For the Tang Imperial Navy, 27 years will be a year of decisive victory, but for the US Navy, 27 years will be a year of life and death, and even for the entire United States, 27 years will be a year that will decide the fate of the United States.

At the end of November '26, when the battle on Nihua Island was largely over, and after it became clear that the Tang Empire Navy was unlikely to attack Kauai immediately, and that most of its fleet had withdrawn to the rear ports, Spruance was given a rare opportunity to take a short vacation, at which time he returned home, the first time Spruance had returned home on leave in the three years since the outbreak of the war.

Three years earlier, Spruance had left home to report to the Pacific Fleet, and at that time he had become the commander of Halsey's cruiser formation, beginning his campaign in the Pacific Theater. At that time, the United States was very prosperous at home, for all Americans, including soldiers like Spruance, they were proud and proud of their country, and the comfortable life at home also made many Americans forget the dangers of the outside world, thinking that the east and west oceans separated the United States from the world, and the United States was the safest, richest, and most prosperous place in the world.

The United States before the war was indeed something Americans to be proud of. At the beginning of the 21st, that is, the year of the outbreak of the war, the per capita income of the United States had exceeded that of the Tang Empire by nearly one-third, and its gross national product was basically the same as that of the Tang Empire. At that time, the impact of the economic crisis had just disappeared in the United States, as if it had just experienced a cold winter and ushered in the land of spring, and the growth rate of the United States reached its peak in 19, 20, and 21 years, with an average growth rate of more than 10% every year. In addition, the United States does not need to bear heavy military spending, does not need a large amount of additional expenditure, relatively low taxes, and a large amount of funds invested in public construction have become a strong driving force for the economic development of the United States. It was also the fastest three years of growth in the United States after the economic crisis. Three years of miracles, and almost enough to do it again.

It was precisely the vigorous development of these three years that erected the ambition of the Americans, to be precise, and finally activated the desire and ambition in the bones of the Americans to conquer, plunder, and dominate, and finally put the United States on a road of no return. In the short history of the United States, expansionary ambitions. The desire to conquer has always been one of the core ideas of the United States, which once made the United States the second most powerful country in the world after the Tang Empire, and finally enabled the United States to obtain the demobilization of vast land, vast farmland, rich resources, but in the end, ambition and desire also pushed the United States to death. Comparing the development history of the Tang Empire and the United States, we can clearly see the difference between the two most powerful countries in the world.

The current glory of the Tang Empire was obtained through the accumulation of thousands of years, although the history of the Tang Empire was also full of expansion and conquest, but in the history of thousands of miles, the territory of the Tang Empire was constantly changing. There was a very central thing in the expansion and conquest of the Tang Empire. That's the mind. Unlike the expansion and conquest of the Western powers. After the conquest of a certain area by the iron hooves of the army of the Tang Empire, a cultural conquest ensued, through decades. After hundreds of years, even centuries of assimilation, those areas that were once conquered became a natural part of the Tang Empire, an inseparable part of the Tang Empire, and even the local residents identified themselves as citizens of the Tang Empire. The ethnic policy of the Tang Empire is also based on tolerance and absorption, which is the same as the development history of the Han nationality itself, which constitutes the main body of the Tang Empire, because the Han nationality itself is a large nation formed by many ethnic groups after hundreds of years and thousands of years of integration, and all new ethnic groups will also be integrated after hundreds of years. Become part of the Don Empire. To use a simple analogy, if the Tang Empire is a giant, then thousands of years ago, the Tang Empire was just a dwarf, but after thousands of years of training, and methodically absorbing nutrients, he finally grew into a giant.

The United States is also a giant, but the life of this giant is only more than 200 years now, which is more than a thousand years compared to the Tang Empire. Even in terms of the thousands of years of history of other Eastern empires before the Tang Empire, these 200 years are like the lives of ants and elephants. If we look at the relative speed of expansion, the expansion rate of the United States in these 200 years has even exceeded the expansion rate of the Tang Empire in more than 1,300 years. At the time of its birth, the United States only had thirteen states in the east, with an area of only 300,000 square kilometers, while the area of the United States is now more than 9 million square kilometers, an expansion of 30 times! In the more than 1,300 years of the Tang Empire, even if all overseas territories are counted, the area has only expanded by less than 3 times. In terms of population, the speed of the United States is still staggering, at the beginning of its establishment, it was only more than 4 million, and now, the population of the United States is more than 200 million, an increase of nearly 50 times. The initial population of the Tang Empire was more than 40 million, and now it is close to 500 million, which is only more than 10 times larger. In every respect, the pace of expansion in the United States has been quite phenomenal. It can be said that the United States is an upstart, a giant that absorbs a lot of nutrients in a short period of time and grows up rapidly from a small man, and this rapid development will definitely bring a lot of diseases, and even congenital deficiencies.

The changes in the past three years have made Spruance simply not believe it. Spruance can vividly remember that when he left home three years ago, the neighbors were happy, there were many children playing on the lawn, and many young people would play baseball in the streets, but now, the streets are deserted, and there is hardly any activity except for the smoke from the chimneys of the factory blast furnaces in the distance. What makes him even more sad is that most of the teenagers and young people who were carefree three years ago have died on the battlefield, and how many can come back alive to see their relatives?

