On the eve of the fall of Liaodong, he led his troops in a remonstrance against the young marshal.

Sakamoto Seiji's Adam's apple bobbed a few times; he'd seen it all.

But now, standing on the bridge of the Kongo, facing the ashen-faced Yamamoto Isoroku, he felt for the first time that his tongue was frozen.

The screams over the radio had stopped for a full five minutes, five minutes that were more unbearable than all the naval battles he had fought in his entire life.

The desperate cries still buzzed in his ears, each syllable like a dagger piercing his brain.

But he had to speak up, because he was the vice commander and the only person on the bridge qualified to speak to Yamamoto at this time.

"Your Excellency Commander."

Sakamoto Seiji's voice was so low that only Yamamoto Isoroku and his navigator could hear it.

"I suggest that the main force of the Combined Fleet immediately move south, or at least retreat to the waters south of Weihaiwei."

"Based on the intercepted communications, the 1st Air Fleet... has probably lost its operational capability."

"The Northeast Army somehow acquired a batch of fighter jets with performance far exceeding our expectations. Colonel Kiyokawa's squadron was scattered and decimated in less than half an hour."

"If the commander of the Chinese Air Force is a smart man, he must already be ordering his fighters to search for the location of the Combined Fleet along the coastline of the Liaodong Peninsula."

"There are not a single fighter jet on the decks of the three aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, and Ryujo. All carrier-based aircraft have been deployed. Although the anti-aircraft firepower is dense, if they are attacked simultaneously by dozens of enemy dive bombers..."

He didn't finish the second half of his sentence, but the meaning was already quite clear.

All three aircraft carriers and more than two hundred aircraft were deployed, leaving the decks completely empty, like three giants stripped of their armor standing naked on an open field.

If the Northeast Army's air force were to seize this opportunity to attack, the Combined Fleet would suffer its most devastating losses since the Russo-Japanese War.

No one in the entire Combined Fleet can bear this responsibility.

"Baka yarou! Shut up!"

Yamamoto Isoroku suddenly turned around, his face contorted with rage.

The muscles in his cheeks were twitching violently, the veins on his forehead were bulging, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

He was still clutching the microphone in his hand, the metal casing of which creaked under his grip, and his knuckles turned an unnatural bluish-white.

"They're retreating! They're just retreating! They're not being annihilated!"

Yamamoto Isoroku's voice was hoarse and shrill, "Kiyokawa's formation had over two hundred planes! Eighty of them were attack aircraft! How could they all be shot down in half an hour?"

"Do the Chinese have this ability? Do they have this ability? Tell me!"

He slammed the microphone onto the communications console, the loud noise echoing through the bridge, causing several young staff officers to flinch.

"The Empire's carrier-based pilots are the most elite air force in all of Asia!"

"They've flown thousands of hours! They've never lost!"

"Now you're telling me they were completely annihilated by the Chinese's new aircraft? What new aircraft? What kind of new aircraft could take out eighty attack planes in half an hour? Do you even believe that yourself?!"

Sakamoto Seiji remained silent for a moment.

He certainly didn't want to believe it.

But the screams coming from the radio were not an illusion.

Colonel Kiyokawa's last call was filled with genuine fear.

"They're too fast..."

This sentence was repeated by no fewer than five pilots at different frequencies.

This was not a chance accident; it was a complete massacre.

He took a deep breath and decided to speak frankly.

"Commander, I know you're unwilling to accept this reality, and frankly, I am too."

Sakamoto Seiji's voice remained low, "but the battle situation on the radio has been going on for over an hour."

"Colonel Kiyokawa's plane has been confirmed shot down, Captain Moriyama's 3rd Squadron has been confirmed annihilated, and Captain Shimada has been confirmed killed in action."

"We didn't just lose a few aircraft, we lost the entire 1st Air Fleet."

"If we don't withdraw the fleet now, the Combined Fleet will lose everything once the Chinese planes find us."

"Can you shoulder this responsibility?"

