In the heavy rain, Tao Mingzhang returned to the position with the booty, most of the time, the work of eating meat was robbed by Zhou Youfu, but today he picked up a big bargain, seized seven cannons and more than a dozen carts of ammunition and other baggage, the brothers brought back dozens of horses from the surrounding fields, and also captured a lot of prisoners.

The prisoners of war were honestly sitting in the carriages, and the Chinese soldiers passed by in half-tracks, and a platoon commander roared at them: "Holy shit, have you ever seen a car pushed by a track?" You've only seen rickshaws, right? ”

Tao Mingzhang sighed in his heart, soldiers should indeed be proud of the victory, but unfortunately this half-track car is not made in China.

Back in the mine, I smelled a suffocating smell in the air, a stench that can only be found on the most brutal battlefields, when steel, rubber, and protein are ignited together. The first time he smelled this kind of death question, on the battlefield of Songhu, when he came to the Dachang position as a supplementary soldier, he smelled such a smell, at first he did not think so, thinking that a nearby farmer was cooking, and then saw the charred corpse lying on the cannon. Of course, this time it was much stronger, and even the pouring rain could not wash away the smell, but fortunately it was the Japanese who burned to death. Zhou Youfu will definitely not be stingy with his cruel ideas.

Zhou Youfu's men were searching for loot in the valley, but basically failed, the fire left them nothing, the machine guns were burned, not to mention ammunition or dead watches, to some extent, when you really walked through such a terrifying battlefield, you will find the essence of the Japanese strong and middle-handed, in fact, behind their invincible performance, the real steel is very limited. The spoked wheels of the cart were only wrapped in a layer of rubber to save resources, and the back of the cart dragged an infantry gun of only 200 kilograms of steel, which could only fire shells with low bore pressure, which was almost tailor-made for the Chinese army; The low rate of fire of the Japanese machine guns was partly a logistical consideration, and in order to create an army armed to the teeth on a poor island, they used their intellect to develop things like grenadiers for their soldiers. The cart was burned with rice and sugar, and there was no extra side food, and whenever the Japanese army was running out of logistics, the first consideration was to cut supplies other than ammunition.

When the third company returned with a large amount of equipment and prisoners, the people next to them all stopped and admired, seeing that they had won a good lottery this time, but they did not have the main force of the anti-Japanese army but hit the baggage and artillery behind, and even caught dozens of horses.

Back at the headquarters in the cave, Tao Mingzhang saw smoke in front of him, it was Zhou Youfu who was spewing clouds and spitting fog, and then heard him complaining that there was a loss in light and no gain.

"No, you have to compensate me, knock out two ammunition bases, throw them down* at least 10,000 catties, so far only a few dozen bayonets have been captured. The rifle was not whole, and the handguard was burned out. ”

"* Yes, you pick it up yourself." Chu Tingchang said.

"I mean, Tao Mingzhang gained too much this time, it's not fair, and he can't use so many."

"All the seizures are credited, he naturally has to hand them over, there are so many new recruits here, of course, they have to be reorganized, you can't look at the long term except for these guns in your eyes?"

"I'm a rough person, I won't be long-term, I only know one thing......" Zhou Youfu saw Tao Mingzhang walk in and stopped abruptly. So no one knew what he was trying to say.

"Battalion commander, I have counted the number of enemy annihilation and captures in the periphery, there may be some deviations, after all, it is night, and the enemy situation outside is complicated, and I don't dare to stay for a long time, so I ......" Tao Mingzhang said and handed over a notebook.

"Well, that's good. Sit first. ”

Chu Tingchang took the notebook, which clearly listed the entries and numbers of the weapons captured, down to the smallest details, such as steel helmets and cowhide cartridge boxes.

"Old Zhou, take a look...... People's statistics. Chu Tingchang handed the notebook to Zhou Youfu, "You also learn a little." ”

He wanted to deliberately provoke the two of them, so that there would be some internal competition among his subordinates, which would be beneficial for the number one to control the situation. Cheng Dayang often praised someone in meetings, usually Shu Ping, and occasionally other department chiefs, but never praised the deputy captain. But this one he finally learned.

