The news of the victory in the sea battle of Kerama was like a bolt of lightning, piercing the world shrouded in the smoke of war. Born from the sea, destroyed by the sea. From the incident in Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay) in 1853 to the humiliating "Japan-US Treaty of Friendship and Goodwill" in 1855, the Japanese navy grew from scratch and from weak to strong, and after the Battle of the Tsushima Sea, it broke away from Asia and Europe and squeezed into the world's five great powers.

However, on April 26, 1941, the former Combined Fleet officially came to an end.

A pre-war fleet of more than 600 ships with a total tonnage of nearly 2 million tons is rapidly collapsing. From Kume Island, the Tsukahara fleet was attacked by a sneak attack, resulting in the end of all three aircraft carriers, and during the 16-day 'Kerama Sea Battle', the Chinese naval personnel standing on the remains of the First Sino-Japanese War bravely pursued and exhausted their efforts, and finally completed a sea battle that went down in history after a ring of deployment.

The two Qingliangjian ambushes are even more classic.

If the Battle of Tsushima achieved Japan's status as a world naval power, then Kerama was a stepping stone for the Chinese Navy to become the world's top navy. Therefore, at three o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, Yang Qiu rushed to the Beijing National Assembly Building and informed the whole country of the victory of the 'Qingliangjian Sea Battle' in the form of a speech by the Congress, and the whole country was boiling! Even the world has been 'burned' by this shareholder Agale!

At the cost of 1 aircraft carrier sunk, 1 heavy damage, 3 cruisers sunk, 4 wounded, 15 destroyers sunk, and 79 fighters lost, a total of 6 Japanese aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 5 heavy cruisers, 6 light cruisers, 17 destroyers, 22 torpedo boats, 37 submarines, 5 auxiliary special ships, and 419 Japanese aircraft of various types were sunk in just 16 days!

In just 16 days, the Japanese Combined Fleet, which once ran rampant in Asia before the war and dominated the Pacific Ocean, basically ceased to exist!

On the evening of April 26, local time in the United States, Roosevelt also announced the news of the Kerama naval battle to the whole United States for the first time in his daily conversation. And admit that this was a major turning point in the world anti-fascist war! However. The news was very bad for the US Navy people, led by Kimmel and Nimitz. Because they knew that the rapid failure of the Japanese Navy meant that the huge US Navy shipbuilding program would be dismantled. Unless the German Navy is strong, except for the ships that have been launched or have a higher completion rate, the rest will certainly be required by the Reichstag to be cut and then handed over to the less successful Army.

Facts have also proved that they are right, in the face of the disadvantage of the army, within a month after the Battle of Kerama, the US Congress cancelled orders for more than 100 ships, including 38 Essex-class aircraft carriers and Alaska-class large cruisers. The savings are spent on more urgently needed escort carriers, destroyers, bombers, and new army tanks.

In the Battle of Wake Island, the elite of the U.S. Pacific Fleet died, and the strength and experience of the Navy plummeted. On the other hand, China, which Roosevelt always wanted to contain, not only built the world's No. 1 navy (temporarily ranked first in terms of total naval tonnage) with the help of its advanced aircraft carrier and carrier-based aircraft superiority, but also trained a large number of experienced officers with experience in modern aircraft carrier operations. In the 'Battle of Kerama', the two aircraft carrier battle groups moved flowers and trees, used the landing in the Ryukyus to lay bait, and two ambushes were even more miraculous.

Therefore, as the U.S. Congress cuts back on naval spending, the U.S. and Chinese navies have distanced themselves from each other. Even Roosevelt privately admitted. Unless the German Navy suddenly gains momentum, or China and the United States go to war, the U.S. Navy will no longer be able to shake China's strong position in the Northeast and Southwest Pacific. Britain is also sour-hearted, the former overlord of the Seven Seas. Not only did they cede the Southwest Pacific, but with the defeat of the Japanese navy, Malacca and the Andaman were about to be annexed by the 'allies'. And the most unhappy is undoubtedly the Kremlin! The defeat of the Combined Fleet also meant that Japan's defeat was inevitable. The thought of China's multimillion-strong army amassed on the southeast coast turning westward made Stalin, who was as hard as iron, feel that a needle was thorny. A formal alliance with Germany had not yet been established, if Japan surrendered. The Soviet Union really became a loner.

Only Asia, especially small countries and regions such as the Southwest Pacific, are excited. Because the Chinese Navy is just around the corner, it means that it has become a reality for them to learn from Vietnam and rely on China to completely get rid of the colonies. All of a sudden, the word 'Asian League', which was unfamiliar to everyone, began to appear in newspapers and radio.

However, for the Chinese navy, their journey is not over.

On 27 April, the rainbow bombing escalated again, and the Chinese Air Force changed its tactics and began a 100-day 'targeted killing' operation against Japanese towns and industrial areas with a population of more than 100,000, especially shipbuilding and other naval facilities, by dropping leaflets before the bombing to inform Japanese civilians of evacuation in advance. In three months, a total of 370,000 tons of napalm were dropped, 77 Japanese towns, 23 seaports, 19 shipyards, 1,100 large and small factories and 750,000 buildings were razed to the ground.

