Although the big war is imminent, the white stop war is not tense at all.

The commanders of the 4 task forces were all brought out by Bai Zhizhan, Li Mingbo was calm and steady, the guards dared to fight, and Li Jie and Jin Hong had their own merits. In terms of personal ability, all four of them are lacking, but when it comes to cooperating with each other, there is no problem.

What's more, there is also Zhou Yongtao who is in charge of the overall situation.

Don't look at Zhou Yongtao as the youngest, not only more than 10 years younger than Wei Jun, but also a generation lower than Li Mingbo and the other 3 people, but everyone knows that he is the most likely to inherit the mantle of Bai Zhi Zhan, or after Bai Zhi Zhan, he is actually the most likely to win the throne of the number one officer of the Imperial Navy.

Compared with Bai Zhizhan, the biggest difference between the two is that Zhou Yongtao is more than 20 years younger.

If compared with the White Stop War more than 20 years ago, Zhou Yongtao is slightly better.

Don't forget, the last war ended shortly after the White Stop War was reused, and there were not many opportunities to perform.

Zhou Yongtao was much luckier.

He had already made a name for himself before the outbreak of the Great War, and he was heavily armed with white stops, so he had enough opportunities to perform that he would not have to wait another 20 years.

Of course, the key remains personal talent.

If anything, even the most arrogant guards recognized that Zhou Yongtao's military talent was second only to Bai Zhizhan and above all other generals.

In Li Mingbo's words, battlefield intuition is a talent that cannot be learned, and it can only be envied and hated.

Of course, Zhou Yongtao has always served as an operational staff officer, and often gave orders on behalf of Bai Zhizhan.

It was precisely like this, after dinner, Bai Zhizhan went to sleep as usual, and left all the command work to Zhou Yongtao.

When he woke up, what awaited him was not the offensive operation that had already begun.

In addition, the call that woke him up was more than an hour in advance.

It's only 3 a.m.!

By the time he arrived at the command center, Zheng Jiangming had already arrived and was discussing with Zhou Yongtao.

Without saying anything, Zhou Yongtao gave Bai Zhizhan the telegram he had received more than ten minutes ago.

It was a telegram from the Navy Command, to be precise, forwarded by the Navy Command, the order was issued by the first assistant, and the payer was Xue Yuanzheng.

There is only one piece of content.

The assault on the Khowaii Islands was suspended, and the fleets withdrew to safe waters at full speed to await new instructions.

"What now?"

It wasn't until Bai Zhizhan's gaze turned away from the message that Zhou Yongtao asked.

Actually, it's a bit redundant to ask.

The order was given by the chief, so whatever the reason, it had to be carried out, and the first thing to do was to turn the fleet to retreat.

According to the plan, the fleet was to send the first carrier-based aircraft after 4 a.m.

Not far away, on the "Pu," the service personnel had already sent the carrier-based planes carrying out the first round of attack missions to the flight deck and were preparing for the attack.

In addition, before Bai Zhizhan came over, Li Mingbo inquired about the matter by voice radio.

There is nothing strange that the order was given to all task forces at the same time, so the guards and others must have been waiting for the order to stop the battle in white.

This can also see the prestige of Bai Zhizhan in the fleet.

According to military regulations, Li Mingbo and other commanders of the task force did not need to wait for the order to stop fighting at all, and they had to immediately carry out the order issued by the first assistant.

However, Zhou Yongtao did not mention the task force.

After pondering for half a minute, Bai Zhizhan made a decision, but he just nodded.

Zhou Yongtao didn't ask much, and asked the communications staff officer who had been guarding the side to give an order.

"Remember to inform the task forces that they must strengthen their air defenses before dawn to deal with possible attacks after dawn."

Bai Zhizhan gave a special word of advice before walking towards the hatch leading to the open-air cloister.

Zhou Yongtao wanted to go out with him, but after seeing that Zheng Jiangming had already chased after him, he dispelled this idea.

Obviously, at this time, it is better for Zheng Jiangming to come forward.

Decades of friendship are there, even if Bai Zhizhan has resentment in his heart, he will not vent it to Zheng Jiangming.

"It shouldn't be bad news."

Looking back at Zheng Jiangming, who came out, Bai Zhizhan sighed and did not answer.

The "Qinling" was already turning, and the angle of inclination of the hull was very large, indicating that it was playing with full rudders, and it did not slow down as usual.

On the contrary, the "Qinling" is still accelerating!

It is imperative to stay as far away as possible from Honou Island before dawn.

Because the other three task forces were far away, especially the 22nd task force, because it was previously responsible for carrying out the task of luring the enemy, it was now more than 300 kilometers southwest and had already exceeded the working distance of the voice radio station, so when the order to retreat was issued, it could only use the long-wave radio station.

As expected, the radio signal from the "Qinling" has been intercepted by a listening station on Honu Island.

No matter how bad the Nuland army is, it will certainly send out reconnaissance and patrol planes before dawn, and prepare bombers and attack planes to attack.

If it is deployed by Niz or Sp himself, he may be able to send out a group of attack planes as soon as possible.

Of course, if it were known that the Bai Zhizhan was on the "Qinling", then no matter who commanded the operation on Honu Island, he would immediately send out all the combat planes that could be dispatched.

Even if you lose all the combat aircraft, as long as you can take out the white war, you will make a lot of money.

In a sense, killing the White Ceases was the only way for the Nuland Federation to avoid defeat, because only by killing the White Ceases could they gain respite.

More than 10 minutes later, several fighter planes roared over the "Qinling."

It was an air defense fighter from the "Pu" sortie.

It's just that there are still more than 2 hours before dawn, do you need to be in such a hurry?

However, it is understandable.

With Li Mingbo's cautious style, there will definitely be no mistakes.

Besides, Li Mingbo has followed Bai Zhizhan for decades, and is one of the few generals who are willing to block bullets for Bai Zhizhan, and he will never ignore the safety of Bai Zhizhan.

Those "roaring sky" were able to patrol the sky over the fleet for 5 hours after hanging up the auxiliary fuel tanks, and there was no problem of returning before dawn.

Subsequently, the communications staff officer sent a message.

The three task forces had received orders to retreat, and had been reported via voice radio, and all had turned to retreat according to the backup plan.

Only Task Force 22 did not hear from it.

It's just that this is also planned.

Because they act alone, the Guards will only break the radio silence if they are attacked, otherwise they will not contact the other fleets.

Zhou Yongtao also made arrangements to send a telegram every fifteen minutes to ensure that the guards on the "Imperial Capital" could receive the order to retreat.

In addition, the task forces have strengthened their air defenses to ensure that there are enough fighters to carry out anti-aircraft patrols in the hours after dawn and until noon.

For the sake of safety, each of the three task forces left one air defense warship behind to ensure that enemy planes approaching from the direction of the archipelago could be detected in time.

Because the distance between the three task forces is within 100 kilometers, and the 21st task force is in the middle, they can also cover each other.

Strictly speaking, it was the other two task forces that provided cover for the 21st Task Force.

Fortunately, there is no threat from other quarters for the time being.

According to the information provided by the Sixth Bureau, the main force of the Nuland Navy was either in the setting ocean or on the other side of the Wangxi Canal, and did not come to the Howaii Islands.