Intended to be the supreme commander of the "Nighthawk", Qin Bing's landline was the last to be fueled" When he walked down the ladder and got off the plane. There were already two base staff officers waiting for him on the ground

"Lieutenant Colonel, it's been a hard journey."

The two staff officers stood upright and saluted, both of them looked at each other, although the engine had not yet turned off, covering their voices, but Qin Bing could still see the excitement of the two.

Yes, the "Vulture" heavy bomber can indeed bring a strong visual impact, which is not comparable to a medium bomber, and the country that can create such an air giant is its own motherland, and no matter who will be proud of it. The excitement is light, I think that at the beginning, when Qin Bing led the pilots of the squadron to the aircraft factory to receive the bombers, many people cried, and that night, Qin Bing even made an exception to allow his subordinates to drink to celebrate the entry of this heavy bomber into service.

"On duty in the middle of the night, the two of them are also hard. Excuse me, where do we rest? When did the attack start? ”

Qin Bing reined in his mind, stood upright, and returned the salute. Then ask out loud.

A staff officer pointed to the aviation control tower in the distance and shouted a few times: "Lieutenant colonel, let's go over there and talk." ”

Qin Bing nodded, and at this time, the pilot who stayed on the plane finally began to turn off the engine, and soon, the runway was quiet, and a group of sweaty ground crews rushed over, and pushed the last episode of the "Vulture" bomber to the tarmac out of breath.

The pilots were all arranged by the staff officers to stay at the airport to rest, but they were also told that the attack was likely to start immediately, so it was impossible to sleep, and they could only eat and rest in the dormitory, and of course, black tea and coffee were enough.

Qin Bing followed a staff officer to the aviation control tower, where he met Meng Fei, a temple figure of the air force.

Meng Fei is now resting in the dormitory of the aviation control tower, although he missed the post of "commander of the air force task force", but his mood is still high, after the "vulture" flies, he can't sleep, Qin Bing heard Meng Fei's hearty laughter from a long distance, and when he walked into the aviation command tower, he realized that Meng Fei was joking with the officer on duty.

Qin Bing and Meng Fei had met a few times before. And Meng Fei also flew the "Vulture" at the Gansu Aviation Base Meng Fei is no stranger to this kind of heavy bomber, but due to the principle of secrecy, he can only discuss the fierce appearance of the "Vulture" with his subordinates until now, and just now, the joke he made was actually about the "Vulture". It is true that the silhouette of the "Vulture" is rough and wild, but it does look a little ugly, and it is far less beautiful than the latest fighters.

Seeing Qin Bing walk into the command room, Meng Fei greeted him, shook hands and exchanged a few words, and then introduced Qin Bing to those colleagues, all of whom were basically middle and senior officers, and there were many common topics, and now, they were all very interested in the "vulture", if they were not on duty, they might have rushed to the tarmac to watch the excitement like everyone else.

Of course, concern is concern, but the specific performance of the "vulture" cannot be discussed at will, the aircraft's speed, ceiling, combat radius, bomb load, these are all military secrets, no matter how big Meng Fei's mouth is, he does not dare to talk nonsense, and he is not clear about some performance data. Only a "vulture" commander like Qin Bing knew everything about this heavy bomber.

One thing is clear, though. That is, the "Vulture" can carry a special aviation torpedo, and this alone is enough to be proud of the Far East.

The reason why the officers knew that the "Vulture" could carry torpedoes was very simple, because just a few days ago, a batch of aviation torpedoes had been secretly transported to the Dengzhou Air Base and were now stored in an underground warehouse, and Qin Bing followed the staff officer to the aviation control tower precisely to extract this batch of torpedoes so that they could be immediately mounted on the plane. For safety reasons, the "Nighthawk Force" transferred to Dengzhou empty, only loaded with machine guns, and all bombs and torpedoes were transported to the air base by train, and now they may receive an attack order at any time, and Qin Bing plans to load the bombs and torpedoes on the "vultures" in advance

This special torpedo is codenamed "Lobster" on military documents, it is an air-dropped light torpedo, manufactured by the Hanyang Arsenal, although the core components of compressed air cylinders and power cylinders are imported from Germany, but most of the parts are made by China itself, this torpedo still uses a more conservative cold compressed air power, rather than the emerging thermal power, which limits the speed of the torpedo, but also limits the range of the torpedo, at a speed of twenty knots, the range of the torpedo is five hundred meters, and at the maximum speed of thirty knots, the range of the torpedo is only 200 meters, but for an aviation torpedo. This range is acceptable, after all, if the torpedo is too heavy, the "Vulture" bomber will not be able to mount, and now this "Lobster" weighs only 700 kilograms, and the "Vulture" can be easily mounted, although the torpedo is relatively light, but due to the fact that the diameter of the projectile reaches 14 inches, and the use of a flat-headed war mine head, it can carry 50 kilograms of high explosives, even for heavy warships, it is a big threat.

