"Here, take it."

On the heavy cruiser USS Taiwan Island, 220 nautical miles west of Pagan Island, Chen Shiying pushed open the door of the captain's cabin sideways, holding a snack in one hand, two teacups in the other, and a telegram folder under his arm. "Taste, Ningbo Zhao has a big pastry, I specially asked people to buy it before leaving." After putting down the snack, he pushed the plate in front of Bingwen, who had not slept all night.

"Well, it tastes good." Bingwen picked up a piece of dim sum, tasted two bites, saw the document next to the plate, and asked, "What is this?" ”

"I almost forgot." Chen Shiying handed the document to Bingwen and began to make tea for himself: "Submarine No. 227 reported that Bai Fu'an had an exchange of fire with the Japanese Fifth Fleet 30 kilometers off the coast of Ajana directly north of Guam, and the battle is currently ongoing. According to the submarine sonar, a strong explosion was heard, presumably the ship's ammunition depot was hit. But it must not be us who exploded, otherwise Bai Fuan's kid would have shouted and reported it a long time ago. He handed the tea over and walked to the window with his cup in hand. Outside the portholes, the battleship Beijing and its sister ship Nanjing, as well as the heavy cruiser Hainan Island, the light cruisers Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and six Qinling-class destroyers, twelve warships lined up in a diamond-shaped formation, and were heading east at a high speed of 28 knots.

"Didn't Ozawa put in the battleship?"

"No trace of the Japanese battleships was found, only two heavy cruisers took part in the operation tonight. One of them has been confirmed to have run aground and capsized on the north side of Rota Island, and more than 300 people were caught by marines after landing on the island, and the whereabouts of the captain Masafuku Kimura are unknown. Chen Shiying stirred the coffee. After many years in Ou, he liked this kind of thing that could both refresh and relieve fatigue, and said: "It seems that Ozawa's gambling is not big, so it is better to command you and directly use the battleship as bait." ”

Bingwen is not used to drinking coffee. I prefer the bitter Pu-erh tea. laughed and scolded: "Are you praising me or sarcasm me?" This time I'm holding my head up. If there were any more bruises, Commander Chen would have to chop me. He said it was serious, but he didn't really care. For him, battleships, aircraft carriers, are just tools of war to achieve their goals. As long as it's worth it, he will do it even with a battleship to cover a fishing boat.

After thirty years of friendship, Chen Shiying certainly knows his temper and laughs without saying a word. Walked over to the table and took out another telegram: "Look at this again, from the General Staff, we have companions." ”

"Companion?" Bingwen was stunned for a moment, immediately opened the telegram, and looked solemn after reading it. Because the telegram says. The Strategic Intelligence Agency discovered that the USS Saratoga, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier group that had announced that it was sending fighter jets to Wake Island five days earlier, had not arrived on time. ”

"The officer who led the troops was called Halsey, and he was the most active warfighter in the U.S. Navy. In addition to the USS Saratoga, there are two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, four or five destroyers, and more than 600 marines in the formation, and I guess they should be coming straight to our side! Chen Shiying's words were a little uneasy: "These Yankees are really going to do something." In terms of time, Halsey should have been close to Marianas. I'm now worried that the scout will find the wrong target after dawn. ”

"You say, Roosevelt wasn't afraid that Ozawa would kill Halsey?"

"Afraid? Hum! I'm afraid Roosevelt would have personally sent a few cannonballs to Yamamoto Isoroku so that he could sink Halsey. Bingwen gradually calmed down. The uninvited arrival of the US aircraft carrier formation was indeed a surprise. But five days ago it was learned that the Saratoga was sending fighter jets to Wake Island. He was ready to deal with the situation, so he didn't panic, and said coldly: "Don't worry, the Saratoga is very different from the Japanese aircraft carrier. You shouldn't be able to go wrong. ”

Chen Shiying continued to ask: "I heard that Roosevelt's election prospects are not good, and whether he can be re-elected or not is questionable. Why still send a fleet into the theater of operations? Does he want to follow our example and go straight into the wartime bills? Politically, Bingwen can't guess it, but militarily it's obvious: "When I used to learn chess, my husband said it." Fall and hand over the troops, play chess like a battle, take the corner to kill the dragon, abandon the game to seize the momentum. It is said that playing chess is like a battle, killing the dragon first to take the corner, and it is better to abandon the first move than to seize the momentum first. The United States is now lagging behind us, but the southwest is one of the most important interests in the Pacific, and at least it must maintain its presence and strive to regain the momentum, so the possibility that he wants to land on the island cannot be ruled out. ”

"Landing on the island? How bold is he? Chen Shiying was taken aback.

