At eleven o'clock in the evening, 20 nautical miles north of Rota Island.

In the warm waters, the Jiao-232 submarine rose and fell in the ocean, and the periscope poked out of the pressure-resistant control tower, flickering left and right, and only after confirming that there was no enemy situation did it begin to move slowly eastward. The captain was very careful, because this is the Philippine Sea, the deepest ocean in the world. As early as 1899, the British water-patterned ship was 110 kilometers east of Nailo Abyss, measuring a depth of 9,660 meters. In 1929, the U.S. Navy measured a depth of 9,814 meters, and in 1935, the Chinese Navy survey ship also measured a depth of 9,427 meters. And from 1920 to the present, three submarines of the Navy have lost a trace in this sea.

Just as Jiao-232 began its night patrol, three other submarines around Rota Island also dispersed in all directions at the same time.

Originally, there was a squadron of Japanese troops defending Rota, but after the surprise attack on Guam, all of Saipan's attention was on Guam, and he actually forgot to strengthen the defense here. As a result, after the heavy patrol formation sent the main force of the 1st Marine Division to the island, it found that the Japanese troops on Rota Island had not increased, so they took 1,500 marines and engineers to complete the landing in Song and Song in only four hours, and then cleared it in four days. It is a pity that the Japanese army has not built an airfield on the island at all, and the machinery and equipment brought by the heavy patrol formation and the quick-drying cement have already been transported to Guam, so the landing troops can only clear the open space for the time being. However, the Navy still built a field mobile radar station on the island as quickly as possible, so that as long as Saipan's planes flew together, Guam could be quickly informed to prepare in advance.

The task of the submarine is to protect Rota Island before the arrival of the main force and to monitor the Japanese ships from shelling the narrow island. Jiao 232 is the No. 33 ship of the Black Shark class, which resembles an XXI-class U-boat, and is painted in black throughout. The double-hull hull, cigar-like streamlined shape, with a crew of 60 people, eliminated the deck guns used by all countries, and installed only two low-drag twin 25mm turrets. 1,700 tons on the water (2,300 tons underwater), 18 knots (17 knots) on the water, 13,000 nautical miles / 10 knots (300 nautical miles / 5 knots underwater), six torpedo tubes are all in the bow (24 bombs), a sea radar and an air radar (both effective distances of 10 km), as well as an active sonar (effective range of 4100 meters) and a passive sonar. The battery, the static electric motor and the shock-absorbing rubber raft technology for the engine all came from pre-war Germany and were produced in-house after domestic improvements.

The Black Shark is the Navy's newest workhorse submarine and the first to be built modularly. The whole ship is divided into ten parts, which can be manufactured by scattered throughout the country and finally assembled at the shipyard by rail or sea. The average construction period is seven months, and the slipway takes only 81 days. It was finalized in 1936, but it took two years for the Navy to complete the integration of various factories and the standardization of spare parts, so the official mass production did not start until the beginning of 1938. Of the 48 ships ordered in the first batch, 36 were delivered, and an additional 160 ships were ordered after the start of the war.

After 10 nautical miles to the northeast with a snorkel, the captain ordered the engine to be turned off. Although the German shock absorption and sound reduction technology is good. However, the engine's own noise still affects the sonar. "Raise the radar to search the sea surface, release communication buoys, sonar! Be vigilant. The captain handed over the periscope to the first mate to continue the surveillance and walked to the sonar room. The sonar room is the most important place in the boat. All of them are made of soundproof materials, and in addition to the cipher machine and sonar console, there is also a sea and air radar console. Because they are all classified equipment, the sonar chief is the only officer on board the ship who can openly wear a pistol. Even food and accommodation are here.

As soon as the radar was raised from the control tower and turned on, the non-commissioned officer operating the radar exclaimed: "Sir! Look! "Hear a voice. The captain who had just arrived at the door was also startled by the light spot on the radar screen, and immediately shouted: "Quick, calculate the distance, report the number of targets!" ”

"Tubes 1 to 6 are pressurized! The battery is heated (the battery needs to be heated before the electric torpedo of the World War II is launched), the snorkel is retracted, the hatch is checked, and the dive is prepared for a minute. ”

"Prepare a telegram."

