If Nagano and Nimitz and his staff were a little uneasy by the prolonged bad weather and the lack of information about China's operations, they would have been surprised if they had known the actual situation in China.

The Chinese accounts published after the war clearly show that the Chinese Pacific Fleet was aware of the Allied plans for a strategic operation in the Mariana Islands even before the Allied fleet departed from the mainland. Thanks to some amazing achievements of the Chinese intelligence agencies, they succeeded in deciphering the main codes used by the Allied Navy at the time, and of course, at the end of the war, China also announced the main heroes of naval warfare, spy satellites. Therefore, China was able to know the intentions of Japan and the United States almost as soon as the Allies made their decision.

In early October, the Military Intelligence Bureau, China's top intelligence service, learned that a major campaign was being planned by the Allied Navy, which would take place at the end of October or early November.

At first, Xia Mengyu didn't know the exact goal of this operation. But by mid-October, China not only knew that the Allies were targeting the Mariana Islands, but it had also quite accurately figured out the forces the Allies were using in the operation.

Admiral Liu Haijiang, deputy commander of the Chinese Pacific Fleet, secretly inspected the Mariana Islands on 6 October and took steps to strengthen the garrison of the Mariana Islands and increase the fortifications and facilities on the islands.

In early November, the Mariana Islands added 16 Intruder fighter-bombers belonging to the Marine Corps, 7 Black Hawks, 30 Navy water patrol aircraft, 18 Djinn Army bombers, four Globemaster Army bombers, and two Hawkeye AWACS aircraft.

More than 2,000 elite garrisons were deployed on the island. And deployed a lot of anti-aircraft artillery groups. A number of torpedo boats were also sent for short-range coastal patrols and night raids. In addition, at a distance of one hundred, one hundred and fifty nautical miles and two hundred nautical miles from the Mariana Islands, three arc-shaped submarine patrol lines were arranged. By November 10, there were twenty submarines in position.

The Chinese Pacific Fleet was determined to resist the Allied invasion of the Mariana Islands with all its forces. At this point, the estimate of the Japanese-American combined fleet is completely correct. The Mariana Islands are extremely important to the security of the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan, and once China loses the Mariana Islands, the Allies can drive straight into the Philippines and directly attack the Philippines or Taiwan, and cooperate with the Japanese mainland, which will also form a flanking attack on the Ryukyu Islands.

In particular, the American B-29 Super Flying Fortress and B-36 Peacemaker. It is perfectly possible to take off from Saipan. Rapid access to China's territorial airspace threatens China's southern coastal cities as well as inland. The Chinese Navy could not easily allow it to be occupied by the Allies.

For China, prior knowledge of the attempts of the Allies was an important advantage, however. From the operational prospects. There is little hope that the Chinese troops will win the war. The Allies will have an overwhelming advantage in the forces they will invest. And the situation with the Chinese aircraft carriers is not good.

The First Emperor had been sunk in an encounter a few months earlier, and the Han Gaozu had also been wounded in the battle, and is still being overhauled in the dockyard. It is difficult to say whether they will be able to participate in the defense of the Mariana Islands in time.

Of course, this is information known to the Japanese-American joint fleet, and in the Chinese Pacific Fleet, these two aircraft carriers were not included in the main battle series. This is completely different from that of Japan and the United States.

China has very strict requirements for ships, which are not at all like Japan and the United States, and ships with a little aircraft carrier characteristics are called aircraft carriers. In their opinion, China has lost two advanced aircraft carriers, and its combat power will inevitably be reduced.

Yes, the First Emperor and the Han Gaozu are already very advanced aircraft carriers in the eyes of Japan and the United States, and even though these two aircraft carriers have been in service for more than 20 years, they have not changed their views.

Whether it is speed, design pattern and displacement, these two aircraft carriers can still be regarded as one of the advanced aircraft carriers in time. In the joint fleet of Japan and the United States, it is impossible to find a few aircraft carriers that can be more advanced than these two aircraft carriers.

This also made the Japanese-US joint fleet once again make a mistake in judgment.

They do not understand China's view of the strength of aircraft carriers, and among the top echelons of the Chinese Navy, there is no so-called cannon giant ship complex, because China has been instilled with a future naval warfare model with aircraft carriers as the core since the beginning of its naval development.

The most important point is that since the development of the Chinese Navy, the road it has traveled has been very short, and it has not allowed the Chinese Navy, like other countries, to be deeply influenced by the era of artillery and giant ships before and after World War I.

However, China, which does not believe in artillery giants and has a soft spot for aircraft carriers, also has the strictest requirements for aircraft carriers.

For example, the First Emperor and the Han Gaozu, two old aircraft carriers that have not been modified, although they have a displacement of more than 30,000 tons, but the main point is that these two aircraft carriers cannot allow jet fighters to board ships.

The era of propeller fighters is over for today's increasingly demanding forms of naval warfare.

The other eighteen First Emperor-class aircraft carriers assigned to the Pacific Fleet have been converted with hangars and electronics to take off the Navy's Seahawk-3 jet fighters. Of course, a fighter like the Black Hawk, which weighs more than 25 tons in combat, is difficult to take off empty, let alone a Black Hawk fighter with full ammunition and fuel tanks to carry out combat missions.

Even an Imperial-class aircraft carrier can barely catapult, and it is not a Black Hawk fighter with full ammunition and fuel, but this is only limited to non-combat situations. Although the Imperial-class aircraft carrier also has catapults on it, its steam power must provide enough power for the ship when a naval battle breaks out, which makes the catapults on the Imperial-class aircraft carriers unable to operate at full power. Therefore, it is impossible to catapult the Black Hawk fighter.

