoing.

According to the latest news, the Tiaoman Empire had formally sent troops to the Sban Kingdom and, using Sban Kingdom as a route, launched an assault on the Nara Fortress.

Clearly, this was also to avoid over-reliance on the Empire’s Special Mixed Fleet.

After completing the initial deployments, the Tiaoman forces would initiate a strong attack from the north.

To successfully capture the fortress, the Tiaoman Army had even prepared five siege cannons and had transported a large amount of ammunition through Locke.

However, the Navy Commander’s office didn’t issue orders for the Fleet to retreat.

If the Tiaoman forces failed to capture the fortress, or the siege cannons didn’t serve their purpose, the Main Guns on the few Battleships of the Special Mixed Fleet would find their use.

For this purpose, the Empire’s Navy had also specially sent a batch of specialized shells over.

What Bai Zhizhan cared about now was not the fighting on the other side of the World Island.

Upon returning to the Imperial Capital, in fact, as soon as he left the airport and was on his way home by car, Bai Zhizhan could clearly sense something odd about the atmosphere in the Imperial Capital.

Not to mention anything else, just the number of pedestrians and vehicles on the streets was much fewer than usual.

This was clearly abnormal!