Lost on the edge of the Star Field, the area under the de facto control of the Chinese Empire.

"Cai Xiang personally came to the front line, and this time our operation will definitely be successful."

On the flagship of the Zhonghua, Sun Xiwu and Qin Baijiang raised their glasses to welcome Cai Yi's arrival.

As the deputy right minister of military affairs, Cai Yi's status in the army is not much lower than that of Jiang Baili, and according to the order of His Majesty the Emperor, the future imperial fleet will implement a front-line three-person commander in the battle against Rank, led by Cai Yi, with Sun Xiwu and Qin Baijiang cooperating.

In fact, Cai Ye will officially assume the post of commander of the First Fleet, Sun Xiwu will be the commander of the Second Fleet, and Qin Baijiang will soon be the commander of the Third Fleet.

"This guerrilla war has been fought for almost five years, and His Majesty has finally decided to officially declare war, which is not easy. In the past five years, we have waited too long. ”

Cai Ye said with emotion that in the past five years, the empire has built a large number of modern industries, especially the upgrading of the warship factory, and increased the overall industrial capacity by several orders of magnitude.

Since His Majesty purchased hundreds of battleships from aliens, and launched the first batch of Shenlong-class battleships and Tianlong-class battleships, in the past three years, the empire has produced a total of 20 Shenlong-class battleships and 150 Tianlong-class battleships.

"I haven't waited in vain in the past few years.

Before the start of production of the Halbaroque factory, we had 53 battleships, including the Zhonghua, and then purchased 30 new ships, 70 second-hand ships, 22 Shenlong-class battleships, 153 Tianlong-class battleships, and we had a total of 228 battleships left, except for the 100 battleships that needed to be sold to the Duchy of Ranke.

These include the Super Battleship Zhonghua, 22 Shenlong-class battleships, and the remaining 205 battleships of various types, including the enhanced and Tianlong-class battleships, as well as some standard types.

On the contrary, the number of cruisers is much less, 20 have been purchased in recent years, and the total number of cruisers is only 61, which is much less than the number of battleships. ”

Sun Xiwu counted the arsenal of the empire, and calculated that there were 228 battleships, 61 cruisers, and hundreds of other auxiliary ships.

"We have finally entered the military strength of the peak of the first-level civilization, although the economic strength and industrial strength are still insufficient, but if we take foreign expansion and foreign arms sales as the driving point for the growth of national strength in the future, it may only take 5 or 10 years for us to be promoted to the second-level civilization."

Qin Baijiang said happily.

In terms of command ability, he is slightly inferior to Sun Xiwu, in terms of qualifications and prestige, he is even inferior to Cai Yi, the number of battleships is more, he can form three fleets, and let him be the commander of the Third Fleet, which makes him feel a huge mission.

In front of the three of them, a picture was playing, a comprehensive supply station on the edge of the Lost Star Field, docked with a cruiser, the supply station was converted from an asteroid, and it looked busy.

In the distance, a powerful fleet suddenly broke into the picture, and the sign was actually a battleship group of the Duchy of Ranke.

"The enemy is coming, and it's been a long wait. Let our space cameras record every scene, and after the declaration of war, the people of the whole country, who have seen the ferocity of the enemy, should see our strength and victory. ”

Cai Yi couldn't help but be slightly moved, the 100 battleships he personally led to support him and the 50 battleships originally commanded by Sun Xiwu and the others will form a fleet of 200 capital ships, which will carry out counter-sneak attack operations against this powerful Ranke fleet that rashly raided the imperial border supply depot.

Isn't this the moment the Empire has been waiting for five years of stealthy guerrilla warfare?

The two countries tore their faces, but the Rankers were busy with the surrounding wars, and the empire's offensive power was not enough, so the two sides were stuck.

But now, the 150 Draco-class battleships produced by the Empire need to be exported to the Orion Alliance, and the passage through the Ranks border to the Orion Alliance must be opened.

At this time, the Principality of Rank, because of the support of a certain big family in the Silver Moon Empire, under the strategy of the Longshan Empire, has been defeated and fought repeatedly, and it has reached the best time to cut in.

When Cai Ye was leaving, he was told by His Majesty that this passage must be opened, and in addition to the special urgency of the Orion, their situation has indeed reached a critical period, and a group of high-quality battleships are urgently needed to put out the fire.

"Knock knock!"

"Come in."

Zhang Shusheng stopped what he was doing and saw Zhou Guolai taking the lead, Jiang Baili, Su Yuren, Luo Feng and others walking in together.

Today is the second day of the Lunar New Year, and according to the custom, the imperial royal family will hold a luncheon to feast the ministers, and it is also the day when the royal family announces major decisions.

"I've seen Your Majesty!"

After everyone saluted, Zhang Shusheng motioned for everyone to sit down.

"According to the results of the previous meetings, our official declaration of war on the Duchy of Ranke is imminent, and I will announce it to the public at the Royal New Year's banquet at noon today, so let's take a look at the pretext for declaring war that we have collected from the front."

