I built an armada.

This is simply a miraculous comeback!

In contrast, the Eastern Wilderness tribes were truly shrouded in gloom and despair.

The sales reports of Connie and Nengjia have just been released. Due to the strong counterattack from Longxia and the damage to their reputation caused by Noda's remarks, the loss of orders in the core market is still under control, but the trend has already declined.
Even more critically, the Southeast Asian, Central Asian, and South American markets, which they had always considered their low-end markets where they could dump inferior products, saw their market share plummet under Longxia Chip's precise and fierce "Deep Blue Channel" offensive!
Connie's quarterly revenue forecast saw its first negative growth in nearly two decades, while Nengjia's decline was a alarming 15%.

The stock market in Donghuang plummeted in response. Stocks of companies like Connie, Nengjia, and the vast upstream and downstream of the semiconductor supply chain were like stones thrown into a bottomless abyss, leaving widespread devastation.

Panic selling by investors pushed the entire Donghuang semiconductor industry to the brink of collapse, creating a massive vortex that churned the nerves of the entire tribe.

Eagle Tribe, White Dome Palace, Underground War Room.

The chieftain stared at the dismal stock price chart of Donghuang Semiconductor on the screen and the latest global chip market share comparison report, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

He grabbed the dedicated phone line and dialed Noda Taro's office directly.

The moment the call connected, before Noda could even finish his weak "hello," the Great Chief's volcanic roar exploded through the line.

"Noda! You idiot! A complete and utter idiot!"

Taro Noda was so startled by the sudden outburst of anger that he almost dropped the microphone. A sharp pain shot through his heart, and he instinctively bent over, clutching his chest tightly.

"I told you to lower prices to stabilize the situation! I told you to stall them! Even if it means sacrificing some profit, you have to protect your core business! What have you been doing? Publicly questioning whether their core technology is fake? Are you a career politician or an editor of a third-rate tabloid? Do you think the evidence that Long Xia is causing us trouble isn't sufficient enough? Huh?!"

The chieftain was furious and could barely contain his profanity.

The staff in the operations room were completely silent.

"I……"

Noda Taro was so angry at that he turned pale and his back was instantly soaked with sweat.

"Your Excellency, Chief... I... I was just... in a moment of panic, trying to create some public pressure... I didn't expect... I didn't expect the Longxia people... to react so quickly... and to have such strong evidence..."

His voice was choked with sobs, filled with regret and despair.

"Unexpected? Public pressure?"

The chieftain's voice was full of sarcasm.

"You've successfully created public pressure! But it's just pressure that benefits the people of Longxia! The whole world is laughing at you! Laughing at Connie Nengjia! Laughing at our entire alliance!"

Now look what's happened! One stupid thing you said, and they've jumped to 35% market share! Our carefully constructed defenses in non-core areas, built up over years, have become sieves overnight! Do you know how much this has invisibly increased the initial costs and time invested in Project Dragon Hunter?

He took a deep breath, suppressing his anger, and commanded in a cold and stern voice.

"Listen up, Noda Taro! From this moment on, stop all your foolish, unplanned, and presumptuous actions! There's only one thing you need to do now."

"Stay put like a nail in place! Do everything in your power to secure your remaining orders! Especially your domestic high-end market and the supply chains of your allies! Even if you can't hold on, it's fine if other allies take them, but absolutely! You cannot! Let Longxia have any more opportunities! Understand?!"

"...Understood, Your Excellency!"

Noda Taro's voice was so weak it was almost inaudible, and a chill ran through him. Stabilize the orders? Easier said than done! Longxia had already demonstrated formidable competitiveness.

After hanging up the phone, Taro Noda slumped into the large prime minister's chair, as if all his bones had been removed, with only endless despair and helplessness clinging to him.

Outside the window, the Prime Minister's official residence, a symbol of his power and status, now appeared to him like a giant tombstone burying his political career.

Within the Eastern Wilderness tribe, the storm did not subside despite the Great Chief's roar. The market, in its most brutal form, declared who the true power was.

Some small and medium-sized suppliers who used to rely on orders from Connie and Nengjia for survival are now in dire straits, with many factories forced to shut down and lay off workers.

Even within giants like Connie and Nengjia, the atmosphere has become extremely delicate.