"You won't let me take care of the accounts, or I'll remember better than him." Lao Zhou was not convinced.

"Let you take care of the accounts? You're going to have to sell all the pots in the cooking class. ”

"Battalion commander, what to do with these things?" Tao Mingzhang asked, he looked high-spirited, showing that he didn't add his thoughts.

"Useful, useful, I plan to expand the unit and change it into a regiment or a brigade."

"Battalion commander, temporary containment and grouping on the battlefield is one thing, but it is against military law to expand it privately......" Tao Mingzhang hurriedly reminded, he was afraid that his superiors would faint and do taboo things.

"Of course, it is temporary, now the communication above is chaotic, there is no military order for a while, we can only take this responsibility, the so-called greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. Back then, we couldn't afford to be too restrictive, not to mention that Brooke vouched for him, who was Stilwell's son-in-law. ”

"Brooke knows what you're thinking?"

"I don't know, but you don't need to know, as long as you guarantee it, with him in the gang, are you afraid that Chief Du will collapse him?"

"Will he agree? He's not stupid. ”

"Hehehe, Tao Mingzhang, Tao Mingzhang, it's really right to say that you are a college student who doesn't open your mind......" Zhou Youfu sneered, "For so long, you haven't seen Brooke's grandson's mind?" ”

"What's in your mind?" Tao Mingzhang said with wide eyes.

"As the saying goes, if you don't make a profit, you can't afford to be early, what are these foreigners doing here from the United States? Isn't it a white wolf with empty gloves? To put it bluntly, you just want to control our army, and you let him lead the troops, and he is not happy and crazy? Don't believe it, you'll see later, he agrees or disagrees. Military law, our military law, is a fart in their eyes. ”

Chu Tingchang couldn't help laughing out loud on the side, Zhou Youfu is indeed a human spirit, and what he said was on the main point, except for the part of coming from the United States over the mountains and mountains, he was a little timid. Basically, what Zhou Youfu said was also his judgment, and the Americans wished that the Chinese army would break away from the original structure and command system and follow them. Stilwell was such a chicken thief, of course, it was not for nothing that he gave Du Yuming the equipment that first arrived in Sittwe, so he sent a man named Brooke to be the overseer, and the essence of this person's task was to control the synthetic battalion, but he played tricks all the way, so that he had no idea where to start. So he planned to expand 6 to 8 companies, and let Brooke directly lead the artillery, and he would definitely agree, and only he could bring the * artillery unit. The synthetic battalion did have a 75-mm gun on the tank for a long time, but it was basically used for direct fire, and the warp fire efficiency was very low, so it could only constantly observe the landing point through the front and make corrections, and several times it almost blew up on its own head. Now there were several 25-pounder guns and Japanese medium-sized mountain guns, which had to be commanded by a professional artillery officer.

Two hundred and sixty kilometers west of Ranal Island, 419 is preparing to recover the drone, but the drone has obtained important meteorological information, fog is rising around the formation of the Japanese guerrilla Canglong Wyvern, and before dawn, the fog will reach its thickest level, so that the visibility of the sea surface is minimized. At the moment, it is already difficult to see the infrared image of the enemy with the optical equipment of the UAV, but it can still be seen by the radar.

At this time, the U.S. fleet was still maneuvering with the two aircraft carriers of the Fifth Air War to the east, and the two sides knew each other's existence and that a big battle might break out during the day, but the Second Air Battle was approaching at night, and it was obvious that there was some intention. Once the day starts, the Second Air War will arrive, and the number of troops will be immediately doubled, and the pilots of the Second Air War will be higher. He originally wanted to take advantage of the chaos of the naval battle, so that it would be more advantageous to hide the killing moves and pass on the results to the Americans, but both sides tended to move during the day and stay away from each other at night, and he also did not like the daytime because he could not use radar and anti-ship*. Even an enemy's low-altitude aircraft may see a submarine in the water (if he wants to extend his antenna to listen to the enemy's communications or command a drone, it is impossible to dive too deep). For him, it was a dilemma, and there was no compromise.

