Long before the Battle of Midway, Nimitz had set the Central Pacific as a key theater of operations, and planned a strategic counterattack in the Central Pacific during the time Spruance was under investigation.

Nimitz chose the Central Pacific as the direction of his strategic counterattack for several reasons. First, the strategic importance of the Hawaiian Islands is not on the Australian mainland, and now the Hawaiian Islands are threatened, and this threat must be removed as soon as possible. Secondly, the Central Pacific Ocean is vast, and this time there will be six fleet aircraft carriers and nine small aircraft carriers that can be used, and only this sea area can accommodate so many warships. Finally, and most importantly, MacArthur did not have the ability to quickly counterattack the Solomon Islands, nor was the counterattack in the southwest Pacific not only done by the fleet, so a strategic counterattack could not have a noticeable effect in the short term, far less than a counterattack in the Central Pacific.

With these three points, Nimitz focused on the Mariana Islands, and as long as the Mariana Islands could be returned, the crisis in the Southwest Pacific Theater would be naturally resolved. Subsequently, the Tang Empire sent troops to attack Midway, which strengthened Nimitz's determination. After the loss of Midway, the gateway to the Hawaiian Islands was opened, and I am afraid that the Tang Army would defeat the Hawaiian Islands before landing on the Australian mainland. Therefore, it is necessary to first hold the line of defense in the Central Pacific, to hold the Hawaiian Islands, ://.. Cn

Nimitz's judgment was not wrong, as the theater commander and commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, Nimitz was well aware of the importance of the Central Pacific defense line. The Hawaiian Islands are backed by the U.S. mainland, and if the Hawaiian Islands fall into the hands of the Tang Empire, then the U.S. route to the Australian mainland will be blocked. Even the west coast of the United States will be hit, and Mexico, which was on the verge of a move, is likely to declare war on the United States. It's like dominoes, after the fall of Hawaii. The entire domino chain would fall, and the result would be a swift defeat for the United States. Defeated so much that he didn't even have the strength to fight back.

While the battle for Midway was still raging, Nimitz sent the fleet that had already reached the Pacific to Pearl Harbor, but as a result, the four newly built battleships turned to Christmas Island halfway through. Nimitz then received a direct order from the President of the United States. The three battleships repaired at Pearl Harbor also left Pearl Harbor and rushed to the Southwest Pacific Theater. The U.S. president's orders didn't stop there, and when Nimitz learned that the president was going to focus on the Southwest Pacific, he immediately flew back home.

MacArthur arrived in Washington only two days after Nimitz, and the two men then argued about which direction they should launch a focused counterattack. Nimitz was adamant of a counterattack in the Central Pacific, while MacArthur was adamant that the main force should be thrown into the Southwest Pacific. As a result, Nimitz did not win, and MacArthur had been reinforced by 22 divisions to counterattack the Solomon Islands. Even the forces that marched to the South Seas lacked only a fleet, only sea and air supremacy to allow these ground forces to launch a counterattack.

After two days of discussion. The U.S. president mediated between the two men, and after assuring that he would focus on the Southwest Pacific theater, he sent MacArthur back to the theater. Then there was a one-on-one meeting with Nimitz. Nimitz also got what he needed, and the Central Pacific theater was no longer a secondary theater of operations. According to the president's words, Nimitz could leave a strong fleet to launch a counterattack in the Central Pacific Theater and assist the Southwest Pacific Theater in launching a strategic counterattack. In addition, the president assured that if Nimitz could win the Mid-Pacific, he would be given troops to advance on the Mariana Islands.

With the president's assurance, Nimitz returned to Pearl Harbor and immediately approached Spruance, who, after consulting Spruance, immediately asked the staff officer of the Theater Command to plan the operation. Of course, he will not give up counterattacks in the Central Pacific, and the first focus of the counterattack is Midway.

