After confirming the weather conditions in the target sea area for the last time, the captain of the ship, Colonel Zhu Tiansen, finally gave the order to allow takeoff, and at this time, the aircraft carrier's engine power was fully opened, and the four steam turbines were driven, and the bronze giant propeller made the aircraft carrier sail against the wind at a high speed of 317 revolutions per minute.

After receiving the captain's order, he turned on the red light early, and when the deck wind reached its maximum, he put down the red light held high, and Lieutenant Commander Tan Gen, who was in the first row, saw this and slammed the accelerator and taxied the reconnaissance plane to the take-off line to wait for his next order. Finally, after the white light was raised, he eagerly put it down, this was the order to take off, he immediately opened the throttle to the maximum in a radial manner, and in the roar of the engine, the plane moved forward along the deck indicator light, and the speed became faster and faster, because of the relatively light fuselage, the plane was lifted and flew by the oncoming rapid air flow less than a hundred meters away.

Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen flew 300 meters along the original course before turning right, and then pulled up and circled over the aircraft carrier to wait for the planes behind. In fact, this does not have to wait long, without the use of catapults, the standard interval between aircraft taking off is 30 seconds, he only needs to wait in the air for more than 10 minutes, in fact, for the attack group, the real trouble is that those bulky torpedo planes fly too slowly, fortunately, this time the target sea area is already within 150 kilometers, even if these bulky torpedo planes are accommodated, it will not be delayed for long.

One by one, the planes took off on a signal platform eight meters above the flight deck. Colonel Zhu Tiansen watched them form and then fly north, and at this time the deck was empty. The ground crews began to put the three reconnaissance planes that had not made a sortie on deck, and they were about to take off for patrol - for the aircraft carrier. There are two times of the day when the ship is most dangerous, one is dusk, when the background of the setting sun can easily reflect the hull of the ship, and then there is dawn, except for the sunrise factor, just after a night of sailing, the unfamiliar sea that you have reached is full of all kinds of dangers.

"Did you contact the cruiser?" As soon as he returned to the command tower, Zhu Tiansen asked.

"Contacted." The Communications Officer replied, "Confirmation from them was received as well." ”

"It's a mule or a horse, and this time it's going to be walked." Xi Dingmo looked at Zhu Tiansen, who was a little uneasy. Said with a smile. "Maybe we really sank four Japanese ships."

The two joked, 150 kilometers to the north, Rear Admiral Liu Guanxiong, the acting commander of the cruiser fleet, who had not slept all night, felt more and more that it was a great mistake to not leave last night and wait for aircraft support, but the big mistake had been made, and whether he could escape from the encirclement or not depended on luck. At 3:40 a.m., under his order, the four ships Haichou, Haichen, Zhaohe, and Yingrui left the waters of Beidadong Island, which had been staying all night. The formation sailed south, and in order to take care of the Haichen, the speed of the formation was only fourteen knots.

Although the sunrise is 4:44, there will be more than half an hour of morning and dusk before sunrise in the summer. This means that there will be a glimmer of light after four o'clock. Liu Guanxiong, who was in the Haiqiao Command Tower, looked around blankly, and he didn't know what he would encounter after dawn, he only saw that the moon had gone down. The stars also began to blur, and the sea was getting darker. And the dark sea seems to be boundless, which makes people feel uneasy. At this time, Major General Liu Guanxiong suddenly remembered that night ten years ago. At that time, the Haitian was also traveling at such a high speed, and then there was a loud 'bump', and the entire warship rushed forward, and the stern of the ship was also violently cocked, and he hit his head against the wall at that time, and then he realized that it was hit by the rock.

'I won't run aground again. Liu Guanxiong couldn't help but think, and then exhaled angrily.

When Liu Guanxiong exhaled his bad breath, Tan Gen, who was at a height of thousands of meters, had already seen the glimmer of light in the east, the time had reached 4:03, and the sky became very bright after suddenly darkening, this was a good weather with good weather with few clouds, and the blue sea under him that had not been seen for a long time could finally be shown in front of everyone's eyes at this time.

