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

The surviving pilot was carried by two ground crew members from the deck of the Akagi all the way to the bridge of the Kongo.

His left shoulder was still wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and the splint on his right leg had been knocked off while climbing the gangway, with broken bone fragments embedded in his muscles, making him tremble with pain with every step.

But he insisted on reporting to the commander in person.

The blood on his face had congealed into dark red scabs, and the left sleeve of his flight suit was completely burned off, revealing his arm covered in blisters and shrapnel wounds.

He stopped in front of Yamamoto Isoroku and laboriously raised his right hand to give a crooked military salute.

Yamamoto Isoroku looked at him, and everyone on the bridge looked at him.

He used the last bit of strength in his body to say the words that no one wanted to hear.

"Reporting to the Commander... The 1st Air Fleet has been completely annihilated."

"Out of 220 planes, only nine of ours returned."

"Colonel Kiyokawa was killed in action, Captain Moriyama was killed in action, Captain Shimada was killed in action, and all officers of the rank of company commander and above were killed in action."

"The enemy's planes... are silver. We've never seen planes like that before."

"They are much faster than us, climb much faster than us, and have much more firepower than us."

"We simply... simply can't win."

"It's all gone. No one can come back. Apart from our nine wrecked planes, no one can come back."

Everyone was stunned when they heard the news.

All squadrons, all formations, all aircraft, except for these nine wrecked planes that miraculously escaped, were all lost in the skies north of Fengtian.

Lieutenant Colonel Kiyokawa Ichiro's dragon-patterned aircraft was hit by a bullet that entered the cockpit from the belly of the plane. The pilot himself was torn to pieces by the .50 caliber bullet, and the plane exploded into a fireball on the surface of the Hun River.

Captain Moriyama's 3rd Squadron was wiped out in the first round of dive-strikes, with all eight aircraft losing their lives.

Captain Shimada parachuted, but his parachute was severed by the tail of his own plane, and he plummeted straight to the ground from an altitude of three thousand meters.

Yamamoto Isoroku stood there, motionless.

A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. Endless grief was burning him up inside, and at that moment, he felt dizzy and disoriented.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only a muffled groan escaped his throat.

Then he swayed and reached out to steady himself on the navigation platform next to him.

His fingers gripped the edge of the steel tabletop, his knuckles turning an unnatural bluish-white, his fingernails digging into his palms until they bled, but he was completely unaware.

His mind was blank, with only one voice echoing repeatedly.

"Total annihilation!"

The pilots he trained for ten years, every young man he personally interviewed, every squadron leader whose name he remembered—all gone.

The young staff officers on the bridge looked even more dejected than when they had heard the screams over the radio.

If those screams were like knives tearing at their hearts, then the news the pilot brought back was like a knife piercing right through their hearts.

Some people covered their faces and squatted on the ground, silently shedding tears; some clenched their fists and trembled all over; some stared blankly out the window at the few wrecked planes parked on the deck of the Akagi, their eyes empty as if their souls had been taken away.

The Imperial Navy's most elite 1st Air Fleet was wiped off the face of the earth in just over an hour.

Sakamoto Seiji was the first to recover from the shock.

His face was completely drained of color, but he knew this was not the time for grief.

One detail from what the pilot had just said sent a chill down his spine.

"They are much faster than us."

If those silver fighter jets were really that fast, then their range must far exceed that of the Empire's Type 89 attack aircraft.

Any Northeast Army air force commander who wasn't an idiot would have ordered his fighters to search south along the Liaodong Peninsula coastline after shooting down the 1st Air Force.

The decks of the three aircraft carriers of the Combined Fleet are now empty. No matter how dense the anti-aircraft firepower is, it is impossible to withstand the simultaneous attack of dozens or even hundreds of enemy aircraft.

They may only have a few tens of minutes left.

"Commander!"

Sakamoto Seiji grabbed Yamamoto Isoroku's shoulders and shook him hard, snapping him out of his daze.

"I know you are in great pain right now, but this is not the time for grief. The sacrifice of the 1st Air Fleet is irreversible, but the Combined Fleet still stands."

"The three aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, and Ryujo, are still here; the main force of the Imperial Navy is still here."

"If we don't evacuate immediately, the sacrifices of the 1st Air Fleet will have been in vain, and the Combined Fleet will follow in their footsteps."

"Chinese planes could appear over this area at any moment. We must head south immediately and retreat to Sasebo Port. There's no time to hesitate!"

Yamamoto Isoroku slowly raised his head.

The trace of blood still clung to the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were so red they looked like they were about to bleed.

He pushed away Sakamoto Seiji's hand, straightened his body, adjusted the collar of his military uniform, and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

His movements were slow, as if he was suppressing his grief every second.

"Order! The entire Combined Fleet, turn around immediately, head 180 degrees, and head south at full speed."

"The three aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Ryujo form the first echelon, the battleship formation forms the second echelon, and the destroyers form an anti-submarine warning circle on the outer perimeter."

"All ships shall maintain lights out and radio silence, and depart from the waters near the Liaodong Peninsula at top speed, with the destination being Sasebo Port."

