The results on the morning of the 13th were so brilliant that everyone felt that the Japanese should be honest in these days. After all, having lost two battleships at once, everyone has to consider whether it is cost-effective to play in this big pit again. The Japanese are not going to smash all four of them here, are they?

In fact, when the news of Abe's fiasco came, the Japanese Navy was in an uproar. After the losses were confirmed, the old fellows at the Admiralty could no longer sit still. As soon as Navy Commander Nagano (that) Shusei got the news, he immediately called Yamamoto Isoroku and asked him, "What's the matter with this guy Abe!" How could he lose two battleships at once! Didn't Abe have a plan in place when he let the battleship carry out such a dangerous mission? ”

Yamamoto knew what Nagano meant by this. Don't look at what Nagano said about Abe, but in fact, he was accusing himself of not sending out his precious battleship to do such a dangerous thing. The last time there was a discussion about whether to support the Kuah Island operation on a large scale, Nagano did not express his position directly, but he left this sentence: "Don't break the warship." ”

In retrospect now, what Yongye (that) Xiu said at that time was indeed very level, and he won the war, this sentence was a kind of alert, and if he lost, this is what he said: "I am against you doing this, against you taking risks and fooling around, but you don't listen to me, look, you damaged the warship, right?" ”

Ancient and modern Chinese and foreign leaders are one, one, this at a certain point, read #novel xstxt, that is: the work is done well because of the leader's care and instructions, and the work is not done well, it must be because you have not fully understood the leader's intention. But the worst thing is that the leader will never be straightforward and straightforward to say his intentions, he always likes to let you play the "I guess, I guess, I guess" intellectual game. It is said that there was an emperor in history who evolved to the extreme in this regard, and actually gave a holy decree to his ministers by guessing riddles. However, Nagano's intentions, Yamamoto actually understood very clearly, nothing more than this: the battle is to be fought, but it is better not to take risks, and of course, not to suffer. To put it more bluntly, it is to want the horse to run, but also to have the horse not eat grass.

If he didn't take the risk, Yamamoto wouldn't want to take the risk. Don't look at Yamamoto as a gambler, he even registered in Morocco (Yamamoto is so skilled in gambling that Moroccan casinos forbade him to enter). But that doesn't mean that Yamamoto is adventurous, and risk-taking gamblers are long gone, and they are definitely casino favorites. When the empire decided to go to war with the United States, Yamamoto was adamantly opposed to such an adventure. For this reason, he was almost regarded as a national thief by those patriotic hot-blooded relatives. At that time, Nagano (that) was very aggressive in promoting the war against the United States, and it seemed that he didn't know what kind of risk he was taking.

This is the second good habit of being a leader. If something happens, the responsibility is always below. For example, if there is a problem with violent law enforcement, after being investigated, the final responsibility must be zero-hour workers (such as auxiliary police). By the way, knowing this, you will know why it is really not easy to see a policeman on the street, all of them are auxiliary policemen.

Kurita also made it clear to Yamamoto that the place on Kuah Island was a bottomless pit, and that a boat or even a sampan should not be sent there.

Alas, Kurita is called a complete failure to comprehend the intentions of the leadership. Didn't Yamamoto know that it was a bottomless pit? But Yamamoto has his own intentions. Yamamoto knew that Japan would not be an opponent of the Americans in any case, and that Japan would have to negotiate peace with the United States. In order to achieve this goal, he must hit two enemies.

The first and most odious enemy was not the Americans, but the army's herd of red deer. Without them, the war would not have been fought, and those guys were carried away by the victory at the beginning of the war, and all they wanted was to go to Pennsylvania Avenue (the road in front of the White House) and line up to press the road. In their opinion, whoever dares to say that they want to negotiate with the Americans and give away a little bit of the interests that Japan has already acquired is a traitor and a national thief, and everyone will be punished by heaven. In Japan's previous history, there were prime ministers who were "punished by heaven" by such patriotic youths, so what is "heavenly" Yamamoto?

The best way to bring such guys to their senses to their senses is to slam a stick on their unenlightened granite heads, as the Soviets did at Nomenkan (after that war, there was no more brain-dead heading north). It's a pity that Yamamoto doesn't have such a big stick that can smash a granite head, and the entire Japanese Navy does not have it, and even the entire country of Japan may not have it. Maybe Hirohito has such a stick, but ...... Well...... In all probability...... The one who needs to be knocked on the head the most is Hirohito.

Now the United States is the only country in the world that has such a stick. Letting those red deer from the army go to Kuah Island to see the power of the Americans is, in a sense, definitely a good thing for the Empire. I believe that being beaten by this stuffy stick can make them sober up a lot.

The second enemy, of course, was the United States, and apparently the undeclared war at Pearl Harbor angered them. And they also know that their power is far greater than that of the Empire. If you want them to bow their heads and negotiate, you must constantly achieve decisive victories on the battlefield. Through such a chain of victories to force the Americans to agree to peace talks.

In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to have a decisive battle with the main force. Unfortunately, the Americans are not very interested in playing this kind of game with the Japanese at the moment. Now that time is on the side of the Americans, as long as it drags on any longer, a large number of new aircraft carriers and new planes will continue to join the ranks of the US Navy. At that time, if the main decisive battle were to be carried out, the Americans would have an overwhelming advantage. Nimitz knew this, and so did Admiral King.

The first battle of Kuah Island was a good bait to lure the main force of the US fleet into a decisive battle with the combined fleet. As long as the army on the island can put enough pressure on the American Marine Corps, there is no chance of a decisive battle with the American fleet.