"Sir, there is no mistake in the direction, we are about to reach the target sea area. They should be heading south in formation at a speed of fourteen knots. The navigator, who was sitting behind him, reminded.

It was inconvenient to answer, Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen just pulled the flight altitude to 700 meters, and then used the swing wings to inform the group of planes behind him. It was a large formation of one fighter laugh, one squadron of dive bombers and torpedo bombers. Unlike reconnaissance planes, which fly at an altitude of 1,000 meters, torpedo planes are not only slow but also fly low because they are carrying 450-kilogram 457mm torpedoes, and in order to accommodate them, the altitude of the entire formation is only 700 meters.

The sky was getting brighter and brighter, and the color of the sea was getting bluer and bluer as the light changed, but the group never found any targets, whether it was its own warship or the Japanese warship. In a hurry, Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen began to order the fighters to search in different directions, while he led the group of planes behind him to circle aimlessly. Several times he asked the navigator to try radio calls, but they all failed, that is, the cruiser was not within forty kilometers.

"Keep calling! Call all the time! Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen shouted in the wind, his voice drifting to the face of the navigator behind him along with saliva. But at this time, the navigator didn't care about wiping his saliva, he took a headset and kept calling into the microphone: "Osprey calls sea chips, osprey calls sea chips, please answer when you hear it!" Osprey calls sea chips, osprey calls sea chips, please answer ...... when you hear it."

The navigator shouted, but his eyes were looking around, and before the lieutenant colonel could react, he slapped the lieutenant colonel on the shoulder and shouted, "Over there! Flares, over there! ”

The white flare was inconspicuous at sunrise, but the constantly rising fire fell into the navigator's eyes, and in the direction he pointed, Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen saw that it was a fighter plane constantly firing signal flares.

Not long after Rear Admiral Liu Guanxiong secretly scolded himself for his bad luck, the reality once again fulfilled his misfortune ten years ago - after dawn, the lookout suddenly discovered that there were Japanese ships on the west side of the fleet, which was in the direction of Naha. It's too late to look at what kind of ship. At the same time as the battle flag was raised, the rudder of the Hai Chip hurriedly turned to the left, and then led the entire fleet in an attempt to distance itself from the enemy ships. However, the ship was not in a hurry that day. After discovering the warship of China, it followed from a distance, and was not in a hurry to rush up to fight.

The more so the Japanese. Liu Guanxiong became more worried, and after asking the communications officer again, he learned that the seaplane team had not yet been contacted. He didn't want to put his life on the slim seaplane anymore, and he asked in a rough voice, "What ship is it that follows?" ”

"It's the Reins." Staff Officer Qin Yulin replied.

"Regen?" Liu Guanxiong smiled bitterly. The Ligon wasn't a big ship, but it was running at more than twenty knots, and it was hard to shake off it. Thinking that although the Ligon was only more than 4,000 tons, the caliber of the artillery was almost the same as his own, Liu Guanxiong suddenly said: "Go back!" Left rudder full rudder. ”

"What! Get back? Zheng Zuyi, the chief of staff standing on the side, exclaimed, "Although there is only the Ligon at the time, if anyone is injured in the artillery battle, it will have to be explained here." ”

"If you don't go back, you'll die." Liu Guanxiong said. "The Japanese are driving us east. The devil knows what's waiting for us ahead. ”

The commander decided, and while the helmsman saw this, he repeated the order loudly, and the rudder began to fill the rudder to the left, and the center of gravity of the people shifted down to the right, and the Hai Chip began to turn with the full rudder. The entire cruiser fleet sailed in a column, and as soon as the Hai Chip turned, the Haichen people who followed behind were very surprised, but the captain Lin Baoyi, who knew the meaning well, said: "The cooper did the right thing, the ghost knows what is ahead." Keep up, left full rudder! ”

Hai Chip was the first to turn, followed by Haichen, then Zhaohe, and Ying Rui. Ben watched the captain of the Tone, who fled in panic from the Shina fleet, Takebe Kishiro Osa laughed when he saw this: "Shina fever is about to jump off the wall in a hurry!" ”

He did so, but the chief of staff said: "Your Excellency, there are four cruisers in China. We ......"

