What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 135 Can’t Say

Although he was well prepared, the final sinking of the Civilization still made Tang Wen shudder.

Especially the scene at the end where the ship was torn in two and sank, it was an unforgettable scene.

The sinking of the Civilization was not an accident; Tang Wen had already thought about it before confirming the battle plan.

Except for Halsey, the other hundreds of uniformed crew members could only watch from afar and could not contact them. It would be difficult to explain after returning to the port, not to mention that the captain was a real foreigner.

A few hours ago, he had tacitly agreed to the final exit method, but he still didn't expect it to be so violent.

The 12 victories, although most of them were small boats, were still a great harvest, at the cost of 6 reconnaissance planes crashing into the sea in a storm and the last one being attacked as a kamikaze.

This attack earned him 16 silver coins and more than 2 experience points, which made up for Tang Wen's deficit in one go. Compared with that, the salvage fee was nothing.

As long as more than 10,000 silver coins are paid, the brand new Civilization and Halsey will immediately appear in the port, but Tang Wen does not intend to do so. He first maintains the fact that the Civilization has sunk.

The final location is in the sea near an unnamed reef, with a water depth of less than 100 meters. The wreckage will lie in the sea before being recovered.

Tang Wen's brain was working rapidly, thinking about how to deal with the follow-up so that he could land smoothly. Suddenly, he heard a dense "click" sound and the light of spotlights outside.

He quickly put on his clothes and pushed open the cabin door, then saw a helicopter suspended in the air in the drizzle, constantly shaking its spotlights. The military-grade spotlights were extremely bright and could almost cover half of the deck.

Under the light, another helicopter appeared, slowly lowered its altitude, and landed on the deck at night with the help of extremely limited lighting. Then three or four figures quickly jumped out and dispersed. The helicopter then pulled up and returned to the air again.

Several people who came down to the deck held colorful indicator lights in their hands, ran around in a rectangle, held up the light sticks and shook them continuously, guiding a Mi-8 helicopter to land on the deck.

The noise of the turboshaft engine was deafening, and the airflow it created disrupted the path of the raindrops, hitting Tang Wen in the face.

The latter vaguely saw the logo on the surface of the helicopter and immediately understood.

I still underestimated the appeal of the aircraft carrier. If I arrive by helicopter at this time, I'm afraid I will have to fly all night non-stop to get here!

He quickly went down from the island to the deck, and ran to the front of the helicopter just in time to see an old man who was not tall but had bright eyes, wearing a shirt on his upper body, military pants and leather shoes.

The accompanying secretary hurriedly opened his umbrella, but it was pushed away by a wrinkled hand because it blocked his view of the island.

"Is this my aircraft carrier?"

……

Island, navigation bridge.

Sitting in the spacious command chair, the old man enjoyed the pleasure of acquiring an aircraft carrier and asked Tang Wen, who was standing beside him with a look of admiration:
"You said you wanted one billion?"

"Um, actually I..."

Tang Wen stuttered when he spoke, not only because of the special agents watching him closely, but also because of the noble status of the old man in front of him.

He had originally thrown out the word "one billion" to attract attention, and was expecting a bargain, but before he could explain, he was interrupted:

"The inspection team will be here soon. Payment must be made within three days at the latest. The Navy wants this aircraft carrier!"

Old Zhang, who was standing by, with raindrops still on his flowing hair, quickly advised:
"This ship has only been preliminarily inspected, and no functional testing has been conducted yet..."

“When can it be carried out?”

Several pairs of eyes were instantly focused on Tang Wen, who then looked at Li John outside the cabin, and the latter immediately became the new focus.

Tang Wen: "This is a former mid-level Chinese officer on the USS Kitty Hawk. He is very familiar with aircraft carrier operations."

"The Hornet is complete," Lee said without hesitation. "It now has one-tenth of fuel left and can sail 1000 nautical miles. But I need at least 300 crew members to start it, and more than 30 related mechanics to test the catapult."

"Give."

The old man spoke briefly and then looked at Yan Jian beside him:

"Is there a naval base nearby? Dispatch crew immediately!"

"Yes!"

Then he looked at Lao Zhang and said, "I remember the catapult research team in Han City studied the catapult on the Melbourne, right?"

Lao Zhang: "I've already notified them. The flight is scheduled for this morning."

……

Early in the morning, Xu Lili found Nie Qiang in the hotel restaurant.

