In war, any action taken by an army on the battlefield has a supreme purpose, which is to finally defeat the enemy. Because this supreme purpose cannot be achieved overnight, wars are often divided into different phases, each of which has a secondary purpose, such as winning an important battlefield. In the same way, because this secondary purpose is often difficult to achieve at one time, the battles on each battlefield will be divided into many battles, and each battle has a campaign purpose.

Victory in the war can only be achieved when the army advances towards these ends. Therefore, in battle, tactical objectives are often secondary, and the most important is strategic objectives, and it is desirable to appropriately sacrifice tactical interests in order to achieve them. The second is the purpose of the campaign, it can be said that any tactical action is to work hard for the purpose of the campaign, and only through the continuous realization of the campaign purpose can we accumulate small victories into big victories and finally achieve strategic victories.

This is the simplest military principle, and it is also a principle of war that military experts of various countries have summed up through thousands of wars in the thousands of years of human history. During the war, every military strategist, excellent general, and staff officer knew very well that this principle guided the development of the war, and that any action that violated this principle would be harmful and unhelpful, and only by obeying this principle and commanding the army in accordance with this principle could the final victory be achieved. Spruance was no exception, and from the beginning to the end, he followed this principle and guided the combat operations of the army.

After receiving the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Spruance first considered not how big the loss of Pearl Harbor was, whether the Fifth Fleet could return to Pearl Harbor, or how to counterattack the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy and turn the tide. The first thing he considered was why the main fleet of the Tang Empire suddenly bombed Pearl Harbor and attacked Oahu.

Spruance was the first to consider what Nimitz did not consider, and his consideration was from top to bottom, that is, the strategic significance of the bombing of Pearl Harbor first. The second is the intention of the campaign, and in the end what is the meaning of a tactical victory.

Strategically speaking, if the Tang Imperial Navy had attacked Pearl Harbor in the early days of the United States' entry into the war, it would have been of great strategic value. At that time, almost all of the US Pacific Fleet was concentrated at Pearl Harbor, and even if a sneak attack could not destroy the entire Pacific Fleet in one fell swoop, it could still put the US military in a passive situation and always be in a strategic defensive posture. In this way, the Navy of the Don Empire was able to speed up the course of the war for at least more than a year. So that there is no need to fight with the US military in the Mariana Islands and the southwest Pacific for more than two years. On the contrary, by this time, the strategic significance of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was no longer obvious. On the contrary, if the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy attacked San Francisco and other major cities on the West Coast of the United States at this time, its strategic significance would be far greater than the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

In terms of battles, as long as the Tang Imperial Navy has always held the advantage of sea supremacy, it is only a matter of time before Kauai is captured, and as long as Kauai is captured, there is no need for the fleet to risk a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Therefore, the destruction of Pearl Harbor is really only a matter of time. In the Fifth Fleet has not yet been annihilated. And the will of the US military to resist has not been broken. The risk of an attack on Pearl Harbor was enormous when the fleet took the initiative to attack Oahu without destroying the air force on Oahu. Although the sneak attack of the fleet of the Don Empire was successful. But before that, who could have predicted that the adventure would be successful? Therefore, the intention of the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy to attack Pearl Harbor was obviously not to destroy Pearl Harbor, nor to seize sea supremacy!

Since the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor does not make sense in terms of strategy and strategy, there must have been tactical intentions. As the largest port outside the continental United States, the home port of the US Pacific Fleet, and the rear of the Fifth Fleet's activities, Pearl Harbor's military value is very obvious. In addition, if the U.S. military wants to hold the Hawaiian Islands, it cannot do without the material support provided by the rear, and the transport fleet must first transport the supplies to Pearl Harbor. And then send it to the front. Therefore, the value of Pearl Harbor in terms of logistics is also very great. But the problem is that none of these can fundamentally eliminate the Fifth Fleet, nor can they fundamentally allow the Tang Imperial Navy to gain absolute sea supremacy.