The fog generated overnight suddenly reminded Cheng Dayang that this was an excellent opportunity to attack, and his fire control radar and * would certainly not be affected by the dense fog, but the enemy's line of sight would be restricted, which gave him an excellent opportunity to use anti-ship *. He had always feared that even at night, the enemy on duty on deck would see the anti-ship * flying towards him at high speed, so that it would be possible to expose himself, but if the sea surface was covered by a thick fog, the situation would be very different, that is, someone in the last two meters Oh ah saw something break through the fog and hit the side of the ship, and it was easy to think of the action of a suicide plane. * In the final stage, it is almost head-on, it is difficult to judge the speed, and the fire in the tail is not clear, which is easy to confuse with the spark ejected from the exhaust pipe of the piston plane, but if you see it turning from a distance, no one will think that it is an airplane.

But he faced some troubles, that is, the enemy fleet was too far away, although it was within the * range, but he could not track the enemy ship with the submarine Shanghai fire control radar, of course, he could use the UAV radar to provide the enemy's approximate direction and route to judge the launch*, but that was not a fire control radar, and the accuracy was still not enough. Especially since there were several heavy cruisers in the enemy's fleet that were close in length to the aircraft carriers, those things were not the target he wanted, and the armor was thick.

If he flies 419 to rush towards the target now, I'm afraid that he won't have time to reach the distance where the radar might work, and the sky will be bright, which will delay the recovery of the drone.

He had to discuss with the commissar whether he wanted to take the risk. The worst-case scenario is that one * hits the Japanese heavy cruiser, but fails to sink it, and as a result, the enemy heavy patrol returns to Rabaul with * wreckage, which will be completely exposed, but give up such an opportunity, and tomorrow the two sides will fight, and the American army may suffer.

Of course, Shu Ping was present at the meeting, but he was expected to say nothing, he was not an adventurous person, but he rarely contradicted the captain.

"There are still two hours before dawn, and we can't get past it at all, and once dawn the fog will dissipate. So, if you want to fight, you have to fight early. The political commissar really supported Cheng Dayang's idea, and as for accuracy, the trajectory could be corrected by the drone. It won't be too bad.

"However, if the current formation of the enemy fleet is very dense, and the angle between the course and the UAV route is not ideal, I am worried that if they turn another 15 °, the radar will not be easy to distinguish, from the sonar from the main engine, there is a 13,400-ton Miao-advanced heavy cruiser on each side of the fleet, the length is almost the same as that of the flying dragon, once there is a deviation, * the seeker may aim at the heavy cruiser, so that there may be one or two that will hit the heavy cruiser, and then the chicken may not be able to steal the rice."

"That's true, firing four* at a time is more than enough to sink a wyvern or a dragon, but once one misses the target, it may not be." As soon as he was reminded, the political commissar also felt that it was not appropriate.

"yes, the worst case scenario imaginable is that a salvo can't sink the enemy ship, and the wreckage is brought back by them, knowing that this is too far away for us to use *. If the enemy flees at full speed, we may not be able to catch up. ”

Every possibility has indeed been taken into account by Cheng Dayang, although the enemy ship was seriously injured and it is unlikely that it can escape at high speed, but after all, there are still them.

"By the way, what do you think?" The political commissar suddenly sounded Shu Ping sat on the side, since he came, it is better to ask.

"You ask me? My opinion is waiting. ”

"Wait? It's almost dawn. ”

"Well, have you ever thought about the reaction of the enemy when entering the fog zone? They will most likely pull out of formation to avoid collisions, so that the radar resolution of the drone will be sufficient, and there will be no need to worry about * finding the wrong target. ”

"But. What if they continue to maintain a dense formation? ”

"That's easier, give up this attack." Shu Ping said lightly.