At that time, Task Force 1 had not yet left the waters of Midway, so the U.S. counterattack was directed at Task Force 1, and the core part of the plan was done by Spruance himself. Spruance was well aware of the combat effectiveness of Task Force 1, and even when other conditions were basically equal, Spruance believed that he had to have an advantage in strength to be sure of annihilating Task Force 1. As a result, after a request for troops from Nimitz, he was given a large fleet.

Subsequently, Task Force 2 came to transfer Task Force 1, and this information was immediately sent to Nimitz. Task Force 2 was only a two-carrier fleet at the time, but Nimitz did not reduce the number of troops he remained, and whatever Nimitz thought, he needed a quick victory, not a victory that came at a terrible cost, so it was absolutely necessary to leave enough troops behind.

At that time, Nimitz left Spruance a total of forty-five warships, including six aircraft carriers, three large cruisers, twelve cruisers, and twenty-four destroyers. The warships were organized into two task forces, of which the 51st task force had three fleet carriers, three large cruisers, six cruisers, and twelve destroyers. The 52nd Task Force has three small aircraft carriers, six cruisers, twelve destroyers. Both fleets are very large. Spruance got the forces he needed and the forces he needed to defeat his opponents.

In other words, the U.S. fleet sent to the Southwest Pacific at that time had only three aircraft carriers, six small aircraft carriers, seven battleships, three large cruisers, sixteen cruisers, and thirty-three destroyers. In order to achieve the goal of confusing the adversary, and also to achieve the goal of isolating the First Task Force (and later the Second Task Force), the US military used a lot of camouflage and deception methods.

Among them, the port numbers on the left and right sides of the three fleet aircraft carriers are all different, and the port numbers on the left and right sides of the ship island are also different. As a result, the photos taken by the submarines of the Tang Empire showed the broadside numbers of six aircraft carriers, but in fact there were only three aircraft carriers! The other three small aircraft carriers were disguised as 10,000-ton supply ships, so the Tang Empire always judged that only three small aircraft carriers of the US military went to the southwest Pacific. Left in the Central Pacific were six small aircraft carriers. There is also a lot of camouflage and deception in other ways, such as deliberately revealing the whereabouts of the fleet.

At that time, it was Rear Admiral Mitchell who led the fleet south. He is the commander of the U.S. Navy's newly promoted Aircraft Carrier Task Force. At the time of departure, Nimitz made a point of emphasis to him. That is to pass through the area where the two Tang Empire submarines are focused on their activities, but do not get too close to the search range of the Tang Empire's patrol aircraft. Nimitz's purpose was to make the submarine of the Tang Empire discover the fleet, but the reconnaissance planes of the Tang Empire could not discover the fleet. In this way, the false is real, the true is false. This made it impossible for the Tang Empire's ground intelligence department to accurately judge the size of the fleet.

Nimitz's goal was achieved, at least it made the intelligence system of the Tang Empire believe many times that the main fleet of the US army was rapidly moving south, and there were a large number of capital ships among them. At the same time, on the Central Pacific side, Nimitz had been letting three small aircraft carriers operate in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands, and the 51st Task Force under the command of Spruance, after following Mitchell's fleet out of Pearl Harbor, did not go south, but sailed eastward, rounding the waters northeast of the Hawaiian Islands, patrolling and waiting in the waters where Tang Imperial submarines would hardly appear.

In this set of plans. The role of MacArthur has to be mentioned.

After secretly making a promise to Nimitz, the US president made contact with MacArthur and clarified the command authority of the land and navy in the Pacific theater. MacArthur was commander-in-chief of the Army in the Pacific Theater. It can command all land forces (most of the shore-based aviation of the US military belongs to the command of the army, only a small part belongs to the command of the Marine Corps, and the US naval aviation commands only the fleet aviation), while the navy (Marine Corps does not belong to the naval establishment in peacetime. and in wartime it was commanded by the Navy) and the command of the land was in the hands of Nimitz. In addition, the president also made it clear to MacArthur that the counterattack in the Southwest Pacific Theater would be a very difficult task, and if certain results could be achieved in the Central Pacific during this period, it would be of great help to the counterattack in the Southwest Pacific Theater.