On April 29, three days after the victory of the Kerama naval battle, the remnants of the enemy on Iheiya Island were completely wiped out, and the navy and air force quickly built three field airfields and transit docks on the island.

On 30 April, three infantry divisions of the Chinese National Defense Forces, protected by more than 100 ships, landed on the Kerama Islands.

On May 1, the 3rd Marine Division and the 77th Army of the Army landed on Ie Island, which was only a dozen kilometers from Ryukyu Oshima. Although the 60th Division of the Japanese Army resisted vigorously, Ie Island was completely different from the previous islands, and there was no danger to defend, and in the face of more than 400 tanks and armored vehicles, the 60th Division of the Japanese Army was completely annihilated after only three days.

On 5 May, after cutting off all the island strongholds west of Ryukyu Oshima, the Chinese Navy dispatched 7 aircraft carriers, 9 battleships, 13 cruisers, and 75 destroyer/torpedo boats, and also used field fighters from Kumejima, Ihiryajima, and other islands, and deployed more than 1,000 attack aircraft to protect 220 tank/dock landing ships, 170 merchant ships, and a total of 1,100 landing craft of various types, and escorted the Navy's 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divisions, as well as 6 infantry divisions of the Army, to the 20-kilometer shoal south of Cape Zanba on Ryukyu Oshima. Although most of the Japanese navy was destroyed, Umezu Yoshijiro had no intention of abandoning the Ryukyus. So the battle went on with great brutality. In the end, after two days and two nights of brutal beachhead strangulation, the sinking of 20 ships and the sacrifice of more than 4,000 officers and men, the landing force opened the deep passage.

In the early morning of May 8, it was learned that the deep passage had been opened, and 15 amphibious tank battalions, 3 mechanized infantry divisions, and 20 infantry divisions began to land on the island of Ryukyu Oshima through Kumejima and other islands. The news of the start of the Ryukyu Campaign caused a strong earthquake in the Japanese government and the opposition, and Hirohito immediately summoned Tojo and Hirota to discuss countermeasures. When the top is panicked, the bottom of society. A great change is also quietly brewing.

Shimonoseki, the name of this place, at this time in China, may be second only to Tokyo, Osaka and other major cities in Japan, the reason is naturally clear to everyone. It was here that the Qing government buried China's coastal defense for more than 20 years. If it had not been for the forcible recovery of Taiwan by taking advantage of the need for Britain and the United States to balance Asia in the later stages of the European War, perhaps the Chinese navy would have landed on the treasure island instead of the Ryukyus.

Maybe it's because they want to cut off ties between Japan and North Korea, or maybe it's because they're psychologically vicious. Anyway, in the rainbow bombing list, Kitakyushu Ward (Shimonoseki, Fukuoka, etc.) is listed as a second-class target after Tokyo. Over the course of a month, not only was the Yawata Iron Works blown to pieces, but 40,000 tons of napalm and high-explosive bombs were dropped. This retaliation. Serious damage to the Kitakyushu region. Standing in the mountains south of Hachiman and looking north, there are almost no upright buildings, and the 130,000 civilian casualties recorded are the second largest number after the Tokyo area.

The city is gone. In the mountainous area, hundreds of thousands of homeless people have gathered in makeshift tents. Not because of how safe it is, but because the Japanese government and military are trying to prevent homeless people from making trouble. The movement of people in the districts has been restricted, and everyone has to live here.

Early in the morning, like the refugees living here, Nam Tsering pushed a cart out of the mountains and headed for the dilapidated Hachiman Iron Works and the city. This was his and the rest of his job, collecting scrap steel that had been blown up. In the face of the continuous bombing of the Chinese Air Force, Japan's metallurgical industry has been completely paralyzed, in order to maintain military needs, the Japanese government ordered the collection of civilian iron products, called on the people to donate iron tools at home, and also exchanged scrap iron for food, so that refugees could go to the ruined cities to collect scrap steel.

In the eyes of outsiders, Nan Tsering is a technician at Japan's Yawata Iron Works and has participated in the development of Japan's VH armor steel. But no one knows that he has two other identities, one is a high-ranking spy embedded in Japan by North Korea's intelligence agencies. The last, more secretive, was an officer of the Kokusha International in the Kitakyushu region of Japan. Using these identities, he successfully helped the Chinese Socialist Party obtain the VH armor steel technology that it had been longing for, and applied it to the navy after adding his own technology. Originally, he could have finished his mission with his achievements, but he insisted on staying in Japan and continued to promote the development of the national society in Japan.

Thanks to their working relationship, Nam Tsering and a few of his partners quickly found a truckload of scrap steel, which meant they didn't have to worry about today's rations. "Yaga! It's too little, so you can only change one rice ball. ”

"Have pity on my child, I am also retired from the Navy, and my child is going to starve to death."