He turned on the virtual 3D projection equipment in the office, and after the light in the room automatically dimmed, a virtual 3D picture was projected in front of everyone.

In the starry sky, an asteroid base full of hideous cannon barrels appeared in front of everyone, and the voice of the picture was explaining.

"In order to find an excuse to declare war on the Duchy of Rank, our Secret Service and the Military Einsatzgruppen team have built this fort codenamed Wood Ant.

Our fleet made several stops for resupply, creating the illusion that this was the most important supply point for us on the front line.

According to our secret arrangement, the Rankers were indeed fooled, and on January 22, 1960 in the Imperial Calendar, on the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, the Rankers sent a sneak attack fleet......"

As the narration goes, the picture keeps changing.

The asteroid's transformation was not heavy, and on the outside it looked like an important forward fortress stacked with metal and gun barrels, and it looked like an indispensable forward base for the Empire.

Who knows, this asteroid supply base is just a scrap metal and obsolete gun barrels, but a large number of electronic equipment, a lot of equipment to lure the enemy, and even the cruiser and destroyer when they were attacked were ready to be recycled.

On the screen, the Duchy of Ranke sent a main fleet of 50 battleships, bringing the total number of ships to 75, to attack this supply base.

In order to make the attack successful, the Rankers also organized a powerful feint fleet on the outskirts of the Lost Star Field, and the Empire responded by sending a defensive fleet of 45 battleships to surround the attack.

As a result, the Rankers really took the opportunity to sneak attack.

The next picture is very yellow and violent.

The space supply depot, which originally seemed to be brightly lit and even the cruiser had stayed at one of them, was met with bad luck in an instant.

75 Ranke battleships arrived at this wooden ant fortress, and without saying a word, the main guns began shelling.

In just a few minutes, the asteroid was blown up in the air, and the four flying asteroid fragments, the cruiser that was directly smashed into slag by a dozen or so main guns, became the most exciting scene on the screen.

All this was faithfully recorded.

When the entire base was attacked, it looked very lively, but in fact, no one was there, and those who controlled the base and used it as defensive artillery were robots.

"Your Majesty, this bait plan was formulated in the first place, on the one hand, to find an excuse for our declaration of war, and on the other hand, to lure the enemy deeper."

Jiang Baili walked in front of the virtual influence, took the wireless baton and pointed at the 3D image, and suddenly a magnified map of the front-line battle situation appeared.

"Our original idea for this Wood Ant Forward Supply Base was to build a solid forward base, but we found a better target, located in the Chaotic Star Belt, which is extremely convenient for attack and defense.

When the entire base was raided, it was empty, and all we lost was some planetary defense cannons and thousands of robots that were about to be scrapped, and the entire loss was only millions of cosmic coins, and most of the materials in it could be recycled into scrap products. ”

Jiang Baili spoke quickly, and quickly said the whole thing, "As a nascent cosmic civilization, we have achieved quite a few victories in the previous civil war and the early guerrilla war with the Principality of Rank, some of which are even significant.

However, this state of affairs is not good for us.

The people in China will think that the war is so simple and easy, as long as the empire and others start a war, it will be victorious, and some newspapers even shouted the slogan of reducing armaments.

In order to completely change this stupid perception, we planned this attack. ”

Zhang Shusheng nodded, switched the picture, and suddenly a large number of battleships lined up in the starry sky appeared, which was the empire's counterattack legion, which had just been brought up by Cai Yi.

"Ready to get started."

Zhang Shusheng knew that when the large-scale supply depot was 'sneak attacked' and the picture of being blown up in the air was transmitted back to the earth and transmitted to the TV pictures of hundreds of millions of people, everyone would support the war, and the empire would win the best excuse for all-out war......

In the past, the empire was not without losses, but it reported good news but not bad news, and because of its unique geographical location, it basically took advantage of it in guerrilla warfare.

The people generally think that alien countries are nothing more than that.

The Propaganda Department of the Reich also had difficulties, if it was hyped about how strong the enemy's military was, there were thousands or even more battleships, it would be counterproductive, so all the time, the citizens of the Reich believed that the Reich would win wars and that the enemy was not strong.

This view is very dangerous, this time the empire directed and acted on its own, presenting this 'tragic failure' to the people, but also organizing a counter-sneak attack fleet, and fighting another victory in an instant at a time of crisis.

In this way, people will understand that the enemy is fierce and powerful, but as long as we are tough, the empire can still defeat them.

Zhang Shusheng and his entourage left the office and came to the scene of the royal New Year's luncheon, where a royal press conference before the banquet was about to be held, which was delivered by Zhang Shusheng himself.

Five minutes later, all the large and small TV stations in the empire were converted to Imperial TV 1.

"Ladies and gentlemen, now we urgently insert a video from the Imperial Propaganda Department......"

(To be continued)