Chapter 404: Naval Sortie

Jin Cun woke up. The sky had already gone completely dark, and only scattered fires flickered on the front line. Jitian stood guard, his silhouette in the night like a statue.

"Sergeant," Xiaolin whispered, "you said that after the war ends, we'll become heroes?"

Jin Cun looked at the nineteen‑year‑old youth and thought of his own brother who was the same age.

"First survive until the war ends, then we'll talk," he said.

The night sky was starless, thick clouds gathered. In the direction of the Verdun city district, flames painted half the heavens red. There, the battle still raged, the blood still flowed.

And seven thousand kilometers away in Dubai, Chen Feng had just approved the contract to export the first batch of special alloy steel to Deguo. This steel's strength and toughness far exceeded the ordinary armor steel of this era, making it ideal for "certain special vehicle armor shells."

Contract amount: 1.2 million pounds. Payment method: fifty percent with German‑held U. S. Treasury bonds, fifty percent offset with Krupp Company machine tools.

After signing, Chen Feng walked to the observation window of the strategy room— the only opening in the whole chamber that faced the outside. Outside, Dubai Port shone brightly, and a newly launched cargo ship was sounding its whistle and setting sail.

"Another productive day," he murmured to himself, then pulled the curtains shut.

Weilian Port, July 5 1916, 23:47.

Spotlights on the harbor swept the black water like pale fingers. A dense fog rolled in from the north sea, swallowing the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater, leaving only a vague halo. On the pier, the last convoy of supply trucks had just finished unloading; dockworkers in oil‑stained work clothes were hoisting crates of Shells onto the ship with winches.

The bow of the battleship‑cruiser Feng·De·Tan'en cut through the mist like a razor. This 19,000‑ton leviathan had miraculously survived the Riderlan Sea Battle, but a breach below the left waterline was only temporarily patched with steel plates and still leaked. At this moment, she slipped silently out of berth 3 at a crawl of five knots.

On the bridge, Vice Admiral Fulanzi·Feng·Xipeier stood with his hands behind his back. The fifty‑four‑year‑old fleet commander wore a heavy navy greatcoat, the collar turned up against the night chill. His face, lit by the faint red glow of the instrument panel, was sharply angular, his jaw set in a straight line.

Behind him, Major Ailixi Schmidt leaned over the chart table, carefully checking the course with a compass and ruler. The scratch of pencil on paper sounded unusually clear in the silent bridge.

"Course 280, speed five knots, sir," Corporal Hans·Kelaosi reported softly. He was a twenty‑year‑old lad from a Hamburg ship‑building family, drafted into the fleet three months ago to replace the dead helmsman from the Riderlan battle.

"Maintain," Xipeier's voice was steady, revealing no emotion.

The fleet was assembling. Besides the flagship Marshal Tirpitz, there were the Maoqi and Saidelizi— the latter had barely repaired its turret hydraulic system, but the chief engineer warned that high‑intensity combat would still pose a high leakage risk. Escorting were four light cruisers and twelve destroyers, circling the three wounded giants like a pack of alert hounds.

Lieutenant Walte, the communications officer, poked his head out of the telegraph room: "General, the port command has sent final confirmation: the weather report shows a storm forming in central Beihai, should we postpone departure?"

Xipeier did not turn: "Reply: Mission continues."

"But sir, the forecast says winds may reach force 8, and the temporary repairs on Saidelizi…"

"I said, continue." Xipeier's tone remained calm, yet everyone heard the unmistakable authority.

Walte hesitated, then withdrew his head. Seconds later, the telegraph machine clacked.

Colonel Kaer·Feng·Mu'le stepped up to Xipeier, lowering his voice: "Sir, may I be frank. This mission… is it really necessary? Three capital ships, two wounded, to bombard a port facility? It feels more like a political show than a military operation."

Xipeier finally turned. In the dim light, his eyes were like two cold flint stones.

"You're right, Mu'le. It is a political show. But sometimes a political show matters more than real combat." He looked toward the port windows; the silhouettes of other warships emerged faintly from the fog, "Berlin needs a victory, or at least something that looks like one. Verdun bleeds daily; the army needs to see the navy also acting."

"So we risk the entire fleet?"

"Better than doing nothing." Xipeier pulled a folded telegram newspaper from his coat pocket and handed it to Mu'le, "This is a dispatch personally sent by Marshal Tirpitz before I set out. Look at the last line."

Mu'le unfolded the message. At the end of the dense operational orders, a line of handwritten small script read: "Franz, bring them home. The empire cannot afford to lose another fleet. — Alfred"

"He used 'home,' not 'base' or 'port.'" Xipeier tucked the telegram back carefully into his pocket, "The marshal knows the risk of this mission. But he also knows that if the navy remains idle, the emperor may make an even crazier decision. Like… sending an unprepared open‑sea fleet into action."

Mu'le fell silent. As a veteran of the Riderlan Sea Battle, he knew exactly what that meant— facing the twenty‑four Dreadnoughts of Jielike, this scarred German fleet had little chance.

In Saidelizi's engine room, the temperature had risen above forty degrees Celsius. Massive steam turbines roared, converting boiler energy into the power that turned the propellers. The air was thick with a mix of machine oil, sweat and coal ash.

Engine man Kaer·Haiyinlixi was checking the pressure gauge on high‑pressure pipe 2. The twenty‑five‑year‑old Corporal came from a mining family in Lu er qu; his hands and forearms were scarred with burn marks—the badge of his trade. During the Riderlan Sea Battle, a near‑miss shell cracked his boiler room's pipe, steaming three comrades alive. Kaer survived but lost hearing in his left ear permanently; now he could barely make out orders with his right ear.

"Is the pressure stable, Haiyinlixi?" Engine chief Major Hansen's voice came through the speaking tube, distant amid the turbine roar.

"Pipe 2 pressure is 380 psi, within safe limits, sir!" Kaer shouted back into the tube, though he knew Hansen could not hear— the other end of the tube was also in the noisy engine room.

He brushed his hand against the pipe's outer wall. It was hot, but still within allowable limits. At the temporary Weld Seam, water droplets seeped out slowly— about thirty drops per minute. The engineering department called it an "acceptable leak," but Kaer knew that during combat maneuvers the pressure could rise over fifty percent, turning those "acceptable leaks" into deadly steam jets.

"Don't worry, kid," old engine man Shi Naide patted his shoulder, flashing his two‑missing‑front‑tooth grin, "Saidelizi is a sturdy ship; it took nineteen hits in Riderlan and never sank. This time we're just scaring the British, we'll be back soon."

Kaer forced a weak smile, but his mind replayed last night's dream: steam pipes bursting, the whole engine room becoming a steam oven, comrades screaming as they turned into boiled meat. He shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the gauges.

The fleet had cleared Weilian Port's breakwater and entered the pitch‑black Beihai. The fog thickened, visibility dropped below five hundred meters. Destroyers fanned out in a crescent ahead of the capital ships, their crews listening intently for underwater sounds— British submarines could be anywhere.