The thoughts became clearer as Fatty's suppressed anxiety and anger mounted. Hanfrey was not in a hurry at all. He knew that this Fatty would soon compromise and concede. Before long, he would be able to return to his own fleet. Although he had lost this battle, it hadn't reached the point of total ruin.

"Just you wait!" Fatty hesitated for a long time, finally throwing down a vicious sentence before preparing to turn and leave.

"If I were you, I would have my prisoners send a message to their fleet," Hanfrey said sincerely just as Fatty reached the door. "Especially since he mentioned his fleet would take action within an hour."

"You think I'd believe that?!" Fatty snorted arrogantly and shut the door.

More than ten minutes later, just as a faint smile appeared on Hanfrey's lips, the heavy iron door of the holding cell was opened, and several soldiers hurriedly escorted him to a room equipped with communication instruments.

Upon entering, Hanfrey immediately saw the furious Fatty.

"Tell your fleet to stop immediately. Otherwise, I'll tear the hostage apart!" Fatty's small eyes darted nervously, sweat beading on his forehead. On the long-range viewer screen before him, the Binart Battleship was slowly moving.

"No problem....." Hanfrey walked to the communication screen, input the communication identification code, and under the watchful eyes of the guards, commanded the Binart officer appearing on the screen to cease action. He then turned and gave Fatty a gentle smile, saying, "They will wait another hour."

"I want the Feiling Fleet..." Fatty paced around the room, lowering his demands as Hanfrey expected: "You take your Feiyu Fleet and leave. Do not enter the Longbow Star System, and prevent any Western Alliance Fleet from pursuing us. This is my final bottom line!"

"General Tian, your demands are simply outrageous." Hanfrey shook his head and said in a tone as non-provocative as possible, "Even if I agreed to such terms, the fleet wouldn't. The most I can do is add five battleships and ten cruisers to my previous promise. This is the greatest sincerity I can offer."

"You......" Fatty was so angry his face turned blue, about to burst into a tirade when the door to the room opened and Carl stormed in, whispering a few words in his ear.

Fatty quickly left. Hanfrey, under escort by the guards, returned to the holding cell. All the way, he kept wondering what could have caused that Fatty's expression to change so dramatically.

******************************************************************************

"How was my acting?"

Carl, walking into the surveillance room with Fatty, asked Fang Xiang smugly, "How much longer will it take over there?!"

"Three hours." Fang Xiang rolled her eyes at Fatty.

Margaret averted her gaze, unwilling to see Fatty's complacent expression. At this point, she had to admit that Hanfrey was already caught in Fatty's trap. This Fatty might be on the verge of achieving a miracle even greater than capturing Hanfrey—capturing the entire Hanfrey Fleet!

From the moment the potential to capture Hanfrey was discovered, Fatty never intended to let any Binart Battleship go. After capturing Hanfrey, everything proceeded according to this Fatty's plan.

First, to ensure that the Hanfrey Fleet didn't enact an extreme forceful rescue plan, he had the Douglas Fleet abandon the peripheral battle, join forces with the Bandit Army Fleet, and form a defensive formation to stand off against the Hanfrey Fleet. Thus, the Hanfrey Fleet could neither swallow the Bandit Army Fleet whole nor prevent the Bandit Army Fleet from breaking through at a critical moment.

Second, Fatty needed to buy time. Because he had to wait for the Russell Fleet to arrive!

To be honest, Margaret was immensely surprised to know Leray still had a fleet. Although according to Fang Xiang and Carl, Russell led the fleet during the Leray Coup, enduring countless hardships and near-death experiences to break through and eventually had to hide deep in the Bermuda Star System after losing most of its ships, reconnecting with the Bandit Army only now. However, based on Margaret's intuition, the fleet led by Russell was clearly not just a bunch of remnants from Leray.

Fatty's always been peculiar, and this time, he must be deceiving again!

It's important to know that Margaret was thoroughly familiar with the military situation of the Fei Alliance nations. To her knowledge, with the sacrifice of Schneider and Brown, the main force of Leray's fleet ceased to exist. Even if they temporarily cobbled something together, it couldn't be of significant scale. In Fatty's plan, without a fleet of considerable strength, it wouldn't be possible to pose a threat to the Hanfrey Fleet strong enough to force its surrender!

The third step, and also the most crucial point of the entire plan, was to stabilize Hanfrey.

Since the advent of the ancient Earth military rank system, capturing the commander has never been a surefire way to win a victory. In modern military, although the death or capture of the highest-ranking officer affects the entire army's morale, a complete command system would naturally identify someone to take over command. This applies to both upper and lower echelons.

Therefore, modern warfare's decapitation strategy usually involves taking out the entire opposing command post, supplemented by a comprehensive assault to finalize it. The aim is to catch the enemy at the moment they lose command and coordination, forcefully breaking them with an overpowering attack, compelling their collapse. If the enemy is allowed to leisurely establish a new command system, then no matter how precise the decapitation, it yields no effect.

Fatty leveraged the special relationship between Hanfrey and the two Elephant-class Royal Fleets. However, he had to ensure that until the Russell Fleet arrived, the Binart Fleet neither launched an attack nor withdrew.