While the 1st and 2nd Task Forces were busy in the south, the 5th Task Force was also dispatching bombers to attack the US defensive positions southwest of Brisbane with the town of Ipswich as the core.

Jiang Zhongmin also received a specific combat mission on the morning of the 17th, although he could see at a glance that this time Yan Guozhong and Lei Shaoqing both excluded the Fifth Task Force from the main force, but let the Fifth Task Force contain the US forces in the north and continue to carry out the campaign deception mission, but Jiang Zhongmin did not feel anything to be angry about, after all, the strength of the Fifth Task Force was far inferior to the First Task Force, and it was much worse than the Second Task Force. Let the two most powerful task forces go to the main battlefield, and let the fifth task force contain the US forces in the north, Yan Guozhong's arrangement is understandable.

As for the situation within the navy, Jiang Zhongmin still sees it very clearly. The principal's promotion of him may not be an appreciation, but more importantly, the navy needs an opponent who can compete with Tan Renhao, a general who can not be affected by Tan Renhao, and can take charge on his own. In the circle of young generals, no one can compete with Tan Renhao, and it can even be said that most of the young generals have a close relationship with Tan Renhao. Jiang Zhongmin didn't think about competing with Tan Renhao, maybe when he was in the academy, he regarded Tan Renhao as his biggest competitor, but after officially joining the navy, Jiang Zhongmin knew that because he didn't choose the right direction at the beginning, it was actually impossible to threaten Tan Renhao's position in the navy.

Of course, Jiang Zhongmin did not give up his efforts. In the past few years, he has experienced more twists and turns than Tan Renhao. Sometimes. He also used to complain, especially after the defeat in the South Atlantic, and he even suspected that God was unfair to him. But when Jiang Zhongmin calmed down. He found that in many ways, he was not as good as Tan Renhao. As a leading general, making full use of various conditions on the battlefield to defeat the enemy is the most basic, the most important, and the most difficult ability to achieve. In this regard, Tan Renhao is better than any fleet commander. Judging from the many naval battles he commanded, he made full use of various factors to achieve victory. Weather is also an important factor on the battlefield, and Tan Renhao is always able to use the weather as much as possible, rather than being used by the weather. Thus, Tan Renhao defeated the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet, while Jiang Zhongmin did not do it. This is the gap between the two.

It can be said that Jiang Zhongmin has a bit of an appointment idea. After experiencing too many setbacks and failures, he even thought that this was God's arrangement, and perhaps he could not reach the height of Tan Renhao after exhausting his life's efforts. It can be said that Tan Renhao took the initiative to move forward under the temptation of victory, while Jiang Zhongmin was pushed forward by some forces that he could not control and that he did not want to influence. To be precise, Tan Renhao has the internal motivation to struggle. But Jiang Zhongmin relied on external motivation. The problem is also here, as long as Jiang Zhongmin does not have internal motivation, he will not be able to reach the same height as Tan Renhao.

On the battlefield, Jiang Zhongmin will not consider this, he will only do his best to strive to be the best. Even if now he is only assigned a secondary task, the main task. If the Fifth Task Force wants to become the No. 1 fleet, it must carry out every combat mission well, accumulate experience step by step, and train officers and men, so that in the end it can hope to become the real main task force.

It can be said that Jiang Zhongmin's attitude is still very correct in this regard. This is also a rare point for him, if he is replaced by someone else. For example, if Hao Dongjue was in his position, I am afraid that he would not be in the mood to command the fleet to fight at this time. And this is also Jiang Zhongmin's excellent side. As a "often defeated" general, Jiang Zhongmin did not give up his efforts, nor did he give up his struggle, in many cases, what he lacked was just a little bit of consciousness.