The technology and product departments are no longer the lazy and complacent entities they once were.

Immense pressure and a sense of shame enveloped everyone.

They, who once looked down on Long Xia and regarded him as a follower, have for the first time put down their glasses of arrogance and prejudice and begun to face the true strength of that distant opponent.

"Senior Tanaka, look... these technical parameters and structural diagrams of the Loongson-3... are they all true?"

In the technical analysis department at Connie's headquarters, a young engineer stared incredulously at the publicly available technical documents for the Longxia chip on the screen, his fingers trembling slightly.

They conducted countless internal simulations and reverse engineering tests on this data, and surprisingly discovered that... the data released by Longxia was extremely honest, and in some aspects, it was even better than they had predicted! The other party really did it! And it was a self-developed lithography machine!
The senior engineer Tanaka, whom he called his senior, already had gray hair at his temples. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes wearily and with mixed feelings, and sighed.

"The data doesn't lie... and it seems to be true."

Especially the exposure accuracy report of the Yanhuang-7... it's incredibly stable!

Their breakthrough in high-speed, precision dual-stage synchronization algorithms... may far exceed our imagination..."

His once proud eyes were now filled with shock, confusion, and... a hint of barely perceptible envy.

"How long has it been? Our process iteration speed... has become as slow as a snail's pace... we've been too focused on profits..." In a secretive engineering and technical exchange community at Nengjia, an anonymous comment sparked a heated discussion.

[Anonymous A. Guys, does anyone have access to the non-public structural design concepts of the Yanhuang-7? Even just a little bit would be helpful! Their light source conversion efficiency... it's practically defying the laws of physics! And that mask adaptive feedback adjustment system...]

[Anonymous B. That's tough! Longxia is keeping it too secret! But I heard they seem to have integrated a completely new AI optimization algorithm chain for etching control and defect detection, which is why their yield is so insane!]

[Anonymous C. To be honest, even if we knew the approach now, with our current R&D system... I feel we can't catch up. The investment is too large, and the internal resistance is even greater...]

[Anonymous D. I'm so envious... This is what a real tech company should be like... We're still patching up outdated technologies...]

This shock, analysis, and underlying envy of Longxia's technological breakthrough, like an undercurrent, quietly surged among the once heavily guarded semiconductor practitioners in Donghuang, especially the junior and mid-level technicians.

For the first time, they clearly saw that the foundations of their proud empire appeared so outdated and lacking in drive in the face of true innovators.

It seems like Donghuang's technology hasn't seen any truly groundbreaking, fundamental leaps in a long time, especially in the core high-end chip field.

This left them feeling utterly powerless when facing Long Xia, this suddenly appearing beast.

On the business level, pressure is giving rise to more realistic choices. A few entrepreneurs from the Eastern Wilderness who are more clear-headed, disappointed with the bureaucratic system within the tribe, or whose own industrial chains are complementary rather than competitive with Longxia, have quietly begun to consider other options.

They didn't want to sink with that great ship, steered by arrogant and conservative people, that crashed into an iceberg.

A private phone call, introduced through an intermediary in Xiangcheng, reached the confidential number of a core assistant to Liu Zhengyi, a vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce in Longxia.

"Is this Assistant Zhang? This is Kobayashi Ichiro from Donghuang Jinqiao Packaging... I apologize for calling... We are very interested in learning more about your chip products... We possess advanced wafer-level system packaging technology... Perhaps, for certain high-end packaging needs, we can provide better solutions for Loongson?"
Would it be convenient for you to arrange a... discreet discussion soon? We guarantee absolute confidentiality..."

The voice on the other end of the phone was cautious and uneasy, revealing an barely suppressed urgency and probing.

Meanwhile, another email, forwarded by a third-party business information consulting firm, quietly appeared in the encrypted mailbox of the business vice president of a chip design company in Longxia.

"Dear Mr. Wang."

Excuse me for bothering you. We are Higashihara Swift Technology Co., Ltd. We are very impressed with your company's capabilities in next-generation high-performance chips. We have noticed that there seems to be room for improvement in the efficiency of your high-precision etching and ion implantation equipment.
Our company happens to possess a unique IP library in this area, along with mature solutions. We believe that establishing some form of technological complementarity and collaboration mechanism with you would unlock enormous value across the industry chain.

