The fleet circled the waters southwest of Jeju Island for two days, which made Tan Renhao feel a sense of fear. The waters around Jeju Island are frequented by Japanese submarines, and if they encounter a Japanese submarine, the fleet's whereabouts will be exposed. In the past two days, several submarine alarms have made Tan Renhao tense his nerves, but fortunately they are only false alarms, and the nervous lookout thinks that the jets of water spewed by several whales that have surfaced to breathe are Japanese submarines.

By the evening of the second day, the fleet began to move south. This was the order that Tan Renhao gave to go south after receiving the news that the army air night bombers had departed. At this time, the first batch of bombers had reached the central part of the East China Sea and was flying in the direction of Ryukyu Island at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, and in front of this batch of bombers, there were dozens of escort fighters.

"Renhao, don't you have anything to worry about?" In the past two days, Lei Shaoqing found that Tan Renhao was much calmer than before. Originally, Tan Renhao was a very calm person, and he was not easy to get excited at all. Now he's a little cold.

"What is there to worry about?" Tan Renhao looked at the sea to the west, "Everything is going according to plan, it's not us who should be worried, but the Japanese." ”

Lei Shaoqing laughed, this is another change in Tan Renhao, that is, self-confidence. In the Battle of Jeju Island, Tan Renhao also showed a little worried about his command and judgment, but this time, Tan Renhao was full of confidence in his decision. In the traditional concept of the Imperial Navy, whether a person has a strong will, strong self-confidence, is a measure of whether a naval officer has the ability to command the fleet in combat. Now, Tan Renhao has these two points, and is proving that he is capable of commanding the Imperial Navy fleet in battle.

An hour later, the first Army night bomber dropped bombs on Naha Port. There was not a single Japanese air defense fighter in the sky. The long-range fighters that went out to escort the escort also joined the ranks of ground strikes, using the machine guns and machine guns they carried to carry out fierce strafing at glowing targets on the ground. For the first time, pilots of the Army Air Force also discovered that Japan did not have night fighters, or rather, none of the Japanese fighters could carry out combat missions at night.

The night fighter is also known as the night interceptor, and its main mission is to intercept bombers on night bombing missions. This is a combat aircraft that has only recently appeared. Because of the need to search for air targets at night, before the advent of radar, night fighters were equipped with two pilots (even after the advent of radar, night fighters will generally arrange two pilots, one of whom is responsible for searching for targets with radar), and this will make the fighter fuselage larger, generally requiring the installation of two high-power engines. Japan itself is deficient in this area, the power of its aero engines has always been insufficient, and Japan is also very backward in the development of radars. More importantly, Japan lacks a sufficient industrial base, lacks sufficient resources, and lacks electricity, and the cost of manufacturing large fighters is very high. The combat performance of these fighters is really good, but it is difficult to effectively intercept air targets at night.

The anti-aircraft fire on the ground was so intense that the bombers on bombing missions had to enter from a high altitude and drop bombs in turn. After completing the bombing mission, 450 bombers began to return home. In this air raid, the Tang Imperial Army Air Force lost only 8 bombers, and all the fighters escorted back.

When these bombers landed on the airfields in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the empire, the ground crew was busy again. The pilots, who had just disembarked, were asked to rest for only four hours and then prepare for the next round of bombing. At the same time, hundreds of bombers, who were unable to carry out bombing missions at night, were towed to the airfield, refueled by ground crews, and hung with bombs. According to Tan Renhao's plan, an hour after dawn, the army aviation will again bomb the Japanese airfield, Naha Port, military camps, and other military targets on Ryukyu Island. In this bombing, all the bombers deployed in the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be dispatched, and more than 800 bombers will participate in the battle.

The fleet is still moving south rapidly, Tan Renhao has not slept all night, it is not that he does not want to sleep, but he can't sleep. If he wasn't nervous, it would be a strange thing, even if Marshal Nie Renfeng was brought to his position, he would definitely feel very nervous. However, nervousness is nervousness, and Tan Renhao has a great grasp of this operation. In the past two days or so, the Army's concentrated bombing of Ryukyu Island has achieved good results, and this has already met Tan Renhao's demand. If the situation does not change, then the Japanese fighters on Ryukyu Island will definitely take off half an hour before dawn and then carry out a guard mission over the waters east of Ryukyu Island. And when the bombers of the Army Airlines rushed to Ryukyu Island again, the Japanese fighters on the island would take off, and this was the opportunity that Tan Renhao wanted.

"Colonel, just received a telegram from the command of the Navy."

Tan Renhao immediately rushed into the Bridge Command, which was the aviation operations command of the 1st Task Force. Task Force 1 is actually the aircraft carrier fleet, and the Air Operations Command is the most important command department of the fleet. According to the division of labor between Tan Renhao and Ji Xiaobin, Ji Xiaobin was responsible for arranging the actions of the fleet on the "Li Jing," while Tan Renhao was responsible for directing aviation combat operations on the "Taizu." Nominally, Ji Xiaobin is the commander of the fleet, but in fact, when fighting, everything is on Tan Renhao's side.

"The Navy Command just sent that one of our submarines operating east of Ryukyu Island spotted the Japanese First Air Fleet heading west at about 6 p.m. yesterday evening, confirming that there are at least four large fleet aircraft carriers in the fleet."

Tan Renhao was taken aback, and immediately asked the communications officer, "Why did you only send the news now?" Where did that submarine find the Japanese fleet? ”

"The submarine was four hours late in sending the telegram, and I am afraid that it was very close to the Japanese fleet at that time, so it did not dare to rashly surface to send a telegram." The communications officer quickly marked the specific location of the submarine on the chart, "about 450 nautical miles from Ryukyu Island, which is the exact location of the submarine transmission." ”

Lei Shaoqing quickly glanced at Tan Renhao, whether this news is good or bad, no one can be sure now.