Of course, Kenri Sato couldn't convince Suiichiro Sanada and Hideki Tojo. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The reason is not only that Sato's idea sounds ridiculous, but more importantly, that this is only Sato's speculation, and there is no evidence that the Chinese army is capable or willing to attack Manchuria. Even the activities of the Chinese and American submarines in the Yellow Sea and the annihilation of the Japanese Tsingtao fleet can be interpreted as preparations for an attack on Okinawa...... As Sanada Suiichiro said, this is actually preventing the Japanese army from transferring troops to Okinawa and isolating Okinawa!

So Sato Ken had no choice but to stop there, in fact, although he was worried about this, he was not very sure.

The reason why he thinks so is that he knows that the Chinese army's combat intentions cannot be so simple.

What Sato Ken didn't expect was that he guessed correctly again, but unfortunately he didn't insist on this aspect and didn't do much preparation...... This is not something he can decide, Hideki Tojo still thinks that the next step of the Sino-US coalition will be Okinawa, so he is still desperately trying to strengthen the defense of Okinawa.

And on this night, the Chinese fleet covered a large number of transport ships in the dark of night and passed through the Miyako Strait again to the East China Sea.

The Miyako Strait is a strait between Miyako Island and Okinawa Island, which is more than 300 kilometers wide, and can almost be said to be the strait through which most of China's coastline ships enter the Pacific Ocean...... In modern times, this strait is regarded by the Americans as an important blockade zone of the first island chain.

This is feasible in modern times, and as long as anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles are deployed on Miyako Island and Okinawa Island on both sides of the strait, the sea and air space of the strait can be easily blocked strategically as long as anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles are deployed on Miyako Island and Okinawa Island on both sides of the strait.

But in this day and age, Japan is not able to do that.

To be precise, Japan could have done this by deploying land-based fighters on both sides of the strait and blockading the strait with warplanes.

The problem was that at this time, Japan's air power was not even sufficient for self-protection, and the Japanese fighters were completely inferior to the Sino-American coalition forces in terms of both the advanced level and the quality of pilots, so the Japanese army gave up the idea of blockading the Miyako Strait...... If the Japanese do this, the fighters they use to blockade the Miyako Strait will undoubtedly become the target of the US "Hellcat" fighters.

In this case, the Chinese fleet covered the passage of a large number of transport ships through the Miyako Strait.

It is worth mentioning that in order to achieve better transportation and operations, the United States has also equipped the Chinese fleet with a transport ship called the "Victory Ship," which has just left the factory.

Forty-three years ago, the United States used "free wheels" for transportation...... It's ugly, but it's almost a representation of America's industrial power, because between '41 and '45, the U.S. military built 2,751 liberty ships and used them on the battlefield or for transportation by allies around the world.

This speed of construction, especially in '43, reached a peak, and it can even be described as "crazy...... Sometimes five ships can be launched in a day, three of which are "free ships". The fastest record was just 28 hours from laying the keel to launching the water.

The words Americans use to describe this speed are succinct: "It's in the water, the paint hasn't dried yet!" ”

Because of this terrible speed of production, the Pacific theater was full of "free wheels...... It was produced at more than three times the rate of being sunk, and most of these sunk were in the Atlantic, that is, in the direction of the United Kingdom, because Japanese submarines were known to disdain to fight merchant ships.

In fact, it is still quite dangerous to use submarines to hit these "free wheels", because these transport ships are not without the power to fight back...... They were armed for the needs of war.

For example, the "Liberty Wheel" has a main gun in the front and rear, two anti-aircraft guns and six or eight machine guns.

Moreover, these main guns, anti-aircraft guns and so on, are all operated by trained professional soldiers, if any submarine thinks that this merchant ship is easy to bully and send out the surface to shell it...... Then the submarine will be miserable, and it will most likely be sunk by the transport ship instead.

The "Victory Wheel" is an upgraded version of the "Freedom Wheel".

This upgrade is mainly in firepower and speed.

In terms of speed, the speed of the "freewheel" has changed from 11 knots to 17 knots.

Eight anti-aircraft guns were added to the firepower, because as the Japanese line of defense at sea rose to 17 knots, it was easier to get rid of the pursuit and attack of submarines, so the greater threat to the transport ships came from the air.

This time, the Chinese fleet brought 15 "Victory Ships" in one go, and these "Victory Ships" carried a large number of tanks, guns, ammunition, personnel, fuel, and other supplies...... This also includes 100,000 "Springfield" rifles. (Note: One "Victory Wheel" can carry about 100,000 rifles or 440 tanks.)

One of the convenient points is that the Chinese army does not need to transport bullets separately for these "Chuntian" rifles, because the "Chuntian" rifle and the "M1" rifle use M1906 rifle cartridges, but the "Chuntian" rifle uses a single shot and the "M1" rifle is a whole magazine.

The pace of this march was relatively slow, in order to take care of the speed of the "Victory Ship" at 17 knots, so the Chinese fleet was still sailing in the East China Sea during the day the next day.

However, the Chinese fleet was not worried about being discovered by the Japanese.

On the one hand, this was due to the fact that Mariana and Iwo Jima continued to bomb and blockade Okinawa in order to cooperate with the actions of the Chinese fleet, which made it impossible for the Japanese troops on Okinawa to carry out reconnaissance of the surrounding waters.

On the other hand, the fighters of the Chinese fleet also frequently take off and open a warning zone under the command of radar, and any enemy aircraft that enters this warning zone will be shot down mercilessly.

Of course, there is also a danger that it may be discovered by Japanese submarines.

In this regard, the Chinese fleet cannot guarantee, although destroyers are constantly patrolling around the fleet, but submarines are often not so easy to detect, so to a certain extent, it depends on luck.

Later, Zhang Chi found that in fact, the worry about the Japanese submarines was superfluous, because most of the Japanese submarines were engaged in a struggle with the US military in Philippine waters...... This was the main battlefield of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and the Japanese hoped to use submarines to hold off the American fleet as much as possible and prolong the time for the American forces to turn their attention to the Japanese mainland.

At this time, Japan still did not break out of the erroneous thinking of submarines hitting aircraft carriers.

Or rather, they have recognized this by this time, but it is too late. (To be continued.) )