The news that the First Emperor was sunk by Japanese carrier-based aircraft reached Chen Shao's ears in less than ten minutes.

There is no anger as imagined, and there is no blame for the Pacific Theater Command in the estimate. For all this, Chen Shao seems to have been prepared enough.

The Chinese army is not truly invincible, and since the outbreak of the war, the active forces of the Wehrmacht have suffered more than 100,000 casualties. Although the real death rate is not high, among the 100,000 people, those who can be saved are unable to continue to go to the battlefield. Many of them need to spend their entire lives in wheelchairs, and some need to be cared for all their lives.

Although the crew on the aircraft carrier had basically been transferred to the cruiser or destroyer by the time the First Emperor sank, many people still died in it.

There are at least 2,000 people on an aircraft carrier, and this is still the case of the small tonnage and small staffing of the First Emperor. In Chen Shao's view, an aircraft carrier can be rebuilt if it is gone, but the loss of these soldiers is the absence of the most heart-wrenching thing.

Chen Shao did not blame Qian Sihai, the departure time of the Pacific Fleet was originally a little later than that of the Japanese-US Combined Fleet, and the distance was calculated, the Japanese-US Combined Fleet was a little closer to the Solomon Islands. This creates a significant time gap.

When the main forces of the Pacific Fleet arrive in this sea area on time, it is absolutely impossible for the Pacific Theater to allow the Japanese-US Combined Fleet to stir up trouble here. It is also worth buying a little time for the Pacific Fleet to arrive, trading an old aircraft carrier for time.

If not, from the Pacific Islands northwest of the Solomon Islands. It will immediately loom in front of the powerful Allied fleet. No matter how strong China's marines are, they can't stop countless naval guns and carrier-based aircraft. In this way, the losses of the Chinese side cannot be exchanged for an aircraft carrier.

At the beginning of this naval battle, Chen Shao was ready to lose half of his strength. Although its own navy is well-equipped, it is difficult to guarantee invulnerability, and the number of warships on the other side is too large, and the variables of naval battles are difficult to predict.

The loss of half of the navy, in exchange for a complete victory in the naval battle, can be regarded as an acceptable result for Chen Shao.

The main point. The loss of the First Emperor. Brought some good changes. The Pacific Fleet had arrived on time, and the tide of the war had begun to shift again.

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Smoke rose from the charred craters, craters next to craters, like wounds on the earth. At the edge of the crater where the dirt and vegetation have been rolled over. Littered with scraps of paper, radio parts, and human stumps. Several officers sat dumbfounded on the "island" between the craters. Watching distractedly, the direction in which the Chinese plane, which had created the crater, disappeared.

One of them is Kiyooka Eichi Nakasa. Belonging to the Japanese Intelligence Bureau, countless whites have died at his hands. These people were all prisoners of the army, and his accusation was to get information from the mouths of the captives. He interrogated the British, the French, the Dutch, the Soviets. More Americans.

To this day, he still has a regret, that is, he has not interrogated a Chinese soldier. Because after every war, there is basically not a single living Chinese soldier, not even a single intact weapon.

Sometimes Kiyooka keeps wondering who the brainwashed soldier is. The Japanese soldiers have the spirit of the katana at their disposal, but the Chinese do not have the spirit of bushido, why can they do it so well. He couldn't figure it out.

Now, Kiyooka Nakasa is wounded.

The last time was in mid-May when the Sendai Division launched a night attack on the airfield, and shrapnel from a pursuit artillery crippled his left palm.

He was sent to a field hospital in the rear. The hospital is located near Cape Esparnes in the western part of the island of Kuah. He immediately realized that it was a living hell. There was no anesthetic, and the operation was carried out directly, and some of the wounded soldiers died on the spot on the operating table converted from stretchers.

Without medicine, the sutured wounds festered in the humid climate of the tropics, and white maggots burrowed in and out of the wounds.

There was no food, and since the landing of the Ichiki Kiyonao detachment, the Japanese army on Kuah Island has been suffering from a food shortage. At that time, they thought that the battle would be resolved quickly, and each person only brought five days' food, but who expected that the war would be protracted and the troops would be cut off early.

Destroyers could only be used by sea after dark, and they were threatened by torpedo boats, warships, and aircraft of the Chinese army, and often left in a hurry before they had time to unload, and they had to be used to fight the war before they had to unload their ammunition.