The short-term tactical purpose of the Tang Empire's navy was to gain absolute sea supremacy, and then use sea supremacy to win battles and eventually capture the Hawaiian Islands. Fundamentally, this can only be achieved by the annihilation of the Fifth Fleet. This, in fact, was also reflected in the actions of the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy before, after the Fifth Fleet entered the battlefield. The main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy left the waters near Kauai Island, stopped providing aviation support to the marines, and switched to searching for the Fifth Fleet. So, in this sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, could the purpose of the commander of the Tang Imperial Navy fleet be to force the Fifth Fleet to fight a decisive battle with it?

Thinking of this, Spruance realized the danger. When he thought about it, he immediately realized that forcing the Fifth Fleet to fight, or forcing the Fifth Fleet to fall into the trap that had been set, was the ultimate goal of Tan Renhao or Huang Xiaotian. The attack on Pearl Harbor was just a cover, a cone on the back of the Fifth Fleet, which could not hurt the Fifth Fleet, but could force the Fifth Fleet to sail forward until it entered the trap that had been set. Obviously, it is not Oahu that is in danger at this time, but the Fifth Fleet!

With this in mind, Spruance immediately turned the fleet, and Turner and Mitchell immediately sent a telegram of inquiry, and they also knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor, but they did not understand why Spruance wanted the fleet to turn northeast instead of returning directly to Pearl Harbor. Spruance did not reply to the two immediately, he did not want to let the thoughts of others be affected, at this time Spruance was not thinking about the safety of Pearl Harbor, but about the fate of the Fifth Fleet!

After analyzing the information he had received earlier, Spruance soon realized that the trap set by his opponent was too dangerous, and as long as the Fifth Fleet entered the ambush circle, he would be dead. What made Spruance even more shocked was that the opponent, whether it was Tan Renhao or Huang Xiaotian, had come up with such a bold strategy to deal with him. Of course, what puzzled Spruance the most were a few of the questions that he couldn't understand.

Judging from the information provided by the reconnaissance planes on Kauai, it should be the First Fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy that was operating near Kauai at this time, and the commander of this fleet was Admiral Tan Renhao. This has been confirmed in previous intelligence. And this is also evidenced by the previous activities of the two main fleets of the Navy of the Tang Empire. The commander of the First Fleet is Tan Renhao, and the commander of the Third Fleet is Huang Xiaotian. The First Fleet includes the first, second, and third, three task forces. The 3rd Task Force returned to the waters off Kauai on the 15th. Shore-based reconnaissance planes have officially named the warships of the two task forces that appeared in the waters near Kauai, and these warships are the warships of the 1st and 2nd task forces. All this proves that the place of activity near Kauai should be the First Fleet.

If all this information is correct, then it was the Third Fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor. This is also comparable to the size data of the Tang Empire's carrier-based bomber group provided by Pearl Harbor, and there must have been three task forces attacking Pearl Harbor. But the problem is. There are two task forces in the Third Fleet that are newly formed, and even if their backbone is all excellent officers and men, it is still impossible for these two newly formed task forces to have the strong combat effectiveness of the previous task forces. In fact, this can also be confirmed by some information that Spruance received from the place before. In the bombing of Kauai, the bomber groups of Task Force 1, Task Force 2, or Task Force 4 were the first to take the lead, and the bomber groups of Task Force 7 and Task Force 8 were often used to expand the results of the battle.

This made Spruance a little puzzled, and the performance of the Don Empire bomber pilots who bombed Oahu could be described as excellent. Only the best air corps were able to carry out such a difficult bombing mission, especially during the first round of bombing. It's not yet dark. The bomber groups had an alarmingly high rate of bombing at night, which was by no means capable of being achieved by the aviation of the two newly formed task forces.