On the afternoon of 17 July, Jiang Zhongmin arranged the bombing mission of the fleet and arranged detailed bombing tasks for all three air brigades. And Jiang Zhongmin's partner is the former Second Fleet, that is, Jiang Bangguo's descendant fleet, the captain of the cruiser Dai Li. Later, he served as the captain of the cruiser "Xuanwu" in the Second Task Force, and when the Fifth Task Force was established, Dai Li went to the Fifth Task Force, initially serving as the captain of a large air defense cruiser of the "Li Jing" class. Subsequently, he served as the commander of the squadron of the Fleet Cruiser Squadron (an administrative position, with no battlefield command). When the Fifth Task Force was rebuilt, Dai Li was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Fleet and became Jiang Zhongmin's deputy. In the fleet, Dai Li was in charge of the fleet's navigation work, so that Jiang Zhongmin could concentrate on dealing with aviation operations.

The partnership between the two is not very reasonable, and Dai Li was also taken care of by Jiang Bangguo at the beginning, so he defected to Jiang Zhongmin and served as a deputy for this "junior" who was nearly ten years younger than him. Dai Li himself belongs to the kind of decent admiral, in normal times, he can become a major general before the age of forty, which is already quite good, and now, at the age of forty, he can become a major general, which is certainly not something to be proud of. Dai Li's role in the fleet is not very obvious, Jiang Zhongmin himself is a general who is proficient in navigation, in addition, in terms of prestige, background, and connections, he is not as good as the chief of staff of several other task forces, and even compared to Gu Zhenyun of the third task force.

Jiang Zhongmin didn't have much hope for Dai Li, after all, a large number of excellent fleet chiefs of staff came out of the First Task Force and were trained by Tan Renhao, and if he wanted to train a few excellent chiefs of staff, it would definitely take a lot of time and a lot of battles, not something that could be done in a while. Therefore, in the fleet, Jiang Zhongmin only asked Dai Li to handle the navigation of the fleet and logistics support for him, and the most important aviation combat operations were personally responsible for Jiang Zhongmin.

On the morning of the 18th, when the 1st Task Force and the 2nd Task Force sent bombers one after another, the bombers of the 5th Task Force also set off. According to the plan, Task Force 5 will mainly bomb key fortifications on the U.S. military's outer defense line in Brisbane. In order to achieve the goal of confusing and containing the US military. In addition to arranging bombing operations, Task Force 5 was also required to use reconnaissance planes to monitor the movements of the American forces if the American forces detected that the Imperial Marines were about to land near Sydney. In addition, if the mobile force is arranged to go south, then the Fifth Task Force will have to use bombers to block the passage of the US troops to the south, at least to slow down the speed of the US troops to the south, and create an opportunity for the Marine Corps to land on the 20th.

Relatively speaking, the task of the Fifth Task Force is not light, and more importantly, the Fifth Task Force has just regained its combat effectiveness, and it has only carried out combat operations on the battlefield for a few days. Most of the pilots have made fewer than 20 combat flights, while the average number of combat sorties of pilots in Task Force 1 and Task Force 2 is already more than 300. This gap cannot be bridged through training, and this is an important indicator of the combat experience and combat capability of the aviation units. The Fifth Task Force is almost completely new, and it is certainly a lot of trouble to rely on a new unit to carry out such a difficult combat operation.

At the time of takeoff, six bombers were unable to take off because of a malfunction. Two of the bombers went wrong shortly after takeoff because aviation crews had neglected several key components during inspections, and the pilots returned to the carrier after urgently dropping their ammunition. Thankfully, the plane didn't crash, otherwise it would have been more troublesome.

After the bomber group set off, Jiang Zhongmin arranged for three squads of reconnaissance planes to set off in turn to monitor the movements of the US troops. Because the aviation crew is not well prepared. As a result, the first batch of 12 reconnaissance planes took off 15 minutes later than scheduled, and the direct consequence was that the "Dianchi" aircraft carrier, where these reconnaissance planes were released, had to stay outside the air defense circle for an additional 15 minutes. Perhaps, this is not a big problem, but the consequences are extremely painful.