No rations were distributed to the wounded soldiers, and the only rice and white flour were given to the combat units. Infectious diseases are circulating in hospitals, and several people die every day. Flies fell densely on the faces and bodies of each wounded soldier, and they were driven away without even moving.

Kiyooka cut off half of his palm. He was educated and knew what would happen if he was infected, and he used a pistol and coerced the military doctor to put a lamine on him. He also stole the only quinine hydrochloride in the hospital, and malaria was rampant on Kuah Island.

He himself slipped into a small tent, his right hand never leaving his pistol. The groans of the wounded continued throughout the night, with low moans and terrible howls, like the dying wails of wild beasts.

Explosions could be heard at close range, and some of the wounded soldiers could not bear the pain and simply ended their lives with grenades.

Kiyooka decided to return to the army, and if he stayed in the hospital, he would sooner or later go crazy or starve to death. He was originally in charge of interrogating prisoners of war of the Chinese army. After the failure of the attack of the Ichiki detachment. He transferred to the brigade of Major General Kawaguchi. The Kawaguchi offensive was thwarted, and he returned to the 2nd Division of Lieutenant General Maruyama Masao.

The headquarters of the Sendai Division was located in a depression surrounded by rainforest.

The Army's 2nd Division launched three attacks in a row, losing more than half of its losses, killing three wing commanders, and wounding the 2nd Division, which had repeatedly made meritorious contributions in the Battle of Java. Lieutenant General Maruyama had to retreat and wait for the 38th Division, another elite unit of the 17th Army, to land in order to gather and annihilate the Chinese army at the airfield.

Kiyooka bandaged his palms and stuffed the stolen medicines into his military satchel. He was already very hungry and weak. He never found food. He didn't know how the others survived, or where they hid their food. He chopped a branch to use as a crutch and staggered into the rainforest. No one paid any attention to him. Others were sick and starving, lying on the grass and dying.

The distance from Cape Esparnes to the vicinity of Tasa Falonga is about twenty kilometers and is full of rainforest trails. For the attack of the Maruyama Division, the Japanese engineer units fought hard to cut down large trees and opened the way. Kiyooka stopped and went, panting with exhaustion. He hoped to find some wild fruits to satisfy his hunger, only to find that he could not find anything edible, and that the wild fruits, mushrooms, and edible leaves were all gone. The whole army has been forced by hunger to the point of despair.

In the grass on the side of the road, scattered Japanese soldiers lay horizontally and vertically. A strong stench emanates from them. Kiyooka began to vomit. Dump all the acid in your stomach and the only pulp you have in your bark.

It turned out that he was not the only one. Most of the officers and soldiers in the hospital who were able to walk wanted to return to the troops along the path. They collapsed starving on the side of the road. White maggots wriggle in their noses, eyes, mouths, and wounds.

Flies all over the body. Even the murderous Kiyooka can't bear to look at it anymore. With a lift of his foot, he kicked into the grass a white skeleton still wearing leggings that had been blackened by blood. The black hole's eyes stared into the void. They turned out to be living soldiers. Strike fear into the hearts of your enemies on the battlefield. It's just that because there is no food, there is a lack of medicine, so they become skeletons alive.

There is silence in the forest. I can't even hear the birds. Kiyooka saw a piece of paper on the stump of a tree by the side of the road, and he removed the stones from the piece of paper, and it was written,

There is nothing to eat for a month,

I haven't seen rice in a month.

The ships that delivered the grain sank in the iron-bottomed bay,

A grain is a drop of blood.

O friends who have passed by me,

Please put a handful of rice in front of my grave.

How grateful I am to you,

I think of sushi, glutinous rice dumplings, and sashimi.

Kiyooka watched and swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his stomach churning again, and his eyes turned black. He threw away the piece of paper, and found that there were some words behind it, which were very scribbled:

We landed in Guadalcanal,

Full of fighting pride.

No one retreated,

No one wavered,

No one complained.

But in the end, it is up to us to end our young lives.

War is the worst of the devils,

My comrades-in-arms,

Think hastily before you ego,

Your mind will gradually cool down.

Though we don't see the future,

The future without war is bound to be wonderful.