Are you interested in a private, exploratory technical feasibility discussion? The location can be a secure third-party location designated by you…

Amidst the raging storm of the eagle's fury, Su Dingping's command of Longxia chips sweeping emerging markets, and Connaught's performance collapsing, a small trickle, driven by survival instinct and profit, is quietly breaking through the invisible barriers within the Eastern Wilderness Tribe, attempting to extend tentative tentacles towards the rising Longxia Technology.

Behind this unwavering respect lies the ultimate recognition of formidable strength, as well as the yearning and pursuit of true breakthroughs hidden in the hearts of technologists.

These quietly occurring contacts are like seeds buried under piles of rocks. Once they find the right soil and opportunity, they may sprout and completely change the future competitive landscape.
-
The thunderous roar from Chief Eagle in Noda's office echoed like a death knell in the ears of the survivors of the Eastern Wilderness semiconductor industry chain.

The fact that Longxia Chip has made great strides and its market share has soared to 35% is like a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, dripping blood, reflecting the glaring loss figures on the revenue reports of giants such as Connie and Nengjia, and the dismal green of the Donghuang stock market.

Panic, humiliation, the instinct for survival... Amidst a mix of emotions, the few trickles of water that had been trying to break through the tribal barriers and quietly reach the other side of Longxia Technology began to grow urgent.

Several small and medium-sized technology companies within Donghuang that are relatively "pragmatic" or whose interests are not deeply tied to giants like Connie/Nengjia, or even have the potential to complement each other, have significantly accelerated their actions.

The initiators, represented by Ichiro Kobayashi of "Jinqiao Packaging" and "Xunji Technology," received an initial response of "cautious contact" from Longxia and signed a strict bilateral confidentiality agreement.
Finally, they obtained a highly confidential opportunity to send their most core and trusted technical team, under the guise of "business visits" or "technical exchanges," to secretly enter a specific high-tech industrial zone in the Longxia tribe.

This visit was top secret, and the itinerary was strictly controlled. Their planned inspection targets were limited to the advanced packaging and testing facilities that Longxia officials were allowed to open, as well as the design capability demonstration center—Su Dingping's Longxin Laboratory, the core lithography machine manufacturing base, the stellarator energy core, and other places involving top-secret information.

It's an absolute no-go zone; you don't even have the chance to catch a glimpse of it from afar.

However, even under these numerous restrictions, what these engineers from the Eastern Wilderness, who came with the ambition of "benchmarking" and "learning" from others, saw was enough to stir up a storm in their hearts, leaving them with only a deep sense of powerlessness and despair.

During a visit to an advanced packaging and testing consortium, Koji Yamada, the chief engineer of the technical team, stared intently at the yield and speed data of a wafer-level fan-out packaging solution displayed on the screen, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

"This...this linewidth precision...this zero deformation rate of hot-press bonding..."

He muttered to himself, his throat feeling a little dry. The engineer accompanying Long Xia beside him simply smiled indifferently and did not answer.

One of the engineers from Donghuang, who was in charge of technology, suppressed his shock and spoke to his companion in Japanese in a low voice.

"Matsui-kun, did you see that? Their entire process uses a self-developed automated optical inspection and self-repair system... This speed is more than three times faster than ours! The key is... with that yield rate, our factory manager could perform a seppuku for you right here!"

At a cutting-edge design verification center opened by the Loongson Design Alliance, this group of Donghuang technicians experienced the powerful collaborative design simulation platform built by Loongson based on superconducting quantum computing power.

When they used a design file that they considered to be very "cutting-edge" to run power consumption and thermal stress analysis, the task that would normally take several hours to complete at their own supercomputing center was completed almost instantly at Longxia.

The power consumption predictions and potential hotspot distributions displayed on the screen, with their precision and depth of analysis, left these tech elites blushing with embarrassment.

"This...this EDA software platform...the algorithm efficiency is terrifying!"

The technical director leading the team was heartbroken.

"This is not just about design tools, but a generational leap in design philosophy!"

The lingering hope that "perhaps they are only good at mass production engineering, and their design expertise may not be solid" was ruthlessly crushed.

While several technical teams were conducting a disastrous "secret benchmarking" exercise, the Eagle Tribe's vast intelligence network was not to be underestimated. (End of Chapter)