It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the design, the "lobster" torpedo took into account the requirements of fighting in the shallow sea area, this torpedo has a kind of wooden wings that can be easily disassembled and installed, and if it is necessary to use it in the shallow sea combat area, this kind of wooden bomb wing will be installed, so that when the torpedo is dropped from the plane, the new site of the station has been changed to: please read after the light! You won't go headlong to the bottom of the sea. However, it is not an easy thing to use this torpedo, Qin Bing's "Nighthawk Squadron." Qin Bing and some pilots rushed to Hainan Island to conduct a few days of scraping exercises using two "vultures" composed of technicians from the aircraft factory in the local area, and gained valuable experience in air-dropped torpedoes, but this experience was obtained by the method of catching ducks on the shelves, and it was not very reliable, Qin Bing has always been worried about this, although after returning to Gansu, they used wooden torpedo models to conduct intensive training. But it was a simulated exercise on the Gobi Desert, and it felt a little different from the practice on the ocean.

Originally, Qin Bing planned to use the time before the war to practice with airdropped torpedoes after coming to Dengzhou, but his idea didn't seem to work now, because Meng Fei told him that the date set by the center for the start of the war was today. Now that you may receive an order to attack at any time, it is impossible to have any time to practice.

But then again, Qin Bing's biggest concern now is not the torpedo airdrop problem, but the "Nighthawk No. 2" squadron, according to the flight plan, the "Nighthawk No. 2" squadron should land at the airport within half an hour after the "Nighthawk" squadron arrived at the Dengzhou Air Base, but now, seeing that the time has passed, he still did not hear the roar of the engine in the night sky. Qin Bing was a little worried that the "Nighthawk 2" might not be able to catch up with the first wave of attacks, and in that case, the effect of the first wave of air force sorties would be greatly reduced.

Meng Fei was also worried, standing in front of the telegraph, anxiously waiting for news. With the "Nighthawk." The same squadron, the "Nighthawk No. 2" squadron also has a special communication liaison aircraft, which is also a "vulture" The difference is that this "vulture" will not be loaded with bombs and torpedoes, this special communication liaison aircraft is only equipped with a radio station, and a copper wire is pulled from a strut at the top of the upper wing to the tail, this is the radio antenna, because the wireless telegraph machine of this era is very cumbersome, if it is loaded with bombs, it will seriously affect flight safety, so the concept of "communication and liaison aircraft" appeared, In fact, the "vulture" commanded by Qin Bing was a communication and liaison plane, and it was also a command plane, and the plane was loaded with a lot of signal flares to command the bomber formation.

Finally, the radio received a telegram from the "Nighthawk 2" communication liaison plane, and due to a storm on the way, the bomber formation had to make a detour, and it was expected to reach the sky over Dengzhou in 15 minutes.

Meng Fei breathed a sigh of relief, and the officer on duty also hurriedly ordered to go down and let the ground crew prepare to clean up the runway.

While the ground crews were busy refueling the iron oil drums on both sides of the runway, a sedan came speeding up and stopped at the side of the aviation control tower, and several officers jumped out of the car, led by Jiang Dengxuan, commander of the Air Force Task Force.

Jiang Dengxuan hurriedly walked into the command room with Chief of Staff Su Shiyu, and showed the telegram transcript in his hand, with a serious face.

"I have just received an order from the Commander-in-Chief, China has declared war on Japan. From now on, the war has broken out. ”

Meng Fei took the transcript of the telegram. He glanced at it hurriedly, and then excitedly read out the contents of the telegram word by word.

"War has broken out. I ordered the Air Task Force to be ready, and all planes must be ready for battle before dawn, and at six o'clock in the morning. Let's get started! ”

Everyone in the command room held their breath and listened carefully to the orders on the telegram, except for Meng Fei's voice for a moment. All you can hear is the ticking sound of the clock on the wall.

Is there really going to be a war? Many people asked themselves in their hearts as they looked at the transcript of the telegram.

In modern times, China has been caught in the flames of war many times, every time the war between China and foreign countries is launched by foreign countries, Britain, France, Japan, Russia, almost all the world powers seem to have declared war on China, and basically the first shot is fired by foreign troops, China is always passively facing the war, as a restrained Oriental country, China seems to have not adapted to the international rules of the game in this era.

The rules of the game in any era are formulated by the strong, and the strong is often the one who dares to shoot first, and the reason why Japan launched the First Sino-Japanese War was because Japanese politicians believed that Japan already had the qualifications to be strong.

Now, the Sino-Japanese war that has broken out in the legal sense will be shot by China, does this mean that the Chinese have the confidence to be the strong man of the international game?

Meng Fei watched Jiang Dengxuan take back the telegram, and then turned his head to look at the wall clock, the time above it was already five o'clock, and it was not very far from the time when the attack was launched.

"Everyone, don't be stunned. Get ready to load bombs and torpedoes. The raid was on the Japanese military base and military port in Lushun and Dalian. Our Air Force must show China's confidence. ”

Jiang Dengxuan didn't say much, but the meaning was very clear, as the commander of the Air Force Task Force, he was trying to stabilize his emotions, after all. The first shot of this Sino-Japanese war will be fired by his troops, and for this alone, his Jiang family will go down in history.

"Lightning" will be made by the Air Force forces.