Kiyooka was so furious that he immediately tore the piece of paper to shreds, stomped the tip of his boot into the dirt, and scolded as he stepped on it: "Shameful traitor." Bastard, shame on you. ”

The nervous impulse of mental and physical strength makes Kiyooka dizzy. He stumbled through the dense forest. Artillery was being fired in the distance, and wounded soldiers were constantly being carried down, and they passed by, and no one said a word.

It was overcast, and the pesky rain began to fall again. At first, the rain rustled on the leaves; Then, a cold rain soaked through his military uniform.

The rain became heavier and heavier, and the waterfall poured down like countless waterfalls under the treetops of the rainforest, drenching Kiyooka. He was trembling, and his hungry body was getting more and more unable to support it.

He leaned against a big tree and subconsciously recited the poem on the paper: I think of sushi, glutinous rice dumplings..., sashimi......

The big trees in the rainforest, unable to resist the long-term attack of moisture, on the surface are luxuriant, in fact, the hearts of many trees have rotted, a muffled thunder down, a rotten tree was chopped down, a large number of rotten trees crashed against each other and fell, rumbling loud overwhelmed the sound of rain, thrilling.

Kiyooka wanted to dodge, but his legs were weak and he didn't obey the call. This is how one of his subordinates was stoned to death by a fallen log. The top of the tree he was leaning on was struck and broke off at the waist. The snap of the broken tree ejected him and slammed into another tree, and he fainted all at once.

He was woken up, and a military officer named Sakai dragged him out from under the fallen tree. Kiyooka was not seriously injured, mainly starvation. Sakai gave him a lump of rice, and he thanked him a thousand times. In the end, he finally came to the division headquarters of Lieutenant General Masao Kuyama.

The Chinese army was heavily defended, the 2nd Division did not capture prisoners, and Kiyooka had nothing to do. Because in the first line troops, there is still a supply of rations, but they are surprisingly small. Sometimes there are only two or two taels of rice a day, and wild vegetables are swallowed.

Lieutenant General Baiwu, commander of the 17th Army stationed at Rabaul, ordered the navy to go all out to transport food. However, most of the grain ships were blown up and sunk in the "Narrow Mouth" Strait.

Even the division headquarters ran out of food for three days, and the soldiers had to look for snakes, birds, cockroaches, and rats to satisfy their hunger. Begin to pluck and peel the skin. In the end, I swallowed it with the belt hair, and almost everyone suffered from enteritis. The number of officers and soldiers who died of starvation and disease far exceeded the number of those killed in battle.

Kiyooka was so hungry that his eyes were full of stars, and his tall body was lying down, and he could barely struggle as soon as he lay down. He has no desires, no arrogance, he just wants to eat a full meal, and he is willing to die even if he dies.

One day, the chief of staff of the 2nd Division, Major General Tamaki, told Kiyooka that the troops of the 38th Division would go all out to help Kuah Island, and the navy would come to the rescue. Food and ammunition will be eased.

"Concentrate the forces of the two divisions. It will definitely be able to crush the resistance of the Chinese army and occupy the airfield. At that time, everything was solved. Yuzhi held his hand: "Kiyooka-kun, hold on a little longer." After the Nagoya Division landed. Everything will change. Then. There are so many captives that you can't even judge them!"

Are there really captives? Kiyooka asked himself.

However, he convinced himself that he believed Tamaoki's words. Pin your hopes on the 38th Division.

During this period, he heard that there were cannibalism incidents in the Kawaguchi Brigade, and that Japanese soldiers were killing each other for rice, and that human animal instincts caused them to lose their minds.

He waited patiently, not thinking about the dish-colored cheeks and long beard, not thinking about the various delicious foods he had eaten in the past. Hunger caused him to hallucinate many times, thinking that the large fleet carrying the 38th Division had reached Kuah Island.

The Chinese planes did not want to let the Sendai division pass through so easily, they came to harass them every day. Long-range 155-mm howitzers, based on the eastern bank of the Lunga, also fired to the west day and night. On average, the Chinese fired 100 shells, and the Japanese army only used the 41 mountain artillery to return two shells, and the firepower advantage of the Chinese army on Kuah Island was obvious.

On 19 May, the staff officer told Kiyooka: "The 38th Division is about to land. ”

At this time, their headquarters in Kiyooka was attacked by Chinese bombers taking off from Karnal airfield. The radio station, office supplies, and cooking utensils were all blown up, and passwords, orders, and archives, including all the war history materials of the Java war, were burned to the ground.

