Chapter 280: Mantis Shrimp Hammer Strike
On February 2, 2108 in the Xian Han calendar, just as Xuan Chong was engaging in a naval encounter, Qin Tianyi was “gathering sound” in the shipyard.
“Gathering sound” is a key subject for musicians after the 22nd century. Before that, musicians were obsessed with tuning in music rooms, and music theory had not yet developed to emphasize the line “music audiences are the majority of people.”
After the 22nd century, music returned to the masses; musicians often went to factories, streets, and other areas with many people and constant foot traffic to gather raw sounds. This way, they could use more universal “sound elements” in performances to capture the hearts of the masses.
Just as she was recording barefaced in the factory; suddenly, Qin Tianyi walked to the windowsill facing the sea, paused, opened communications, and slowly said: “Ballad activated.”
Xu Xi on communications: “Hmm, didn’t you say you didn’t use the ballad near him?” Then paused: “You still prepared it? What’s the situation?” Then realized Qin Tianyi had secretly hidden “a piece of music” among the crowd near Xuan Chong.
Xu Xi: Activating it now? (Very surprised that Qin Tianyi used it so quickly)
Qin Tianyi: “It wasn’t me who activated it.”
Xu Xi: “What?”
Qin Tianyi’s “ballad” is a collectivism spirit suggestion; when the decision-maker hesitates, activating the ballad synchronizes the group’s emotions and rationality, thereby dispelling the hesitation caused by the decision-maker’s personal selfishness.
This is similar to ancient divination, where when the monarch hesitates, the divination result influences the group’s emotions, thereby forcing the monarch to decide.
Now Qin Tianyi had hidden a ballad near Xuan Chong, but she didn’t activate it proactively, yet it was triggered early by Xuan Chong.
A smile hung on Qin Tianyi’s lips, her tone slightly reproachful: “I said it, no need to use my ballad to buff him at all, he is very decisive himself!”
Qin Tianyi was praising Xuan Chong’s sense of responsibility.
When the person in charge can erupt with courage and determination on major decisions, there is no need for divination to provide omens unnecessarily.
Just like on the day Li Shimin made his decision, divination was completely unnecessary. Even if it was a bad omen, would they disband just like that?
Xu Xi nodded, clearly thinking of something, and said to her: “If you want to get closer to him, take good care of him, his generation is the most sincere one.”
…Rosy clouds hung on the eastern sea…
On the Xuan 4 main fleet side, after dispatching two escort ships, Zhou Xu had no interest in continuing the deck fishing contest. Some perceptive ship officers had already cleared the non-participating spectators from the deck. (By the way, if nothing happens afterward, the person who caused the whole ship to be tense would become the target of ridicule.)
Zhou Xu paced in the bridge with a dry pipe in his mouth, a sea chart laid out on the table in front of him. The atmosphere in the bridge thus became one of “anxious waiting.”
After throwing out the chip, the heart is tied to it. This is also Zhou Xu’s habit in doing things for so many years.
Suddenly the telegraph operator’s tapping fingers sped up, Zhou Xu put down the pipe and began listening intently to the telegraph code; those in the captain’s room who could read faces also moved lightly, not disturbing the captain’s thinking, just quietly opening the exhaust vents.
Before the telegraph operator translated the code into text, Zhou Xu already knew the content from the code sounds: the two escort ships had encountered cannon fire. That is, Liu Haoxing’s previous report was not “a young man’s showing off,” but had truly discovered the enemy.
Zhou Xu also sounded the alarm, the soldiers who were fishing on the deck directly dropped their fishing rods and immediately returned to combat positions, personnel quickly cleared, reducing back-and-forth collisions.
The deck personnel organizing the fishing contest swiftly gathered the fishing rods uniformly. In the last moments, with no time, they could only kick the cheap buckets directly into the sea.
In limited space, more people do not mean higher efficiency, for example, elementary school spring outings. If at the end everyone cleans up the trash before leaving, the time spent bending down to pick up trash is short, but crowding and pushing occurs near the trash can.
Xian Han belongs to an old navy, with relaxation revealed in every interval of navigation, yet able to switch back to combat state quickly from relaxation.
In Xuan Chong’s spacetime, American Empire external propaganda shows them playing billiards, barbecuing, various relaxations on the deck, but able to quickly enter combat state when needed.
