In the evening, Liao Hongpeng went to visit several old chiefs, and Tan Renhao was also idle. He originally wanted to call Gan Yongxing to ask about Liao Hongpeng, but in the end he still didn't make the call. Now that the principal is in the capital, and the affairs of the headquarters are handled by Gan Yongxing alone, the chief of staff must be busy to death, there is no need to make trouble for Gan Yongxing at this time, and Tan Renhao himself does not want to go to find trouble.

After Liao Hongpeng went out, he accompanied his wife to walk around the yard a few times, and neither of them mentioned anything about the day. Tan Renhao also felt that she was too sensitive, while Liao Yingyu knew better that her husband was concerned about her, so she was so nervous. Mutual understanding made them all feel a little better, and Tan Renhao couldn't sleep after accompanying his wife to rest. When he left the bedroom, he heard that his parents were still busy below, and he wanted to help, but he went to the study anyway. The parents have lived together for decades, so they can better understand the pressure and situation of their son.

Tan Renhao sat down for a few minutes after returning to the study, and when he saw the large stack of documents that Gan Yongxing gave him, he immediately felt a headache, even if he was resting at home, he still had to think about things on the battlefield. The first thing he turned out was the battle report of the Southwest Pacific Theater, to be precise, there were several war reports, and each one was very detailed.

After the "Battle of the Coral Sea," the 1st Task Force was transferred to the Central Pacific Theater to deal with the threat of the US Fifth Fleet, while the 4th Task Force remained in the Southwest Pacific Theater.

The first thing Yan Guozhong had to fight was Port Moresby, especially after MacArthur's huge convoy finally turned to Port Vila. Yan Guozhong strengthened his confidence in the Moresby port. Shortly after Task Force 1 left the Southwest Pacific Theater, the Marine Corps full-scale offensive at Port Moresby began.

Within half a month, Yan Guozhong sent four additional Marine ground troops to the Port Moresby front. plus a large number of heavy weapons, as well as Task Force 4. With strong support from naval aviation and other forces, the attack on Port Moresby went much more smoothly than Yan Guozhong expected. Another reason, of course, was that MacArthur did not reinforce Port Moresby, but abandoned this important stronghold. The center of gravity shifted to the New Hebrides, so the U.S. forces in Port Moresby were simply powerless to hold off the onslaught of the Imperial Marines.

The battle lasted from the beginning of September to 17 September, and after holding out for more than 10 days, the US troops finally admitted defeat. The U.S. commander defending Port Moresby presented flags to Imperial Marine Major General Yuan Ye, the Marine commander who commanded the attack on Port Moresby, and led the more than 8,000 U.S. troops involved to surrender en masse.

In these more than 10 days of fighting, the contribution of the Fourth Task Force can be said to be very huge, which also directly reflects the importance of the First Task Force in containing the US Fifth Fleet in the Central Pacific (at this time, the Fifth Fleet has not yet fully recovered its combat effectiveness). When the Marines attacked, Task Force 4 did not provide the most ground support. But it was the most timely, and the most violent. In particular, in offensive operations, Task Force 4 provided ground artillery support. and that aviation support is more timely and accurate than the bombing of the HNA system.

During more than 10 days of combat operations, Task Force 4 carried out a total of six replenishments at sea, and each time it was successfully completed. The fleet returned to the battlefield in time, dropping bombs and shells on enemy positions when the Marines needed it most. In addition, Task Force 4 was responsible for some of the interdiction bombing missions (which were mainly carried out by the Strategic Strike Force) and was also responsible for destroying a large number of permanent American fortifications.

The importance of the fleet in the landing operation is very clear, and in the battle report, there is also a report of the Fourth Task Force, which was written by Huang Xiaotian himself, and the content is how the fleet cooperates with the Marine Corps to fight in the coastal areas. This is one of two important reports submitted by Huang Xiaotian during this time. In the report, Huang Xiaotian systematically summarized the positive role played by the fleet's artillery support and aviation support in the offensive and defensive operations of the ground forces, as well as how to maximize the capabilities of these supports, and how to avoid some troublesome problems.

