Chapter 51

A large number of Japanese fighters were menacing, but to their sorrow, the Tang Army's Thunder bombers were equipped with powerful defensive firepower, and the several machine-gun pillboxes opened fire fiercely, forming a fierce firepower network, and dozens of Japanese fighters were shot down in the blink of an eye.

The Japanese fighters tumbled and fell from the sky like turkeys, and the Japanese in Tokyo saw it clearly, and sighed one after another, so many fighters could not do more than 20 bombers, and it was really a shame that they were thrown on Mars.

The Japanese fighters were slow and weak, and although they had a numerical advantage, they did not take advantage in the slightest.

The Tang bomber group did not have time to deal with them and was in a hurry to return, and the Thunder bombers ignored the entanglement of the Japanese fighters and continued to climb.

Most of the Japanese fighters had an altitude of less than five or six thousand meters, and it didn't take long for the Tang bomber group to fly to an altitude of eight or nine thousand meters.

Tokyo was bombed by the Tang Army, not to mention that the Hirohito family was killed, and all the sacred artifacts of the three shrines, which symbolized the Japanese imperial power, were blown up, which made the Japanese people who were already frightened birds panic, and the whole country was sad, as if it had reached the end of the world.

In the following days, the Tang Army took advantage of the weakness of Japan's air defense firepower to bomb many prosperous cities in Japan in succession, including Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, and other places, most of which were destroyed, more than 100,000 people killed and wounded, and millions of people homeless.

Minoru Saito couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the pieces of ruins. That was several times more destructive than the Tokyo earthquake, and it cost Japan a lot.

At the same time, the Tang Army's bomber group also focused on bombing the Japanese army's Yokosuka, Sasebo, Kure Port and other places, and carried out key damage to the Japanese army's major shipyards and other related industrial facilities. It inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army, and at the same time delayed the rebuilding of the combined fleet by the Japanese army.

The steel and shipbuilding equipment prepared by the Japanese army at a cost of hundreds of millions of yen were blown up along with the dockyard, and thousands of outstanding workers and technicians in the shipyard were killed.

The Japanese military urgently mobilized a large number of anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns to defend important military facilities and cities, and at the same time stepped up the production of anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns in the country, and the Japanese had never experienced such panic. It was a huge shock from the bottom of my heart.

"The Tang Army is too terrifying, they are the devil."

In just a few months, this kind of word has been spreading everywhere in Japan. When the Japanese heard the word "Tang", they became frightened.

With the large-scale deployment of anti-aircraft artillery by the Japanese army, the threat to the Tang Army's bomber group also increased, and many Thunder bombers were shot down by Japanese artillery fire. At the same time, Longhua Airport was also repeatedly attacked by Japanese spies because it was too close to the public concession. The defense there was carried out by the national army. However, the pro-Japanese Shili of the national government secretly made trouble, making the airport defense full of loopholes, giving Japanese spies the opportunity to sneak attack the airport, causing the airport runway to be destroyed, the oil depot and ammunition depot to be blown up, and the loss of more than a dozen bombers.

Although the Tang Empire solemnly protested to the government, demanding a thorough investigation to the end and arresting traitors and traitors. But the relationship between the government and the government is complicated, and in the end, it is impossible to find some inconsequential substitutes.

The Tang Empire demanded a garrison at Longhua Airport. However, Jiang Zhongzheng was bent on the outside world and had already reached an armistice and reconciliation agreement with Japan, and did not want to go to war with Japan again, so he not only rejected the request of the Tang Empire, but also demanded that the Tang Empire stop using mainland airfields to attack Japan and stop slaughtering innocent Japanese on the grounds of national safety and humanitarianism.

Zhang Meng was very annoyed by this and immediately terminated all assistance to the government. However, it still could not change Jiang Zhongzheng's determination.

Because the Tang Empire still needed to continuously introduce talents and populations from the mainland, it could not completely fight with the government, and soon resumed aid, but the amount of aid was greatly reduced. In turn, the government did not dare to really offend the Tang Empire, and both sides tacitly stopped quarrelling.

However, Zhang Meng did not stop, and air attacks on Japan became the basic tactical strategy of the Tang Empire in the next few years.

Without the help of airfields on the mainland, the range of the Tang Army's Thunder bombers would not be enough, so Zhang Meng needed to seize a base close to the Japanese mainland.

The Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific Ocean belong to the southern islands of Japan, about 1,200 kilometers from Tokyo, Japan, and are composed of more than 30 large and small islands, from north to south, divided into three groups: the Sonsinoshima Islands, the Chichijima Islands, and the Hajima Islands. The total area is 71.4 square kilometers. Once the archipelago is captured, not only will the range of the Tang Army's Thunder bombers easily cover the entire Japanese archipelago, but even the Tang Army's short-range bombers will be able to engage in bombing operations.

At the same time, if a supply base is established in the Ogasawara Islands, then the aircraft carrier battle group of the Don Army can easily threaten the Japanese archipelago.

In Zhang Meng's mind, the capture of the Ogasawara Islands was one of the important links in his huge battle.

However, the Japanese also knew the key point here, and the planes of the Tang Army were too powerful, which had to make the Japanese stand by and no longer dare to underestimate the Liliang of the planes. The Don Army's aircraft carrier battle group was even more formidable to the Japanese army, and the Japanese Navy was no longer able to defend its homeland due to the heavy damage suffered by the Combined Fleet. Therefore, the Japanese Joint Staff Headquarters had no choice but to strengthen its precautions to prevent the Tang Army from landing on the Japanese mainland.

The Ogasawara Islands were the southern gateway to the Japanese archipelago, and if lost, it would expose the entire Japanese archipelago to the threat of the Don Army's aircraft carrier battle group, so the Japanese army vigorously strengthened its defenses there.

The Ogasawara Islands are an active volcanic archipelago, and only one of them, Fujima, is inhabited, with a population of no more than 1,000 people, half male and half female, all Japanese. However, the real military center is not this Fu Island, but Iwo Jima Island to the southwest.

Iwo Jima is also an active volcanic island, about 1,200 kilometers from Saipan and Tokyo to the south and north, and its strategic location is extremely important.

In order to prevent the Tang army from approaching the Japanese mainland, the Japanese army deployed more than 10,000 people on Iwo Jima, and they had no naval and air support, no heavy support artillery, only pure infantry armament and pillboxes and other fortifications.

The Tang Army's aircraft carrier battle group arrived in the waters near Iwo Jima in early August, and hundreds of planes took off from four capital aircraft carriers and several escort aircraft carriers to carry out heavy bombing of Iwo Jima in turn.

The 500-kilogram aerial bomb fell, like the impact of a meteorite from outside the sky, and in an instant the mountains shook, the rocks collapsed, the trees snapped, and the flying sand and rocks were filled with gunsmoke.

The surface fortifications built by the Japanese army were blown up one after another, and the fierce bombardment for half a month turned the entire Iwo Jima into a sea of fire, like a volcanic eruption, and the horror and tragedy on the other side of the eruption were terrible, two-thirds of the Japanese garrison was killed, and the remaining Japanese troops were forced to dig tunnels and go underground.

The Japanese army dug tunnels in the mountains, and for a time the aerial bombs of the Tang Army were helpless.

After mid-August, after a series of anti-submarine operations, the Tang aircraft carrier battle group sank 13 Japanese submarines and cleared a safe passage close to Iwo Jima, allowing the Tang fleet to get close to Iwo Jima.

Knock knock!

Artillery roared.

On the sea, the Tang warships lined up, and the large-caliber naval guns fiercely bombarded the small volcanic island of less than 20 square kilometers.

The 1st Marine Division of the Tang Army took more than 500 landing craft and began to carry out beach-grabbing landing operations on Iwo Jima.

The Tang army divided the beachhead into three places, A, B and C, with SRA tanks as the lead, but all of them were attacked by mines planted by the Japanese army earlier, and lost more than a dozen tanks.

The Japanese army no longer had ground pillboxes and fortifications, but they hid a large number of underground bunkers, tongues of fire spewed out, blockaded the coastal beachhead, and once made more than 1,000 Tang soldiers trapped behind the beach rocks for more than an hour, until the Tang Army called for naval aviation support, and more than a dozen Hellfire heavy carrier-based bombers arrived to destroy several Japanese beachhead bunkers.

The Japanese bunkers near the beachhead were destroyed, and there were more bunkers behind, and those bunkers were extremely hidden, and the Tang army had to pay a great price every time they took a step forward.

However, the Tang army soon changed its tactics, and a batch of new flamethrowers and incendiary bombs were delivered to the battlefield in time, and its huge and terrifying lethality suddenly turned the tide of the battlefield. (To be continued......)