The Japanese Southwest Combined Fleet did send a group of bombers, however, this group of bombers was not there to deal with the Fifth Fleet, but to bomb the Tang Army airfield on Jeju Island!

When the air defense fighters of the Japanese fleet shot down the seaplane piloted by Sergeant Li Jian, Nagumo Iktada did not recognize that it was a water reconnaissance plane sent by the Fifth Fleet of the Tang Empire, but judged it to be a reconnaissance plane departing from Jeju Island. In fact, this can only be blamed on the pilot of the "Zero Battle", because he regarded the "Big Ben Goose" as a long-range anti-submarine search aircraft, not a seaplane on a heavy cruiser (these two types of aircraft are very similar, both are double-cast, upper monoplane structure, and ship-shaped fuselage, which is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish). As a result, based on the report of this pilot, Nagumo Ilzhong decided to bomb the Don Army airfield on Jeju Island in order to ensure the safety of the fleet.

This was obviously a grossly wrong decision, and less than 20 minutes after sending out the bombers (it took 40 minutes to take off and prepare, which was extremely inefficient), the four fighters led by Colonel Luo Jinming came to the skies over the fleet. Now, Nagumo Kazutada will not make any more mistakes, because the "Sparrowhawk" fighter used by the Imperial Navy uses gull-style wings, which is very different from the fighter equipped by the Imperial Army Air Force in appearance. It was at this time that Nagumo Ichotaka immediately telegraphed the group of planes that had gone to bomb Jeju Island to change course and move towards the southeast of the fleet to search for the Fifth Fleet that was attacking the Tang Empire.

By this time, the Japanese bomber group had already reached the vicinity of Jeju Island, so after receiving an order from Nagumo Ichichada, the bombers flew south, not to the southwest.

When the air defense radar on the "Li Jing" was turned on, it was discovered that it was these Japanese bombers flying from the north of the fleet. The bomber group concentrated almost two-thirds of the bombers of Japan's Southwestern Combined Fleet, including escort fighters, and the fleet size exceeded 120 aircraft.

Within the Fifth Fleet, three aircraft carriers released all the remaining fighters in ten minutes. In addition to the 12 fighters that have been carrying out air defense patrol missions over the fleet, there are less than 30 air defense fighters in the skies over the Fifth Fleet, and none of the air defense fighters that have just taken off have not yet risen to the interception altitude. In the oncoming Japanese bomber group, there were 24 escorted "Zero Battles".

After releasing the fighters, the three aircraft carriers quickly returned to the core of the fleet. "Li Jing" also accelerated to keep up with the aircraft carrier "Taizu", providing close air defense cover in the starboard direction of the aircraft carrier. The battle for air volleys on the periphery of the fleet soon began.

The advantage of the Sparrowhawk's dive attack performance in volleys is even more obvious. The 12 Sparrowhawks had been flying at a distance of 5,000 meters above the fleet, while the attacking Japanese bomber group was flying at an altitude of 3,500 meters. These "sparrowhawks" did not go to fight the Japanese escort fighters at all, but rushed directly towards the Japanese bomber group. Those "Zeros" that did not carry bombs were almost no threat to the battleships, and it was the bombers that died. This is also the main task of the air defense interceptor, as long as the Japanese bombers are shot down, then the safety of the fleet can be ensured.

The escort fighters in the Japanese fleet also went crazy to intercept the "Sparrowhawk" that swooped down from a high altitude. However, the Japanese fleet adopted a close-range escort tactic, with escort fighters generally flying above the front of the bomber group, rather than a long-range interception escort tactic as adopted by the Tang Imperial Navy. Therefore, there were not many opportunities left for Japanese escort fighters. This is a loophole in the Japanese Navy's aviation escort tactics.

The 12 Sparrowhawks shot down seven Japanese bombers in the first dive, but lost four of their own. After the remaining eight "Sparrowhawks" lost their altitude, it would be difficult for them to block the attack of the Japanese "Zero Battle", and they would not have much chance to pose a threat to the Japanese bombing institutions.

By the time more than a dozen "Sparrowhawks" that had taken off urgently were put into battle, the Japanese bomber fleet was already about to reach the skies over the Fifth Fleet. Like the Japanese air defense fighters, the pilots on these "Sparrowhawks" did not care about the threat of anti-aircraft artillery fire on the sea surface at all, and in order to shoot down one more enemy plane, they were almost desperately attacking, and some pilots even directly crashed into the Japanese bombers!

On the aircraft carrier "Taizu", Tan Renhao nervously watched the fierce battle in the northern sky. However, he was surprised that the Japanese bomber fleet was not divided into two groups at all, allowing torpedo bombers to attack from the sea, and dive bombers and horizontal bombers to strike from the sky above the fleet. This made Tan Renhao feel very strange, after all, it was impossible for the torpedoes carried by torpedo bombers to be dropped at an altitude of thousands of meters, unless the Japanese pilots were convinced that they could make the torpedoes hit the battleship on the sea like bombs.

The anti-aircraft artillery of the fleet also quickly opened fire. The 120-mm cannon was able to intercept incoming enemy aircraft from several kilometers away, but it was still ineffective, while the 40-mm cannon was difficult to deal with enemy aircraft at an altitude of 3,000 meters, and the 20-mm anti-aircraft gun was almost impossible to deal with enemy aircraft at an altitude of 3,000 meters.

Nearly 100 Japanese bombers were still lined up in dense formation, killing the three aircraft carriers in the center of the fleet. At this time, Tan Renhao was even more surprised, is the Japanese planning to let the carrier-based aircraft drop bombs at high altitude and carry out intensive bombing like shore-based twin-engine bombers?

Lei Shaoqing also glanced at Tan Renhao in disbelief, obviously he also had the same question. Unless the Japanese have broken their brains, they won't attack like this, because this way of attacking won't have much effect at all!

However, their questions were quickly answered, and after more than two dozen shots in a row, the Japanese bomber group split into two groups, the larger of which began to reduce altitude while maintaining a dense formation, this group was full of horizontal bombers and torpedo bombers with bombs on them. The other group, which was more numerous, sped up and continued to pounce on the three aircraft carriers at their original altitude.

"Those torpedo bombers are bombs!" Lei Shaoqing's eyesight is very good, and he should go to the pilot test.

Tan Renhao frowned slightly, and now, he understood. Why did these Japanese bombers come from the north, and why did those torpedo bombers not lower their altitude. Obviously, these bombers did not come to deal with the Fifth Fleet when they set off, but to bomb Jeju Island!