"The 'Chai Shao' sank an enemy destroyer, and the C turret was damaged."

"The 'Heavy Snow' sank an enemy destroyer, and the main gun command instrument was damaged."

"We sank one enemy light cruiser without damage."

"The 'Chai Shao' sank another destroyer, and the B turret was shot, but it can continue to be used."

"The 'Winter Solstice' destroyed one enemy light cruiser, the No. 1 chimney was broken and is now turning."

Guarding the communication compartment below, Tan Renhao received a large number of reports of battle results from other warships within five minutes.

"Ask the northeastern side of Wei how their battle is going."

As soon as the communications officer answered the phone, the battleship shook violently, and Tan Renhao immediately looked at Hao Dongjue, who was standing behind him.

Without much incident, an officer from the battleship rushed in. "Commander, the bridge was hit, the captain was not wounded, now the wounded are being rescued, the light cruiser that hit us has been disabled."

Tan Renhao was secretly shocked, fortunately he was not in the command cabin, otherwise the shell might have killed him.

"Commander, Colonel Wei Dongbei has already killed four American destroyers and one cruiser, and only the 'Fenhe' was seriously injured, but it did not withdraw from the battle."

"Let the 'Fenhe' and the previously damaged destroyers be withdrawn first." Tan Renhao immediately made a decision, "Clean up the battlefield as soon as possible, has the radar found it?" ”

"Commander, a large number of aircraft groups are approaching to the south, 30 nautical miles away!"

Tan Renhao immediately looked at Hao Dongjue, Hao Dongjue just nodded, and then rushed out of the communication cabin and went to the aviation operations center to direct the air defense operation.

"There is also a large group of aircraft approaching to the north, it should be our plane, and the distance is about 35 nautical miles."

"Did you spot the enemy fleet?"

The communications officer shook his head, and as soon as he turned around, the headset rang, and then. And he turned his head. "Commander, the 12613 ship-by-ship formation reports that a large number of American ships have appeared in the south, as well as several destroyers escorting them."

Tan Renhao was slightly startled, and immediately asked, "What is the distance?" ”

"Around 8 nautical miles, the 12 destroyer formation has passed, and the 13 destroyer formation is also following."

The fleet immediately turned around and called the northeast of Wei. Let them withdraw from the battle immediately, meet the American convoy, get rid of their escort destroyers first, get as close as possible to mingle with the American warships. Tan Renhao quickly gave an order, "Contact General Yan Guozhong and ask him to send all the fighters, we can deal with the US transport fleet, but we need the cover of the fighters, and we must send the fighters as quickly as possible!" ”

Bright just went down. The ground-to-ground radar of the "Duan Zhixuan," located in the easternmost part of the fleet, discovered a group of aircraft flying from the east. Apparently, this could not have been a bomber of the Don Empire.

The fleet from the south was a fleet of U.S. warplanes that took off from Rennell Island, most of them F4Us, and less than 20 SBDs with bombs on them. The fleet of planes coming from the east took off from the island of Makira. Most of them are F4Us, and the number of bombers is very limited.

At the beginning of the battle, the flagship of the "Washington Express 38" was the first to be hit by shells, and the American commander died before he could send out the news of the encounter with the enemy fleet. Then the other ships were busy dodging torpedo attacks, and none of them noticed that the flagship had been destroyed. Next, the cruiser formation commanded by Tan Renhao rushed into the US fleet group, and the scuffle began, and no US captain thought of sending the news, and even a few captains noticed that their flagship was the first to suffer. In the first two rounds of torpedo attacks, one light cruiser and two destroyers were torpedoed and sunk. In the next few minutes of artillery battle, although the US warships posed a huge threat to Tan Renhao and them, eight cruisers were damaged, and the "Fenhe" was even forced to withdraw from the battle because of a problem with the power system, but in these few minutes of artillery battle, the US ships did not take any advantage, three cruisers, and seven destroyers were quickly destroyed, and all seven of them were sunk. And only two of the three cruisers were crippled, and they were not immediately sunk.