Yamamoto Isoroku remained silent.

His breathing was heavy and rapid, his chest heaving violently. He stood in front of the navigation platform, his fists clenched, facing the gray-blue ocean outside the porthole.

Everyone could tell from his slightly trembling shoulders that he was afraid.

Isoroku Yamamoto had never truly felt fear in his life—not when facing the Russian fleet's gunfire in the Tsushima Strait, nor when arguing and banging on the table with the army's dung-diggers in the Navy Ministry.

But at this moment, he was afraid.

He wasn't afraid of Chinese planes.

He feared that the elite Imperial Navy air force he had cultivated over the past ten years, at stake with his entire fortune, career, and reputation, would truly turn to ashes in just over an hour.

In the Imperial Navy of this era, the air force was a special entity.

The army has its army aviation force, and the navy has its naval aviation force. The two are not subordinate to each other and have been competing for resources, budgets, and airfields for more than a decade.

Isoroku Yamamoto was among the first in the Navy to realize that aircraft would become a core force in future naval battles.

Before becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, he spent a great deal of time on the construction of flight schools, the training of pilots, and the design and construction of aircraft carriers.

The three aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, and Ryujo, were converted from battleships and cruisers under his leadership.

The core pilots of the 1st Air Fleet were personally selected by him from the Marine Academy and flight school, and each of them underwent his personal interview and assessment.

He remembered the names of many of them: Kiyokawa, Moriyama, Shimada, Ono, Yoshida.

Yesterday, they were still in the pilots' lounge on the Chicheng, having tea with him and discussing the flight path planning for bombing Fengtian.

Now their voices are disappearing one by one on the radio.

Ten years of hard work destroyed in an instant.

If the 1st Air Fleet were truly annihilated, the Imperial Naval Air Force would be set back by at least fifty years.

And this responsibility will ultimately fall on the shoulders of Yamamoto Isoroku alone.

The General Staff will hold him accountable, the Army will seize the opportunity to take power, and the old conservatives in the Navy Ministry who have always opposed his "air force as the main force" theory will laugh and take the opportunity to kick him while he's down.

Everything he believed in, promoted, and fought for in his life will come to a bloody end today.

No one dared to speak on the bridge.

The navigator lowered his head, pretending to look at the nautical chart, while the gunnery officer stared blankly at the already calibrated firing data.

The young staff officers held their breath as still as possible, afraid that any extra sound might trigger the commander's already stretched nerves.

Only the whooshing sound of the sea breeze sweeping past the antennas outside the bridge and the deep roar of the engines coming from the engine room filled the suffocating silence.

Sakamoto Seiji stood a step behind Yamamoto and did not urge him further.

He knew Yamamoto's temperament; the closer they got to this point, the less he should push him.

But he also knew that time was running out for the Combined Fleet.

The Chinese planes were able to cripple the 1st Air Force in half an hour, so their speed must have been extremely fast and their range must have been considerable.

If those fighter jets really do fly along the coastline, it's only a matter of time before they find the Combined Fleet.

Sakamoto Seiji gritted his teeth and decided to say it again.

"Commander, I understand your feelings, but there really is no time now."

"If the fleet remains in coastal waters, the consequences would be unimaginable if it were discovered by Chinese aircraft."

"We have received sufficient warnings, and it is still not too late to retreat. At least we should move the fleet to a safe area first."

"Moreover, even if the aircraft carrier is withdrawn, there is a backup runway in Lushun Port, and the carrier-based aircraft of the Ryujo can also use the land base."

"The pilots all know about this backup plan; they won't all perish at sea just because the aircraft carrier is being evacuated."

"Please consider the Imperial Navy's interests and issue the order immediately."

Yamamoto Isoroku's fingers tightened suddenly on the edge of the navigation platform, then slowly loosened.

He stood there with his eyes closed, without turning around.

He knew, of course, that Sakamoto was right. As a professional naval officer, he understood perfectly well that the most sensible choice at that moment was to immediately withdraw from the battle and preserve the main force of the Combined Fleet.