"Raise the battle flag and sink them!" Takebe Kishiro Osa was still confident, he clutched the command knife and said, "Let's let the people of China know what the real navy is!" ”

The ship went east. The Japanese ship came head-on, and Liu Guanxiong, who was sailing at the front, was suddenly a little disappointed. He had expected that this Japanese ship would avoid him, but now the battle flag was flying on the Tone. I just don't want to avoid the fairway.

"What should I do?" Zheng Zuyi also saw the battle flag on the Tone, and he knew what the Japanese wanted to do, that is, regardless of the wounds left on his body, if they accumulated, these bloody wounds would eventually die.

"What else can I do? Hit! "Liu Guanxiong is also out of the way at this time." The artillery skills taught by the foreign commander can be practiced just right, and look, the targets are ready-made. ”

After the Battle of the East China Sea, the fleet officially used the mast observation point as the artillery center of the whole ship, and each gun was no longer free fire, but the command of the first mate of the gun was used as the firing parameter, which was the so-called salvo. It's just that for the current light cruisers of the fleet, the salvo technology can only be achieved on Hai Chip and Haichen - salvo fire below six guns is of little significance, although these four cruisers have only two or three main guns, but only Hai Chip and Haichen have eight 105mm secondary guns, so the new gunnery can only be realized on the old ships,

The voice of Lin Chuanzhi, the gun commander on the mast, had been transmitted to all places through the guò wired system, listening to the distance of a thousand meters and a thousand meters, Liu Guanxiong's heart was a little hanging, but he had a real heart, although he had expectations for the battle, but he could also accept the result of defeat. Isn't it Shen Hai, at his age, he has earned a lot more than those people twenty years ago, and after his death, if he is favored by the imperial court, he may be able to be promoted to a higher level and become a lieutenant general, which is enough to glorify his ancestors.

When the distance between the two sides was approaching seven thousand meters, the Tone in the telescope swung its hull, and then made a big turn with pride. Liu Guanxiong knew about the big turn of Togo in the Battle of Tsushima between Japan and Russia, but he didn't want this Tone to dare to turn in front of him, although the Tone ship had a small and narrow bend, but he was so bold and reckless to turn in front of his four cruisers, he was so angry that he almost wanted to cry, and he said urgently: "Woman! Give the order to go down, fire the cannon at once, and sink him! ”

The commander ordered to fire the cannon immediately, and Lin Chuanzhi, the first mate of the guns on the tail plate, reported the latest shelling parameters according to the rangefinder and distance clock, but before he gave the order, a plane passed over his head with a 'buzz', after one plane, then four flew by, four followed by four ......, and thirty-four planes swept over the entire fleet, which made Lin Chuanzhi's face change greatly, but when he saw the dragon and tiger beast on the plane, he immediately forgot the shelling order, and only shouted: "They are coming, they are coming!" ”

When it was very close to the fleet, the radio calls were not answered, and Lieutenant Colonel Tangen had to do it in his own way. Start with the fleet at the end of the fleet and work your way through the Sea Chip. Passing by your own warships is just a greeting. What is more important is to overturn the arrogant Japanese warship in front.

During the Russo-Japanese War, in order to block the way of Russian ships. Togo Heihachiro used an alpha-style turn to snatch the T-shaped position, and at the same time intercepted the way of the Russian ship, when the fog was deep on the sea, although the distance between the two sides was within 7,000 meters, but the commander of the Russian fleet, Rodger Stevensky, thought that the distance was still far away, and the Russian ship did not open fire until the last two minutes of the turn, thus missing a good opportunity to damage the Japanese ship. Now the Tone is making a big turn in front of the cruiser, although its 4,000-ton hull has a smaller turning radius at higher speeds, and it takes less than ten minutes. However, the disadvantage that the turning point is the static point cannot be solved.

