After the 128 Shanghai Incident in 1932, the 3rd Fleet was highly valued and soon entered its heyday. It is also known as the Yangtze River Fleet because of the Japanese army's militaristic film "Yangtze River Fleet", and it is very famous.

But in fact, the aircraft carriers of the 3rd Squadron in the 10th Fleet, heavy cruisers, could only operate at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and could not enter the interior of the Yangtze River at all. Only the 11th Squadron's inland river fleet can effectively rush to the Wuhan front line to fight on the river, in fact, the so-called Yangtze River Fleet mainly refers to the 11th Squadron.

After the 128 Incident, the Japanese army deeply felt the importance of the river fleet, and once again built two large river gunboats of 1,100 tons of the fourth generation to replace the first generation of Fushimi and Sumida. At the same time, the Japanese army built two smaller warships of 300 tons, and the performance was also greatly improved compared to the previous generation.

At this time, the Japanese army's shipbuilding technology was no longer what it used to be, and large warships were completely fueled by heavy oil, with a maximum speed of up to 20 knots and a cruising range of 250 nautical miles. Both ships were armed with as many as three 120-mm high-level dual-purpose guns, one 25-mm rapid-fire anti-aircraft gun and three heavy machine guns.

The Battle of Wuhan was at stake in the future of the Japanese Empire, and the 3rd Fleet was once again strengthened, with a total of 120 large and small gunboats, gunboats, and support ships.

Its core combat force remains the dozens of river warships of the 3rd Fleet and the 11th Fleet, which are fighting at the forefront. Destroyers with a large tonnage did not dare to move forward casually and could serve as fire support in the rear.

At this time, where did the Republic of China Navy go?

At this time, the navy of the Republic of China had been basically wiped out in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing, leaving only some old light warships, with a total of only more than 30 ships.

By the time the company was built in 1910, it had been in service for 28 years and had a displacement of only 850 tons, and it became the largest warship in the Republic of China Navy.

In addition to this, there were only a few gunboats and torpedo boats left in the national army, and this was the full strength of the national army.

Therefore, the disparity between the Chinese and Japanese naval forces is extremely large, and coupled with the wreak havoc of the Japanese air force on the Yangtze River, the Chinese navy is simply unable to fight the Japanese army head-on.

The national army attaches great importance to the defense of the fortress of Tianjiazhen!

As a defensive side, the national army naturally had to use the terrain to build land and riverbank fortifications, and it would be best if it could build strong fortresses.

The Tianjiazhen fortress group began to be built a few months before the July Seven Incident, and it had been built for a whole year before the outbreak of the Battle of Wuhan, including the Tianjiazhen fortress on the north bank of the Yangtze River, the Fuchikou fortress on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and the Banbishan fortress, a total of three fortresses.

The fortress group is equipped with artillery, among which the two forts of Tianjiazhen and Fuchikou are each equipped with 8 FH18105 mm caliber fortress guns imported from Germany, which is the largest caliber and most powerful fortress gun in China at that time.

The Banbishan fortress also had 6 German 105 howitzers and 4 75-mm anti-aircraft guns.

There are 22 heavy guns of more than 100 mm in the three fortresses, forming a fairly powerful artillery network, and even a large river warship like the Ataka does not dare to break through casually. The 105-mm gun could severely damage a 1,000-ton warship like the Japanese army, let alone a Japanese ship of 200 or 300 tons.

Unfortunately, no matter how strong the land fortress was, it was immovable after all, and it was difficult to hold out for a long time under the blows of the heavy artillery of the Japanese warships and the medium bombs of the bombers. In other words, it is certainly not enough to rely on fixed fortress artillery alone, it must be reinforced with mobile artillery.

Mobile artillery is mobile, it is not easy to be eliminated by the Japanese army, and its survivability is relatively strong.

In view of this, Bai Chongxi, with Chiang Kai-shek's permission, equipped the Tianjiazhen fortress with the so-called Tianjiazhen mobile artillery, and two battalions of field artillery of the Jiangfang Army: a total of 8 Japanese-made Type 31 field guns, 2 Austrian-made Schotch field guns, and 12 Type 14 77-mm field guns imitated by the Shenyang Arsenal in Northeast China.

There were also 4 105-mm light howitzers, 4 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, and 6 37-mm anti-tank guns.

Although Bai Chongxi had already exhausted all the heavy weapons in the theater, it was a pity that the caliber of these mobile guns was very small, which was not enough to cause fatal injuries to the Japanese warships, and at most posed some threats to the Japanese army.

A large-scale operation began in the Yangtze River, in fact, this naval operation had already begun.

At that time, the remnants of more than 30 warships of the Republic of China Navy were all put into the Battle of Wuhan, but in the previous operations, the only 11 large warships before the Chinese War of Resistance had all sunk or sunk by themselves, and the existing ones were some small and medium-sized warships, and even torpedo boats, and their strength was simply incomparable with the Japanese 3rd Fleet.

Chen Shaokuan, commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Navy at that time, believed that if they confronted the Japanese army head-on, these 30-odd ships would probably not be able to hold out for even three days, let alone pose any threat to the Japanese fleet.

During the battles for Madang Fortress, Hukou Fortress, and Jiujiang Fortress, the Nationalist Navy and Air Force had used all their strength to fight a decisive battle with the Japanese Navy.

According to Japanese statistics, the Japanese 3rd Fleet swept away 590 clear water mines on the 80-nautical-mile Yangtze River channel from Madang to Jiujiang, fought 29 battles with river defense artillery and fortress artillery on the shore, engaged 183 sorties with bombing units of the Nationalist Air Force, and engaged more than a dozen times with the Nationalist Navy.