This is actually a document for fleet commanders and senior officers to read, and Huang Xiaotian has summed up a lot of lessons learned. This made Tan Renhao a little impressed by Huang Xiaotian. As a fleet commander with a background in the air force, Huang Xiaotian was able to familiarize himself with the combat operations of the fleet in all aspects in such a short period of time, which is not only commendable, but also proves that promoting Huang Xiaotian was a fairly correct decision in the first place. At the same time, Tan Renhao also realized that after more than a year of training, the Fourth Task Force has become one of the main forces of the Imperial Navy, although its ability is still below the First Task Force, but before the Second Task Force suffers heavy losses and the Fifth Task Force has not yet proved its combat effectiveness, the Fourth Task Force is already the Second Imperial Task Force.

This is the value of an excellent fleet commander, if it were not for Huang Xiaotian, there would be no current Fourth Task Force, let alone a powerful Fourth Task Force. Huang Xiaotian formed this fleet and trained this fleet, which is not only the embodiment of his individual ability, but also the embodiment of his collective ability.

Tan Renhao is very emotional, he was also the one who brought out the first task force at the beginning, and it can be said that several other task forces are derived from the first task force. The foundation of the Second Task Force is the group of officers and men who were separated from the First Task Force, and the current commander of the Third Task Force is a new person from the First Task Force. The Fourth Task Force was also separated from the First Task Force, and Huang Xiaotian even started his naval career in the First Task Force, and it can even be said that the newly established Fifth Task Force was derived from the First Task Force.

Tan Renhao is very clear about these situations, and he also found that the foundation of the Imperial Navy is now from the First Task Force, which is the actual situation, but what kind of consequences will this have? Tan Renhao is the founder of the First Task Force, then.

What is his status in the Navy?

After thinking about it for a while, Tan Renhao didn't continue to think about it, it wasn't that he didn't understand the subtleties in it. Rather, I don't want to spend too much time on this issue at this time. He had even seen that the principal insisted on letting Jiang Zhongmin go to the Fifth Task Force as the commander. In fact, it is necessary to balance Tan Renhao's influence in the naval combat forces. This is a matter of balance within the Imperial Navy, and if Tan Renhao's influence expands indefinitely, it will definitely affect many other people. Tan Renhao himself knows that influence is directly proportional to the foundation, if he has enough influence. But if he doesn't have a strong enough foundation, then those influences are the poison of his slow suicide!

After pondering for a while, Tan Renhao opened the next battle report. This is a report on Yan Guozhong's preparations for the attack on the New Hebrides, to be precise, not a war report, but more like a logistics preparation plan.

MacArthur, after abandoning Port Moresby, made every effort to strengthen the defenses of the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, because he knew that the Tang Marines wanted to attack the Australian mainland. It is necessary to first encircle the Australian continent, and then directly land in the southeast of the Australian continent to shorten the ground front. Emphasis should be placed on relying on sea transportation to provide supplies to the ground forces, and the superiority of sea supremacy should be brought into full play. Therefore, the Tang Empire's marines had to conquer the New Hebrides and New Caledonia before marching to Australia.

It was also when the Imperial Marines swept Port Moresby. MacArthur sent a second batch of reinforcements to the New Hebrides. By the end of September, the US military had deployed more than 12 divisions on the six main islands of the New Hebrides and more than 10 secondary islands, built nearly 20 airfields, and had a large number of field airfields, stationed more than 800 ground combat aircraft, and more than 200 long-range patrol planes and reconnaissance planes. The home port of the Third Fleet was transferred from Port Vila to Noumea, where a new command was established. The U.S. military has hoarded more than 5.5 million tons of war materials in the New Hebrides, enough to support the U.S. military operations on the island for half a year. In other words, MacArthur used almost half of his strength to strengthen the defenses of the New Hebrides, preparing to hold off the Imperial Marines here and buy himself more time.