While those second-rate countries buy corresponding equipment, wanting to imitate this “free style” to propagandize their combat power, that is failing to paint a tiger and ending up with a dog.
And the navy facing the American Empire as opponent has no such freedom. Constantly focusing on practical combat tasks, always tense— a lagging student wanting good grades isn’t by learning the top student playing basketball.
…Life-and-death struggle…
The Eastern Shu Fleet had already deployed the fleet, the original “III” three-row column formation now turning into an “individual” formation, and the airships all moved to directly in front of the “person” shape.
Unbeknownst to them at this moment, a small dot was already following below the “individual” shape. In the previous military exercise, Xuan Chong used the “measurement tool” from his system pencil case to know that during a fleet’s deployment and detection process, its side-rear is a blind spot under the lamp, theoretically, tailing 20 kilometers behind, the opponent couldn’t detect it.
During the tailing process, Xuan Chong also roughly learned the scale of the Eastern Shu Fleet.
This was a task force composed of eight high-speed battleships, thirteen cruisers, four aviation cruisers, two high-speed ocean supply ships. The entire fleet had combat power, but what was the purpose?
Xuan Chong: “Not just touch and go, right? The most important strategic port on the frontline is lost, now playing this?”
Xuan Chong didn’t think much, because he had already reached the range of his superpower cheating “effective firing range” for cannon fire. Xuan Chong had stuffed circles of torque into the cannonballs, this cannonball now had the inertial navigation structure of a “ballistic missile gyroscope.”
Xuan Chong stared at the aviation cruiser formation in the middle of the Shu army fleet line in the distance; at this time, on the protruding iron tower of one aviation cruiser, airships were being guided to take off.
Airships differ from carrier aircraft; carrier aircraft zip up, while airships vertically ascend, and ascent takes half an hour.
Xuan Chong wasn’t a “experienced” captain, but good at observation and precise calculation. During his own aviation cruiser’s airship release process, Xuan Chong discovered their electromagnetic signals were very obvious at this time.
And during the initial takeoff, the airship and the warship are vertically close, like a little girl holding a hydrogen balloon. The airship’s electromagnetic signal location is the warship’s signal location on the sea surface.
Worth mentioning, the last modern naval battle was fifteen years ago.
This naval battle was the world’s first after first-rate navies entered the “electromagnetic stealth” era.
So in contemporary naval battles, “captain combat experience” and such? Those veteran captains with outstanding achievements don’t have an advantage.
Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp light cruiser, like an assassin began tailing. After two hours of following, suddenly accelerated to close in, a new spring-driven unmanned target drone began zigzag release.
All gun positions were ready, but observation posts now couldn’t see enemy sea forces, only judging position through the “drone” electric spark pulses.
The officers and soldiers inside the ship also didn’t question Xuan Chong’s attempt to fire by luck; because everyone didn’t expect to hit, the combat purpose was to attract the enemy.
The electric spark pulse personnel reported sea data, finally Xuan Chong refined the data decimals, after fine-tuning the cannon muzzle, firing began.
After the cannonball exited the barrel, the cannon fire flame didn’t form a ring-shaped shock wave diffusion at the muzzle, but continued constrained by invisible force field, in bundled state forward. To the naked eye the cannonball was too fast to see, but the cannon flame turned into a full 50-meter long cylinder flashing, clearly visible.
Firing observation personnel, after firing removed goggles staring into the distance. This was a salvo crossing 15 kilometers.
After the crossbow volley, Xuan Chong suddenly felt his line ability seemed to have consumed something. But currently no issue.
…Shells fly through the sky…
On the other side in the Eastern Shu Fleet, the whole fleet formed a wild goose array, highly alert staring at enemy situation on the sea surface at forward heading 230°. Completely unaware that a “little shrimp” was following the tail of the “goose array.”
The Shu fleet commander sent two cruisers to track the escape direction of the two fleeting Xian Han escort ships.
But suddenly, the Shu general abruptly looked up, sensed something, a sharp cannonball sound came; he was thinking where the cannonball came from. But soon the whistle passed away from him.