Kiyooka was wounded again, and a piece of shrapnel entered his back, cutting off two ribs. By the time he woke up, he had been admitted to the hospital for the second time.

Cape Esparnes is surrounded by an open sea. Kiyooka gritted his teeth, endured hunger, and waited for reinforcements from the sea.

Reinforcements are finally coming.

The tactics of the navy were the same as when Mt. Fuji and Yaeyama shelled the airfields a while ago, using the huge artillery of the high-speed battleships Hiei and Kirishima to destroy the Karnal airfield and undermine the air supremacy of the Chinese army.

Then Rear Admiral Tanaka commanded the destroyer to cover the landing of the troop carrier.

The old song is played again, but everyone knows that the other party is no longer a poor "outcast". Since seizing the crucial time gap, Qian Sihai has spared no effort to reinforce Guadalcanal.

Later, Kiyooka learned that China had prepared two super battleships, eight cruisers, twenty-four destroyers and seven transport ships for this purpose.

On the night of 21 May, a fierce naval battle began. Kiyooka doesn't know much about naval battles, so he can only watch the excitement. He limped to the logistics station of the 17th Army near the hospital, found Captain Noguchi, who was in charge of espionage, and used Noguchi's listening station to receive information about the fierce naval battle.

On the dark night sea, flares are lit from time to time. The cannon roared, and the sky was red. A warship was hit, raising a tree of fire and becoming an obvious target, and all the shells were thrown at it. With a bang, the powder magazine was hit and exploded, and the warship was broken in two and sank into the iron-bottom bay.

Kiyooka and Noguchi couldn't figure out whose warship it was.

The night battle at sea was spectacular, with colorful tracer rounds used by warships and ribbons weaving over the night sea. Sometimes a warship on one side suddenly turns on its own identification lights or strong searchlights, as if it were a lighthouse. The radio was full of noise, swearing, command orders and interference, stirring up a pot of porridge.

Hundreds of torpedoes from submarines and torpedo boats swooped down on their targets, blasting open the boiler rooms, sterns, or keels of warships, sending them to the bottom of the sea. In every naval battle of Guadalcanal, torpedoes were used in large quantities.

Fierce naval battles were fought until dawn, and the fleets of both sides withdrew from Kuah Island. There were only a few seriously wounded warships on the sea, smoking thick smoke and slowly sinking. The tugboats of the Chinese army towed the lightly wounded warship to Tulagi, and their torpedo boats were busy rescuing people from their own side who had fallen overboard.

The Japanese did not have such an accommodation, since the sky over Kuah Island was completely controlled by aircraft from the Karnal airfield. Daytime at Iron Bottom Bay. It is the world of the Chinese people.

Soon after, Vice Admiral Abe, commander of the 11th Fleet who commanded the naval battle, reported to the 17th Army the results of the naval battle: seven heavy cruisers and eight destroyers of the Chinese army were sunk, two cruisers and one destroyer were damaged.

In the past, Kiyooka and Noguchi would have jumped up and shouted "onboard". But since the outbreak of the war, the Army has become increasingly suspicious that the Navy is misreporting the results of the war, because according to the figures they have sunk, there has not been a single Chinese ship in the entire Pacific region.

Kiyooka only admits one fact: whether the Chinese fleet wins or loses, Abe's battleships - two large ships of more than 30,000 tons, said to be Kirishima and Hiei - did not fire a single shell at the Karnal airfield, and as long as this bastard airfield is open for a day, the convoy transporting the troops of the 38th Division will not want to land on Kuah Island through the "narrow mouth" strait. Kiyooka and they can only continue to starve.

Naval battles are about rice and white flour. It's about the stomach!

Sure enough, as soon as the day dawned, the dawn sky was noisy, and one Chinese plane after another was born. Hung bombs and torpedoes. Fly to the trough sea to the northwest. Captain Noguchi intercepted the telegrams sent back by the planes. Kiyooka immediately translated that the Chinese army pilots did not use ciphers and code words at all.

Kiyooka learns that the rudder of the battleship Hiei has been broken and cannot sail. Ten nautical miles north of Savo Island, I am going around in circles. All of Hiei's communications systems were destroyed, and neither the headquarters of the 17th Army nor the Rabaul base could communicate with it.

