Ling Kaiyue took a breath and put his rifle at the firing port, aiming at the Byzantines who had jumped out of the tank or armored car, and kept pulling the trigger, killing them without feeling anything. The unarmed cannibal tank crews struggled to get out of the destroyed tanks, lying on the ground, never daring to stand up.

The butt of the rifle kept violently recing, striking his shoulder, and the loud explosion made his ears ring, and the shouts of the "butcher" company commander could not be heard. Now there was only one voice in Ling Kaiyue's head: "Shoot ahead!" ”。

He kept pulling the bolt, shooting at the firing port as high as his chest, his hands trembled a little, and one bullet after another shot went out, Ling Kaiyue, who was hiding in the trench, could see the bright lights and the fast speed burrowing into the smoke, and the vague figures in the distance disappeared one after another.

On the flanks of the main positions of the Don Army, the roar of engines was heard, and the counterattack of the armored forces began......

General Shi Guofan did not want to give the British any respite at all.

This war was fought in a flat desert, there were not many terrain obstacles, and the outcome of the battle between the two sides depended on the number of aircraft and tanks, and in this regard, the Don army had an absolute advantage.

……

Recently, Colonel Ling Wencha, as a special commissioner of the North Atlantic Task Force, has been following Admiral Chen Wenqiang, the director of shipbuilding of the Imperial Navy, to patrol back and forth between the major shipyards in the New North Bay of the Imperial North America, inspecting and supervising the progress of the refit of several aircraft carriers converted from merchant ships.

The latest six "Hedong" class aircraft carriers will be commissioned by the end of 906, and the construction of 10 aircraft carriers converted by fast cruise ships is also in full swing, and it is expected that by January and February next year, six aircraft carriers will be refitted.

The situation of the Imperial Navy was now in a relatively awkward situation: it wanted to attack, the number of aircraft carriers was insufficient, and there were practically no opponents in all areas except the Atlantic Ocean. But if you want to get out, the strength of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets is weak, especially the Black Sea Fleet is locked in this bathtub of the Black Sea.

To this end, the Admiralty has made relative adjustments.

The shipyards in East Asia, where the imperial shipbuilding industry was relatively developed, slowed down the pace of shipbuilding, and a large number of skilled shipbuilders were transferred to the shipyards on the Baltic coast and the shipyards on the Black Sea to strengthen the shipbuilding forces there.

Since the Imperial Navy had always pursued a so-called modular construction method, shipyards along the East Asian coast were able to supply most of the prefabricated components to the shipyards along the Black and Baltic coasts, which were then transported by rail to the shipyards along the coast of the region, where they compensated for the delay caused by the lack of processing capacity.

In order to make up for the lack of aircraft carriers, the navies of various countries are looking for ways to convert merchant ships into aircraft carriers. This was true not only of East Francia, West Francia and Byzantium, but also of the Tang Empire. Although it is not a lot of effort to transform an escort aircraft carrier with low performance requirements with a merchant ship, it is not easy to find some merchant ships that can follow the high-speed fleet on combat missions.

First of all, the high speed of more than 25 knots required by the fleet aircraft carrier has negated the possibility of 99 percent of the merchant ships being transformed, and the only merchant ship suitable for the transformation of the fleet aircraft carrier is actually only one kind, that is, high-speed ocean cruise ships. Before the war, in order to compete for the "Red Ribbon Award" and "Blue Ribbon Award" across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the empire built as many as 14 large high-speed cruise ships in a row, the first two "Beihe" class, followed by four "Jianghua" class, four "Nanjiang" class, and four "Three Gorges" class. Since 1926, a total of 20 high-speed cruise ships have won the "Blue Ribbon Award", including four in the Kingdom of West Francia, two in the Kingdom of East Francia, and four in the Byzantine Empire, and the four major mail companies of the Tang Empire have built more than half of them.

Relatively speaking, due to the naval shipbuilding subsidy, the high-speed cruise ships built by the Tang Empire are much more detailed than ordinary merchant ships in terms of underwater compartment division, and the hull structure is much stronger. Large cruise ships built in Europe can generally be paralyzed with two torpedoes, and basically cannot withstand the blow of more than two torpedoes. At the beginning of the design of the Tang high-speed cruise ship, the power compartment adopted a warship-style interval arrangement, and even if it was unfortunately hit in the power compartment, it would generally only lose half of its power.

Of course, the structural strength and protection of merchant ships are completely incomparable with the specially designed and built fleet heavy aircraft carriers with heavy armor protection, and in the same case of more than 40,000 tons of displacement, the design standard of the six "Imperial" class heavy fleet aircraft carriers with a displacement of 32,000 tons currently under construction by the Empire is to be able to withstand the underwater attack of four or six torpedoes, and these modified aircraft carriers cannot do this.

Although these modified aircraft carriers are weak in defense, the problem is that you have to find an opportunity to attack, and judging from the current use of the Empire's three modified aircraft carriers, there are no European naval ships that can threaten its survival except for strengthening the fleet's anti-submarine forces.

Due to the large number of carrier-based aircraft equipped, in the actual combat use process, the combat performance of the "Beidao" is even better and superior than that of the "Yizhou Island" class.

This is one of the main reasons why the top brass of the Imperial Navy has high hopes for these converted aircraft carriers.

Due to the experience of the "North Island" modification, the new modification plan has been revised according to the flight deck style of the "Hedong" class aircraft carrier, and the redesigned flight deck width has reached an astonishing 52 meters, and in order to balance the weight, a two-ship island design has also been adopted.

At the urging of Prime Minister Lee Kum Tong, the new modification plan was approved by the Supreme High Command and the Navy Command after the start of the war, and Admiral Chen Wenqiang was mainly responsible for its implementation. Due to the attention of the top management and the relatively adequate supply of materials, the renovation of the six high-speed mail ships at the North German shipyard was progressing rapidly. In less than a year, the bridge and flight deck have been completed and have been relaunched for final outfitting works.

As the war progressed, the Imperial Navy's use and understanding of aircraft carriers became more and more profound, and according to actual combat experience, the new aircraft carriers eliminated all large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, and only retained the 40-mm anti-aircraft guns and 25-mm Jiangning rapid-fire guns. A thin layer of armor 2 cm thick was added to the strategic position of the modified aircraft carrier to protect against the damage of aircraft aviation machine guns and fragments of near-misses.

Since Admiral Chen Shiying handed over one of the converted aircraft carriers to Ling Wencha to command, he was particularly interested in these two aircraft carriers that were converted in North American shipyards......