Bingwen said: "You underestimate the Americans, they have always done things first and then started talking. Who is not good in the Kimmel faction, but let Halsey, a notoriously hardliner, come here, do you think he is here for a vacation? If Japan wins this battle, and nothing is mentioned, Halsey will definitely turn around obediently. If we win, I'm afraid there will be a moth and ask to enter the port of Apra to refuel and take shelter from the wind. ”

Chen Shiying's face stiffened, as the saying goes, it is easy to please God, and it is difficult to send God, if you really let Halsey find an excuse to enter Apra Port, God knows what trouble will happen. You must know that on the side of the League of Nations, Guam is still a legitimate US trust territory. Seeing that he was anxious, Bingwen smiled: "Don't worry, as long as we don't die this time, I will personally go to meet Halsey when the time comes." ”

Chen Shiying still felt uneasy, and muttered: "Hey, it's all because we didn't think it through, Yang Guochang suffered too much loss that time, and he would have prepared for a few more months before he started." ”

"A few more months of preparation, and you'll be able to make sure you take Guam easily? Now the Japanese army on Guam is the weakest, only a few thousand defenders, if it increases to tens of thousands, and then builds some fortifications, who would dare to say that it will win without ten times the cost? It really costs ten times as much, and it's enough for us to build a few aircraft carriers. It's not worth it to spend so much money on Japan. Bingwen rolled his eyelids and put down the cup. Pushing the dim sum to the side, he spread out the chart and asked, "Okay, don't talk about that." Tell me, where are the ships now? ”

"Bai Fu'an is north of Guam, and the Wuhan and Changsha are rushing to converge southwest of Saipan. The White Ki is located 80 nautical miles southeast of us, about 137 nautical miles from White Fuan, and 150 nautical miles from Guam. Pan Duheng took the Anton and Sun Bin 80 nautical miles behind us. You see, judging from the navigation chart, the heavy patrol formation is at the front, and we, Bai Qi, and Pan Duheng have formed an inverted "pin" shape, and the distance between the two sides is about 80 nautical miles. Based on our experience in exercises over the years, the maximum visual distance of an aerial search is about 50 nautical miles, so unless he is particularly unlucky, Ozawa can only see two of the three of us.

According to the plan, after dawn, we will first dispatch seaplanes and reconnaissance planes to Pagan Island and Guam to search and stand by. The engines of Japanese fighters did not work. Climbing to an altitude of 7,000 meters should reduce the chance of being spotted. Then the White Rise attacked Saipan airfield to support Guam, and it accelerated south to Guam, continuing to widen the distance between it and us. Then I will ask Bai Fuan to take the initiative to take three heavy cruisers to deliberately move closer to the Baiqi, which can not only strengthen the Baiqi's air defense capability, but also lead the Japanese aircraft over. Pan Duheng will also ask the Sun Bin fighter squadron to disguise itself as a dive bomber (the lightning can carry 250 kg of bombs) and make a detour to the direction of the Baiqi to attack Pagan Island, and take the initiative to expose us. He hid behind himself.

