Munitions Empire-Chapter 1169 - 1089 is less than 30 kilometers away.

This is only the Tang Army’s third round of volley fire! How could they shoot so accurately? The commander aboard the South Island Battleship felt there must be a traitor on his warship, signaling the enemy with some kind of guiding device!

Yet, he knew this was impossible. He had never heard of such a device, and even if something like it existed, using it would be stupid—who would guide enemy fire onto themselves?

But why were the enemy’s strikes so precise? This was a question he desperately wanted answered.

As his mind spiraled into chaos, a Styx Anti-ship Missile was screaming toward his warship. In the dim dawn light, as the sky began to brighten, the missile crashed directly into the bridge of the South Island Battleship!

Yes! It was that precise, not deviating in the slightest! The anti-ship missile pierced through the South Island’s command tower, leaving a hole larger than a basin on its surface.

The raging jet of fire devastated the entire interior bridge, flames licking at the charred corpses within. The senior officers aboard the South Island were incinerated in mere fractions of a second. The explosion even spread to adjacent compartments, disabling several key pieces of equipment at once.

Standing on the bridge of the Shen Battleship, Shen Haifeng witnessed with his own eyes the fireball that lit up the night. He saw the South Island’s bridge take the hit and the subsequent flames erupting aboard the ship.

Moments later, a glimmer of light appeared on the horizon as the sun prepared to rise. Yet, it seemed the South Island Battleship would not live to see the dawn.

The fourth round of Tang Army shelling brought yet more shells descending from the sky, whistling downward and crashing onto the South Island’s deck!

This time, Mirage Country’s luck truly ran out: two shells struck the South Island nearly simultaneously. The impacts were so tightly clustered that it became impossible to determine whether they came from Dongwan No. 1 Battleship or Dongwan No. 2 Battleship.

In the records that followed, the two Tang warships showed great modesty. The final conclusion pleased both sides: investigations revealed that each warship had delivered one shell, collectively sealing the South Island’s fate as it sank, gravely wounded.

One shell struck a crucial area: it bored into the battleship’s interior from the base of the No. 2 turret, tearing through the horizontal armor of the South Island and detonating the forward ammunition storage.

The other shell hit the midsection of the South Island, obliterating the boiler room and damaging the ship’s power-generation systems.

In summary, one shell caused explosions and massive flooding, while the other disabled the ship’s power, rendering it immobilized.

Thus, the South Island Battleship quickly ground to a halt, abandoned by the other Mirage Country warships as they sped ahead. Fire engulfed its midsection, and explosions continued unabated at the bow. Not even a single transmission was sent before the battleship’s bow plunged into the depths. freewebnøvel.com

"Message from the May Battleship... South Island Battleship... its bow has submerged beneath the surface," a staff officer somberly reported to Shen Haifeng, relaying the freshly received communication.

"Message from the Great Southern Bay Battleship... South Island is sinking…" Another officer quickly delivered another dispatch.

Nearly every warship that passed by witnessed the South Island’s demise. It burned and exploded as its thick steel plates shattered in the blasts, immense seawater gushing into its hull and engulfing its remaining superstructure and smokestacks.

Tons of fuel spilled out, staining the sea in eerie iridescent black hues. As dawn gradually broke, the grim spectacle of the Mirage Country Navy became increasingly visible.

Thick smoke billowed from many warships, several still ablaze. In the distance, the silhouettes of Tang Nation destroyers loomed, while on the starboard side, Tang battleships remained shrouded in the western shadows, their hulking forms faintly discernible.

Surrounding them, Tang warships filled nearly every direction—directly ahead, to starboard, to rearward… the fleet of Mirage Country found itself surrounded, even with Tang Navy seaplanes overhead mounted on floats patrolling above.

At that moment, Shen Haifeng realized his fleet had been outmaneuvered, dancing within the enemy’s grasp. Only now did he understand the yawning disparity between them.

"Starboard 15 degrees!" He snapped, unable to worry about anything else. He knew the most crucial task now was to close the distance to the enemy’s main fleet before enemy airpower could intervene.

As long as he could break through their battleships, there was still a sliver of hope! He no longer harbored illusions of preserving his fleet; instead, he pinned all his hopes on storming the enemy landing zones.

However, the short distance separating him and victory might well be insurmountable in his lifetime: as the Mirage Fleet once again adjusted course to close in on Tang warships, Tang Nation’s anti-ship missiles struck again, this time targeting the rearmost Great Southern Bay Battleship.