"Turn on the battle lights! Left rudder 7 degrees, ready for battle. ”

"1, 2, 3 report, 12 targets have been found, azimuth 012, distance 6500 meters, speed 25 knots, it is expected to enter the visual range in three minutes! I heard it, and the sonar picked up the target. Oh my God, are these guys playing suona? "As soon as the radar soldier finished reporting the detection parameters, the listener almost wanted to take off the headphones. He can't be blamed for this, the Japanese Navy has no anti-subconscious consciousness at all, the engine does not do any shock absorption and noise reduction treatment, which is like in China, even the patrol frigates of the National Guard hate to install shock absorbing springs under the engine.

"Keep the periscope depth, bow level, and all quiet! Sonar, providing coordinates and velocity. ”

"4500 meters into the visual distance!" At the same time as the sonar chief reported that it was within visual distance, several black dots jumped into the periscope. Jiao 232 encountered the Japanese Fifth Fleet from Saipan, due to the frequent activities of the Chinese Navy's submarines, several ships were sunk one after another, so after leaving the anchorage, Kondo Nobutake ordered to maintain a minimum speed of 25 knots, and also carried out several large Z-shaped changes in a row.

The captain was careful to operate the periscope, because the Japanese Navy was very capable of night warfare, especially the legendary "cat's eye". To this day, the naval intelligence department does not know how many "cat's eyes" there are, and the Japanese Navy has always praised Youhao, which has become the most mysterious and hot topic among sailors over time. It is said that the lookouts who can become "cat's eyes" have excellent eyesight, can spot ships 10 kilometers away in the middle of the night without moonlight, and are said to have to undergo special training every day and eat a variety of animal eyeballs to nourish them.

What to eat, what to make up, anyway, ordinary sailors think so.

"3500 meters! Sir! The first mate pinched the stopwatch, his cheeks were covered with hot sweat, and the sailors around him were also holding their breath. No. 1 and No. 3 torpedo tubes are ready and so on! The captain was just about to give the order to launch a torpedo, and the sonar chief immediately called out to him: "Captain, there are two new targets entering the radar, and the reflection intensity is very strong!" "The current radar cannot distinguish the type of target, but the radar soldiers have found that the larger the target, the greater the reflection intensity, so they have gradually summed up a set of methods to judge the size by the reflected electromagnetic wave intensity.

By this time, the captain had already identified at least two light cruisers through the periscope. Then the goal that is bigger than the light patrol is swallowed by everyone's saliva. The captain was also excited, you must know that everyone has been searching for the Japanese main fleet for the past few days, so after thinking twice, he decided to postpone the attack: "Five degrees of left rudder, speed of 3 knots, let me see what is behind." ”

Ten minutes later, a total of 21 ships of the Japanese Fifth Fleet headed south from the right side of Jiao-232, the nearest destroyer was less than 500 meters away from the submarine, and the listeners could even hear the shouts of Japanese soldiers on the deck. The dense human head made the captain regret not firing for the first time. But after a minute, he forgot his frustration, and two big guys at least 180 meters in size chased after him from behind.

"Heavy patrol, definitely heavy patrol!" Although it is impossible to see the model accurately at night. But the captain, who had gone through all the hundreds of photos of the Japanese ships, recognized the kind.

"Count!"

"Heading southwest, distance 5,700 meters, speed 25 knots, angle."

"4000 meters, 3200, 2800, 2500, 20001 No. 3 launch!" Due to the high speed of the target at 25 knots, the captain held back until two thousand meters before giving the order to fire a torpedo. Without waiting for the light sound of the cabin to end, he ordered again: "Turn right one degree, No. 2 and No. 4 will be launched." ”

"Put away the periscope! Dive fifteen degrees! Calculate impact time! "As soon as the four torpedoes were discharged, the captain immediately withdrew the periscope, and the submarine made an emergency dive at an angle of 15 degrees. The first mate and sonar chief hold the armrest with one hand. Hold the stopwatch on one side and calculate the torpedo impact time. The Jiao-232 carried a 550-mm electric torpedo of the Yu-7 type, which used a reliable trigger fuse compared with the G7ET1 developed in Germany. It has two larger battery packs, a maximum range of 5,000 meters/30 knots, and a 230 kg thunder head.