However, after the cannonball passed three ship positions, it straightly fell onto an aviation cruiser in the fleet center, erupting huge flash. The airship originally ascending immediately had steel cable snap, directly detaching from the ship’s steel tower; and the steel tower due to explosion tilted, its steel cable breaks were uneven, the first and last broken cables differed by twenty minutes, the entire airship directly tilted 70 degrees, then like a goldfish with “swim bladder loss syndrome,” began flipping belly up.
And the aviation cruiser below was even worse, during hydrogen refilling, gas tanks exploded, raging flames burned up.
On the flagship, Qin Hexin abruptly stood up: “This is dragon power assisted cannon fire!”
“Where exactly is the cannon fire from?” Telegraphs linked between Eastern Shu various fleets. Shu ship captains thus mutually confirmed, creating a “panicked” atmosphere in communications.
After all ships in the forward “person” shape announced “sea surface ahead calm,” Eastern Shu captains realized they were being tailed from behind.
And just then the second salvo cannonballs also hit, the second aviation cruiser also hit, fortunately, this aviation cruiser had finished airship release, although hit by one cannonball, overall damage not that great. And this salvo also let observers climbing masts on various ships confirm it was from behind.
Seemingly retaining previous life idea of “carriers are the greatest threat,” so Xuan Chong targeted aviation cruisers. Amid crew shouting “Third Crown Prince Nezha bless,” these three shots all hit.
Eastern Shu Fleet main warships’ captains cursed in the channel this was “hunting geese pecked by geese.” Undoubtedly, Eastern Shu various ships felt great humiliation, they after 15 days navigation, crossing storm area, executing strategic sneak attack mission; result midway after touching, not only discovered, but tailed by someone, chicken stolen.
Eastern Shu Fleet had to adjust airships’ observation direction, vaguely seeing a wake spreading behind indeed, but at extremely far distance, couldn’t see the “dot” creating the wake clearly. In high-altitude view, when wake line diffusion visible, airship optical equipment measuring enemy ships needs at least 100 seconds. Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp was long gone from there.
Then airships messaged Eastern Shu main fleet: “Behind is a new sharp stealth warship firing at us. Uncertain if other enemy ships tailing.”
Eastern Shu’s commander thus fell into headache!
Due to Xian Han new sharp high-speed warships’ usage as vanguard for large fleets. So dozens of nautical miles behind (Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp) is there a Han army large fleet coming?
Finally Eastern Shu decided, dispatch five fast cruisers to intercept Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp. Among them flagship code-named “Dragon Armor.”
Qin Hexin came to this warship, her pupils flickering light, she used her ability.
Warship internal engine structural materials reinforced to limit, steam pushing pistons repeatedly booming, ship quickly reached 30 knots, sailing S-shape evasion.
…One hour later…
As Eastern Shu Fleet changed formation, splitting off a fleet. Facing such strong “dog-hunting team,” the “agile dog” began turning around.
In Xuan Chong’s view, when the ship’s smoke plumes lined up on the sea surface. Ordered Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp to turn, flee north.
But not completely fleeing head down; after Patrol 023 sailed 30 nautical miles, immediately circled, began cannon fire strike on a warship lacking stealth.
After cannon fire for a while, Xuan Chong discovered his cannonballs were bounced off, however immediately felt vaguely in the pursuing fleet existed someone similar to himself.
When Xuan Chong was driven away, Eastern Shu main fleet person in charge inquired the detached fleet participating in drive-away mission situation.
Detached fleet replied: “Already exchanged fire, opposite is single ship, no discovery of enemy main force.”
And on the detached fleet side, on Dragon Armor, Qin Hexin dressed in special priest robes, eyes flickering blue light.
Dragon Armor’s captain realized this ship’s involved battle was unusual, existed supernatural: “Priest, opposite is?”
Qin Hexin said: “North has dragon power user. Currently still holding.”
Qin Hexin’s dragon power effect is “armor transfer,” concentrating part of materials’ properties to a place, strengthening originally penetrable armor intensity tenfold, of course at cost of weakening other materials’ strength, excessive transfer strength causes other structures to fracture.
Captain: “Above inquiring, discovered any new fleets?”
Qin Hexin irritably answered this tactical question: “No!”
After her side used superpower to hard resist new round of armor-piercing shell fire: “Quickly fire back, he attacks, I defend, his cannons hurt very much.”
Next both sides chased on sea surface until sunset, battle ended.