At that time, the Chinese Navy still had two killer weapons, that is, mines and drifting mines.

At that time, the Nationalist army used a large number of mines that could attack Japanese warships as offensive weapons, which was also known as drifting mines.

Mines are originally defensive weapons, they are fixed in the water and cannot be moved casually. Because once the mines move casually, the minefields will change, and they will not be able to stop the Japanese warships.

Unfortunately, since the Japanese 3rd Fleet was equipped with two mine brigades and was equipped with a large number of minesweepers, it was useless to rely only on fixed minefields. The Japanese army spent a little more time, and they would definitely be able to complete the minesweeping work in the end.

The so-called drifting mine, as the name suggests, is a drifting mine, which can use river water to drift downstream. As soon as it touches an enemy warship, it explodes.

Mines were a very shrewd way to deal with the Japanese army, because the value of the mines themselves was very low, while the value of the Japanese warships was very high, and the difference between the two was hundreds to tens of thousands of times the price.

And the mine is different from the torpedo, he has a larger charge. Generally, a single mine can inflict heavy damage on a large 1,000-ton warship like the Ataka, and a warship of less than 1,000 tons can even be blown to pieces.

Due to the strong concealment of drifting mines, you can lay mines upstream, and after a few days of mines, they can slowly drift downstream dozens of kilometers away with the current. In other words, the national minelayers did not need to engage the Japanese in a head-on exchange of fire like torpedo boats, so they could effectively save themselves by avoiding hitting stones with pebbles.

The most important thing is that mines are very hidden, especially in waters where the water conditions are more complicated, and it is even more difficult to eliminate them.

On September 14th, Rear Admiral Eiji Kondo of the 11th Sentai of the Third Fleet stood on the flagship "Ataka" and slaughtered majestically and violently in the direction of Dock Town.

Under the leadership of the flagship of Ataka, there were gunboats, "Toba", "Hozu", "Seta", "Hira", "Katata", "Atami", and "Nimi", as well as destroyers "Kuretake", "Wakatake", "Sanae", "Hibiscus", "Kariya", "Asayan", "Haru", "Chaofu", "Kikaze", and "Matsukaze", as well as more than a dozen small ships with monotonous functions.

The mighty fleet stopped when it was still more than ten kilometers away from the dock town, first, because they were afraid of the artillery fire of the dock town and Wuxue town, second, they were afraid of violating the minefield, and third, they were afraid of running into drifting mines.

Eiji Kondo was flanked by two high-ranking bureaucrats, Rear Admiral Hideo Ohno, a chief of staff, and Rear Admiral Kazuo Oto, the captain of the Atakaku.

Eiji Kondo looked at the seemingly calm river, and didn't look behind him, but actually said to the two of them: "At present, what is the main obstacle for us to enter Tianjia Town?" ”

Hideo Ohno said: "Your Excellency Commander, the biggest obstacle to our attack on Tianjia Town at present is these nasty mines and drifting mines, if there are no these obstacles, then we can attack all the way until we conquer Tianjia Town." ”

Major General Kazuo Datou also nodded and said: "I think it is also, where is the Chinese navy, we have already been defeated, and where is the Chinese air force, it will not dare to fight with our naval aviation." Sadly, these small mines stopped the advance of our Japanese navy. ”

Eiji Kondo still didn't look behind him, and said, "We must try our best to come up with a way to deal with these drifting mines and mines." ”

At this time, two Chinese torpedo boats rushed towards the Japanese Third Fleet.

These were the Shi Kefa No. 101 and No. 102 torpedo boats of the Republic of China Navy, which attacked the Japanese fleet at a high speed of 19 knots, with the purpose of disrupting the formation of the Japanese fleet and forcing the Japanese fleet to touch the Chinese mines.

However, it was precisely because the Japanese fleet took into account the mines on both sides of the strait, so it did not dare to speed up and maneuver with the Chinese torpedo boats, so it was temporarily in a passive situation, and this was also the tactic of the Republic of China Navy to attack the enemy with its own strengths.

Kazuo Otou shouted loudly: "Torpedo boats, Chinese torpedo boats, all ships pay attention, pay attention to dodging the enemy's torpedoes, and it will be troublesome if you let it hit." ”

"What's the panic," Eiji Kondo hurriedly corrected Kazuo Oto's panic, "maneuver a little to avoid the torpedo attack of the Chinese army." ”

Kazuo had no choice but to parrot and shout: "Pay attention to the whole ship, maneuver a little, avoid the torpedo attack of the Chinese army, and concentrate artillery fire to sink the Chinese torpedo boats." ”

As a result, not only the "Ann Zhai", but also all the gunboats bombarded Shi Kefa 101 and 102 violently, only to hit Shi Kefa 101 and 102 surrounded by water columns that violently jumped up from the water surface, jumped to the old high, and fell for a long time.

However, Scofa-101 and 102 still rushed forward violently in a roundabout way, because the speed and range of the torpedo were still limited, and it was too far to launch and not work. During the impact, several sailors were shot and fell, but other sailors took their place.

The Scofa 101, which rushed to the front, suddenly caught fire and the fire spread rapidly, and the torpedo boat could no longer move forward. No. 102 overtook No. 101 and rushed forward quickly, and No. 101 exploded violently, and in the sound of the explosion, No. 101 slowly sank to the bottom.

Not only was the 102nd not deterred, but continued to move forward, and when the torpedo range was reached, the 102nd decisively fired 2 torpedoes.