A modified First Emperor-class aircraft carrier can carry two squadrons (48 aircraft) of Seahawk-3 jet carrier-based aircraft, and these two squadrons of Seahawk-3 can completely destroy the original four squadrons of Seahawk-2 propeller carrier-based aircraft. Although the number is small, the combat effectiveness is still increasing.

And the Imperial-class aircraft carriers. It can carry four squadrons of Seahawk-3 jet carrier-based aircraft to the limit, and in terms of attendance, it is several levels higher than the First Emperor-class aircraft carriers. The fighter is more than twice as tall as the First Emperor class.

As the most advanced aircraft carrier in the Empire, the Mythic-class aircraft carrier is inherently mythical. Nuclear power can provide a steady stream of power, no need to refuel, the boat space is huge, and the displacement has reached the peak of human naval development, 100,000 tons. Countless worlds have gathered together, and China that could not even produce a single screw a few decades ago is a myth.

The most obvious point of it. Compared to the Imperial-class aircraft carriers. No matter how you count it, the mythical level is much more powerful.

In contrast, the mythical aircraft carrier does not need to reserve a place to store the ship's fuel, which saves a lot of space. Able to carry more fighters. Ability to store more jet fuel. More storage for more weapons and ammunition. (Not too much to elaborate, there are living examples, everyone understands.) ）

In every respect, it is much higher than the mythical class of the Empire-class aircraft carrier. It is also very powerful in terms of carrier aircraft. Because of technology, China's early warning aircraft have not yet been able to board the ship, so the mythical aircraft carrier has left a lot of space in advance.

The two mythical-class aircraft carriers, each of which can carry one hundred and twenty Black Hawk fighters, but, of course, it is impossible to carry all of them Black Hawk fighters, in fact, each of the two aircraft carriers has only four squadrons of Black Hawk fighters.

And on the other two self-built nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, they also carried three squadrons of Black Hawk fighters. After all, the displacement is much smaller than the mythical level, and the number of carrier aircraft has naturally decreased.

A total of fourteen squadrons of Black Hawk fighters, each squadron has twenty-four aircraft, that is to say, the entire Pacific Fleet carries three hundred and thirty-six Black Hawk fighters, which is almost catching up with the number of Black Hawk fighters in the Royal Chinese Air Force.

Plus four Imperial-class aircraft carriers. Each carrier can also carry four squadrons of Seahawk-3 fighters, plus two squadrons on sixteen First Emperor-class aircraft carriers.

All of this adds up, and the number of carrier-based aircraft owned by the Chinese Pacific Fleet has reached 1,500. Five hundred more than the Allies had anticipated.

Perhaps compared to the huge 7,000 planes of the Japan-US combined fleet, this 1,500 planes is nothing at all. However, this is the difference between China and Japan and the United States, China has always been particular about the fact that soldiers are not expensive.

According to China's attendance rate, these 1,500 carrier-based planes can take off 600 fighters within 20 minutes and immediately put them into combat, and the remaining planes can all take off within an hour.

And what about the combined Japanese-American fleet? They can also dispatch nearly half of their fighters at once, and all other fighters can take off in more than an hour.

One is advanced, but complex to operate. One is that the level is average and the operation is simple. The attendance rate of the two is actually about the same.

From the perspective of absolute fairness, in a close-range naval battle, once the distance between the aircraft carriers of the two sides does not exceed 100 nautical miles, the Chinese side will suffer, mainly in terms of numbers. As soon as the distance is opened, it is difficult to say the result.

Therefore, despite the large numerical superiority of the Allies, China was also confident. On the eve of the fleet's departure from the Marshall Islands, Admiral Liu Haijiang said in a telegram to all officers and men:

"This operation has provided you with an opportunity to deal a heavy blow to the Allies."

Immediately, the preparation tasks were quickly issued to the ships, which are precautions:

"This time the invasion aimed at encroaching on the Mariana Islands is about to begin. The attacking force will be composed of various combat arms, and its main force will be nearly 100 aircraft carriers, transport ships, and auxiliary ships. If the Allies do not detect our movements, we will be able to launch a surprise attack on the flank of the enemy aircraft carrier from our positions in the north-east of the Mariana Islands. Future actions will be decided on the basis of the results of this attack, the strikes inflicted on the Allied forces by the forces of the Mariana Islands, and intelligence on Allied movements. The successful completion of the operational plan, which is now being implemented, will make a significant contribution to my country. If our aircraft carriers are distracted by an attack by an old aircraft, we must also try to keep them within a visible distance from each other. ”

From the first day of November, based on the Mariana Islands, aircraft began patrolling within a semicircle of six hundred nautical miles west of the Mariana Islands in search of Allied raiders. Of course, their search operations were also hampered by the fog through which the approaching Allied fleet was passing.

Far away in the command center of the Ministry of National Defense in Hanjing, it is also highly concerned about this matter. However, in many cases, the weather is not beautiful, and the dense fog has brought a lot of help to the Japan-US alliance. Because China's spy satellites could not penetrate the dense fog at all, when the Allied fleet entered the fog area, the spy satellites lost the trace of the combined Japanese-American fleet.

For this reason, Chen Shao also had no choice but to order the command center to be highly concerned about all suspicious places in the Pacific Ocean and immediately inform the Chinese Pacific Fleet.

However, the spy satellites lost their maximum effectiveness, and the Allies were no better.

The Chinese - the Allies thought they did not know and were unprepared - already knew of their intentions and were fully prepared to attack when the time came.

A campaign that would teach the Allies a hard lesson was about to begin. (To be continued......)