Spruance only lived in the house for three days, he couldn't stay any longer, he felt that he had changed, in just three years, he had become out of place in the world, and in just three years, he felt that his surroundings were so strange. Instead of returning directly to Pearl Harbor, he went to Washington first. The Admiralty's office is located in the administrative building near the White House. It's a Victorian building, perhaps the ugliest building in Washington. The people who built the building wanted to use the Victorian style to intimidate the surrounding Aboriginal people and bring a sense of safety.

Here, Spruance received reliable news that the Tang Empire's navy would not launch an attack within the year, and the U.S. intelligence department had obtained some intelligence in the Tang Empire, and judged that there was something wrong with the Tang Empire, so it was difficult for its navy to launch a new large-scale offensive at this time. At most, maintain the current offensive operations on the Australian side, and ensure superiority in the Central Pacific.

This almost gave Spruance hope, and in the three years he had been fighting with the Tang Empire Navy, as long as he had time, Spruance would go to find some information about the Tang Empire and learn more about this opponent. Originally, Spruance was a very erudite person, and he was also a relatively knowledgeable person in history. After reading a lot of materials about the Tang Empire. Spruance came to a conclusion: It is not the enemy of the outside world that can really defeat the Tang Empire, because for thousands of years, no external enemy has defeated this country and nation, and the real enemy of the Tang Empire is himself, because for thousands of years, almost every war that the Tang Empire has lost is caused by its internal turmoil!

This view almost made Spruance despair, because it proved that the United States, even if all the allies such as the United Kingdom, were not necessarily able to defeat the Tang Empire, even if the whole world fought against the Tang Empire. This is like the outcome of the first global war. Germany was almost defeated, and the Persian Empire was in internal and external troubles, leaving only the Tang Empire to persist in fighting. The Tang Empire was still able to defeat all its enemies, and if it had not been for the timely "mediation" of the United States and the strong political and military pressure, the Tang Empire would certainly have been able to defeat Britain and France and other hostile countries and win another victory.

This also gave Spruance hope, especially when he saw the information at the Admiralty. If civil strife breaks out in the Tang Empire, even if the Tang Empire's naval and land armies still insist on fighting, in the end, the Tang Empire will definitely beg for peace. When the time comes. Even if the Tang Empire could not be truly defeated, the war would end, and it would end in favor of the United States, and all the gains of the Tang Empire during the war would be in vain, and even the benefits it had before the war would not be guaranteed. In this way, the national strength of the Tang Empire will inevitably be seriously weakened, and when the war breaks out again, the possibility of the defeat of the Tang Empire will be much greater.

Because of the limited information he had, Spruance was not very clear about what was happening in the Tang Empire. But just like him. Most Americans pinned their hopes on the civil strife in the Tang Empire, and they all knew very well that if the Tang Empire's prime minister, Xue Xiyue, lost in the internal struggle, then the Tang Empire would be doomed. Things moved faster than Spruance expected, and shortly after Spruance returned to Pearl Harbor, new news arrived: The prime minister of the Tang Empire had calmed down the domestic contradictions, won the internal struggle, and through the Supreme Court, won the internal struggle without blood. There was no civil strife in the Tang Empire, and no civil war broke out, the Tang Empire's local troops were still fighting bravely on the front line, and the war was still developing in a direction that was very unfavorable to the United States.

At the time of receiving this news, Spruance knew that the war was over, at least in his opinion, it was over by this time. The Tang Empire is still fighting, and after its internal contradictions are calmed down, the war strength that the Tang Empire can break out will far exceed that of the United States, even if the United States does not experience so many defeats at this time and is still at its peak, even if the US Navy does not lose a single battleship in the war and has more than a dozen aircraft carriers, it is impossible to win in the Pacific Ocean, let alone win this war.

If Spruance had been the president of the United States, he would have sought peace, a dignified end to this war, and an end to the hardships and sacrifices of American citizens and American soldiers. But Spruance is not a president, he is not a politician, and he does not think things with the mind of a politician. At that time, there was indeed an anti-war wave in the United States, but it was quickly quelled, and even suppressed. No politician at this time would choose to end the war and choose to beg the enemy for peace, which is no different from suicide. And when all politicians hold this idea, then the war cannot end, and it will not end until the United States is completely defeated. It is precisely because Spruance is not a politician or president that he cannot decide when the war will end, he can only obey orders and continue to fight on the battlefield, fulfilling the duties and obligations of a professional soldier. It can be said that at this time, it was no longer the hope of victory that supported Spruance to continue fighting, but his sense of responsibility and honor as a professional soldier. Moreover, even if he retreats now, if he gives up now, someone else will take his place. For Spruance, what he needs to pursue is not victory, but to let as many children as possible return to their loved ones at the end of the war, and enjoy life and the good times in life while healing the wounds of the war.

This new change of realm made Spruance miserable, and he felt that he was no longer a general, no longer a commander of tens of thousands of troops, but a beast, trapped in a cage, and watching death approach, like a beast struggling to the death. This feeling made him miserable and confused. Does struggling work? Does resistance work? But what else could he do but struggle and resist?

Spruance has changed a lot in less than a month at home, not in his looks and appearance, but in his heart and thoughts. Back at Pearl Harbor, Spruance continued to do his job, fulfilling his duties as a fleet commander.

Time passed like this, and soon it was 27 years, when the two brand-new fleets entered Pearl Harbor, the other American officers and soldiers were cheering, but Spruance did not have a little joy, in his opinion, the battleships were just target ships ready to add to the achievements of the Tang Imperial Navy, and a large part of those childish faces would become the names on Arlington's tombstones!