In response to this deployment of the US military, Yan Guozhong deployed offensive operations-for-tat. By late September, he had deployed more than 10 divisions of marines, nearly 1,000 naval combat aircraft, more than 3 million tons of combat materiel, and concentrated landing ships capable of transporting five marine divisions at a time, as well as a large number of transport vessels, on the southern islands of the Solomon Islands. Task Force 4 also moved to the New Hebrides around 20 September, and the next day bombed Santa Maria Island, bombing the U.S. airfield on the island to rubble, and then began to prepare for the landing of Marines on Santa Maria Island.

On the 24th, the Marines successfully landed on the island of Santa Maria, and the American troops on the island put up a stubborn resistance. By the time Tan Renhao returned to Zhoushan, the marines had already captured this extremely important island and officially entered the New Hebrides, and Yan Guozhong's New Hebrides strategy operation had officially begun.

MacArthur's misjudgment was the biggest factor in the rapid defeat of the US forces, apart from the fact that Yan Guozhong had invested a large amount of offensive troops, the Imperial Navy had completely mastered the sea supremacy, the HNA had also arranged a large number of combat aircraft, and the bomber group of the Strategic Strike Force had also entered the battle in an all-out way.

MacArthur had always believed that the Tang Marines, who had gathered hundreds of thousands of troops, must have attacked Espírito Santo, or Vanuaua, further north, or Xiou in the north, so he deployed heavy troops on all three islands. But as a result, Yan Guozhong went the opposite way and directly attacked St. Mary's Island, which was surrounded by other islands, avoiding the islands heavily guarded by American troops, and hitting MacArthur's soft underbelly.

This is the essence of the "island hopping attack", avoiding the enemy's most heavily defended places, directly attacking the enemy's weakly defended islands, and avoiding a death battle with the enemy, which can not only speed up the attack, but also reduce casualties, and at the same time reduce attrition, trapping more enemies on the island.

But in the same way, one of the prerequisites for the "island-hopping attack" is that the attacking side must first ensure sea and air supremacy, and without sea and air supremacy, it will definitely fail. At that time, the Imperial Navy held sea and air supremacy. The 4th Task Force was even more important in the offensive than the Marines.

Before Rear Admiral Yuan Ye's Marines set foot on Santa Maria Island, Task Force No. 4 concentrated on bombing the US airfields on the nearby islands (the Navy and the Strategic Strike Force also played an important role at this time), and cut off the connection between the heavily guarded islands and the outside world, firmly grasping the sea and air supremacy on the battlefield, and then the Marines were able to rush to Santa Maria Island without much threat, and quickly captured the defense, which was defended by less than 3,000 US troops. The island covers an area of more than 250 square kilometers.

After the capture of Santa Maria Island, the gateway to the New Hebrides was opened, and Yan Guozhong was hurrying to organize a new offensive operation. And he also sent over the next battle plan.

Yan Guozhong had two options, one was to capture the more important island of Espírito Santo, which would be used as an advance base for attacks on the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. Or bypass Espírito Santo, advance directly to the south, use the cover of the navy and fleet, attack the inevitable island of Marakura, or even land directly on the island of Efate, where Port Vila is located, in order to shorten the time of the campaign.

Yan Guozhong did not determine a specific offensive plan, and now he is still mobilizing troops and asking the HNA to bomb the US airfield on the nearby islands in an all-out way to compete with the US air force for air supremacy. Task Force 4 has also returned to Rabaul, where it is resting and preparing for the next attack.

At this time, Tan Renhao gradually understood that Yan Guozhong had been speeding up the pace of the offensive and striving to realize the predetermined strategic plan, that is, to complete the combat operations of capturing the New Hebrides and New Caledonia before the army moved to the Australian mainland, so as to lay the foundation for the final landing of the Marine Corps on the Australian mainland.

When Tan Renhao finished reading these battle reports, his eyes fell on the next document, a document that interested him even more.