Subsequently, MacArthur made contact with Nimitz. Although there is a great contradiction between the two, at this critical moment, the two generals are very clear that whether it is the Central Pacific or the Southwest Pacific, failure in either direction will eventually lead to the defeat of the entire Pacific War, and this counterattack can only be won, not defeated, and the only way to win is to work together, not to pull each other back.

After making this clear, MacArthur promised that he would first contain the main forces of the Tang Empire in the southwest Pacific, and could even launch a counterattack to land on the Solomon Islands in advance, so that the Tang Army would have no time to take care of the Central Pacific Theater. And Nimitz also promised that after completing the counterattack on Midway, he would immediately send troops to capture Wake Island, first sweep the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands, complete the task of opening up the route to the southwest Pacific, threaten the Solomon Islands from the flank, connect the two theaters of war, and then send troops to the Mariana Islands.

After the two theater commanders reached an agreement, the deployment of the campaign began, which happened to be in early August. At that time, MacArthur had about thirty divisions of ground troops at his disposal, plus about 4,000 aircraft (including about 3,000 combat aircraft). Nimitz also had a lot of offensive troops, and he had already concentrated fifteen marine divisions on the Hawaiian Islands (the size of the US Marine Division was larger than that of the Army Division, and it was also larger than that of the Tang Imperial Marine Division, with a division of about 20,000 troops), 3,500 aircraft (including 2,700 combat aircraft, including about 500 heavy bombers), two huge landing fleets, and five transport fleets.

In early August, all the preparations for Nimitz were in place. By this time, he had already sent about 50,000 troops to Midway (more than half of which had already been consumed), and he could transport two Marine Divisions of ground forces to Midway in a matter of days. The Marines attacking the Marshall Islands, Wake Island, and Gilbert Islands were also ready to go, and large quantities of war materiel were loaded onto the transport ships anchored in Pearl Harbor. Now, the only thing missing is sea supremacy, and that's up to Spruance to act.

In the Southwest Pacific Theater, MacArthur also made preparations for the departure of 15 divisions, and a large number of planes had been deployed near the front-line theater, while in Brisbane and Port Vila, dozens of large landing ships and hundreds of transport ships were loaded with troops and combat materials. What MacArthur lacked was sea supremacy, and he had to wait for Halsey's action and the arrival of the fleet.

On August 5, Nimitz sent a telegram to Spruance with only one sentence: the decisive battle on the 10th. This is a code, which means that the Fifth Fleet commanded by Spruance should be in place on the 10th, and after annihilating the Second Task Force of the Tang Empire, Nimitz will immediately send two additional divisions of Marines to Midway to defeat the Tang Empire Marines on Midway. At the same time, the Marines will also land on Majuro Atoll, and Spruance will have to do all his best to suppress the Tang Imperial Air Force on Wake Island, send a task force to bombard Kwajalein Atoll, Majuro Atoll, and assist the Marines in capturing the Marshall Islands, and then Wake Island and the Gilbert Islands.

These campaign counterattack plans have been drawn up long ago, and the key to the entire counterattack operation is whether the fleet can seize sea supremacy and suppress the Tang Imperial Air Force on these islands. At this time, the intelligence department of the Tang Empire had nothing to gain in this regard, and Nie Renfeng, Gan Yongxing, Liao Hanxiang and others did not know that the large-scale counterattack of the US army was about to begin.

Lei Shaoqing, who was in the Second Task Force, did not know that the fleet was already in danger, and he did not know that the Second Task Force had become a substitute for the dead, and that the US military arranged the strike force in accordance with the actions taken against the First Task Force, and the Second Task Force was certainly inferior to the First Task Force in terms of combat effectiveness.

After receiving the telegram from Gan Yongxing, Lei Shaoqing was not negligent, especially after seeing the payment on the telegram, he knew that this was a warning from Tan Renhao, and he never doubted Tan Renhao's intuitive judgment. But the problem is that now Lei Shaoqing doesn't have much more grasp of the battlefield situation than others!