Chapter 15

(Listen (Author's note: I never expected my humble work to make it to the military new book popularity chart. I am truly grateful for everyone's support. I can only repay you by writing even more captivating stories. I hope you will continue to support me in the future.))

Chen Fei stood at the classroom door, took a deep breath, and firmly held the letter containing the secret that his mother had given him.

Chen Fei saw the Japanese female military doctor pointing a gun at him and suddenly realized: although she was a young woman, she was also the enemy!

Chen Fei felt very regretful. He should have shot the doctor and the Japanese soldier behind her with two shots just now. But now, with the gun pointed at him, his life was in danger, and it was too late to think about it.

However, Chen Fei also saw a glimmer of hope. He noticed that the female doctor's eyes seemed to have something else in them; she seemed unwilling to shoot.

The female doctor's name was Matsushima Keiko. She graduated from the medical school of Tokyo Imperial University and, upon graduation, responded to the call to support the navy, joining the warship as a military doctor. When she left the Fusou, the captain, Shinjo Yukan, personally ordered the severely wounded to be thrown overboard to save bandages and hide weapons. She found it hard to believe that the captain she admired would issue such a brutal order.

When the battle began, she was stunned. She never expected that twenty-one of the most capable soldiers would be killed by the enemy in less than three minutes. What surprised her even more was that the last remaining soldier used her as a shield, and the Chinese sharpshooter did not kill her. The real reason she was unwilling to shoot was that, in her twenty-five years of life, she had never even argued with anyone, let alone killed anyone with a gun.

Suddenly, she felt a bright light, then a pain in her eyes. All she could see was a blinding white. Instinctively, she rubbed her eyes. At this moment, Chen Fei rushed forward, snatched the gun from her, and knocked her to the ground.

It turned out that a soldier behind Chen Fei had shone a wolf-eye flashlight in Matsushima Keiko's eyes. The light from this flashlight was so strong that it could temporarily blind a person.

Matsushima Keiko did not know that her blindness was temporary. Thinking that she would become a blind person who could see nothing, a wave of inexplicable fear overwhelmed her, and she began to sob.

At this moment, several soldiers rushed forward, handcuffed her hands behind her back, and looked at Chen Fei, waiting for his orders. Chen Fei ordered, "Lock her up."

Matsushima Keiko, unable to see and with her hands handcuffed behind her back, could not walk on her own. Two marines carried her and locked her in a cabin.

Alone in the cabin, Matsushima Keiko sobbed. Since the Nagasaki incident, the Japanese government had portrayed the Qing army soldiers as demons who committed every evil deed. From the Japanese soldiers on the ship, she knew how the Qing army soldiers in Korea searched house by house for young women, cruelly raping them, and if the poor woman was still alive, the Qing soldiers would kill her in various ways. Imagining the torture she might suffer, she cried even harder. (In fact, the Qing army soldiers in Korea had strict military discipline, and if such things happened, it was the Japanese who did them.)

As soon as the battle ended, Lin Yuan received a message from the Beijing. He immediately found Itō Sukenobu, and they met again in the conference room. Lin Yuan, who had been friendly, now had a murderous look on his face and angrily said, "Mr. Itō Sukenobu, you have gone too far, disguising yourselves as wounded to attack our ship!"

Itō Sukenobu rubbed his sleepy eyes and said in confusion, "Captain Lin, I am not aware of what you are talking about, but I will certainly investigate and give you a satisfactory answer."

Lin Yuan asked, "Who gave the order?"

Itō Sukenobu looked apologetic and said, "We need to investigate this. As you know, our headquarters has many people, and the investigation will be difficult."

At this moment, Shen Wanqing sneered, "Mr. Itō, did you forget the order you gave yourself?"

Itō Sukenobu pretended to be confused and smiled, "What are you talking about, Miss Shen? What order did I give?"

Lin Yuan knew that the order was most likely given by Itō Sukenobu, but he had no evidence. He thought, "How can she be so sure it was Itō Sukenobu's order?"

