Chapter 1048: 644. War begins!

In the wilderness, two off-road vehicles are speeding.

In the cars sit wartime reporters from the Federation, equipped with cameras and broadcasting devices.

Usually, whenever there is a military exercise within the Federation, these wartime reporters are dispatched.

On one hand, to capture footage of the military exercise.

On the other hand, to interview key military figures and see if any important information can be obtained.

Actually, the Federal Group Army always informs reporters ahead of time for every exercise, after all, exercises are also a time for the consortiums to flex their muscles, an opportunity for the outside world to know their strength.

But strangely, this time the Federal Group Army suddenly held a collective exercise without notifying any reporters.

On the off-road vehicle, a male reporter checks the camera equipment while muttering, "Spring has just started, and these consortiums are already acting like they’re in heat with a collective exercise, not sure what kind of racket they’re making. Could it be that the death of a Demigod of the Jindai family has stirred everyone’s nerves, breaking the balance of power?"

Wartime reporters are well aware that military exercises usually happen during sensitive times.

The driver didn’t answer his question, and the reporter kept talking to himself without getting a response, turning to look at the driver: "What are you thinking about, why aren’t you talking? When we get to the exercise location..."

The reporter follows the driver’s gaze to the distant horizon and his mouth slowly opens wide: "Holy crap! The Southern Fleet of Chen’s First Air Force? And the Qing Shan Ship?!"

The driver murmurs, "Something’s not right! Very not right!"

The reporter snaps away with the camera: "Keep steady, let me focus!"

"Don’t you find it strange? We were just talking about this, the Qing Shan Ship is Li’s Aerial Fortress, but in the Federation’s Five Major Consortiums, Jindai, Deer Island, Qing, and Chen have all announced military exercises, yet Li hasn’t announced any exercise plans," the driver said.

At this moment, the reporter realized too: "Li isn’t here for a military exercise... they’re really here for a fight!"

Since they really mean to fight, naturally there’s no need to issue an exercise notice...

Makes sense.

...

...

In modern warfare, the most important thing is information.

And Chen’s Southern Fleet is blind before the fight even starts, radars are gone.

Everyone is flying in the sky, and the radar only shows their own people, but not the enemy.

It’s like... everyone else is playing an online game while they’re playing on a local network.

This scale of fleet is originally for precise strikes against Demigods, not a full-scale war specification.

And now they’ve encountered this unreasonable Aerial Fortress.

It’s like... you’ve just rolled a pair of sevens, and the other side doesn’t even play a king bomb, just hands you a real grenade.

This is completely unplayable.

The biggest advantage of an Aerial Fortress is it can extend the battle line, the internal anti-gravity devices and nuclear reactors allow for prolonged endurance.

Fighter jets and airships need to burn high-energy fuel, so their combat radius is only about 1800-2600 kilometers.

Simply put, fly any further and you’ll run out of fuel...

This is also the significance of aircraft carriers in the Outer World, aircraft carriers are the forward base for carrier-based aircraft.

But now, equipped with the T2 type nuclear-powered reactor and anti-gravity device, the Qing Shan Ship can fly further in the sky.

This time Chen’s Southern Fleet deployed only a dozen fighter jets, and in a small-scale war, this is already a significant investment.

However, the Qing Shan Ship can carry sixty carrier-based fighter jets, and eight airships, flying back and forth overhead...

Now across the entire Federation, there are four consortiums with Aerial Fortresses, except for Deer Island.

This is why Li Bingxi risked his life to obtain Qing’s Nuclear Research Laboratory and nuclear power plant, not because of an energy shortage, but because they needed the advanced technology from these two infrastructures.

Otherwise, Deer Island would always be lagging behind and getting beaten in the aerial domain.

From another perspective, those from Qing’s Family who made deals with Deer Island have gone insane, they clearly understand this decision can change the Federation’s balance, yet still abandon the clan’s overall interest for immediate factional benefits.

They’ve sent the technology of the Aerial Fortress away.

But, none of that matters, what’s important for Chen is they didn’t expect to encounter an Aerial Fortress here.

Prior to this, Li showed no signs of getting involved in this war.

Just yesterday, diplomatic aides of Chen in the 18th city personally visited the Li’s Secretariat for discussions.

The main purpose of this discussion was to communicate whether Li would interfere with their friction with the Shadow.

Li’s answer was: no.

Actually, the people in Li’s Secretariat didn’t lie, they indeed had no connection with the Shadow, whatever vendetta Chen had with the Shadow was irrelevant.

But wanting to kill Li’s independent director and future advisor, that’s not acceptable.

Of course, Chen wouldn’t unilaterally believe Li.

After all, when interests are involved, it’s normal for a consortium to go back on their word.

So they laid out a lot of reconnaissance points along Li’s borders to monitor the movements of Li Clan’s Group Army.

Results from military reconnaissance also proved that Li indeed showed no signs of military mobilization.

But who would’ve thought that Li didn’t move the Group Army at the borders, they directly deployed the Aerial Fortress!

Just a day has passed, and the Aerial Fortress has flown over!

Chen’s Heaven Ship Aerial Fortress is still on standby at the border with Qing, but Li has come to sneak into their territory!

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