His orders were issued cleanly and efficiently, without any hesitation or delay.

"Hai!"

Everyone on the bridge stood at attention at the same time.

The navigator began to loudly repeat the course instructions, the helmsman turned the steering wheel, and the command bell in the engine room jingled.

Outside the bridge, signal flags were raised from the mast, and searchlights on the destroyer flashed Morse code signals in all directions to convey commands.

The entire combined fleet began to slowly turn.

The massive hulls of the battleships drew white arcs across the sea, followed closely by cruisers, while the destroyers regrouped and dispersed on the perimeter.

On the decks of the Akagi and Kaga, ground crew were working desperately to push the remaining aircraft off the decks, clearing enough space for the fleet's rapid withdrawal.

Black smoke billowed from the funnels of every warship, the engines in the engine rooms roared low, and the fleet's speed rapidly increased from cruising to full speed.

But just as the combined fleet completed its turn and had not yet left the waters outside Lushun Port, a voice came from the northern horizon.

The sound was very soft and faint, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, but it was getting louder and louder at an extremely rapid pace.

"Buzz! Buzz buzz buzz!"

The lookout on the observation tower outside the bridge was the first to hear the sound, and he quickly raised his binoculars and looked north.

The scene before him froze him in place, and the binoculars in his hand fell to the steel deck with a thud, the lenses shattering.

He turned and roared toward the bridge, his voice shrill with fear.

"Enemy planes! A huge number of enemy planes! Due north! Swarming across the sky!"

Yamamoto Isoroku suddenly turned around and stepped to the porthole.

At this moment, he can see without binoculars.

On the northern horizon, a dense mass of black dots was pressing toward the Combined Fleet.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, they reflected a cold, metallic luster, as if someone had scattered the entire sky with broken silver.

At the forefront were those silver fighter jets, the "silver devils" described by the young pilot, which were now swooping down from the sky at a speed Yamamoto had never seen before.

Behind them was a dark mass of bombers, the massive fuselages of the de Havilland bombers casting long shadows in the setting sun.

The bomb bay door under the fuselage was open, and the aerial bombs hanging inside could be vaguely seen, reflecting a cold light.

Behind the bombers was a group of planes flying even lower and slower; those were torpedo bombers, with thick, long aerial torpedoes hanging from their bellies.

Three columns.

Fighter jets were in front, bombers in the middle, and torpedo bombers at the rear.

The formation was so neat it looked like it had been measured with a ruler; hundreds of aircraft were in the sky, arranged in a huge inverted V-shaped attack formation.

The roar of the wings cutting through the air combined to sound like a thunderstorm rolling in from the north, skimming the sea surface.

This is a joint formation of Li Changkong and Zhu Wudi.

The Fengtian Air Force mobilized its entire force. The flight from Fengtian to Lushun was less than 400 kilometers, which was only a little over half an hour for the Wild Horse.

For a fully loaded de Havilland and torpedo bomber, it would take just over an hour to fly.

They located the Combined Fleet in less than twenty minutes of searching off the coast of Lushun.

Sakamoto Seiji stood beside Yamamoto, looking through the porthole at the approaching dark cloud. His lips moved for a long time, but he managed to squeeze out only two words, his voice trembling so much they were almost inaudible:

"...Air raid."

Yamamoto Isoroku did not look at him.

He braced his hands on the navigation platform, his back ramrod straight, and loudly gave the order:

"Full fleet! Hard to port, full speed retreat!!"

"Torica is dead!" the navigator roared hoarsely.

Yamamoto turned his head and glanced at Sakamoto Seiji.

There was no anger, no grief in that gaze, only a trace of sorrow that flashed deep in the eyes of a veteran who had fought half his life at sea as he witnessed the impending disaster.

He has made all the right decisions he could.

However, in naval warfare of this era, when a fleet is discovered by a large enemy air formation in coastal waters, the outcome is already decided.

Discovery is destruction.

The Air Force is guaranteed to outperform the Navy.

This is not a tactical adage; it is the absolute superiority of air power over surface ships.

Airplanes can launch attacks from the air at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour, while warships can only travel at full speed at sea at thirty or forty knots.

Aircraft can freely choose their angle and timing of attack from outside the range of a warship's anti-aircraft fire, while warships can only passively defend, using a limited number of anti-aircraft guns to fight against the overwhelming swarms of aircraft.

Even more fatally, there were hardly any usable fighter jets on his aircraft carrier deck.

The 1st Carrier Division has been completely wiped out. The three carriers are like a cobra with its fangs removed, possessing brute force but lacking the means to attack.

Although the battleships and cruisers of the Combined Fleet were equipped with dense anti-aircraft guns, these anti-aircraft guns were not designed to deal with saturation attacks of this scale.

The silver aircraft formation in the sky drew ever closer.

The lead Mustang fighter jet had begun to descend, entering a dive route from an altitude of 3,000 meters, its silver wings reflecting a dazzling light in the setting sun.

Everyone on the bridge could clearly hear that increasingly shrill sound.