She had hoped to find Tang Wen, but he didn't seem to have disembarked, and there had been no news since. The noise of the helicopter had also woken her up last night, and she had called the cameraman back to work to try and film, but the rain and the nighttime footage were blurry and largely unusable.

The aircraft carrier that came out yesterday scared them, and then they learned that the aviation regiment had withdrawn a lot of people to go up, and then only two planes and three pilots came back.

Where did the aircraft carrier come from and what happened?
However, when Nie Qiang heard Xu Lili's doubts, he did not answer them but sighed and muttered:
"What a pity, what a pity."

"What's a pity?"

Nie Qiang probably knew what had happened, but didn't dare to say it.

It’s a pity because yesterday might be his only chance to come into contact with this aircraft carrier. The next time might be when the Hornet is decommissioned or opened to the public.

Xu Lili couldn't get any information and looked at Liu Dongfang next to her. He acted as a radio operator yesterday, but he just had a look of nostalgia on his face and didn't say anything.

In the end, she could only place her hope on Lei Zhan, who also said with a look of annoyance:

"If I had known, I would have gone back and landed. I can try the F4F. The arresting cables are still there. I can definitely do it. There will be no chance now!"

Xu Lili was furious when she found herself surrounded by riddlers. She stood up angrily and called the photographer to start filming, but was stopped by Nie Qiang:
"You'd better not go, don't take any photos, and don't tell anyone."

"Why? Everyone has seen such a big aircraft carrier."

As soon as Xu Lili asked back, she heard the sound of helicopters coming from outside. Several Mi-8s and French "Gazelle" appeared in the sky, looking for a place to land.

At the village entrance, which she could not see, the guard immediately perked up when he heard the sound of a car. He was holding the railing and preparing to stop it when he saw the leading green Pajero stop and the soldier who jumped out showed his ID.

Although in theory all vehicles need permission to enter, the old man wisely "disobeyed the order" and decisively threw aside the iron pole used to block the road and counted the military vehicles entering.

"One, two, three... I can't count anymore!"

Besides off-road vehicles, there were more trucks. Groups of crew members on shore leave jumped out of them. They were just wondering about the sudden emergency assembly order when they saw the majestic... aircraft carrier?!

The Hornet was towed into Dayuan Port by a tugboat. As soon as Tang Wen got off the boat, he saw a long queue on the pier, all of them were sailors who came to support.

These were basically sailors on shore leave, but none of them felt resentful about the interruption of their vacation. Instead, their faces were shining with extraordinary brilliance, and their eyes kept looking at the aircraft carrier and unfamiliar people they had never seen before.

Lao Zhang stood on the gangway, holding up a loud speaker and shouting:

"As you can see, this is a brand new aircraft carrier. You are required to operate it and conduct tests. The risks and challenges are great!
Is there anyone who cannot participate and needs to withdraw?"

"No!"

The answers were in unison, and no one wanted to miss this opportunity.

At the same time, several off-road vehicles stopped on the shore. Several officers in uniforms with stars on them trotted over and gave Lao Zhang a bear hug when they saw him.
"You did a great job, a great job! The South China Sea Fleet wants this aircraft carrier!"

As soon as the voice fell, an officer next to him jumped up:

"You're talking nonsense! The intensity of the confrontation is so high, and we in the East China Sea are the ones who need it the most."

"The South China Sea is so vast and there's not even a single aircraft carrier, so why would we need one in the East China Sea, which is so close?"

"The 051B at the shipyard was given to you, and the 052 was allocated to the North Sea Fleet. This time it's the East China Sea's turn!"

"Don't do anything, go up first!"

Seeing that a fight was about to break out in front of hundreds of people, Lao Zhang hurriedly persuaded the two men to go onto the aircraft carrier, and then wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Tang Wen: "..."

In fact, apart from Tang Wen, almost no one was willing to get off the aircraft carrier.

The old man is 80 years old and is about to retire. He cherishes the aircraft carrier in front of him very much.

No matter what the origin of the Hornet is or how much it costs, it has already entered the territorial waters and we must get it no matter what.

In Jiangcheng, a group of special researchers arrived at the airport and boarded the flight in two teams.

These are researchers of the preliminary research technology of the first generation of domestically produced steam catapults.

The domestically-produced aircraft carrier is still a long way off, and all we can do is study the existing catapult technology to prepare for the future. However, there is probably no one in the country who knows how to use steam catapults better than them.

They were not clear about the purpose of the trip and were only asked to bring the data left over from the survey of BS4 ten years ago.

(End of this chapter)