Lieutenant Colonel Tan Gen swept over his own ship with a group of planes, and then the squadron of dive bombers immediately dispersed to make way for the torpedo bombers in the rear, and Captain Li Qi'an, the squadron leader of the torpedo squadron, had long known what the big turn of Dongxiang was.

On the battlefield, it was originally his own four cruisers against China, but he didn't want a group of uninvited guests to come. The lookout on the Tone shouted loudly as he watched the group from afar, and like Admiral Togo, Takebe Kishiro Daisa, who was on the bridge and did not enter the command tower, also turned his binoculars into the air, and the dragon and tiger beast logo on the fuselage knew that it was a flying plane of the Shina Navy. This horned tiger with angry eyes is painted on the fuselage, which is very majestic.

Looking at the two flying planes flying towards him, Takebe Kishiro Daisa, who still didn't quite understand what was going on, the lookout on the mast shouted again: "Water thunder! The flying machine has water mines. ”

Hearing the sound of thunder on the water, Dazuo was already startled. Looking closely at the fact that there was indeed a torpedo hanging under the belly of the plane, he suddenly became nervous. But when he tried to shout about the preparation for shooting, he found that the Tone had no weapons on board to deal with the Shina aircraft - two 152mm single-mount guns. Ten 120mm guns, four 76mm guns, and three 457mm torpedo tubes are not weapons against air targets.

Takebe Kishiro Osa's mind flashed the various weapons on the ship, and in desperation, he shouted into the microphone: "Right full rudder!" Right full rudder! Prepare for the return of the water mine! Prepare for the return of the water mine! ”

In order to reduce the time it takes to be shelled by enemy ships and force the T-shaped head, the Tone is sailing at the top speed at this time, and when it turns halfway through the bend, it requires a change in the direction of the turn, which will also cause the ship to be stationary at a certain moment. But even so, the Tone did not have time to turn, and the approaching torpedo bomber generally dropped the torpedo more than 100 meters from the stationary point of the turn, and then pulled up the nose and strafed with the machine gun in the nose, passing sideways past the chimneys of the Tone.

Seeing the plane drop the torpedo at such a close distance, Takebe Kishiro Daisa was not even in the mood to shout for evasion, and he was about to say when, a shuttle of bullets swept over him, and the momentum of the bullet carried him away from the bridge, and then planted like a sandbag.

The adjutant, who had just avoided the plane's strafing fire, had not yet exclaimed, when two torpedoes hit the ship's amidship and stern one after another, and in the fierce flames, Liu Guanxiong, who was in the Hai Chip command tower, saw not only the Japanese sailors stirred up by the explosion, but also the propeller that had been blown up in the stern. "Female inside! This is what a seaplane is? He was stunned.

He was like this, the staff adjutant around him, and the sailors on the ship who saw this scene, and the planes attacked the warship with torpedoes, this method of warfare was unheard of, but now it was happening vividly in front of his eyes. At this time, the Ligon wanted to be punched twice by a huge fist, and the whole hull drifted to the other side for several meters at the same time, and when it came to a standstill, the breach after the torpedo explosion caused the sea water to pour in frantically, and the hull began to tilt gradually, and the speed of the ship was rapidly decreasing.

Looking at the tragic condition of the Ligen, Rear Admiral Liu Guanxiong, who knew that the ship would not sink so soon, shouted into the microphone while everyone was still amazed: "Open fire immediately, sink Ligen!" ”

Everyone was stunned by the extremely sharp blow of the torpedo bomber before, but now when they heard the commander's order, they realized that what they had to do had not been done, and Lin Chuanzhi, the first mate of the guns on the mast, immediately shouted: "The main and auxiliary guns in front, aim at the left front nine sections, the distance is four thousand three hundred, ready to fire!" ”

The sound on the mast was transmitted to the front guns, and after a round of adjustments, at 4:37 a.m., after a few 'booms', the main and auxiliary guns of the Hai Chip began to fire.

The hit rate at a distance of more than 4,000 meters was extremely high, and after the first round of shelling, the 150 main gun of the Hai Chip, which was adjusted again, hit the first shell of the Tone, and then Haichen, Zhaohe, and Ying Rui, who had changed formation, all shot down the water dogs together, and the Ligan also wanted to fight back, but at this time there was chaos on the ship, and the hull not only stalled but also tilted badly, and several guns lost their accuracy and fell on the sea far away from the ships.