It was through these details that Spruance saw the problem. If you do not take into account the fixed composition of the two main fleets. Spruance prefers to believe that it was the three most powerful task forces that attacked Oahu, and that the two newly formed task forces remained near Kauai. But the problem is that the reconnaissance planes have already recognized the names of the warships of the two fleets, and the Tang Imperial Navy adopted the Xindi establishment when forming the main fleet. Was it just the replacement of officers and men on the battleship? This is obviously impossible, there are nearly 3,000 officers and men on one aircraft carrier, and not every aircraft carrier is exactly the same, and it is impossible to change personnel to make the combat effectiveness of the fleet rise rapidly. In addition, will Tan Renhao and Huang Xiaotian break the establishment of the Tang Imperial Navy Command? Spruance doesn't doubt this, as far as he knows. Tan Renhao and Huang Xiaotian are by no means the kind of commanders who stick to the rules, and in order to win, these two can do a lot of things that others can't think of.

Thinking of this, Spruance no longer doubted that Tan Renhao and Huang Xiaotian must have broken the rules and gathered the three most powerful task forces together. There was no basis for this judgment, and all the intelligence at the time contradicted it, but Spruance preferred to trust his own judgment rather than the "bullshit" information.

After making this judgment. Spruance reconsidered the whole situation and recognized the seriousness of the problem. The two carrier task forces, as well as the third task force, were concentrated in the southeast of the Fifth Fleet. In fact, these three fleets blocked the Fifth Fleet's southward direction, and even made the Fifth Fleet dare not rush to the Hawaiian Islands. Spruance roughly weighed it, even if he was sure to defeat the two carrier task forces, or even kill the third task force, it would take time, more luck, and a lot of price. Perhaps, what the opponent needs is for him to attack this fleet, and then outflank it, block the escape route of the Fifth Fleet, and finally make a move to catch the cicada, and the yellow finch is behind, and destroy the Fifth Fleet in one fell swoop! Then, the Fifth Fleet must not be easily fooled. This strengthened Spruance's idea of avoiding the war for the time being.

The point is, where is the fleet that attacked Oahu now? Judging from the opponent's hasty withdrawal from the battle, Tan Renhao or Huang Xiaotian certainly did not put the attack on Oahu in the first place, otherwise, they could have organized several more large-scale bombings to destroy the large amount of war materials hoarded by the US military on Oahu, and eventually caused the US military to run out of ammunition and food, thus losing the ability to defend the Hawaiian Islands. But if the opponent did not do so, then the fleet must now be in a favorable position to attack, and is ready to intercept or ambush the Fifth Fleet.

The ideal sea area for intercepting the Fifth Fleet is within 500 to 650 nautical miles northeast of Oahu. This was exactly in the vicinity of the submarine cordon of the Imperial Navy of the Don Empire, perhaps to the north of its submarine cordon. If the Fifth Fleet had returned to Pearl Harbor as before, it would have taken this route and crashed headlong into the guns of the other side. That's why Spruance instinctively turned the Fifth Fleet around. If you want to avoid the strike, you have to avoid this area, and the fleet's course has to move north. But in the same way, Spruance was also able to fight back and ambush the main fleet of the Tang Empire.

When thinking about a counterattack, Spruance's first thought was the strength of the fleet, which frustrated him. Although the bombing of Midway was successful, it also caused considerable losses to the Fifth Fleet. At present, the loss rate of the three task force air forces is close to 10%, and the ammunition and fuel left in the fleet are not too much, so it is obviously difficult for a strong man to fight a decisive battle with the three most powerful task forces of the Tang Imperial Navy under such circumstances.

After careful consideration, Spruance chose to retreat. He didn't have the strength to challenge Tan Renhao, let alone delusionally attack the three task forces that were waiting for him, the hope of victory was close to zero, and the ultimate price of the adventure was likely to be the entire family of the Fifth Fleet. Spruance also thought of a proverb in the Tang Empire, that is, thirty-six strategies, go ahead. If you can't beat it, you have to try to escape, and only the stupidest people will fight the enemy when they know that they are not the enemy's opponents, and they will not gamble with their lives! But the question is, is it that easy to retreat? The enemy has already cast a net, and to get out safely is not an idea, or a matter as simple as saying a few words!