Early in the morning of October 18, Bai Zhizhan and Zhou Yongtao left Naqiu Port on a transport plane arranged by the imperial family.

When he stopped in Puzhou halfway, Zhou Yongtao got off the plane.

According to Bai Zhizhan's arrangement, he went to the Imperial Naval Academy to deal with the personnel of newly recruited officers, and then had to visit the officers and soldiers who were wounded in the battle on behalf of Bai Zhizhan, and then went to the shipyard to inquire about the maintenance work of the battleship, anyway, to deal with these trivial chores.

There's no way, someone has to do these things.

Li Mingbo will return to the empire in two days, and after arranging the maintenance work of the "Imperial Capital", he will go to join Zhou Yongtao.

With the two of them here, there is no need to worry about Bai Zhizhan.

When Bai Zhizhan returned to the imperial capital, it was already afternoon.

Even if it was a plane, it took more than ten hours, mainly when I stopped in Puzhou, and there was a delay in refueling.

It was Zheng Jiangming who came to the airport to pick up Bai and stop the war.

He brought three pieces of news.

A submarine lurking to the east of the island of Wai discovered the USS "Leke" of the Nuland Navy, proving that the aircraft carrier was not sunk in the naval battle on the 12th.

Although the submarine tried to get closer, it was discovered by the escorting destroyers and did not get a chance to sneak attack.

According to the submarine report, the hull of the "Lek" is still tilted, but it has been controlled, so there is no risk of sinking.

The second message was that the Endeavour appeared near the transit island and sent a telegram.

The Imperial Navy's radio monitoring station had intercepted the telegram and judged it to be the Endeavour's radio station.

Intelligence officers from the Sixth Bureau confirmed that the Nuland Navy had sent a number of carrier-based aircraft to Treasure Harbor on a freighter, most likely to replenish the Endeavour.

Crucially, intelligence officers also confirmed that the "Sarah", "York" and "Hornet" have all been sunk.

The third thing is also related to this.

After proving the sinking of three Nuland aircraft carriers, the Navy Command evaluated the merits of the battle, and the main credit was given to the 41st Task Force under the command of Bai Zhizhan.

The reason is also very simple: the carrier-based aircraft of Task Force 41 not only sank the "York" and "Hornet", but also severely damaged the "Leke", while the carrier-based aircraft of Task Force 21 only sank the "Sarah", and at most assisted in the attack on the Newland Task Force 16.

In addition, the Navy has long revised the assessment criteria.

The ranks of the fleet carriers were above the battleships.

In this way, the largest number of aircraft carriers in the fleet will inevitably be the main credit.

Otherwise, the main credit for the battle goes to Task Force 43, which sank five Newland battleships in an artillery battle.

Because Liu Xiangzhen has not yet returned to the imperial capital, the Navy Command has not announced the results of this assessment for the time being.

Of course, there is not much controversy.

In the past few days, the Navy Command had used the operational reports submitted by various fleets to conduct a simulated deduction of the entire naval battle by three groups of staff officers, and came to the conclusion that neither Liu Xiangzhen nor Bai Zhizhan had made major mistakes, but both of them had obvious mistakes.

Liu Xiangzhen's biggest mistake was actually misjudging the size of the 18th Nuland Task Force, which cost a lot of valuable troops in this direction. If it can be discovered in time that the Nuland Task Force 18 has only one aircraft carrier, and all of them are fighters, it will inevitably be a different result.

If nothing else, send the group attacking the Newland Task Force 18 to attack the Newland Task Force 16, and the "Leke" will definitely be sunk.

In addition, if the White Task Force is contacted in time, then the White Stop War can use two aircraft groups to attack the 17th Task Force.

In this way, there was even a chance to sink five aircraft carriers of the Nuland Navy.

It's just that the responsibility is not on Liu Xiangzhen.

The battlefield itself is not transparent, and no one can predict the future, and it is equally impossible to conclude in advance that the Nuland Navy will have the "Sarah" on board all fighters to provide anti-aircraft cover for the battleships and transport fleets, and not with other carriers.

In fact, this approach itself violates basic tactical principles.

To put it another way, if the "Sarah" had been assigned to the Newland Task Force 16 or 17, the outcome of the naval battle would have been different.

As for the mistake of the White Stop, it was also unexpectedly that the Nuland Navy would organize the five aircraft carriers into three task forces.

Based on the situation at that time, if Bai Zhizhan had guessed in advance, he would have focused on searching the east of Newland's 16th Task Force, and would definitely send more carrier-based aircraft to carry out reconnaissance missions, and it would be possible to find Newland's 17th Task Force after dawn. If Bai Zhizhan fully trusted Liu Xiangzhen, or if Liu Xiangzhen had a similar judgment, he might have left both attack aircraft groups behind to deal with the Newland Task Force 17.

Of course, this was just a mistake.

For the same reason, it is impossible for Bai Zhizhan to know in advance that the Nuland Navy has three aircraft carrier task forces.

In addition, he and Liu Xiangzhen could not communicate with each other.

That's the most critical question.

Because of the fear of exposing his whereabouts, the radio signal sent by the long-wave radio station was intercepted by the enemy, and then the approximate position was determined by the enemy using the triangulation method, so in combat operations, especially after entering the combat state, Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen would try their best to maintain radio silence.

As long as it is not necessary, neither will actively use longwave radio.

In fact, it was not Bai Zhizhan and Liu Xiangzhen who encountered such a problem.

In all previous battles, communication was the biggest problem.

Because there is no effective communication and communication, after entering the battlefield, the commanders of the task forces can often only guess the movements of friendly forces.

After the start of the war, in the decisive battle with the Narrow Yi Navy, Bai Zhizhan guessed almost every step Liu Xiangzhen took.

It was precisely because he guessed that Liu Xiangzhen would turn in the northern part of the Yanhai Sea that he led the Third Air Task Force into the West and East in advance and got the opportunity to annihilate the permanent fleet of Narrows.

If I want to say it, I just didn't guess it all this time.

Similarly, Liu Xiangzhen did not guess Bai Zhizhan's move.

The other two commanders of the task force, Zhang Guozhu and Li Jie, were in the same situation, and the mistakes they made were related to the incomplete information on the battlefield.

If we can find a means of communication that will not be discovered by the enemy, so that the fleet commanders can communicate with each other, the combat efficiency of the fleet can be greatly improved.

Unfortunately, there is no such means for the time being.

Voice stations working in the shortwave band have a working distance of tens of kilometers at most.

Although the transmission power can be increased to extend the communication distance of the voice station, it can be intercepted by the enemy, and it is possible to expose the whereabouts.

In accordance with the will of the command of the Navy, a special flagship was built to assume command work and act as a transit platform for communications.

When Zheng Jiangming said these things, Bai Zhizhan was about to fall asleep.

Seeing Bai Zhizhan's exhausted appearance, Zheng Jiangming did not continue to be verbose.

He came to pick up Bai Zhizhan and go home, and by the way, he told Bai Zhizhan about these inconsequential things.

According to Liu Changxun's arrangement, Bai Zhizhan had a two-day holiday, one and a half days to be precise, and then reported to the Navy Headquarters on October 20.

It's not that there is nothing important, but Liu Xiangzhen will not be able to return until the 20th.

Many things have to wait until Liu Xiangzhen comes back.

If it weren't for the Imperial Horse, and if it weren't for the privileges of the royals, it would take 20 days for the White Stop War to return to the Empire with the warship.