At this moment, Shen Wanqing took out an MP4 from her pocket. Itō Sukenobu and his men had never seen such a device. Shen Wanqing pressed a few buttons, and the MP4 played Itō Sukenobu's voice. Itō Sukenobu said, "We will send people to their ship to occupy it. Our people will pretend to be wounded. They will certainly not refuse the request to board the ship."

Shen Wanqing smiled, "Mr. Itō, is this your voice? I recorded every word of your recent war meeting. What else do you have to say?"

Itō Sukenobu was speechless, and Lin Yuan looked at Shen Wanqing in surprise. He knew that Shen Wanqing must have installed a listening device, but he had not seen how or where she had installed it. Lin Yuan smiled, "Commander Itō, we will carry out a punitive strike on your fleet! We will sink the Yanjima in thirty minutes. Out of humanitarian consideration, your crew has fifteen minutes to evacuate the Fusou."

Itō Sukenobu's face turned pale, and Lin Yuan continued, "I know what you are planning, Commander. If you want to fight to the death, we will bomb the Emperor's palace."

When you are under someone's roof, you cannot help but bow your head. Itō Sukenobu fell silent for a moment and then ordered, "Order Captain Yokotani Michiaki of the Yanjima to abandon the ship immediately."

The messenger went out and soon returned, his face solemn, and reported to Itō Sukenobu, "Commander, Captain Yokotani of the Yanjima has refused to carry out the order."

The Yanjima turned in the night, its six 120mm quick-firing guns on the port side aimed at the carrier, and its 320mm heavy gun at the bow also adjusted to aim at the carrier. It approached the Beijing at full speed, ready to fight to the death!

When Lin Yuan gave the order, he had already considered the possibility that the Japanese fleet would go all out to attack the carrier. Therefore, he ordered the Beijing to maintain at least a ten-nautical-mile distance from the enemy ships. At the enemy's maximum speed of 20 knots, it would take half an hour to reach the carrier, which was enough time for the carrier-based aircraft to sink all the enemy ships.

A J-24 fighter on standby above the carrier received the attack order, immediately descended to the attack position, and launched a YJ-93 anti-ship missile, which sped toward the Yanjima.

For a 19th-century warship with no air defense, it was unimaginable to evade a missile traveling at nearly 0.9 Mach. In the 1982 Falklands War, anti-ship missiles gained fame and became one of the most effective weapons for attacking enemy ships.

The Yanjima, unlike many contemporary warships, did not have armor plating on its sides but instead used a focused defense strategy, with thick armor only on critical areas such as the ammunition hold and steam engine room. Therefore, the YJ-93 missile easily penetrated the side armor. Below the side armor was the coal bunker. The designers hoped that the coal layer would resist the impact of shells, but it was this layer of coal that caused the missile's casing to rupture, spilling the solid fuel used to propel the missile, which was instantly ignited by the missile's exhaust, setting the entire coal layer on fire and producing a large amount of gas that burst through the deck.

The missile's delayed fuse activated, and it exploded upon reaching the armor of the ammunition hold. The shockwave from the hundreds of kilograms of explosives tore through the several millimeters of armor, instantly detonating the ammunition hold. The explosion's high temperature vaporized the nearby steel, and the light from the explosion illuminated the sea for kilometers. The shockwave even broke the mast of the nearby Naniwa. The 4,200-ton warship was thrown out of the water and split into two pieces in mid-air. The 320mm high-explosive shells piled on the main deck exploded one after another, and the 320mm main gun, which the Japanese navy had placed great hopes on, was blown into the water.

The two halves of the ship fell into the sea, and water rapidly flooded the hull, causing the ship to sink slowly. Explosions continued to occur as the ammunition in the boiler and gun positions exploded, and the ship was covered in flames, like continuous fireworks.

Itō Sukenobu's face was ashen, but he still had one last hope: to attack the mysterious transport ship in Karulin Bay, their port.

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