Chapter 57 Bombarding the Jap Yangtze Fleet, Total Annihilation of the Jap Fleet
"Yoshi, yoshi!"
"Hahaha, the Great Eastern Empire is finally ready to strike at the Shanghu of the Zhina people."
"General Hasegawa has ordered our fleet to proceed immediately to Shanghu to support our naval infantry in their amphibious landing operations."
As Kazusuke Sato, commander of the little devil navy's Yangtze River fleet, finished speaking, a thunderous roar of cheers erupted from the group of little devil officers.
"Long live the Great Eastern Empire! Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
"May the fortunes of war smile upon the Great Eastern Empire!"
"Long live the Great Eastern Empire! Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
"May the fortunes of war smile upon the Great Eastern Empire!"
Upon hearing that there were battles to be fought, these young, radical little devil officers fell into a state of extreme fanaticism.
War!
To these little devil officers, war meant an opportunity for promotion.
It meant an opportunity to get rich.
In their eyes, the feeble Great Xia nation was utterly vulnerable.
"Yoshi!"
"Full speed ahead, full speed ahead!"
"Pass through the Jiangyin Fortress port at full speed and support the landing operations of our Great Eastern Empire's naval infantry."
"Hai! Hai!"
Thus, the little devil naval fleet plunged headfirst into the "grave" meticulously designed for them by the Great Xia navy.
Amidst the night, the vanguard gunboat of the little devil Yangtze River fleet—the gunboat *Yoshino*—fearlessly entered the waters of the Jiangyin Fortress.
The rest of the little devil naval fleet followed closely behind.
The sudden appearance of lights on the murky river surface immediately caught the attention of the Great Xia Nationalist Party artillery forces stationed near the riverbank.
"It's a light, lights emitted by warships!"
"The little devils' fleet has arrived, damn it, they're finally here."
An excited sentry let out an enthusiastic cheer.
Had they not waited for these little devils for so long precisely for this very moment?
Now, the little devils' Yangtze River fleet had entered the trap.
After such a long wait, the time to pull in the net had finally arrived.
The news was quickly transmitted to the Jiangyin Fortress command headquarters. The fortress commander in charge of this operation picked up the red telephone with great excitement.
"Transmit my order!"
"Hit them with everything you've got! Blast those little devils' Yangtze River fleet until their guts come out!"
"Yes, sir!!"
Ever since the Second Opium War, the foreign devils had extracted the right for their warships to navigate freely within the inland rivers of the Great Xia nation.
On the territory of Great Xia, the warships of the foreign powers roamed as freely as if they were strolling through their own back gardens.
They moved about at will.
They could even use their fleets to threaten the Great Xia nation.
Worse still, they would directly bombard the sovereign territory of Great Xia.
For the citizens of Great Xia, this was a tremendous humiliation.
Now, the Eastern little devils had brazenly launched a full-scale war.
Yet these damned fleets were still sailing lawlessly, flagrantly, and without the slightest restraint along the Yangtze River of Great Xia.
How arrogant!
As soldiers of Great Xia, who among them did not harbor a burning hatred for these arrogant little devils?
Now that the commander had given the order to shell the little devils' Yangtze River fleet, all their accumulated rage poured forth toward the enemy fleet, accompanied by the thunderous roar of artillery fire.
"Boom, boom, boom!"
"Boom, boom, boom!!"
"Boom, boom, boom!!"
The lights emanating from the little devil warships acted like lighthouses, clearly marking their positions.
Dense shells, laden with the sound of wind and thunder, slammed fiercely toward the location of the enemy warships.
"Boom!"
As a shell violently pierced the deck of the little devils' vanguard ship, the *Yoshino*, these arrogant little devils finally snapped back to reality.
They were under bombardment by the Great Xia military!
"Baka Yaro! Baka Yaro!"
"The Zhina people—those stupid, cowardly, humble-as-rats Zhina pigs—how dare they initiate artillery fire against us?"
Asked the little devil naval fleet commander, Kazusuke Sato, with a gaping jaw of disbelief.
The response to Kazusuke Sato was an even more violent and intense barrage of artillery.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!!"
A massive wave of shells flew toward the little devil fleet as if they cost nothing.
Amidst the thunderous roar of cannon fire, the little devil warships suffered heavy damage.
Faced with the sudden attack from the Great Xia coastal artillery units, the enraged little devils attempted to retaliate.
Among them, the *Yoshino* fired upon the Jiangyin Fortress as if it had gone mad.
However!
Coastal artillery possesses an inherent advantage over naval guns.
After a single round of exchange, the little devils' vanguard gunboat, the *Yoshino*, had its deck pierced by multiple shells.
Worse yet, one of the shells crashed straight through to the ammunition magazine.
The explosion triggered a secondary detonation among the shells stored inside the magazine of the *Yoshino*.
With a deafening roar, the little devil gunboat *Yoshino* was torn apart.
The once arrogant little devil gunboat *Yoshino* became the first to sink to the bottom of the Jiangyin Fortress waters to feed the fish.
As the artillery duel intensified, the losses suffered by the little devil naval fleet grew increasingly severe.
Kazusuke Sato, commander of the little devil Yangtze River fleet, turned pale; he realized that if this continued, absolutely nothing good would come of it.
Under his command, the panic-stricken little devil Yangtze River fleet sped downstream.
After the little devil naval fleet had traveled downstream for a short distance, an even greater despair gripped these little devil officers and soldiers: their escape route had long been blocked by sunken ships deliberately scuttled by Great Xia.
Several warships that charged forward too fiercely ran aground on these sunken hulks.
Other warships directly triggered naval mines planted by the Nationalist Party forces in these waters.
With a violent explosion, the mines kicked up waves more than ten meters high.
Huge breaches were blown into the hulls of the little devil warships, and the surging river water poured madly inward, dragging the vessels down into the depths.
"Save me! Save me! I don't want to die, I don't want to die!"
"Damned Zhina pigs, the river water is so cold, so cold!"
"Baka Yaro!"
All sorts of cries echoed across the river surface as large numbers of little devils failed to escape in time and drowned directly in the river.
Another portion of the little devils fell into the freezing river, shivering violently.
With body temperatures dropping rapidly, death was inevitable.
"Damned it!"
"These filthy Zhina pigs!"
Cursed Kazusuke Sato, commander of the little devil Yangtze River fleet, at the top of his lungs.
"Turn off the lights! Turn off all the lights!"
"Blind the artillery of these Zhina pigs."
At Sato's command, every ship in the little devil naval fleet immediately extinguished its lights.
But the very next second, an even greater despair washed over these little devil naval officers and soldiers.
Accompanied by a series of mechanical clicking sounds, the high-intensity searchlights long positioned around the Jiangyin Fortress flashed on simultaneously.
The entire river surface was illuminated as bright as day in that instant.
"Baka!"
"How could this be!" The despairing little devil naval officers could not even open their eyes against the blinding glare of the searchlights.
As the roar of bombers filled the air and countless aerial bombs rained down onto the decks of the mother ships in the little devil Yangtze River fleet, Kazusuke Sato, commander of the little devil Yangtze River fleet, along with all his subordinate naval officers, felt their hearts turn to ash!
On this night, in the waters of Jiangyin Fortress, the little devil navy left behind corpses strewn across the river, their ships shattered and lives extinguished.
It had truly become a graveyard!