At the end of November, that is, after it was determined that the Liangxia Navy would hold a fleet exercise, Takano led the permanent fleet out of Dongdu Bay.

It is still the same as in previous years, announcing a joint exercise with the Nuland Navy in the Guia West.

The main thing about sending the fleet out is to strengthen its defenses, or to prevent a sneak attack.

The Nuland Navy was also very cooperative, and then announced that the regional fleet stationed in Nanzhu would leave the port to participate in the exercises initiated by the Samusaki Navy.

Speaking of the regional fleet, the main force is two heavy cruisers, and only those two heavy cruisers can go deep into the ocean to participate in the exercise.

Unlike previous years, this exercise was not aimed at strengthening preparedness.

On the first day of December, the permanent fleet arrived in the waters north of South Zhuhai. After more than 10 days of exercises, on 14 December, the day after the Luosha Federation issued an ultimatum to the three countries in the Gulf and Strait, the permanent fleet was divided into three battle fleets.

Until now, the Navy has not announced the true whereabouts of the permanent fleet, and still claims to be conducting exercises with the Nuland Navy in South Zhuhai.

It was not until the 20th, that is, after receiving information that the Liang Xia Empire was preparing to use force, that Gao Ye issued the order to march and let the two battle fleets attack westward.

On the same day, Takano made one last adjustment to the battle plan, to be precise, locking the trigger conditions.

From this point on, as long as the situation developed according to the situation set out in the battle plan, the fleets had to remain hidden until the battle began.

In fact, there were only two participating troops in total. The main fleet commanded by Takaya, the mobile fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Lan Yun.

Strictly speaking, both of these are task forces.

Takaya's main fleet now has only two capital ships, the "Daimon" and "Luo", while the Sagashi Navy has a total of ten capital ships. The four slower ships, the "Fusho", "Yamasei", "Imuro" and "Hisato", remained in the Guia Ocean to carry out deception missions. The four faster ships, that is, the four "Golden Steel" class ships that have been upgraded, were all temporarily incorporated into the mobile fleet.

If anything, Takano hopes to delay it for another two years.

Why?

The two super battleships haven't been built yet!

If it can be delayed for two years, these two battleships, which are the largest in the world in terms of tonnage and main gun caliber, and have a speed of 27 knots, are expected to be officially put into service.

With these two super battleships, the odds of victory can be increased a lot.

The point is that the main fleet is still a bit thin.

There were only two battleships, and even if you count the four "Gao Xiong" class heavy cruisers, which are known as the "strongest in the treaty", there are only six.

If you really fight, Mao can't even count.

Fortunately, it was not the main fleet that decided the victory, but the mobile fleet that rushed ahead.

According to Takaya's assumption, the main fleet is here to embolden the officers and men of the mobile fleet, and if it is the turn of the main fleet to play, the situation will definitely be extremely dangerous.

The core of the mobile fleet is four aircraft carriers.

That's right, it is the "Chicheng" and "Jiahe" of the First Air Force, and the "Canglong" and "Feilong" of the Second Air Force.

In addition, there were four fast battleships of the "Gold and Steel" class.

The four fast battleships were tasked with providing anti-aircraft cover for the carriers and driving out approaching enemy ships.

The idea of integrating fast battleships into the mobile fleet and providing cover for aircraft carriers was not Takano's idea, but the idea of Vice Admiral Lan Yun and Rear Admiral Yamaguchi, commander of the 2nd Air Force. Strictly speaking, it is actually following the example of the Liang Xia Navy. Because in the past few years, the Liangxia Navy has been using fast battleships that are also upgraded to provide cover for aircraft carriers in exercises to enhance the ability of aircraft carriers to resist strikes.

The point is that only fast battleships can keep up with aircraft carriers.

For this reason, Lan Yun even threatened those bigwigs in the Military Command Department by resigning.

On the question of whether to use valuable fast battleships to escort the aircraft carrier, Takano also felt necessary, but did not directly intervene.

Let's not talk about whether there is tactical value or not, if you do it according to the Liang Xia Navy, then there will definitely be nothing wrong!

In the past few decades, the Liangxia Navy has not taken a detour in armament construction, and basically every step has been on the right track.

Take aircraft carriers as an example, among the four major naval powers today, the Liang Xia Empire was the last to join the aircraft carrier club, but it took a shortcut.

The first is to take advantage of the special provisions of the "Hwaseong Treaty" to abandon four super-dreadnoughts and limit the displacement of the modified aircraft carrier to 25,000 tons, and to obtain two additional retrofit quotas. At that time, the admirals of other countries were laughing at the Liang Xia Navy, thinking that this could not be done at all. The aircraft carrier renovated by the Narrow Imperial State and the Nuland Federation with the use of battle cruisers was not even 33,000 tons, and it was only after many consultations that the tonnage limit was increased by 3,000 tons to ensure that the performance of the aircraft carrier could meet the standard.

With a reduction of 11,000 tons, with about 70% of the tonnage of the "Chicheng", what kind of aircraft carrier can be made?

But the result?

The Liangxia Navy not only transformed the fleet aircraft carrier within the limit of 25,000 tons, but also the combat effectiveness was not bad at all!

Secondly, the Liangxia Navy was the first to clarify the purpose of the aircraft carrier. At a time when the Narrow Navy was still thinking of using double-layer plywood or even three-deck decks to enhance its aviation combat capability, the Liangxia Navy had begun to exert force on hydraulic catapults, emphasizing the efficiency of the use of flight decks.

The key is that the four "Longjiang" class ships of the Liangxia Navy have been designed to the extreme with aviation operations as the core.

What do you mean?

These four aircraft carriers are not equipped with main guns at all, and they don't even care much about armor protection, and they spend their tonnage on places related to aviation operations.

As a result, more than thirty-six thousand tons of aviation combat capability were obtained with a standard displacement of twenty-five thousand tons.

Speaking only of the number of carrier-based aircraft, under the circumstance that the size and take-off weight of various types of carrier-based aircraft are generally one size larger, the carrier-based aircraft carried by the "Longjiang" class are almost 20 more than those of the "Chicheng." If the number of passengers is the same, the efficiency of aviation operations of the "Longjiang" class is 20 percent higher than that of the "Chicheng".

In addition, there are operational tactics with aircraft carriers at its core.

Not to mention anything else, the Liangxia Navy first asked the capital ships to work for the aircraft carriers, and for this reason, the four battle cruisers that survived the last war were disemboweled, upgraded to fast battleships in a way that was almost equivalent to reconstruction, and repeatedly strengthened anti-aircraft firepower in many transformations.

From an afterthought, no one can deny the foresight of the Liang Xia Navy.

Let Lan Yun and Yamaguchi make trouble, but also to kill the old stubborn arrogance of the Military Command Department, so that they don't dictate the fleet battle.

In this operation, we have to look at the mobile fleet, to be precise, more than 300 carrier-based aircraft on four aircraft carriers.

If you want to say anything, it's actually a bit of a pity.

In order to deceive the enemy, they had to let the two "Ruihe" class aircraft carriers of the Third Air Force, which had the strongest combat power, stay in the Guia to play soy sauce.

As a matter of fact, those two aircraft carriers were only built at the beginning of the year, and they have not yet completed sea trials, and their combat effectiveness is very unstable.

Let them wander around the Guia Ocean to the best of their ability.

Either way, it's up to you to win or lose!