Saipan was the only large Japanese airfield in the vicinity that could support Guam at close range, and according to previous intelligence, the island was basically filled with army fighters and bombers, with no torpedo planes and few dives. So Ozawa must be saved. Since there is no way to determine whether the White Rise is one or all three, he needs to guess from the number of bombers we have sorted. First of all, he certainly did not know that all three of our aircraft carriers were overloaded, so according to the convention, we could only make a maximum of 80 dives. Therefore, the Bai Qi will dispatch 30 dives and 18 lightnings, and the 20 lightnings supported by Sun Bin will first hang bombs to pretend to be dive bombers, so that it looks like there are 50 dives. At least the amount of two aircraft carriers! Secondly, both Longxiang and Xiangfeng are light aircraft carriers, with no more than 30 attack aircraft, and they cannot deal with our "two aircraft carriers". So he can only choose one of us and the white starter direction. Judging from the fact that he did not put into battleships tonight, he was also afraid of losing the capital ship again. Unless he discovers the Anton first, our battleships will not put much pressure on him. Therefore, it is most likely to attack the White Rise with all its might, and even if it makes a mistake, it can at least sink one.

Just see the direction where the enemy aircraft appeared. The reconnaissance plane will be able to search along the way, and at the same time, Pan Duheng will also take off early. Follow behind. I have roughly estimated that Ozawa will never be more than two hours away from Guam, so it will take about an hour for the Japanese carrier-based fleet to attack the Shiraki from the time it is discovered by us. At that time, even if we realized the mistake and turned around immediately, we could run 60 nautical miles. Add to that the reverse maneuver of the White Rise, and it will take at least another hour to find us. Two hours is enough for Pan Duheng to find Xiao Ze's main force! However, we must be prepared to deal with the pressure of losing the White Rise, and this side must also resist the land aviation of Saipan first, and also meet the attack of a wave of carrier-based aircraft. Chen Shiying threw away his pen and said with a smile: "So, either the two of us will learn from Yang Guochang to teach, or we will go back and invite Halsey to drink coffee." ”

"I'll pick the latter one." Bingwen smiled confidently: "How long will it take to get to dawn?" ”

"About forty minutes." Chen Shiying looked at his watch: "The aircraft carrier should be preparing to take off." ”――

North of Guam, fighting continues.

The explosion of the Ryuta made the Japanese Fifth Fleet feel as if it had been beaten up, and Venus was running around on its head. Because there is no radar, Bai Fu'an on the opposite side deliberately makes the interval of the salvo completely inconsistent (when you can't look directly at night, you can measure the trajectory and distance by the muzzle flame interval), and the warship is constantly maneuvering to avoid it, so they must close the distance first. "These cunning Shina people!" Kondo Nobutake's face was gloomy, standing in the command tower with his saber in hand, and he nodded to Nishimura to launch a lightning attack.

High-speed lightning strikes are the best tactics of the Japanese Navy, especially after the appearance of the terrible 93 oxygen torpedo, if there is no radar, I am afraid that the world will not be able to find a naval general who dares to face the Japanese lightning strike and does not change color. After years of exploration and development, the Japanese army's lightning tactics have formed a lot of routines, for example, after Kondo gave the order at this moment, nine destroyers immediately rushed out of the formation, with their own side as the starting point, the bow direction of the Xi'an ship as the end point, and one by one superimposed to the left at the same time to launch an arc assault, each of which kept a distance of one kilometer from the previous one. If you look at it from the sky, it looks like nine left arcs, layered on top of each other, very neat. At the same time, the three light cruisers, the Kumano heavy cruiser, four destroyers, and five special cruisers of the formation remained parallel to the Xi'an, and the bow was tilted ten degrees, and the artillery attack was carried out while closing the distance.

This most conventional night assault may seem simple, but it is actually a great test of coordination, and when the local formation and the assault cluster close to a certain distance, they will shoot torpedo fans from both directions at the same time. If there is no radar and does not know about oxygen torpedoes, Bai Fuan will suffer 100%, because Kondo's Fifth Fleet can simultaneously fire 180 oxygen torpedoes of more than 50 knots, this number is extremely scary. Moreover, Japanese destroyers are generally above 37 knots, or even more than 40 knots, on the other hand, the Xi'an and Fuchunjiang are only 33 knots at the highest, and even the two Qinling-class destroyers are only 36 knots.

But relying on radar, Bai Fuan quickly spotted the Japanese destroyer that had assaulted. "Left full rudder. Let Fuchunjiang and the destroyer plug behind the port side of our ship and get ready to deal with the destroyer. Rush Alert! Turn left after a minute 287 scales. Sailing, how long is it going to dawn! ”

"Thirty minutes!"