The Chinese fighters went back and forth as if to catch a temple fair, constantly refueling and taking off from Karnal Airport, and returning from the attack on the Hiei. By four o'clock in the afternoon, Kiyooka translated the last sentence in English:

"I can't find the Hiei anymore!"

The two Japanese officers fell into a deep depression. At dusk, Captain Noguchi took out a small ball of treasured rice balls, broke them in half, and handed them half to Kiyooka Nakasa: "Kiyooka Nakasa, just this last piece, you see, is there any hope for Lieutenant General Sano's Nagoya Division?"

Kiyooka swallowed the rice balls in one gulp, and his entire stomach was stimulated, and he squirmed violently, making him appear hungrier and more painful than before.

"The base camp will not give up on Kuah Island. The Japanese would rather die than endure humiliation. ”

As if to prove his words, that night, the artillery fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi made another challenging break into Iron Bottom Bay. The shelling of Mikawa went very well, and the fire at the Karnal airfield was in full swing, and Kiyooka counted the shells one by one.

According to the Japanese observation post on Mount Osteng, many planes were burned and there were heavy casualties.

Kiyooka was overwhelmed with emotion, at the beginning, only 1,000 soldiers of the Ichiki detachment were sent to recapture the airport, and now, what a huge price to pay for the 30-minute shelling! In any case, the long-awaited 38th Division should come.

During the day of the 24th, Noguchi received the news that the main force of the 38th Division had departed from Shortland Island, and he was very worried. Because after the Kanal airfield suffered more than 4,000 rounds of large-caliber shells from the two battleships Kongo and Haruna in the shelling on 23 July, it was still usable the next day, and this time only 1,000 rounds of eight-inch shells were used, how could it prevent the US planes from taking off into the air?

Eleven troop carriers loaded with troops and equipment of the 38th Division entered the trough under the cover of eleven destroyers. Batch after batch of Chinese fighters and bombers went to attack.

They were still at a low altitude on Esparnes, and Kiyooka could make out the carrier-based aircraft, the Marine Corps planes, and the massive Djinn. Without a lot of imagination, Kiyooka could guess the fate of the 38th Division.

He stood up; Say goodbye to Captain Noguchi and walk back along the jungle road. The wound was very painful, and this time he was disappointed that he could not grab the medicine.

Lieutenant General Sano's entire division of troops drowned in the sea without firing a single shot. The reinforcements are out, the rice is over, what hope is there for Guadalcanal?

Later, he learned that the airfield that had been shelled last night was nothing more than a show made by China, the purpose of which was to send all the 38th Division to feed the fish. Everything they saw was an illusion, and now China doesn't even want to give up the bait for fishing.

Kiyooka walked to the beach and snuggled up behind a rock to gasp. He searched for oysters in the cracks of the rocks, opened them with a short sword sled, and ate them raw. He had a bulging stomach and lay down on the beach.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of the ship's engine, ah! A few smoking troop carriers slanted towards the beach. The water is too shallow here and it will run aground. But the troop carrier, as if it did not know, turned on its full power, and at once plunged its bow deep into the mud and sand.

The Japanese officers and men on the troop transport ship climbed down from the deck in a swarm, waded through the roofless shallows, and washed ashore. As they ran, they shouted: "Guadalcanal! Guadalcanal! ”

Many of them were wounded, their faces blackened by smoke and fire, and their uniforms were splattered with blood. Some of the wounded soldiers were supported and almost climbed ashore.

They remained on board only with rifles, heavy weapons and food. A wounded standard-bearer was holding a military flag, and it was a unit of the 38th Division that could be known without looking.

Happiness and sorrow often come quickly, and they come very suddenly. These soldiers of the 38th Division, who had just thought they had escaped, soon tasted what hell was called.

In the distance, dozens of 155-millimeter howitzers of the artillery regiment of the Chinese Jungle Group Army came from the troop carriers that had run aground in the distance, stirring up water columns on the shallows, sand and rocks flew one after another, and blood and water from the stumps were sprinkled all over the ground.

Many of the soldiers were knocked down as soon as they got off the boat, and the shallows were stained red with blood. The smear-smoky troop carriers were also destroyed one by one under the artillery of the Jungle Army.

Kiyooka turned his face away, unwilling to witness the slaughter. He wanted to shout, "Don't come! Guadalcanal is a living hell!"

But nothing came out, and his desire, passion, and compassion, along with his fighting spirit and bushido spirit, all withered. (To be continued......)