The Navy did not develop oxygen torpedoes, but focused on electric torpedoes. The advantage is that lead-acid battery torpedoes, like oxygen torpedoes, have no track, and the disadvantage is that the current battery technology is not very perfect. The range is short and slow, and the torpedo temperature must be maintained for a long time, and the battery must be heated again a few minutes before launch to achieve the best effect. 30 knots is 800 meters per minute, and counting the amount of advance, it takes three minutes for the torpedo to hit the target. This is the longest three minutes, and the sailors are even worried about being discovered by the "cat's eye" to avoid it. But it turns out that the "cat's eyes" of the Japanese Navy are no longer adapted to the technological warfare of the new era. "5, 4, 3 boom!" Before the hands could be zeroed, a loud bang came from outside the hull, and the listener even had to pull off his headphones to avoid the noise. Without waiting for the sailors to get excited, a second explosion followed.

It was Jizaburo Ozawa who sent reinforcements and hoped to lure out the heavy cruiser Suzuya of Pan Duheng. As the third ship of the highest rank, the Japanese Navy, which withdrew from the naval treaty earlier than history, aimed at the Taiwan Island-class heavy patrol at the beginning of its design. You must know that the exception in the naval treaty that year, the Taiwan Island-class heavy patrol was once a nightmare by the treaty heavy patrol of various countries with a standard displacement of 13,000 tons, because 3,000 tons of armor is not so easy to wipe out, so after withdrawing, Japan immediately set the goal of surpassing the Taiwan Island-class (originally wanted to build a bigger one, but there was really no money). So now the standard displacement of the highest level is 13,520 tons, equipped with five twin 203 mm / L50 naval guns, and four twin 127 mm high-level dual-purpose naval guns.

But it was such a frugal heavy cruiser, but after the start of the battle, it did not fire a single shot, and was hit by two torpedoes on the port bridge and amidships in succession.

The sea was already completely chaotic, the rapid alarm bells and the shouts of sailors came and went, and the bow of the sister ship Kumano on the outside accelerated to avoid deflection, and even the Fifth Fleet, which was opening the way ahead, was startled, and the two destroyers immediately turned on their searchlights and turned around and rushed forward.

"It's Suzuya!"

"China submarine, turn on the searchlight and search the sea! Depth bomb preparation. ”

Nishimura Shoji grabbed the hatch and shouted loudly to remind him of the anti-submarine essentials. Nobutake Kondo behind him narrowed his eyes even more, last time he was planted in the submariner and lost two troop carriers, but he didn't expect that this time even the Suzuya was not spared.

There is still a big gap between the power of the Yu-7 and the Japanese army's 93 oxygen torpedoes, but after hitting two in a row, the Suzuya, which is not low but not high, is still not spared. A fire broke out on the deck, and hundreds of tons of seawater poured into the hull, and the captain of the ship, Masasa Kimura, had to order the water to be balanced, and then rushed towards Rota with a full deck of flames, trying to sail the grounded frigate, but it eventually capsized an hour later in the shallow sea northeast of Rota.

The destroyer, turning back, began to throw depth charges at the surface of the sea. The successive explosions on the door of the brain made the sailors of Jiao 232 hang their hearts. But I have to say that the anti-submarine capability of the Japanese army is really poor, and perhaps the main focus is on high-speed lightning strike tactics, so it has not been equipped with sonar so far. When Jiao-232 floated to a distance of three nautical miles at a speed of five knots and released a communication buoy, the Japanese destroyers were still blindly dropping bombs, leaving the submarine captains and sailors dumbfounded.

"Speed up, we must send the army to the island." Nobutake Kondo didn't want to delay here. The explosions and fires would certainly attract more submarines and warships, so he had to speed up and get the army to Guam quickly. Just as he left. After receiving the telegram from Jiao 232, the heavy cruisers Xi'an and Fuchunjiang, which had been cruising southwest of Guam, began to speed up, and in the afternoon, the heavy cruisers Wuhan and Changsha, which were pretending to rescue Agrihan Island and were turning back, also increased their speed to 32 knots at the same time.

"Vice Admiral, the Suzuya has been attacked by the Shina submarine." Soon after the Suzuya was attacked, the Haruna in the northeast of Pagan Island received the news.

Chief of Staff Ryunosuke Kusaka listened. Jumped up in a hurry: "What about the loss?" Can it be saved? ”

"Daisa Kimura is trying his best to save." After the staff officer said the news that the patrol was on fire and preparing to run aground on the Rota Island frigate, the officers of the Southern Fleet looked at Jizaburo Ozawa, who was silent, with extremely unnatural faces.