"It should be sunk with a torpedo!" Seeing that the Ligon was about to move, Chief of Staff Zheng Zuyi's eyes flashed, no matter what, sinking Ligon was also a credit.

What Zheng Zuyi can think of, others can also think of, before Liu Guanxiong could answer, the signalman said loudly in the microphone: "Report, Haichen asked for instructions that he would use torpedoes to sink the enemy ship in front of him." ”

"The Haichen was already injured, where is he going?" Liu Guanxiong said unhappily. "If you want to go, it's also a flagship."

Listening to Liu Guanxiong's order, everyone in the command tower was happy, but Liu Guanxiong was thinking about how to communicate with those planes in the sky, he could completely see the combat effectiveness of these planes in this battle, and now there are dozens of planes in the sky, it seems that as long as they don't encounter the combined fleet of the Japanese Navy, then they should be able to go home safely.

"Can't get in touch with them?" The Sea Chip was approaching the dead fish like a dead fish at high speed, Liu Guanxiong asked.

"Can't be reached." Staff Officer Qin Yulin had asked the communication room before.

"What then? They are flying in the sky, and they must not shout. Liu Guanxiong said unhappily.

"Maybe you can play the flag. They are in high places, where there are Japanese ships to see clearly, as long as they follow them, they can always avoid it. Chief of Staff Zheng Zuyi said. He felt that this plane could not only throw torpedoes, but also help guard the surroundings, which was really useful.

"Let's put up a flag." Liu Guanxiong couldn't think of a better way, so he had to say so.

The Sea Chip fired three torpedoes at a thousand meters from the Tone, and by this time the Tone had tilted more than 14 degrees from an irretrievable angle, and the ship's guns were all pointing at the sky, and it was impossible to resist the killer who had given it the final blow. After the three torpedoes were fired, the Japanese sailors on the ship fled frantically, and after reading it in tens of seconds, one torpedo missed, two hit, and the Tone, which was hit hard, was blown up and turned over, and then sank to the bottom of the sea upside down.

Although they could not be contacted, the cruiser quickly sank the Ligan according to Lieutenant Commander Tangen's wishes. After seeing the flag of the signalman on the mast, he flew around the sea a few times and flew away. At this time, the fighters who had scattered in search of the fleet had already returned to their units, and in addition to the two torpedo planes that had finished firing their torpedoes and began to return home, there were 35 planes in the sky, and they were hovering over the heads of the fleet, which gave the officers and men of the fleet infinite confidence.

However, on the sea chip, Liu Guanxiong's face lengthened again a few minutes after the joy began - the Tone actually sent a clear message before sinking to the bottom of the sea, perhaps because of the short time and chaos in the ship, but the short telegram still gave the current location and the information that his ship was about to sink. Zheng Zuyi, who got the telegram, was stunned, he felt that if he had sunk the Ligon a few minutes earlier, then this would not have happened.

"What should I do?" Zheng Zuyi said, "Now that the Japanese ship knows the location, how should I go?" There's a plane here, can you go in a different direction? ”

"What to do? The previous Ligon sent out our location, but the previous one was encrypted, and we couldn't crack it. Now the disadvantage is that the Tone has told itself about its situation, which means that the Japanese ships that thought we were engaged with the Tone will immediately know that we will leave here from this point on. Liu Guanxiong said that the impact of this telegram on himself, in fact, the really bad thing was the words 'his ship will sink' at the back.

"Let's give the plane the flag." Staff Officer Qin Yulin said. "There are so many planes, let them spy around, and we can avoid the Japanese ships."

"Do you want to avoid it?" Liu Guanxiong sneered, "I'm afraid those ships of the Second Fleet are not far from us at this time. Let's just go straight ahead, and if we meet it, we will greet each other from heaven and earth, and if we don't meet it, it's not only our luck, but also the luck of the Japanese. (To be continued......)