It's just that Japan must win this decisive battle, and now, Japan can no longer afford a Midway-style defeat, and even a Coral Sea-style "victory" cannot be afforded. For example, a victory like the recent battle of the Santa Cruz Islands is absolutely not enough. And now, after last night's battle, Yamamoto understands that hopes of defeating the American forces in a decisive battle in the fleet, thereby forcing the United States to negotiate peace, have been dashed. Yamamoto understands that now, not only has Kuah Island won and lost, but the outcome of this war has also been determined.

However, the base camp doesn't see it that way, as the so-called IQ has no lower limit. The army deer who controlled the base camp still thought they had a chance of winning the battle. This is probably still a big deal.

But Yamamoto has already decided to stop and can't play with the Army's stupid hat anymore. But just like that, it just talked about it, which inevitably made the Imperial Navy too faceless. So Yamamoto decided that he would send a few more boats to Kuah Island to demonstrate before he could do anything. It can also be regarded as an explanation for the base camp. The responsibility for this demonstration was placed on the commander of the 8th Fleet, who had won the Battle of Savo Island, Mikawa Gunichi.

Regarding the impact of the battle from the night of the 12th to the morning of the 13th, the U.S. military's judgment was basically similar to that of Yamamoto. Everyone, including Ron, thinks the big picture is settled. Indeed, the overall situation has been decided, and General Halsey also sent a congratulatory telegram to Kuah Island: "Well done! But no one expected that at this moment, Yamamoto would actually send an artillery fleet again.

The evening of the 13th came, and at this time, the airport was evacuated in preparation for possible shelling. But tonight, well, considering that the Japanese just hit such a big nail in order to shell the airfield, it should be at least a few days to settle down. Therefore, although the higher authorities did not instruct that there was no need to evacuate, the speed and degree of evacuation were much worse than before. After all, the continuous high-intensity battle makes people physically and mentally nervous, and once they relax, everyone feels a little lazy and unable to lift their strength.

At midnight, Mikawa's artillery formation arrived in the waters off Savo Island. Mikawa knew that his mission was only to demonstrate, not to really bomb the airport into something. In fact, after all these hours of fighting, everyone knows how strong the Kuah airport is to repair itself. As for those guns with only 203mm caliber in their hands, it is impossible to cause much damage to the airfield.

Therefore, Mikawa divided the 12 warships under his command into two teams, and formed an artillery detachment under the command of Nishimura, the commander of the 7th Sentai Brigade, with 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 4 destroyers, rushed into the Iron Bottom Bay, and went straight to Kuah Island; Mikawa commanded the remaining two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and two destroyers to form the main detachment, which was on guard west of Savo Island to cover the actions of the artillery detachment. In this way, if there is an American fleet in Iron Bottom Bay, the two teams will be able to cooperate with each other and not suffer a big loss and "destroy the warship."

At 23:30, the artillery detachment arrived in the waters off Cape Longa on Kuah Island, and the carrier-based seaplanes on the heavy cruiser took off, dropped flares over the airfield, and provided target guidance and impact correction for the warship. The pilots of the carrier-based seaplanes were surprised to find that the camouflage of the airfield was rather haphazard. Many of the planes did not even have camouflage nets attached. The Japanese ships immediately began shelling, and the heavy cruiser "Suzuya" fired 504 rounds of 203-mm shells, and the heavy cruiser "Maya" fired 485 rounds of 203-mm shells, and the two ships fired a total of 989 rounds, destroying 1 US bomber and 17 fighters, damaging 32 fighters, and blowing up the runway to bullet scars. Fortunately, it was the cruiser's 203-mm shells, and if it was the battleship's 356-mm shells, it was estimated that the airfield would be unusable for some time.

When the shelling began, Ron was still asleep in his bed. The conditions at Kuah Airport are much better now than they were at the beginning. The transport ship that came a few days ago also brought them a new gadget - a rubber inflatable soft bed. It's a pity that the Japanese hadn't invented the inflatable girl (that) Yu at that time, and when he was bored, Ron began to wonder if he should invent this thing, the market must be huge, at least, the guys under Vandergraft would definitely like it.

With all this mess in his head, Ron didn't fall asleep until very late, only to be awakened by the sound of cannons as soon as he fell asleep. At first, Ron thought he was dreaming, but he soon realized that it wasn't a dream, it was real! The shell exploded not far from itself.

The bombshell was about 20 meters outside the yard, and Ron didn't even have time to put on his trousers - what were you doing now, running was the way to go - and ran towards the bombshell. As soon as he ran out of his cabin, a 203-mm explosive incendiary bomb hit it. Half a step too late, Ron was going to eat egg fried rice.

Rushing into the bomb hole, Ron let out a long breath to see that there was already a person in the gun hole, but it was dark, and he couldn't see who it was.

"It's amazing, you can run faster than me." Ron casually patted the guy on the shoulder. At this time, a bright light from the explosion of a cannonball landed on the ground entered the hole, and Ron saw clearly that the guy was Foss. Good guy, this guy's dormitory is twice as far away from the gun hole as himself, and he can still run so fast. And not only did this guy run faster than Ron, well, he wore less than Ron, Ron was wearing a tank top and pants, and this guy didn't wear anything at all.

"It's really damn, so people can see it, maybe they think we're doing it."

Ron was going to sit down and wait, and now there was nothing else to do but wait for the Japanese to leave on their own. Who knew that as soon as his butt touched the chair (I used to hide from the gun hole, there was a chair arranged there), and it suddenly hurt hotly. Reach out and touch it under the buttocks, a wet piece.

Maybe just now, when Ron ran into the gun hole, a piece of shrapnel flew over and hit Ron in the ass accurately.

"Oh my ass!" A wolf howl came from the anti-artillery hole.