Chapter 217: The Interstellar Siege

A vast expanse of star systems was ceded to the Silk Civilization.

This also meant that the Silk Civilization officially possessed a bridgehead.

They would use this as a springboard to penetrate deeper into the Federation.

And they didn't wait long.

Approximately 400 years later, to be precise.

The Silk Civilization launched another invasion.

This time, they moved with astonishing speed, even planning to catch the Federation off guard.

However, there were too many detection devices in the deep space within the Federation, and these anchor points foiled the Silk Civilization's plans, slowing their advance by as much as 20 years, which was longer than expected.

As a stronghold of the Federation, the star field was well aware that the Silk Civilization couldn't afford a protracted battle.

A prolonged fight would only give the Federation time to catch its breath, so a swift and decisive strike was necessary.

This time, the Silk Civilization's attacking fleet numbered as many as 1.5 million ships, which could be described as putting all their resources into the battle.

Despite the enormous number of ships, they didn't spread out the battle lines as they had done before. Instead, they simultaneously attacked six nearby star systems, positioning themselves to support each other.

After all, having fought with the Federation for so long, they realized that the Federation's transfer speed across vast distances was incredibly fast, while their battleship movement speed was relatively slow over shorter distances.

This significantly influenced the Silk Civilization's battlefield judgment.

It also affected Yan Xia's plans.

"The Silk Civilization's invasion depth has become more constrained, which is advantageous for us."

"Let's mobilize all the spaceships and surround them."

The Silk Civilization's fleet was dispersed, and he had a tactic to counter this.

However, at this stage, it was better for them to be gathered together.

Yan Xia didn't have any additional tactics.

Given the high level of civilization across the vast expanse of the universe, a tactic like the previous ambush was already considered extremely impressive.

Most of the time, space warfare doesn't involve overly complex tactics; the simpler, the better.

...

Seventy years later, the Silk Civilization's fleet simultaneously entered six star systems, not giving the Federation any time to react.

Over the years, the Federation had been gradually evacuating its citizens to the rear, so there weren't many citizens in the star systems at this time.

It could even be said that they were willingly giving up these systems.

Whether the Silk Civilization was overjoyed or wary of Yan Xia's intentions was unknown.

However, twenty years later, their encirclement was finally complete.

The speed of the spaceships was actually much faster than that of the battleships.

Due to their smaller size and the Federation's advanced propulsion technology, some smaller spaceships could reach speeds of up to 38,000 km/s.

This meant that in less than eight years, a spaceship could travel a distance of one light-year, which was previously unimaginable.

This high speed also allowed them to quickly reach their designated positions and surround the Silk Civilization.

In an interstellar siege, one must consider not only the front and back but also the left, right, up, and down, so it's not an easy task.

To truly surround the enemy in a 360-degree, comprehensive manner is what can be called a real siege.

Fortunately, there were enough spaceships.

Even though there were enough spaceships, they couldn't cover the entire area.

After all, they were trying to besiege six star systems.

Even if these six star systems were very close to each other, there were still several light-years between them.

Therefore, these spaceships had to minimize their range, shorten the distance between each other, and prevent the Silk Civilization's battleships from having the ability to group together and break through the siege.

This required the spaceships to have a certain degree of stealth.

So Yan Xia specifically allocated some funds to interconnect the energy of the spaceships, allowing for unlimited energy transmission between them at close range. This energy connection would make the spaceships act as a whole, using this energy to form a hidden state within the spaceship cluster.

It utilized the simulated radiation formed by the roaming energy.

Various types of radiation exist in the universe, and this radiation makes the vacuum not a true vacuum and also prevents any place in the universe from being at absolute zero temperature.

Hiding in the universe, like becoming invisible, is incredibly easy.

However, if you hide from light, there is still the issue of not being seen by light, the natural entropy increase and non-natural entropy decrease of objects, the gravitational pull of objects, and the influence of objects on their surroundings. All of these factors can lead to discovery.

The hiding method of these spaceships is cosmic microwave mimicry, using energy transmitted infinitely between each other to simulate and achieve a hiding effect while also avoiding excessive energy waste. These mimicked energies, due to their clear transmission direction, are received and reused by the spaceships in the transmission direction.

The only drawback is that this hiding method isn't that strong; it's just a bit more advanced than ordinary hiding methods and far from reaching the level of a 'wall.'

But Yan Xia doesn't need them to have a very strong hiding attribute. They only need to be able to do this, as long as the encirclement circle is reduced to within five light-years, then the encirclement is successful.

Yan Xia's fleet was at a relatively distant location, and he observed the movement of the spaceships at this time through Ella's simulated calculations.

There were dozens of holographic images in front of him, each showing a different process and result, and these were the most likely outcomes.

They were played over and over again.

"So our focal point is here."

"Although our encirclement circle is smaller, it's not extremely small, and this is that point."

"If we exceed this point, we won't achieve the desired effect."

Once the encirclement circle is reduced to a sufficiently small size, the Silk Civilization will directly attack the encirclement circle, and they will use wide-range weapons. Due to the higher density of the spaceships themselves, wide-range weapons will destroy an excessive number of spaceships.

At this point, in terms of cost, it's a win for them and a loss for us.

Yan Xia needed these spaceships to launch an attack before reaching this critical point, allowing the Silk Civilization to observe that they were being besieged.

The Silk Civilization's subsequent response would be to choose a direction to break through the siege, and based on the movement of the Silk Civilization's fleet, they would make adjustments accordingly.

The speed of the spaceships was no longer much slower than that of the Silk Civilization's battleships, and with the added advantage of distance, at this critical point, the Federation's spaceships needed to act faster.

Yan Xia could only wait for the Silk Civilization's move, as there were too many possibilities, and he couldn't know in advance what the Silk Civilization was going to do.

The Silk Civilization's decision-making was certainly based on the most perfect analysis of supercomputing, which was the most headache-inducing aspect for him.

Although civilizations like the Olive Branch Civilization hadn't developed human wisdom, their computational power was actually much higher than that of the Federation.

Yan Xia also understood why the Olive Branch Civilization didn't develop human wisdom. After some thought, he realized that the life of the Olive Branch Civilization itself was human wisdom.

This is easy to understand.

Since the Olive Branch Civilization is a mechanical entity, how did they increase their number of lives to the terrifying level of tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions?

The real reason is that a large part of the lives of the Olive Branch Civilization are not true lives transformed, but creations from the very beginning.

However, these creations are endowed with thoughts, emotions, values, and other rights just like the other lives of the Olive Branch Civilization. In this situation, the Olive Branch Civilization doesn't need human wisdom because if they had human wisdom, how would ordinary lives be separated from human wisdom?

This is like the Federation giving some robots the status of federal citizens while another group of robots chooses not to, which would inevitably lead to contradictions.

Even Yan Xia hasn't seen the true form of the Silk Civilization's life, which leads him to speculate that the Silk Civilization may also be a mechanized civilization. It's even more difficult to analyze how a mechanized civilization thinks.

Yan Xia waited.

Waiting for the Silk Civilization to react.