…Small fight substitutes big fight…
On the other side, just as detached fleet went to capture Xuan Chong, Eastern Shu main sneak attack fleet side discovered rows of new smoke plumes on sea surface, Zhou Xu’s fleet arrived, Eastern Shu Fleet feared immediately turned to flee.
Zhou Xu through airships’ continuous photos, saw enemy fleet’s high speed already braked, and fleet center had hit traces. Confirmed this battle, he could account for it emotionally and rationally, thus decided “quit while ahead.”
Zhou Xu making this decision was quite correct.
Currently his cruise fleet already completed main strategic task. Won enough time for rear ports and fleets to complete combat readiness deployment. Next, as long as possible preserve subordinate warships not too close not too far sticking, that is big merit.
If really many ships sunk, even if above awards him, he couldn’t account to below officers and soldiers.
Zhou Xu ordered all fleets release smoke withdraw west, before leaving sent telegraph to Liu Haoxing: “Immediately withdraw, don’t show off, live to go back accept new appointment. Want incense and fire, don’t rush.”
Note: Xian Han arrangement for officers and soldiers died in fierce battle is enter martial temple enjoy priest. So military camp “eat incense and fire” slang is “don’t rush.”
Ryukyu area great naval battle, had bizarre outcome.
Incoming sneak attack Eastern Shu Fleet, discovered early, after cannon fire injuring two Xian Han escort ships, suddenly suffered rear sneak attack, heavily injuring one aviation cruiser (later sank), misjudged Sparrow Eye Mantis Shrimp this old refitted warship as new sharp warship. Then misjudged Zhou Xu fleet as main fleet, out of preserve fleet idea, directly withdrew toward Sandalwood Mountain direction.
Whole battle started strong ended weak, just like a tiger in zoo wanting to sneak attack, after discovered awkwardly left.
…Large fleet decisive battle, no one dares all-in, Li Zhongtang thinking ahead of European wars by 20 years…
In night navigation, Xuan Chong also received telegraph, telegraph instructed campaign end can return.
Xuan Chong breathed sigh of relief, always Xian Han supernatural users “enter no man’s land,” now in national war encountered enemy supernatural user.
Thinking about it normal, after all such large fleet is national heavy weapon. Equipping a “superpower system” existence to sit in command is normal. Xuan Chong himself didn’t think of single ship challenging a fleet. Especially, enemy has battleships.
As for battle results how, talk after return! Xuan Chong didn’t know this battle caused what complex reaction in rear.
Noon February 2, Jianye City South Palace District foreign guests hotel, upon getting Ryukyu area sea fire news, highest level person in charge directly canceled series diplomacy meetings with Eastern Shu.
In coastal areas, Xian Han Navy military department, coordinated frontline sent-back messages.
This matter couldn’t allow them not cautious; dealt with Eastern Shu several rounds, Eastern Shu always likes playing deception. In previous three wars, Eastern Shu often used negotiations to cover military actions.
A few days ago, in Xian Han magnates’ view: Han army already sure victory, opposite should have no moves; time to listen opposite “submit” surrender words. But didn’t expect opposite still sneaky, thinking sneak attack. Obviously not beaten enough, not beaten obedient.
Xian Han diplomacy envoy pointed at Eastern Shu envoy cursed: “False cunning, are you a barbarian?”
On this Jianye faction courtier’s side, subduing Shu originally perfect test paper, but coastal seen as safe city hit by Shu cannonballs, then this is indelible stain on test paper.
In brief discussion, big figures in Jianye City wearing censor robes pounded table made decision.
For Zhou Xu reported intelligence, highly confidential handling, Zhou Xu name recorded, afterward definitely merit award side.
Simultaneously telegraph room began mobilization surrounding war patrol organizations’ high-speed fleets, deploy interception task, simultaneously low speed old battleships form one team, as second echelon block.
…Great fanfare…
In short few hours, coastal region cities issued unfounded “tsunami warning,” large merchant ships fishing boats forcibly returned to port. And airships from airfields emergency took off.
Trainee censor (staffing quota reporter) also discovered, some cities’ nearby forts now emitting white steam smoke, this is fortress heat engine startup situation. These trouble-stirring guys to figure out news, began crossing alert lines. However finally arrested.
