This is China's first landing operation, Zhang Xiaohuai is a notoriously cautious person, so the preparation is quite perfect, 150 3,000-ton transport ships, transporting nearly 250,000 tons of supplies, as well as 2 divisions of soldiers, a total of 50,000 people, this is the first wave of attack force, for the population is only a little more than 100,000, and close to thousands of Chinese Darwin, enough, as early as 10 days ago, there are almost 500 special forces soldiers, has been secretly entering Darwin, Hiding in the underground storage room of Chinatown, Australia has no idea about China's actions, let alone heightened vigilance, 400 special forces, even a city like Chita can be overturned, not to mention an ordinary, not enough defense and preparation of Darwin, even in Australia, Darwin is not an important city, at most it is a new city because of the rise of gold mines.

East Timor, near the equator, he seems to be a little hot, 300,000 troops here, have tanned a lot, but finally adapted to the climatic conditions here, close to the military port, the siren sounded, long received the order soldiers to start boarding, after expansion, enough to accommodate 100 large and small ships of the port, only 50 ships at the same time, all kinds of logistics and military supplies, has already been prepared, and at the other end of the military port, 12 new landing ships are making final preparations.

Landing ships, this is not a thing of this era, in fact, the predecessor of the landing ship, has appeared in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, known as Elpidifol, is a kind of flat cargo ship with a very shallow draft, can be logged in some places with poor dock conditions, or no dock, and only later did someone value its military use, which gradually developed in World War II.

After the rise of science and technology in China, shipbuilding directly crossed the ordinary era, entered the era of auxiliary design and construction, build this kind of flat-bottomed ship, there is no pressure at all, Yang Yuanzhao does not know much about the landing ship, but he can put forward the use, and even get the general direction out, naturally there are ship design experts to complete him, the landing ship can transport the main battle tank, without the need to convert the amphibious tank, which has a great effect on the landing, although the amphibious tank is strong and adaptable, but in the landing operation, It is not as thick as the main battle tank, and under the guidance of the tank, the infantry follows the attack, which plays a very big role in landing operations.

Realizing this, especially the military, which was taken aback by the landing operation exercise, immediately agreed to the construction of landing ships, and even the first batch of up to 200 ships, in the future in the Pacific Ocean, and even across Asia to the Mediterranean Sea, landing ships are the most value-for-money, they can carry out landing operations under complex sea conditions, and directly project armored forces to the port or non-port coastal areas.

However, the landing ship and the shallow water heavy gunboat have a huge problem, that is, the problem of speed, the landing ship is a little better, the speed of 12 knots -22 knots, really accelerates, or keep up with the ordinary fleet, the shallow water heavy gunboat is not good, his maximum speed is only 12 knots, the seaworthiness is still poor, many times, can only be dragged away, which greatly restricts their range of use, but at the critical moment, similar to Zhang Xiaohuai, is not in a hurry to attack, quietly waiting for the opportunity, These ships can still be transported here.

It is only 500 kilometers wide, and the narrowest point is less than 450 kilometers, which is not a very long distance width for ordinary merchant ships cruising at less than 12 knots.

At about 4 o'clock in the morning, the boarding began, 50 ships boarded together, each ship, only to accommodate 1,000 soldiers, these merchant ships, not the strongest merchant ships in the future, in China's docks all over the north and south, is under construction, is a kind of fast transport ship, from the very beginning, not based on civilian, but in the military, their strength has reached the standard of warships, and the speed is as high as 19 knots.

In the war, the speed of every second is very critical, maybe an hour or two faster, for the campaign, it is another world, but in commercial use, the pursuit of performance is the biggest disadvantage, he will let the merchant ship fall behind in the competition, the Chinese Navy decided to build 500 military transport ships, is based on several considerations, first, the attack on the United States, so that the United States caused huge losses, but also exposed the strength of the United States, the Pacific War will be a protracted process, Even if the war is won, China will have many military islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the future, and these military ports will also need a large number of transport ships.

However, it is impossible to complete the warship for military purposes in a short period of time, and it is conservatively estimated that the first batch of 32 high-speed military transport ships will not be put into service until the end of 1916, and at present, only ordinary merchant ships can be refitted.

This was not the first landing operation, but it was in Taiwan, and before attacking Taiwan, preparations were already made and special forces were dispatched to disrupt Taiwan as a whole, so it achieved twice the result with half the effort.

Taiwan is the land of the Chinese, most of the people living in it are still Chinese, even if there are Japanese, they are all yellow, Chinese have a natural advantage in entering, Australia is different, the indigenous are different from the Chinese, as for the mainstream nation, it is white, China relies on Chinatown, ambush into part of the special forces, as a secret trick is already the greatest effort, no matter how big the action is, it alarms the Australian government, so that they have the whole defense is not good.

At 6 o'clock in the morning, shortly after the sun just rose, all the personnel had already boarded the merchant ships, a total of 150 merchant ships, and more than 70 large and small warships, leaving the docks of East Timor, their goal was firm, that is, the Timor Sea, which was close at hand, as long as they crossed the Timor Sea, it was their goal this time, and it was expected that the voyage would last a day and a night, and if they were lucky, they would arrive early tomorrow morning, before the sun rose.