"Control the time, as soon as the day dawns, the secondary cannon will immediately change to the bomb!"

Bai Fu'an was hoarse, the alarm sounded, and as soon as everyone grabbed the fixed object, the nearly 20,000-ton battleship suddenly deviated to the left, and all the objects fell to the left. The inertia is so great that it even feels like the spine is being forcibly pulled apart. An unnoticed cook in the bilge pulled open the door to the cold storage. He was thrown into cold storage, and the shelves of pork, vegetables and fruits buried him. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he struggled to crawl out with a pile of sausages around his neck.

After the completion of the turnaround, the bow of the fleet was changed from north to south, but the Japanese fleet was striking at high speed in the opposite direction. So the Fifth Fleet, which was aiming at its original position, could only waste shells in the stern of the Xi'an.

"Report distance."

"Sixteen thousand kilometers."

After getting the distance figures, Bai Fuan did not immediately order the shelling, but shouted out another set of numbers: "Baseline, 26 knots / 12,000 meters." ”

Maybe some people don't understand, what does this "26 knots/12000 meters" mean? In fact, it is very simple, this is the distance he assumed his speed and the Japanese army launched the 93 oxygen torpedo. After learning that Japan had developed a top-secret high-speed torpedo, I don't know where to get the drawings and data. The Navy summoned the best lightning captains and officers to study the means of dealing with them. Finally, from a series of deductions and exercises, it was estimated that although the range and speed of the oxygen torpedo are terrifying, the maximum effective launch distance is actually only 10,000 meters, beyond which even if the speed is as high as 50 knots. It is also difficult to hit a ship with a speed of more than 25 knots, prepared. Therefore, Bai Fuan assumed that after launching the torpedo at 12,000 meters and its own speed was 25 knots, the navigation department calculated the time and evasion data according to the benchmark. This calculation is very complex. Including the stall that had just turned sharply, the arc range of the Japanese destroyer increased. The speed of pursuit, the speed of the torpedo, the width of the sector area after launch, the estimated time of the collision, and so on. For example, a Japanese high-speed destroyer can close 373 meters per minute (26 knots target), 1333 meters per minute after a torpedo is launched, 640 meters per minute when pursuing a target, and four minutes to avoid a torpedo fan. Seeing that some people here will say, why do you calculate so much? Wait for the Japanese destroyer to get close to 10,000 meters and run away. It's a pity that naval warfare is not like this, the navy is a purely offensive service, and 10,000 meters is just the time for the battleship to exert its best firepower, unless there are special factors, the first consideration of the captains is to destroy the other party as much as possible before evading, rather than being chased by others all the way to escape.

This is the most realistic navy under the current technology! It's not a game from the computer age. So it has been said that the navy of this era is the real navy, a group of men driving a steel fortress composed of gear bearings and various parts, relying entirely on their minds and precise calculations, to complete a series of tactics, bloom their lives between life and death, and seek a chance to seal their throats with a sword.

In less than a minute, the navigator handed over the calculation data to Bai Fu'an: "We have twenty-five minutes, and the evasion margin is set at ten minutes!" ”

"Reduced to 26 knots, turn right 130 scales after fifteen minutes." After Bai Fuan finished reading it, he took the initiative to slow down and turned his head and shouted: "Guns!" ”

"Understood! Fifteen minutes. After the gunnern got the number, he immediately responded loudly and reorganized the shelling by telephone: "Fifteen minutes, normal speed, enemy formation No. 1 target, open fire!" "The gunner didn't choose to fire at full speed, after all, it was an abnormal state (three to four rounds per minute), otherwise there would have been no shells in less than half an hour. And Bai Fuan took the initiative to slow down, hoping that the artillery could hit more accurately and destroy a few more. The efforts of him and his soldiers were not in vain, and after the resumption of the attack, only the second volley was fired, and several flames appeared in the darkness opposite.

The outermost Japanese Yura Light Patrol and the Kumano Heavy Patrol behind were hit by the Tomiharu River at the same time.