Before the reconnaissance plane took off, Jiang Zhongmin received a message from the landing fleet. According to Yan Guozhong's arrangement, the landing fleet left Noumea on the afternoon of the 16th, and arrived about 120 nautical miles southeast of the Fifth Task Force in the early morning of the 18th. In order to achieve the goal of confusing the US military, the landing fleet did not remain hidden. Instead, on the 18th, the radio silence was broken, and a telegram was first sent to Task Force 5. According to the plan, Jiang Zhongmin sent a telegram back to the landing fleet. The activities of both fleets have actually been exposed. Jiang Zhongmin sent the telegram at 7:10 a.m., and the first reconnaissance planes began to take off at 7:13 a.m.

"The return call of the landing fleet, they will maneuver south at night, and they will probably be able to reach the predetermined assembly area by tomorrow night." The matter of receiving and receiving the telegram is in charge of Dai Li, "We should also leave here in the early hours of tomorrow morning and sail south." On the morning of the 20th, we will be able to take part in the direct fire strike before the landing operation. ”

"Set up the relevant routes, and we will act according to the plan." Jiang Zhongmin didn't worry much about sailing. "In addition, pay attention to the report of the bomber force, we have been operating in this sea area for several days, and the US military should have mastered the law of our activities, and now the fleet has broken the radio silence, maybe the US bombers will arrive soon."

"I have already arranged the air defense warning ship, if the US bombers still dare to come to their deaths, then we will let them have no return!"

Jiang Zhongmin smiled, and then called the aviation combat staff officer over and asked him to arrange for the fighters to take off one after another. At this time, the sky was already bright, and if the US military wanted to attack the Fifth Task Force, then the US bombers had already taken off and were flying towards the Fifth Task Force.

In the past few days, the US military has been trying to attack the Fifth Task Force, and almost every day US bombers will come to "harass" the Fifth Task Force, causing a very tense atmosphere in the fleet, and Jiang Zhongmin has even let the fleet maneuver eastward three times to evade. However, this can only be regarded as "harassment", and the US military only dispatches 20 to 30 bombers at a time, and at most it will not exceed 40. In the skies over the Fifth Task Force, there was at least one squadron of air defense fighters at any time, and if calculated according to the combat capability of the fighters of both sides at that time, even if the quality of the fighter pilots of the Fifth Task Force was the worst among the four aircraft carrier task forces, the US military would have to mobilize at least 70 bombers if it wanted to break through the air defense network of the Fifth Task Force, and a small group of bombers would hardly be able to threaten the Fifth Task Force. In particular, starting on 12 July, Jiang Zhongmin arranged for three air defense alert ships to extend the fleet's air defense network 50 nautical miles to the west, and the possibility of US bombers even reaching the airspace above the fleet was reduced to zero, let alone threatening the aircraft carriers in the fleet.

After 7:20 a.m., all 12 reconnaissance planes on the "Dianchi" aircraft carrier set off, and at this time, the "Dongting Lake" and the "Namco" aircraft carriers had each dispatched a squad of fighters, and according to the previous practice, the "Dianchi" would also dispatch a squad of fighters, so that there would be three squadrons and 36 fighters in the airspace above the fleet to carry out air defense patrol missions. But that's when the danger came.

At 7:23 a.m., when the fighters on the "Dianchi" were preparing for takeoff, the air defense sirens sounded. The radar on the destroyer, which was on air defense alert duty to the southwest of the fleet, detected a group of American bombers approaching at high speed.

"Immediately let all the fighters take off urgently, and let the 'Dianchi' return to the aircraft carrier battle group." Jiang Zhongmin reflexively issued the first order, "In addition, immediately organize air defense interception to determine the size and distance of the US aircraft group!" ”

The staff officers in the command cabin immediately got busy, perhaps, in their opinion, this could only be regarded as commonplace.

"General, do you want to send the news back to the theater command?"

Jiang Zhongmin hesitated for a moment, and then said to the communications staff officer: "Arrange the air defense mission first, and after we have repelled the US bomber group, it will not be too late to send out the news!" ”

At this time, no one thought that the Fifth Task Force would no longer face a "harassment", but a real test of life and death. After so many days of activities on the battlefield, the Fifth Task Force has long become a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh of the US military, and the danger of this arrival is by no means an ordinary danger.