Empire Conquest

Chapter 617 - 613: Aggressive Situation

This expedition was different from the previous ones, as Bai Zhizhan wasn’t on the "Pu" but instead made the "Qinling" the flagship.

In fact, this was to give face to Li Mingbo.

Although the soldiers of the 21st Special Mixed Fleet knew who Li Mingbo was, they all treated him as the Chief of Staff rather than the Commander.

If Bai Zhizhan had remained on the "Pu," it would have been very awkward.

In the eyes of many veteran soldiers, Bai Zhizhan was their Commander, and he was the only one qualified to be their Commander.

In fact, the current team of the 21st Special Mixed Fleet was essentially Bai Zhizhan’s direct lineage.

Many officers, especially those at the mid-to-high ranks such as captains, had forsaken opportunities for promotion multiple times in order to follow Bai Zhizhan.

Bai Zhizhan staying on the "Pu" would have only made Li Mingbo’s title of Commander a mere formality.

Of course, the "Qinling" offered more spacious accommodations and was more suitable to serve as the flagship of the fleet.

What was most important was that this combat operation was virtually an open secret, definitely a tough battle, so the requirements for confidentiality were not too stringent.

This was the inevitable result of dragging on for months.

The Empire Navy tightened their preparations; not to mention Nizi and Spur, even a fool could guess that the Howay Islands would be the next target of attack.

However, the months of delay weren’t wasted.

During this period, Bai Zhizhan gathered Commanders from Wei Jun, Li Jie, Jin Hong, and others from the Special Mixed Fleet, as well as a group of young and talented staff officers like Zhou Yongtao. They repeatedly discussed the attack on the Howay Islands and drafted a complete set, in fact, several sets of combat plans.

These combat plans all emphasized scenarios of "intense assaults."

Of course, how to execute these intense assaults, that was an art form.

By the time he started drafting the combat plans, Bai Zhizhan had already realized that attacking the Howay Islands was not as difficult as he had imagined.

This was to the credit of Wei Jun, particularly of Wei Jun.

While Bai Zhizhan led the fleet on the expedition to Land Heart Sea, Wei Jun and Li Jie didn’t slack off. They seized the limited time to make thorough preparations at Transfer Island.

At that time, it was Wei Jun who proposed the idea of a swift attack on Leysan Island and Gardner Island.

It was also key to why Bai Zhizhan favored Wei Jun.

This guy never missed an opportunity to establish his achievements. Whenever he was on the battlefield, he was incredibly proactive.

To use Liu Changxun’s words, he was like an unleashed hunting dog.

After stabilizing their position on Transfer Island, the first thing Wei Jun did was to mobilize The Marine Corps. Before the Newland Army could adjust, he launched an aggressive attack on the eastern islands, Leysan, and Gardner.

This operation fully reflected Wei Jun’s style of command.

Simply put, it was about being broadly accurate without neglecting the details.

Before launching the attack, Wei Jun had assigned a task to the Marines who were struggling on Transfer Island at the time. He deployed patrol aircraft to send reconnaissance teams to Leysan and Gardner Islands at night, to clear up the situation on the islands and thus confirm whether they could be captured through a raid.

It was this arrangement that enabled Wei Jun to discover that the defense forces on both islands were few in number and very weak in combat.

The key point was that Newland Army only used these islands to support nighttime operations and had never considered deploying defensive troops there.

At that time, Newland Army’s focus was on defending Transfer Island, believing that if they couldn’t hold Transfer Island, they couldn’t defend the smaller eastern islands either.

With the Newland Navy already defeated and their capability to transport significantly reduced, the Newland Army could only abandon these secondary islands and concentrate their forces on defending the larger eastern island.

Indeed, it was for this reason that Wei Jun decided to raid Leysan Island and Gardner Island.

To seize the opportunity, before obtaining permission from the Navy headquarters, he had already issued orders to the Marine Corps as the front-line commander.

This style was obviously learned from Bai Zhizhan.

Of course, his decision had Li Jie’s full support.

Just so, in the direction of the Howay Islands, the Imperial Navy had three footholds and had constructed three large forward bases.

In the following months, the Imperial Navy and Land Air deployed nearly a thousand combat aircraft in this area.

Typically, long-range fighters arranged by the shore-based air force were stationed on Leysan Island, while heavy bombers from the Land Air Strategic Air Force were stationed on Transfer Island, while Gardner Island, further west, had a group of fighters and also served as an alternate landing site for other planes.

Months of strategic bombing had significantly weakened Newland Army’s defensive deployment on the eastern islands.

According to statistics gathered by the Imperial Navy, from October of New Calendar 102 to March of New Calendar 103, in a total of six months, the air force deployed on Transfer Island had made 150,000 sorties, of which heavy bombers accounted for over 40,000, dropping approximately 50,000 tons of bombs on the eastern islands.

Although the total amount of bombs dropped was not very high, the bombing intensity was quite astonishing.

More importantly, about 60% of the bombs were dropped on Honu Island, and concentrated bombing had targeted Treasure Harbor and several Naval Air Stations.

The direct result of the intense bombing was that it reduced Newland Army’s investment in the Howay Islands direction to zero.

According to the latest reconnaissance reports, the Newland Navy had essentially abandoned Treasure Harbor, not to mention large battleships, even auxiliary vessels had moved to Yotun Port.

To avoid bombings, Newland vessels all entered port at night and used small vessels to ensure they could complete loading and unloading overnight.

Obviously, compared to large vessels, the transport efficiency of small vessels was much lower.

As Treasure Harbor had lost its capability to serve as a Fleet’s home port, the Newland Navy’s East Ocean Fleet had relocated its home port to San Diego on the mainland.

Similarly, for safety considerations, the entire Newland Fleet had retreated to the sea areas east of the Howay Islands.

This was also to cover the shipping routes from the west coast of the mainland to the Howay Islands.

Furthermore, this involved the Imperial Navy’s interdiction operations.

After taking Transfer Island, the Imperial Navy’s deep-sea submarines could refuel there, thereby cutting the round-trip time by half a month.

The extra half month allowed more deep-sea submarines to operate in the eastern sea area of Wangxi Canal.

As a result, the number of submarines operating in the East Ocean increased from less than ten to about fifty.

This directly resulted in the shipping routes from Wangxi Canal to the Howay Islands becoming perilously dangerous.

To reduce the loss rate of vessels, the Newland Navy could only allow the transport fleet to travel near the coast to the mainland’s west coast, then proceed to the Howay Islands.

In this way, they could at least obtain cover from the shore-based air force.

However, the shipping route from the western coast of Newland to the Howay Islands became exceptionally busy.

Regardless, by the time Bai Zhizhan was preparing to launch an offensive operation on the Howay Islands, the adversaries he faced had already lost their morale under the bombardment.

Although they were not a disorganized crowd, the morale of the Newland Army was definitely not as high as before.

Still, no one was complacent or underestimated the enemy.

Even though the Newland Army was one step away from disbandment, it had not disbanded yet.

More importantly, on the eastern islands of the Howay Islands, there were at least 1.5 million armed military personnel, with over 1.2 million in combat troops.

This would be the most challenging amphibious operation the Imperial Navy had faced since the beginning of the war.