Chapter 193: East Sea Naval Battle

The massive hull of the Revival carved a nearly right-angle sharp turn across the sea surface. The tremendous centrifugal force sent everything unsecured flying. On the bridge, a young operator was nearly flung overboard before Zhao Wenyuan grabbed him by the collar.

And in the very instant the turn was completed, the Revival's four main gun turrets finished rotating. Eight 381-millimeter giant guns all locked onto the Wise Comparison, which was flanking from the port side.

"Fire!"

Lin Haisheng's order was brief and forceful.

"Boom Boom Boom—!!!" (The four Bismarcks are catching up right away, so we can pad thirty-two "boom"s hahaha)

The simultaneous salvo from eight main guns produced recoil so powerful that the forty-thousand-ton hull lurched sideways several meters. The flames and shockwaves blasting from the muzzles pressed a visible depression into the seawater at the bow.

On the gun deck, gun captain Li Dazhu had plugged his ears with cotton balls, yet still felt dizzy and disoriented from the concussion. But his hands never paused for an instant: "Clear the bore! Load! Next armor-piercing round!"

This Shandong man was among the first batch of Lanfang Navy artillerymen, having fired over a thousand training rounds in Dubai. But live firing—especially live firing with life and death on the line—today was his first time.

"Squad leader, can we hit them?" an eighteen-year-old recruit asked, his face pale.

Li Dazhu slapped him on the helmet: "Nonsense! We trained all these years for today! If we can't hit, wasn't all that training for nothing? Keep your eyes glued to the fire control commands. Get one number wrong and I'll stuff you into the gun barrel and fire you out!"

The recruit gritted his teeth and nodded, eyes locked on the firing parameters being relayed to him.

At this moment, those eight shells weighing 871 kilograms each had already crossed fifteen kilometers of distance, howling toward the Wise Comparison.

Wise Comparison bridge.

Captain Yamamoto Tomosuke was an experienced old navy man. During the Russo-Japanese War, he had served as torpedo officer aboard a destroyer and personally witnessed a Russian battleship sinking under torpedo attack. But he had never seen such a spectacular—or rather, such terrifying—bombardment.

Eight columns of water, like eight giant spikes suddenly thrust up from the seafloor, erupted simultaneously around his hull. The nearest round landed less than fifty meters off the port beam, and the seawater it threw up splashed across the deck like a torrential rainstorm.

"Direct hits on the ship!" the spotter screamed, his voice cracking with tears. "Two hits on the starboard side! Number One turret has been struck!"

Yamamoto rushed to the starboard observation window. The sight before him made him suck in a sharp breath: one 381-millimeter armor-piercing shell had scored a direct hit on the Wise Comparison's forward superstructure, blasting open a hole over three meters in diameter. Another had struck the face armor of the forward main gun turret; though it failed to penetrate, the immense impact jammed the turret's entire rotation mechanism.

"Damage control team! Get to the foredeck at once!" Yamamoto roared into the intercom. "Report casualties!"

"Captain... Number One turret... wiped out..." a survivor inside the turret transmitted a broken voice through the internal phone. "All loaders killed... the gun captain too..."

Yamamoto's heart sank. One salvo—just one—had knocked out a quarter of his firepower.

"Return fire! Return fire immediately!" he ordered, eyes red.

The Wise Comparison's remaining six main guns began to return fire. But the hasty shots had no accuracy whatsoever; all shells landed at least three hundred meters behind the Revival on the sea surface.

And just then, an even worse report came from the observation tower:

"Enemy ship... the enemy ship is turning! They're coming straight at us!"

Yamamoto looked up and saw the deep gray colossal ship carving an elegant arc across the sea. Eight dark gun muzzles were once again trained in his direction.

"Hard left rudder! Full speed! Open the distance!" Yamamoto nearly screamed the order.

But it was already too late.

Revival bridge.

"Two hits!" the spotter's voice trembled with excitement. "Fire on the enemy bow! Turret has stopped rotating!"

Lin Haisheng's face showed no expression of joy. His gaze switched rapidly between the sea chart and the radar screen.

"Good. But now we're exposed to the guns of the Vajra and the Mist Island," he said calmly. "Port rudder twenty degrees, heading back to one-five-zero. Engine room, can we go any faster?"

"Already at the limit, Captain!" Liu Ming de's voice was hoarse. "Any faster and the boilers might blow!"

"Then maintain this speed." Lin Haisheng looked at the gunnery officer. "Gunnery Officer Wang, next target—the Vajra. Distance?"

"Fifteen thousand two hundred!"

"Full broadside, fire!"

The Revival opened fire again. This time, the shells flew toward the Vajra pursuing from the right flank.

But almost simultaneously, the main guns of the Vajra and the Mist Island also roared. Twelve 356-millimeter shells rained down toward the Revival in a covering barrage.

"All hands, brace for impact!" Zhao Wenyuan shouted into the broadcast system.

Lin Haisheng did not take cover. He stood there at the center of the bridge, hands clasped behind his back, as if those incoming shells were nothing more than inconsequential raindrops.

The first near-miss landed eighty meters off the port side. The second was closer, fifty meters. The third...

"Boom!!!"

An armor-piercing shell scored a direct hit on the Revival's stern. The massive explosion sent the entire ship into violent convulsions. The lights on the bridge went out instantly, then came back on a second later from emergency power.

"Report damage!" Lin Haisheng's voice remained steady.

"Hit in Sector C! Stern deck penetrated! Number Three secondary turret destroyed!" an urgent report came from the damage control center. "Casualties... casualties are being tallied!"

"Continue fighting." Lin Haisheng said only four words.

He walked to the starboard observation window and looked at the Vajra through binoculars. The Japanese flagship's foredeck was also trailing black smoke—the Revival's second salvo had scored at least one near-miss.

"Captain, the Wise Comparison and the Hazelnut Name are flanking from the left again!" Chen Qiming said anxiously. "We're surrounded on all sides!"

Lin Haisheng looked at the radar screen. Indeed, four blips were converging from four directions, like a noose tightening around them.

"Send a message," he said suddenly.

"What?" Chen Qiming hadn't processed it.

"Send a message to the Yangtze," Lin Haisheng said word by word. "The text reads: 'I prepared a table for one dinner, but two tables of guests have arrived.'"

Communications officer Li Jing immediately sat down at the radio set, fingers rapping rapidly across the telegraph key. The dit-dah-dah of Morse code pierced through the gunsmoke on the sea, reaching toward a point forty nautical miles away.

After sending the telegram, Lin Haisheng turned to look at every officer on the bridge. Their faces showed tension, fear, but more than anything, resolve.

"Gentlemen," his voice was not loud, yet it reached every ear clearly, "the most difficult phase has begun. We must hold out under siege from four enemy warships for at least twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, reinforcements will arrive."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across every face: "In these twenty minutes, we may take hits, we may catch fire, there may be casualties. But I ask you to remember—the Revival is no ordinary warship. It is the symbol of the Lanfang Navy, the hope that all South Ocean Chinese have waited decades for."

"Today, we are here not merely to fight a naval battle. We are telling the whole world, telling everyone who has ever bullied us—that Chinese now have their own navy, their own country. And every inch of this nation's maritime territory will be defended with blood and fire."

The bridge fell dead silent. Only the vibration from the engine room and the distant thunder of shells hitting water could be heard.

"Then," he said softly, as if talking to himself, "let us begin this twenty-minute journey through hell."

Outside the window, the Vajra's third salvo was already screaming in. Columns of water rose around the Revival like a forest.

And on the farther horizon, four larger shadows were silently closing in at twenty-eight knots.