When the enemy planes roared to kill from the left rear, the officers and men on the "Hengjiang," including Liu Xiangzhen, were all taken aback.

Only by this time the light cruisers in the rear of the "Yokoe", as well as the heavy cruisers in the port direction, opened fire.

Subsequently, the anti-aircraft guns of the "Yokoe" also roared.

It's just that almost all the anti-aircraft guns are firing at the enemy planes flying in front, and there are not a few anti-aircraft guns firing at the enemy planes in the rear.

The ones that flew in front were fighters!

That's right, it was a zero battle in which the "Typhoon" was defeated in an air battle.

These fighters all had streamlined fuel tanks hanging from their bellies, which looked like aerial bombs, which were mistaken by the gunners of anti-aircraft guns as bombers.

The point, where is there a bomber that flies so low, and so fast?

Horizontal bombing missions are generally carried out by torpedo planes, and only when bombing ground facilities and fixed targets such as warships anchored in harbors will horizontal bombing tactics be used. Against warships sailing at high speeds, the hit rate of horizontally dropped bombs is not guaranteed at all.

Those fighters rushed to the front, which was nothing more than to attract fire for the torpedo planes behind.

In addition, it was possible to strafe anti-aircraft guns on battleships with machine guns.

"Fire at the attack aircraft behind and let the anti-aircraft guns ......"

"Be careful!"

At the same time as shouting out, Zhuang Bisheng had already rushed to Liu Xiangzhen's side and directly knocked him down.

"Bang bang—"

Almost at the same time, in fact, it was less than a second late, and a bullet hit the porthole in front of Liu Xiangzhen.

This is an aviation bridge, not a commander's bridge, and the ordinary glass installed on the portholes does not block machine-gun bullets.

Fortunately, Zhuang Bisheng reacted quickly, otherwise Liu Xiangzhen would have become the first admiral to die in this war.

There was a roar in the air, and the Zero that strafed the bridge flew over the "Yokoe" with a roar.

"Commander, you're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine." Liu Xiangzhen got up and nodded to the operational staff officer to express his gratitude. "Hurry up and give the order to intercept those torpedo planes behind."

Zhuang Bisheng didn't say anything, and grabbed the microphone for internal communication.

In fact, when he knocked down Liu Xiangzhen, he had already seen the five enemy planes flying in a row, their bellies almost brushing the sea, and flying quickly.

There is no doubt that it must be a torpedo machine, the famous 97 ship attack.

Soon, the 12 anti-aircraft guns deployed on the outside of the flight deck on the port side of the aircraft carrier, that is, on the floating deck, to be precise, the 12 quadruple 40-mm anti-aircraft guns turned their muzzles, aimed at the enemy planes approaching from the left rear, and fired the shells out in one go.

Enemy aircraft are already less than three thousand meters away from the aircraft carrier, and at any moment they may drop aerial torpedoes.

If you don't have time to aim, it doesn't matter if you miss, shells flying near enemy aircraft, or falling on the nearby sea, can interfere with the pilots of enemy aircraft.

Even the best pilots can hardly survive a hail of bullets.

Under the control of the fear of being shot at any time, it is not only easy to make mistakes, but also the simple movements that have been mastered for a long time will also get out of shape. For example, at the moment of dropping the torpedo, the hand holding the joystick shook slightly, and the direction of flight deviated from it.

Any one of these factors could make an attack unsuccessful.

In the blink of an eye, the two 97 ships on the left were enveloped in a rain of bullets.

After being hit by a 40-mm shell, the two torpedo planes, like drunk strong men, plunged headlong into the sea, but in fact crashed into pieces on the surface of the sea.

However, the other three 97 ships took the opportunity to shorten the distance to two thousand meters.

None of the twelve anti-aircraft guns had time to re-aim.

Probably fearing being shot down, the three 97 ship attackers all dropped torpedoes at this time, and then turned around and changed the attack course.

The alarm sounds.

Not an air raid siren, it's a torpedo strike siren.

Almost simultaneously, the "Yokoe" began to turn at full speed.

According to the evasion tactics, the "Yokoe" should turn left, that is, aim the bow in the direction of the torpedo, after all, the bow of the ship was hit by a torpedo, and the aircraft carrier could still sail, if the stern was hit by a critical hit, the propulsion system and steering system were finished, and the aircraft carrier would not be able to sail.

However, enemy planes were approaching from the left rear.

In other words, if you turn to the left, you need to turn the course about 130 degrees to aim in the direction of the torpedo.

Conversely, if you turn to the right, simply turn fifty degrees.

No matter which way you turn, you can't turn the wide side side against the torpedo, so you have to complete the turn as soon as possible to reduce the projection length of the battleship in the direction of the torpedo.

This is a basic tactic that any captain understands.

Aviation torpedoes have a short range, but they are not slow, and the steering speed of an aircraft carrier is not necessarily very fast.

The "Yokoe" did not have a full rudder on the left, but a full rudder on the right.

When he was turning at full speed, Liu Xiangzhen had already returned to his position, which was actually the position given up by a staff officer of the aviation operations center.

The three 97 ships had already flown away, and one of them was still dragging black smoke, and it looked like it would crash soon. As for those Zeros, they have long since flown without a trace.

On the right, the anti-aircraft guns of the "Nanjiang" are firing.

The 130-millimeter anti-aircraft guns were used, and they were firing in a northeasterly direction, which looked like they were supposed to intercept the approaching enemy aircraft.

This 40-fold diameter large-caliber anti-aircraft gun was specially developed for air defense, and its effective firing range was about 10 kilometers.

Soon, a cloud of black smoke from the explosion of anti-aircraft artillery shells appeared in the sky in the distance.

You can see some black dots that are moving fast, but you can't see them clearly, they could be fighter jets or dive bombers.

It was at this time that the lights in the bridge went out.

What's going on?

Liu Xiangzhen was stunned, and at the same time grabbed the railing on the side.

In the blink of an eye, a huge force came from the floor under his feet, throwing all the officers and soldiers in the bridge, including Liu Xiangzhen, into the air.

Hit by a torpedo!?

After hitting the ceiling, it fell heavily to the floor.

Liu Xiangzhen didn't think about it at all, didn't even hear the explosion, and fainted after hitting the ceiling.

I don't know how long it was, but by the time he woke up, he had been sent to the flight deck, where a paramedic was bandaging his wounds.

In fact, it was the sharp pain from cleaning the wound with iodine that woke him up.

At the rear end of the flight deck, near the stern of the ship, smoke rose and there were many officers and men near the fire point, but no one went to put out the fire.

What's the name!?

The headache was like a split, but it made Liu Xiangzhen sober up a lot.

It was black smoke from the burning of rubber, which was deliberately created in order to make enemy planes in the air think that the "Yokoe" was dying.

However, Liu Xiangzhen also found that the "Hengjiang" had slowed down, and its speed was less than ten knots.

It must have been torpedoed, otherwise it wouldn't have been so slow.

"Commander, alright."

"Thank you, go help others."

The medic didn't say much, picked up the first aid kit and ran away.

At this time, Liu Xiangzhen stood up.

It's just that his attention is no longer on the "Yokoe", but in the northwest. There is a straight column of smoke over there, which can be seen from more than ten kilometers away!