Tan Renhao quickly assigned work to the three deputies, Lei Shaoqing became his main assistant, while Hao Dongjue was in charge of aviation operations, and Chang Zhixin was in charge of navigation work in operations and fleet air defense. After letting Lei Shaoqing meet with Hao Dongjue and Chang Jianxin, Tan Renhao sent a reorganized battle plan to Chief of Staff Liao Hanxiang that night, and the next morning, he and Lei Shaoqing attended a plenary meeting of the Navy Staff.

The Naval Staff is the operational arm of the Naval Command. In peacetime, the Naval Staff is primarily responsible for arranging training and formulating operational plans for each imaginary enemy. In times of war, the task of the Navy Staff is to direct the operations of various naval units, to be responsible for planning combat operations, and so on. It can be said that the Naval Staff is the most powerful department of the Imperial Navy, especially in wartime, almost everything is based on the decisions of the General Staff, and the naval commander mainly relies on the Naval Staff to issue operational orders.

Because of this special nature, there are also two different kinds of naval staff officers. In peacetime, it is mainly the chief of staff of the Navy who leads the work of officers in the general staff. In wartime, the commanders and chiefs of staff of the fleets are all members of the naval staff and have the right to submit operational plans or opinions to the chief of staff of the navy, and the chief of staff of the navy must decide on the combat operations of the navy and arrange for the relevant units to cooperate with each other in accordance with the opinions and operational plans put forward by the fleets. This establishment and personnel system make the role of the Naval Staff in the Imperial Navy more important, and at the same time, it is more able to give full play to the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Navy, which is the most effective system that the Imperial Navy has explored in wars for hundreds of years.

The plenary meeting was attended by four fleet commanders, four fleet chiefs of staff, and representatives from the Fourth Fleet. Of course, Wu Xianyu and Ji Xiaobin are also among them, and now they have officially become the commander and chief of staff of the Fifth Fleet. Tan Renhao also quickly discovered that among the people attending the meeting, except for those staff officers who were responsible for distributing documents and serving tea and water, he and Lei Shaoqing were the lowest-ranking officers, because everyone else was generals!

Sitting in the most prominent position was Marshal Satieting, Admiral Liao Hanxiang (the lowest rank of naval chief of staff) was on Marshal Satietin's left, and the other fleet commanders and chiefs of staff sat separately in several piles. Liao Hanxiang first announced the principles of the Cabinet Government, as well as the Navy Command, about future operations. There is only one principle, and that is to defeat all enemies until complete victory is achieved.

"This morning, the German Empire and the Persian Empire have officially declared war on Japan, the British Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the Kingdom of Italy. Subsequently, the Russian Empire declared war on the German Empire and the Persian Empire, but did not declare war on us. "Marshal Sajiting spoke behind Liao Hanxiang," Imperial Prime Minister Xue Xiyue will deliver a letter to the subjects of the Empire in the afternoon, and when the time comes, I hope that you will all be able to sit next to the radio, and Prime Minister Xue Xiyue will let us know how to defeat the enemy and how to defeat the enemy. And what we have to do now is to make it clear to all the enemies who have declared war on the Empire in this difficult time that they have made a grave mistake, one that they will regret years later, if not decades. We want to show the world with our actions that the Tang Empire has been dragged into the war again, and we will hold on to the end and win the final victory, as we did more than 20 years ago. ”

No one applauded, no one cheered, all the generals knew that if they wanted to win the final victory, then the empire would pay a huge price for it, but all the generals also believed that victory definitely belonged to the empire, and the empire had not been defeated by any enemy for thousands of years, and this time it was absolutely the same.

"Before the preparations for the counterattack of the fleets began, we could only use submarine forces to attack the Japanese flotilla and the fleet for the time being. The German Empire had promised to send a number of commanders of submarine forces to support us, and it would probably arrive in a little more than ten days. However, our focus remains on the actions of the fleet. Liao Hanxiang did not say anything encouraging, "The army has already counterattacked Japan first, but we have all seen the effect, before there is enough strength, the strategic bombing of Japan has little effect, and the losses of the army aviation are very huge." Now, the burden of the counterattack has fallen on our shoulders, and we're ready for it. Colonel Tan Renhao, you will explain in detail to the generals the counterattack battle plan. ”

Tan Renhao immediately stood up, and Lei Shaoqing ran to the side of the projector, and he will be responsible for assisting Tan Renhao in explaining the battle plan that took two days to complete.

“…… Specific actions will be finalized in the coming days. Tan Renhao glanced at Lei Shaoqing and asked Lei Shaoqing to turn off the projector, and he explained the feasibility of this counterattack plan from all aspects in the first half hour, the risks, and the possible results in the end. Now, the most important question is that the Fifth Fleet needs more powerful escort and air defense forces. If we look at the current strength of the Fifth Fleet, the aviation strike force of the three aircraft carriers is sufficient, but it lacks sufficient anti-aircraft firepower, so it is necessary to urgently dispatch warships from other fleets to support the Fifth Fleet. ”

The conference room was silent, Tan Renhao's words were not too direct, and he was not qualified to make direct requests to the commanders of other fleets, but the meaning was very clear. The Fifth Fleet was the only fleet that did not have capital ships (aircraft carriers were not capital ships at the time), and had to be reinforced by warships from other fleets. And now the only thing that can be used is the remnants of the Second Fleet, which has withdrawn to Haikou and Sanya.

Sajiting's gaze soon fell on Lieutenant General Jiang Bangguo. Sajiting is about the same age as Jiang Bangguo, and he is a contemporaneous cadet of the Naval Officer Academy. Because of his bad temper, Jiang Bangguo worked in the position of commander of the Second Fleet for decades. However, Sajiting was very polite to this old general. "Old Jiang, will the warships of the Second Fleet be able to restore their combat effectiveness as soon as possible?"

Jiang Bangguo's expression was very serious, and he was silent for a while before he said, "The three capital ships are all under repair in Guangzhou Port, and there are four other heavy cruisers that are also being repaired. If we need to support the Fifth Fleet, I will try to arrange it, it will take about two months. ”

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