By this point, it was already 6:48. The U.S. convoy is about 15 nautical miles from the beach of Shipwreck Bay and about 11 nautical miles from the area of the war. In the melee, the communication channels on the cruisers of Task Force 1 were occupied, and the radar operators on several occasions mistook the ships that appeared in the south as destroyers who had withdrawn from the battle before (which shows how confused the command was at that time), until the two destroyer formations were contacted, and it was confirmed that both destroyer formations were in the southwest of the battlefield, not to the south, and not more than ten nautical miles away. At this time, the news was reported, and it was already 6:51 at this time.

The US fighter planes on Rennell Island departed at 5:50 a.m., and the commander of the air force on the island did not know that the First Task Force of the Tang Empire had already arrived at the "Shipwreck Bay," so it was the fighters who arranged for takeoff first, and the fighters who were the first to prepare for takeoff. Thus, before 6:15, only two dozen SBDs were ready to take off and set off after the fighters.

The US fighter planes on Makila Island departed at 5:40 a.m., and because the distance was a little farther, these fighters took off a little earlier. For the same reason, the commander of the U.S. air force on Makila Island was the first to prepare the fighters for take-off and released the fighters first, and at 6:10, when the first group of planes departed, only 14 SBDs followed.

According to the speculation of the US military at that time, if the Tang Empire did not send a fleet to the south, then bombers would be arranged to deal with the transport fleet at dawn, and in order to protect the transport fleet, the arrangement of letting the fighters take off first was not wrong. It was not until 6:55 a.m. that the lookout on the destroyers escorting the convoy spotted the destroyers to the north that were approaching rapidly and had obvious characteristics of the Tang Imperial Navy's warships, that they sent a telegram to report the appearance of the Tang Imperial fleet in the "Shipwreck Bay."

It was only then that the commanders of the U.S. air forces on Rennell and Makila Island woke up from a dream and immediately ordered all bombers to leave. Even if these bombers take off immediately, they will only be able to reach the battlefield in forty minutes at the earliest, and after forty minutes, the situation on the battlefield will definitely be different.

Coming from the north was the fighter plane of the Imperial Navy sent by Yan Guozhong. Yan Guozhong received the news at six o'clock that the First Task Force had discovered the US escort fleet. However, there is no mention of the U.S. convoy in this cable. As a result, Yan Guozhong let the bombers on Kuah Island take off first. And in the fleet at that time, there was actually only one squadron of fighters. In addition, a group of planes from Bougainville Island was arriving, and this group of fighters departed at 5:20 a.m., and at that time there was no news from Task Force 1, so the main arrangement was still bombers, not fighters!

The mistakes of both sides were on one point, and the U.S. military could not have expected the First Task Force to arrive so quickly. But in the same way, Yan Guozhong did not expect that the First Task Force was actually capable of intercepting the US convoy. Now they need anti-aircraft fighters, not bombers. Therefore, neither side found the point when arranging the bomber group.

Tan Renhao also quickly received the news, and when he was sure that Yan Guozhong was mainly sending bombers, he could only rush to the American transport fleet. Battleships can't outrun planes, and his plan is to entangle with U.S. warships so that U.S. ground bombers don't dare to drop bombs easily. As for whether the bombers of the HNA will drop bombs on the warships of the First Task Force, Tan Renhao has not thought about it so much.

By the time the cruiser formation withdrew from the battle at full speed and quickly moved south, the battle to the south had already begun. At this time, neither destroyer in the destroyer formation was able to load the torpedoes. Attacks can only be carried out with artillery. The six U.S. destroyers escorting the convoy also quickly came up. But the problem is that there was no radar on the US destroyers at that time, so only the destroyers of the Tang Empire were found. And the cruisers that were still ten nautical miles to the north were not found.