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Ozawa was an outlier in the Japanese Navy, where he studied with Kantaro Suzuki, the world's number one torpedo warfare expert at the time, but then became obsessed with airplanes. Throw yourself into the arms of the aviation faction and run to study aviation tactics. However, due to seniority and other issues, he first lost to Nagumo Tadaichi in the southern offensive strategy, and later lost to Tsukahara 243 in the competition for the commander of the 1st Air Fleet. Even Yamaguchi Tawen, a junior, surpassed him, and was finally sent to the semi-idle job of staying in the Yokosuka Naval Guard's Office. Fortunately, after realizing the importance of aviation in the Ryukyu Naval Battle, Yamamoto finally remembered that there was such a "senior" expert at home when he chose the commander of the Southern Fleet.

Ozawa knew that everyone wanted the main force to attack immediately. But he hesitated and couldn't make up his mind. It's not that he's timid, it's that this trip is too dangerous! Although he had two Kongo-class battleships and four aircraft carriers. But King Kong has no advantage over Beijing, and four aircraft carriers are also problematic. The Akagi and Kaga lost a large number of elite pilots during the Battle of the Ryukyus, so the two ships had only 41 zero battles, 56 ship explosions, and 36 ship attack planes, a total of 133 combat aircraft, which were temporarily transferred from the country. The Longxiang has 32 zero-combat and 8 ship-blasters, and the Xiangfeng has 10 zero-combat, 12 ship-blasters and 8 ship-attackers, totaling only aircraft. On the other hand, according to pre-war intelligence, the Liaoning-class aircraft carrier was 94 and the general-class aircraft carrier was 60, with a total of 214 aircraft. Moreover, the Battle of the Ryukyus showed that the anti-aircraft firepower of the Shina Navy was very strong, and the planes were also more powerful than those of Japan, so a frontal attack was completely uncertain. The only hope was Saipan's land aviation, so he let the Fourth Fleet stop east of Guam, and let Kondo Nobutake attack, using the Fifth Fleet and Saipan Army Aviation to attract each other, disperse the planes, and launch a winning attack.

The current situation is that the aircraft carriers of both sides are already near Guam, and they are waiting for the other side to be exposed first. "Maybe I'm overthinking. But I believe that the Chinese fleet is nearby, waiting for us to be exposed. Ozawa said with a solemn expression: "That kind of pressure is really a little breathless, I believe that the people of China must have prepared an aviation attack plan, so we can't take the initiative to expose it." ”

Ryunosuke Kusaka was taken aback: "Your Excellency Commander! Kondo's Fifth Fleet urgently needs our support, and if you are worried about the air power of Shina, you can let the Haruna and Kirishima attack, and only the battleships can deal with the heavy cruisers in Shina. ”

Ozawa still shook his head, walked to the chart and pointed to the Yaeyama Islands, staring at his new chief of staff: "Three days ago, the battleships Beijing and Nanjing in China entered the Philippine Sea from here under the protection of the sea and air. Judging by the direction of the voyage, they did not form with the aircraft carrier. If we had been advancing at a speed of 26 knots, we would have been in the darkness of our west. If I let Haruna and Kirishima go to support Kondo-kun, who will be able to stop them? ”

"Your Excellency!" Kusaka didn't look down on Ozawa very much, thinking that he didn't have the confidence to win, so he said angrily: "We have four aircraft carriers, and we also have the ground aviation support of Saipan, no matter what aspect it is, our army currently has an advantage!" I think that if the battleships are dispatched, it will be more attractive to the Chinese to attack. As long as the Shina fleet appears, it will be a good opportunity for our generation to establish martial arts, wash away the shame of the Ryukyus, and drive the Shina people back to the mainland. ”

"Is that what you think?" Ozawa's eyes grew cold, and he glanced at the officers around him: "Do you think the same way?" ”

The officers hung their heads and said nothing, but the look on their faces betrayed them. "The Empire has already sacrificed eight capital ships, so I will be responsible for His Majesty the Emperor's capital ships until the victory opportunity appears!" Ozawa turned his head coldly, the saber stomped lightly on the deck, and said in a dull voice: "So, before I find the Shina aircraft carrier again, I will not give the order to attack even if the Fifth Fleet is destroyed!" ”