Among the more than 70 large and small warships, in addition to 12 landing ships and 6 shallow-water heavy gunboats, the rest is the main combat force that determines the naval war, landing ships and shallow-water heavy gunboats, they are all specific ships, they strengthen one aspect, and ignore the other, they are all ground attacks, in the landing and ground attack, there is a great advantage, it can be said to be overwhelming, but on the sea, if they do not have naval escort, they are the target, any naval ship that exceeds the destroyer, They can easily deal with them, so special ships like landing ships and shallow-water heavy gunboats, they can only use them when they have the right to dominate the sea, and it is the warships that really determine the naval combat force that are specialized in the sea.

In addition to 18 professional ground warships, the escort is a combined fleet composed of 11 heavy cruisers and 41 destroyers and light cruisers, the same kind of strength, against Britain and the United States, is not an opponent at all, if the other side has only one battleship, it is enough to deal with this escort formation, but for only one battleship, or Australia detained by the British, it is enough, Australia's largest warship at present, but a 9000-ton heavy cruiser, there is only one, currently in Sydney, if you want to come over, it is simply beyond the reach of the whip, Near Darwin, there were only a few gunboats, all old gunboats.

How can the gunboats resist, like wolves and tigers, the Chinese warships that are preparing to attack, not to mention that they are defenseless, even if they are prepared.

The effect of the sneak attack is not generally powerful, China's attack, so that Australia is defenseless, almost in the early morning of the next day, when the Pacific Ocean is not alive, the battleship formation arrived first, they came to the sea off Darwin, in the case of Darwin without any defense, against Darwin's key targets, carried out an artillery bombardment, only 100,000 people, the defenders are only 500 people, there are no batteries on the road, the military camp and military targets have been devastated, if not for fear of destroying the port, Affecting the next landing, the artillery fire will be more intensive.

Darwin did not expect that he would be attacked, the first time, suffered a devastating blow, all the places in the harbor that could be guarded, were attacked by Chinese naval guns, this is still the result of the shallow water heavy gunboat did not arrive, the speed of only 12 knots of shallow water heavy gunboats, they simply did not have a way to reach Darwin's side, when the naval formation arrived next to Darwin, shallow water heavy gunboats were at least 50 nautical miles away from Darwin.

That is, under the premise that Darwin was unprepared, the Chinese ship formation started the first wave of attacks, and the first attack was the military ships located next to Darwin, whether it was the gunboat located next to Darwin, or the military camp, they were all devastated.

Now, it is the electronic age, there is already a cable telegraph connection between Darwin and Sydney, they first reported the news of the Chinese invasion, and there is also the idea of shirking responsibility, in the face of countless Chinese warships, and behind, there may be landing operations, they simply can't fight, 500 troops, in the first round of artillery fire, suffered a devastating blow, the real casualties are about half, but the remaining half, after seeing the fierce artillery fire of the other side, directly ran away, Australia's army, which is not even as good as the United States, barely supported the British with hundreds of thousands of troops, is ineffective, and now it is attacked by China's naval and air forces, which is completely useless, and the Darwinian defenders, in the first time, were disintegrated by China.

From the very beginning, the war ended, and even then, the Chinese army used landing ships to land on the beach, landed 4 regiments on the side of the pier, quickly controlled the situation in the port, and when it began a large-scale landing, it was not attacked very much, and only took over the military force of this port, and occupied this largest city in the north.

Darwin's take, even Zhang Xiaohuai did not expect that the combined offensive he organized was disintegrated by Australia from the very beginning, not because of his preparation, which was not strong enough, but because Australia's defense was like paper paste, which could be broken with a stab.

Darwin's take, for China's next strategy, very important, can be said unceremoniously, Darwin is a fulcrum, without this fulcrum, on the Australian continent, China does not have a foothold, even if it is lucky to occupy a part of the territory, Australia reacted, it may be beaten to the sea, but after occupying Darwin, everything is no problem, this is a real port, even if it is located in the northern region, not very important places, as long as it occupies here, it continues to extend, it is equivalent to finding an important place on the Australian continent.

Next, China will send enough ships and transport enough supplies to really expand Darwin to a full-scale base that can support the entire Australian operation, and then, in the winter months, the Chinese landing force will have to occupy the cities one by one and control the entire northern land in the hands of the Chinese.

Darwin's homework was a good thing for China, and the operation in Australia went well, but for the Entente, it was bad news, the territory in Oceania was invaded by the Chinese, and the Entente was facing a full-scale invasion by the Allies.

For Britain, from the end of 1915, the bad news came one after another, first of all, submarines, the sudden appearance of powerful submarines on the German side, there was a huge threat to the shipping lane, not to mention the escort destroyers, even if it was a heavy patrol facing this, there were some problems, not to mention other merchant ships, the safety of shipping in the North Atlantic, determined that the battle plan of the Entente in Europe was so down, this is absolutely not to be missed, and then the United States was attacked, to be honest, when the United States was just attacked, in the hearts of the British, is a little dark, after all, the United States this guy, in the Chinese have gained enough benefits, China is probably also unbearable under the premise that it will attack the United States, but the constant news comes, along with the increase of the system, especially the power shown by the 4 Chinese warships, Wall Street was destroyed, the dam of the Panama Canal was also killed, by the way, the 12 capital ships of the United States were also killed when leaving, China's ability to fight at sea is highlighted, Several Allied powers, including Britain, are weighing China's strength, and the Chinese, with a strength far beyond the imagination of the Entente, have become a new growth point for the Allies, and Britain has unknowingly obtained the biggest enemy in Asia, which is difficult for Britain to accept. (To be continued.) )