But as someone who had poured ten years of his life into the air force, he couldn't accept this reality.

He was not reconciled.

He was unwilling to accept that the pilots he had carefully trained had died so inexplicably over Fengtian, and unwilling to accept that the flight decks of the three aircraft carriers had been withdrawn to the mainland empty.

He wanted to wait a little longer, just a few more minutes, maybe more returning planes would appear on the horizon, maybe Colonel Kiyokawa's radio was just malfunctioning, maybe...

"Buzzing!"

Whether it was his prayers or not, he actually heard the buzzing of fighter jets.

That was the distinctive sound of a propeller plane engine, coming from the northwest sky.

The sounds were sparse, just a few scattered ones, and the engines were not running smoothly; some were pitching up and down as if they were injured, while others were intermittent as if they were about to stall.

Yamamoto Isoroku suddenly opened his eyes, took a step to the porthole, and put his hands on the window frame, looking towards the northwest.

His eyes were red-rimmed, and a near-mad flame of hope burned in his pupils.

Then, he actually saw it.

Below the clouds, several small black dots were flying toward the Combined Fleet.

They flew very low and very slowly, not like the speed of a fighter jet, but more like a damaged plane struggling to maintain level flight.

Yamamoto quickly picked up his binoculars and saw that the fighter planes had the Rising Sun flag painted on their wings.

"It's an Imperial plane!"

Yamamoto Isoroku's voice cracked with excitement as he turned and roared at everyone on the bridge:

"Look at that! The Empire's planes are back! Qingchuan's formation is back!"

"Sakamoto, didn't you say they were all wiped out? What are those?!"

He pushed open the side door of the bridge and rushed to the observation platform outside, raising his binoculars to look towards the northwest horizon.

The young staff officers behind him also rushed to the porthole, their faces regaining their anticipation and hope.

Someone was incredibly excited and shouted:

"I knew the 1st Air Fleet wouldn't be defeated so easily!"

Someone was counting the number of black dots seen through the binoculars on their fingers.

Sakamoto Seiji didn't say anything, but simply picked up his binoculars and followed them outside.

Through the telescope lens, those black dots became clearer and clearer.

One, two, three... four, five... six...

Yamamoto Isoroku's fingers gripped the telescope's barrel, his knuckles turning white, and his lips moved as he silently counted in his mind.

Then, no new black dots appeared on the horizon.

He waited for ten seconds, twenty seconds, a minute.

The telescope could only see a few scattered planes, slowly flying towards the Akagi, leaving shaky trails.

They flew extremely slowly, so slowly that it didn't seem like they were returning home, but rather like they were struggling for every single meter.

Some of the planes were still emitting wisps of black smoke from their wings, and one plane had its landing gear completely knocked off, hanging precariously under its belly.

Their formation was chaotic and disorganized, lacking a three-by-three formation, altitude hierarchy, and coordination between lead and wingmen. They were just a few damaged planes desperately trying to fly back.

Yamamoto Isoroku's smile gradually froze.

He took the binoculars down from his eyes, then raised them up again, then took them down again, as if checking if he was seeing things.

Nine...

The massive air formation that set out consisted of over 300 people, 80 escort attack aircraft, and over 100 bombers and torpedo bombers. Now, only a few have returned, and all of them are heavily damaged; not a single one is intact.

The atmosphere on the bridge of the Kongo was even more oppressive than before.

No one spoke; even breathing was suppressed to a minimum.

Everyone was watching the few teetering, crumbling planes outside the window as they slowly descended onto the deck of the Akagi.

When the ground crew on deck rushed up and dragged the pilot out of the cockpit, he was covered in blood, his flight suit had three bullet holes, and there were bullet holes in his left shoulder and right leg that were still oozing blood.

But he pushed aside the stretcher that the ground crew offered and stumbled toward the bridge.

And it was this pilot who brought Yamamoto some utterly devastating news.