The artillery battle between the destroyers was fierce, but there were not many shells that could hit each other. The distance between the two sides became closer and closer, and it was not until after seven o'clock, when the heavy artillery shells fell, that the officers and men on the American battleship realized that they were not 155 mm shells from the destroyers of the Tang Empire, but 200 mm and 240 mm heavy artillery shells! By the time they discovered the approaching Tang Empire cruiser formation, the US aircraft group had already crossed the sky over the transport fleet and was rushing towards the Tang Empire cruiser group to the north.

The anti-aircraft operation began almost simultaneously with the artillery battle, which in fact brought only a chaotic situation.

Although the guns on battleships served different purposes. In long-range artillery battles, 120-mm anti-aircraft guns are useless, but there is only one combat center on a battleship, which has to command both artillery battles and air defense operations, which is simply creating chaos.

When the US fighter plane swooped down, Tan Renhao could hear the dull sound coming through the wall of the ship, and he also became nervous, now there were still at least 5 nautical miles away from the US fleet. The American bomber had enough time for his seven cruisers to disappear from the sea. After a long while, there was still no explosion, and Tan Renhao looked around in surprise.

"Commander, that's a U.S. fighter jet, there are no bombers, those fighters are strafing us."

"Strafing?" Tan Renhao was taken aback, "No bombers? ”

"No, but I don't know if there's anything behind."

Tan Renhao hesitated for a moment, and immediately said: "Let the fleet continue to advance, pay attention to air defense operations, try to intercept bombers, and leave those fighters alone." ”

The SBD was already slower than the F4U and took off late. The SBD from Rennell Island arrived at 7:10, and the SBD from Makila Island arrived after 7:10, and by this time, the warships of Task Force 1 had already broken into the American transport fleet. The twelve transports were all turning, some preparing to flee south, and some were sailing east, trying to avoid the Tang Empire's fleet for the time being, but the problem was that it took time to turn, and the speed of the transport ships was far less than the speed of the warships. By the time SBD arrived at the battlefield, Tan Renhao had already led the First Task Force to rush over.

At this time, the group of Tang Empire bombers from the north also arrived. At this moment, the US fighters who were still strafing the battleship immediately pulled up and went to deal with the Tang Empire bombers with bombs and torpedoes. And the escort fighters in the bomber group of the Tang Empire also immediately dived down from a high altitude, ready to deal with the fighters of the American army. But the problem is that by this time, the radar in the fleet had already discovered the US bombers, and Hao Dongjue immediately began to guide the fighters to intercept those US bombers. In other words, at this time, the fighters of both sides are attacking each other's bombers, so that the other side's bombers cannot easily bomb their own ships.

The battlefield was extremely chaotic, and many anti-aircraft gunners simply didn't care so much, and when they saw the fighters, they opened fire, first shot the shells, and then went to distinguish between friend and foe. There was no way to do it, and as a result, some of the fighters shot down by both sides were shot down by the anti-aircraft guns on their own warships.

Hao Dongjue's air defense coordination work also quickly fell into a state of chaos, with only a few staff officers on his side, and it was almost impossible to command dozens of fighters to fight. The same situation happened on the US side, where dozens of US fighter planes did not even have a command, and they were all fighting blindly, fighting indiscriminately when they caught a target, and there was no effective interception force at all.

The situation on the battlefield on the sea was also extremely chaotic, with more than a dozen US transport ships and a few US destroyers that had not been sunk scattering and fleeing, and Tan Renhao had to divide his troops into four pursuits. The warships in the First Task Force were all in groups of three or five, generally with cruisers as the core, and destroyers cooperating to intercept the fleeing American ships in all directions.

It was perhaps the most chaotic battle fought by the warring sides in the waters of the Solomon Islands in months. The warships and warplanes of both sides were entangled, and for a while, no one could control the situation on the battlefield. This is actually the scene that Tan Renhao needs. At the very least, he can command warships and fighters, even if this command is not very effective most of the time, but the opponent does not have a unified command at all. Obviously, Tan Renhao took advantage of this, and this is the only way to win. As the saying goes, Tan Renhao just wants to fish in troubled waters.