"No! You don't have a certificate of retirement! The orders of the base camp must be followed. Go to the steel and exchange it for it. Go, go, go away! ”

At the train station in the mountain pass, there is a long line of people who exchange steel for rations. Men with great strength, several people pushed wooden carts together, women carried cloth bags stuffed with iron, and even children were mobilized, dragging or holding rusty steel in the palms of their hands. At the front of the crowd, a yellow-skinned man with a leg broken by the explosion knelt on the ground with his wife, holding their one-year-old child, desperately begging the soldiers to give him more rice balls mixed with wild vegetables and chaff.

But because there was not enough scrap iron to pick up, the soldier in charge refused to give more, and asked the soldiers to drive him away. The bright bayonets and the attitude of the army in the face of death made the refugees feel an extreme cold. "It's Kusano-kun, hey, I didn't expect to come back to farm, but I was blown up by a small bomb in Shina, and the navy ignored him and drove him back. These bastards, why don't you go and defeat the enemy, but turn your guns on us! Isn't it just a rice ball?! In the face of the constant bombing and butterfly bombs all over the mountains, everyone talked a lot, resented and sympathized, but no one was willing to give him the small rice balls and scrap metal.

The so-called military-civilian unity, the so-called Japanese spirit, is so pale and weak at this moment. Nan Tsering looked at the man, and couldn't tell what he felt in his heart. On the one hand, there is the good news that Japan is collapsing, and on the other hand, the cruelty that war brings to ordinary people. On the other hand, it is the best opportunity for the development of the national society in Japan.

So he heard that this man had been a Navy sailor and decided to help him. However, Nan Tsering did not immediately give the rice ball to the man, but followed the man's family out of the distance, and after seeing that there was no one around, he quickly stepped forward and took out a rice ball: "This is for you, let the child eat it." ”

"Thank you, thank you!" The retired sailor with the broken leg choked back tears, tremblingly accepted the rice balls, and handed them to his wife tremblingly. "I heard that you are in the navy, why did you retire?" After introducing each other, Nan Tsering took the initiative to ask about retirement.

After the man named Kusano explained, Nan Tsering learned that Kusano was an ordinary sailor from the Sasebo Town Guard, and because Tokuyama was bombed, he temporarily avoided Shimonoseki with the destroyer. It just so happened that his family was here, and it was the busy farming season, so he asked for leave and prepared to help his wife plant the seedlings before going back. Unexpectedly, it happened that night that a bomber dropped a butterfly mine in the Kitakyushu area, so he accidentally blew up his leg. The most pitiful thing is that because he was injured on vacation, he didn't even get the Navy pension, so he was ruthlessly ordered to retire.

"Kusano-kun, we are, are we really failing?" Nan Tsering pretended not to know the external situation, and carefully took out a leaflet spread by the Chinese Air Force from his arms. The leaflet was simply written to the effect that 'the war is not against ordinary Japanese people, but against the Japanese high-level, military, and the emperor's clique,' and in any case it is to incite internal contradictions in Japan. Originally, it was dangerous to keep such leaflets privately, but Kusano was already discouraged, and the blow of the pension and forced retirement made his heart full of resentment. So he lazily glanced at the flyer, didn't even stretch out his hand, and said angrily: "Mr. Nan Tsering, you saved my life, so I don't want to lie to you." This time we really failed! A few days ago, my comrades-in-arms came to see me and told me that they had seen the Mutsu come back covered with wounds, and that the news that the Nagato had also sunk and that Lieutenant General Yamamoto and Lieutenant General Ugaki had all been killed in battle was still kept secret, and that they did not dare to tell everyone. ”

After listening to the narration, Nan Tsering opened his mouth wide in surprise, and only after a long time did he deliberately pat him on the shoulder, looking very worried about him: "Kusano-kun, what should you do next?" You can't do that now. He glanced at the broken leg. Kusano also knew that with his current body, he couldn't collect scrap steel at all, so he looked back at his wife, who was hiding in the distance to feed the children, and his eyes were red: "I'm going to take Masako to Atami City in Sagami Bay, where the Admiralty has set up its base camp, and the Mutsu and the last main force are there." ”

Nan Tsering was overjoyed to hear it, but he didn't expect that by chance, he would be able to hear such important information, and immediately said with concern: "Atami, it's far away!" Your body, and you've already been fired from the Navy, it's useless to go. ”

"I'm not going back to the Navy, I'm going to beg somewhere, and if I have the chance, I'll leave and go to the United States."

"That's right. It just so happens that I'm going to Ito to join my brother, so why don't I send you with me, so that we can take care of each other on the way. During the mutual introduction just now, Kusano already knew that Nan Tsering was a technician at Hachiman Steel, so he didn't suspect it, but just turned his head to look at his wife, his eyes were ruddy.

PS: At the airport, ready to go home! The family of four spent a few days in Australia, sorry, sorry!

(To be continued......)