The Great Southern Bay, which had already been hit earlier, now suffered another fiery strike at its aft turret. The damage control crews worked furiously to save the ship.

But the problem lay with its loaded turret, previously primed to fire: escalating heat in the turret had surpassed safety thresholds.

Unable to access the turret to reduce the temperature, and with its interior melting under the intense heat, the turret finally succumbed, detonating violently from within as one of its shells’ propellant ignited.

Following the sinking of the South Island Battleship, the Great Southern Bay Battleship also began emitting thick smoke, left paralyzed and unable to proceed further. Perhaps fate had determined that any warship connected to "South Island" would meet its end this day.

In the quiet waters behind the Great Tang Empire’s landing zone, Tang aircraft carriers pivoted to face into the wind, ensuring optimal conditions for their aircraft to launch.

Dozens of Stuka bombers, torpedoes slung beneath their wings, unfolded their wingtips and aligned their noses with the carrier decks ahead.

Ground crews busied themselves starting the engines. With the sky still not entirely bright, deck floodlights bathed the aircraft in a stark, artificial glow, turning night into day.

Distrusting his subordinate’s ability to handle everything on their own, Bernard decided not to delegate fully. He ordered his units to launch the carrier planes ahead of schedule.

Amid the drone of engines, the Great Tang Empire’s carrier planes lifted off one by one, struggling upward with their heavy torpedoes, wobbling off into the twilight toward the faint horizon.

The previous night on South Island was far from peaceful. General Feng Kezhi’s forces, after mounting a counterattack, received urgent warnings from the Air Force. Xiao Yun had deployed a staggering 290 Flying Fortress Bombers to unleash a carpet-bombing campaign across the central and northern regions of South Island.

This type of bombing did not concern itself with so-called precision. Nor could it distinguish friend from foe. Thus, to avoid friendly fire, the Air Force demarcated hazardous zones and requested that the Army stay away from them.

Though the 9th Group Army under Feng Kezhi heeded this advice, staying out of the designated zones, Feng Kezhi was nonetheless forced to halt his offensive and watch helplessly as retreating Mirage Country troops made their escape.

Soon enough, however, Mirage forces learned why the Tang Army refrained from pursuit: nearly 1,000 tons of bombs rained down from the sky, plastering South Island as if in a downpour.

Countless bombs pummeled Mirage forces, obliterating virtually every city on South Island aside from Great Southern Bay.

The entire island roared with fiery explosions, air-raid sirens wailing continuously throughout the night. The Mirage Army suffered horrendous losses, with even the newly arrived 3rd Corps sustaining significant casualties and equipment destruction.

Already devastated, the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions engaged in grueling, overnight battles. Their retreat was then further battered by Tang Nation Air Force attacks, leaving them with less than 30% of their original strength.

From any angle, these two elite armored units from Mirage Country were no longer combat-effective. Their plight reflected the conditions of many Mirage Country units deployed on South Island: their ranks had fought fiercely through one endless day and night, battered beyond recognition, incapable of further resistance...

Though the northern airfield on South Island remained intact, and although planes continued taking off there according to plan to support Mirage forces in the south, with daylight breaking, the Mirage Army’s position became hopelessly untenable.

Feng Kezhi had been tirelessly working through the night, plotting new bombing zones for the Air Force: areas he had no intention of assaulting immediately. His strategy was to encircle Great Southern Bay first!

Just like Shengwu Zhong, Feng Kezhi also sought to secure the port initially to ensure uninterrupted supplies for his troops coming ashore.

However, he wasn’t as impatient as Shengwu Zhong. In his rear, several floating docks were already under construction. Supposedly, in a few days, the heavy equipment of the 9th Group Army would land successfully.

Despite his patience, Feng Kezhi did not undervalue the importance of Great Southern Bay. He planned to let his landed troops rest briefly before crossing the Great Southern River’s flanks and advancing on South Island’s largest, most critical port: Great Southern Bay!

At this moment, however, Shengwu Zhong’s sole focus was at sea: he prayed that his dispatched planes would protect his fleet and cut off the Tang Army’s retreat by circling behind them.

He had no other choice! His forces were already shattered, and relying on his 2nd Corps and Shengwu Erlang’s 3rd Corps to halt the Tang advance was clearly impossible.

"Report! Just received word! Admiral Shen Haifeng’s flagship is only 30 kilometers from the southern beachhead of the Tang Army’s landing zone!" A staff officer delivered the telegram with excitement, shouting to the red-eyed, ghostly Shengwu Zhong.

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Sorry, fell asleep halfway through writing this... Posted late, my apologies.