As a light cruiser, the Fuchunjiang cannot be compared with the Xi'an, but its twelve L55/155mm naval guns are not fancy, and when firing 60 kg armor-piercing shells, the maximum range is more than 23 kilometers, and the rate of fire is ten rounds per minute. So when the Xi'an was still recalibrating, it had already spilled five rounds of shells and hit the decks of both ships, although it could not cause fatal damage, but it could cause flames.

Kondo was most depressed at this time, because it wasn't until Bai Fuyan reopened fire that he realized that the target had turned. "Electric detective, definitely electric detective!" The Japanese Navy, which missed the opportunity to develop radar, finally tasted the bitter fruit. But he couldn't conjure the radar immediately, so he had to order the destroyer to turn around with the main formation. At this moment, a fire broke out on the aft deck of the Yura, and it turned out that 155-mm shells hit several bundles of rope ladders that had not had time to be put away. A fire in a night battle is fatal for any warship, because the flame becomes the best coordinate for an optical rangefinder! However, this also allowed the Kumano to escape, because it was dark and it was impossible to distinguish the specific models of the two ships, so the gunners chose the light cruiser with a larger flame and easier to aim, instead of the Kumano in the back.

Yura instantly became a cannonball magnet, and in just four minutes it was hit by seven 210-mm armor-piercing shells and thirteen 155-mm shells, the entire deck was blown to pieces, the bridge was pierced by shells, even the mast fell, and the port side waterline was even opened by armor-piercing shells with two large holes. Although Kondo ordered the Yura to retreat urgently, the cruiser finally sank in the deep sea 56 kilometers north of Guam after holding out at sea for an hour.

When Bai Fu'an achieved the second victory of the night, he turned the muzzle of the gun to the Fuchunjiang of the Japanese destroyers, and also cooperated with the two Qinling-class ships to damage three Japanese destroyers in a row. But at this time, the Xi'an and Fuchunjiang also received a few shells, and the latter's No. 4 turret was hit by a 203-mm armor-piercing shell from the Kumano and lost its effectiveness. At this time, the time for evasion was almost up, and the alarm bell was about to ring, and he, who was worried about becoming the "second Yura", decisively stopped the attack and prepared to retreat.

But at this moment, he received a telegram from the seaplane of the Taiwan Island (when the fleet's radio is silent, the transmission of information is usually carried by the seaplane radio).

"Move closer to the aircraft carrier?!" If it weren't for the communications staff officer repeatedly confirming that the telegram flagship had been sent, I'm afraid he would have thought it was fake news. Because the sky is about to dawn, he believes that Kondo will call for aircraft support as soon as the day dawns, so at this time, he is close to the aircraft carrier, isn't he exposed? You must know that the matter of the Heilongjiang desperately protecting the aircraft carrier in the Battle of the Ryukyus has long been spread throughout the country, so after the captains found the enemy plane, they all hated to take the plane to the sky, how could there be any reason to take the aircraft to the aircraft carrier? !

"Captain, thirty seconds left!" The navigator saw him stunned and reminded him loudly. "Fight! Notify all ships to evacuate Guam waters immediately. Turn right for 210 ticks and maneuver towards the aircraft carrier! Pay attention to the approaching destroyers and prepare the deck for air defense, "Bai Fuan didn't know what the commander meant, but an order was an order, and immediately ordered the warships supporting the Marine Corps to retreat, and at the same time the battleship turned sharply again.

"Look, it's dawn!"

When the Xi'an and the three partner ships drew a huge arc, and Kondo Nobutake and the Japanese Fifth Fleet shook off again, a hazy white light slowly rose under the sea level to the east.

If you stop time, you will find that at that moment the Japanese destroyers have fired the first torpedo salvo, Ye Zishan and the airborne troops have reached the last line of Japanese defense in the town of Yonah, the marines have occupied the long-coveted Agania airfield, and dozens of warhawks are already less than ten minutes away from Guam, Saipan and Pagan.

It was dawn, and the twilight that haunted the eagle finally dissipated. The game of who will take the initiative in the Southwest Pacific will become clear in a matter of hours.