Chapter 444: Attacking the Fuso

"Boom...... Rumble! ”

The explosion of depth charges exploded around the submarine, and although it did not hit the submarine, the powerful shock wave still staggered the submarine like a baby in swaddling clothes. Everyone grabbed the object that stabilized their bodies, and the only thing they could do at this point was to pray that their luck would not be so bad that they were hit by a depth charge.

"Order, dive to a depth of three hundred meters!"

"Yes, three hundred meters deep!"

As the tank filled the water, the pitch-black submarine slowly but surely continued to dive into the deep sea. Above their heads, five destroyers formed a circle, and depth charges rained down like dumplings.

In the place not far from them, the battleship "Fuso" was on fire, and countless sailors were desperately rescuing the damaged management. Three of the six torpedoes fired by Ryuyu just now hit the middle and tail of the port side of the Fuso, causing the Fuso to suffer heavy damage, and a large amount of fuel oil came out, floating on the surface of the ocean like a big whale about to die.

Sawajizaburo Osa, whose face was covered with blood, didn't care about bandaging, so he stood on the bridge and commanded the sailors to rescue the ship, and at his feet lay a corpse with his head sunken to one side, he was Fukuda Nakasa, who was killed by a hard object flying around when he was hit on the head by a strong shock during the explosion just now. But at this moment, Sawajizaburo was not in the mood to pay attention to this former loyal subordinate, and now there was only one thought in his heart, that is, he would never let this 30,000 and 600-ton battleship sink in his hands.

'Fight the fire, everybody have to put out the fire!' The Fuso will not sink into our hands! Saburo Sazawa's voice echoed through the megaphone on the ship......

The efforts of Sawasan Saburo Osaku paid off, and the "Fuso" was finally brought under control by the efforts of 1,351 sailors on the ship, and the hull of the ship stopped tilting further, and it seemed that the "Fuso" was saved, although it cost the lives of more than 300 sailors for this, but in the eyes of Sawasaburo Osa, it was all worth it.

When the 'Fuso' extinguished the fire, several destroyers who had gone out to search for submarines also returned to the formation in a huff, and in the attack that had just been nearly a moment, they did not even touch the fur of the submarine, which made the hearts of the angry destroyer captains feel even more gloomy.

After seeing the destroyer return, Sawasaburo did not hesitate to give the order to return, it will be dark in a few hours, maybe there are more submarines coming nearby, at that time it was the world of submarines, he didn't want to drive a battered warship in the dark night with those undersea killers to play hide and seek, this is not what a battleship captain should do.

The battleship 'Fuso' drove away, scarred and wounded, without firing even a single shot of the twelve 360 mm guns it was equipped with.

In the 300-meter deep sea, the sonar soldier who had been listening to the Japanese fleet couldn't suppress the joy in his heart, and said in a low voice: "Tell me, the Japanese formation has retreated, and the speed is thirteen knots!" ”

Long Yu, who had been holding the handrail beside him tightly, wiped the cold sweat on his forehead, and scolded in a low voice: "Damn, it's better to play less about such exciting things in the future, if you hadn't dived to a depth of three hundred meters earlier, everyone would have seen the Sea Dragon King together." ”

The first mate on the side also nodded with apprehension, if it weren't for the fact that most of the submarines in the world now have a depth limit of 200 meters, and none of the Japanese would have expected that their opponent would be lurking at the bottom of the sea at 300 meters, given the density of depth charges just now, the chances of them escaping the sky are really very slim.

Shaking off the vest that had already been soaked, Long Yu ordered in a low voice: "The submarine floats up, the direction is three and two, and at the same time notify the rest of the submarines, return to their respective areas and continue patrolling......."

After receiving eight new 'R' class submarines, Long Yu took these eight new submarines and the original four UIB-type ocean-going submarines, a total of 12 submarines, into two teams to engage in unlimited submarine warfare on the line from Peter the Great Bay to the distant mountains of Korea, and attacked Japanese merchant ships. Under the command of Long Yu, they expounded the wolf pack tactics they had learned in Germany to the extreme.

The main point of the wolf pack tactic is to send a signal as soon as an enemy ship is discovered, and other submarines will quickly rush to attack in a group after receiving the signal, and quickly separate and evacuate when they have it. Usually each group consists of about six submarines, with intervals of 10 to 20 nautical miles, and placed perpendicular to the sea area through which the enemy's convoy must pass. The submarine of the convoy was first discovered, and immediately directed the position, course, speed, and composition of the target to the shore, and at the same time followed and continuously recounted. The shore command post directs and guides the boat group to assemble in a certain sea area in front of the target route, occupy an attack position, and simultaneously carry out torpedo attacks from the water at night. The submarine then dives underwater to avoid the return fire of the escort ships; At the same time, the reloaded torpedoes again rushed to the front of the target course, occupied the next attack position, and attacked again at night.

In the two months that ended in April and June, Chahar's submarine squadron sank a total of 38 merchant ships of 150,000 tons. Although these losses did not hurt the Japanese transportation industry, he was disgusting, and the psychological pressure it caused to the captains of the Japanese ships was also heavy, and no one wanted to be sent to the bottom of the sea to feed the sharks by a batch of torpedoes that came from nowhere in the third watch one day.

The fierce attack of the submarine group made the Japanese merchant ships almost frightened, and the call of the Japanese business community for the navy to send a large number of warships to escort the ship became louder and louder. This also gives the Japanese government a headache, large-scale armed escort is an extremely money-burning thing, just the daily fuel consumption is an astronomical amount, Japan is not a big resource country, those expensive oil are bought with expensive foreign exchange, plus since last year, Japan's main export products raw silk export share has been strongly launched by Chahar stockings and nylon suppressed to a ridiculously low level, and the loss of the northeast is even worse for Japan, If every batch of merchant ships had to be escorted in this way, it would not be long before the Japanese navy would go bankrupt.

The Japanese Government, which was embarrassed and angry, could not refrain from owing a telegram to Chahar and issued an ultimatum to Chahar, saying that if Chahar did not stop this despicable submarine warfare, the Japanese Government would not refrain from carrying out countermeasures and would also launch a submarine offensive against all merchant ships in China.

In this regard, the attitude of our Su Dazhu is: Convenient, I really don't have much demand for overseas, and most of them are also foreigners.

The Japanese government had no choice but to send a telegram to the Japanese troops in China that it was advisable to collect food and materials from the occupied areas.

As soon as this order came, the senior generals of the Japanese army in China were bitter. What is called self-promotion, isn't it plundering the occupied territories? Originally, it was nothing to do this, the occupying army is not here to learn from others to do good deeds, if you don't raid the occupied area, it will be too sorry for the word occupying army. However, this is a very difficult time, since Chahar's 7th Theater of Operations recovered the northeast, these two months have been busy with the rest and movement of the army, and there is no offensive against the Japanese army in North China. However, Su Tong was not idle, and in the past two months, 600,000 heavy troops had been deployed on the front line of Tangshan, Beiping, and Baoding, and he also announced to the outside world that he would recruit troops on a large scale again.

Under these circumstances, the Japanese garrison in China really did not dare to stir up the nerves that had already become very sensitive in the occupied areas, and if they were to go on a rampage again, this powder keg might explode at any time and blow the Japanese to pieces.

General Sugiyama Moto, the commander of the North China Dispatch Army, who was under the most pressure, sent a telegram to the base camp three meals a day, requesting conscription and ammunition supplies. In the telegram, Sugiyama claimed that the telegram from the headquarters was extremely unreasonable, and that it was a very difficult time for the Kwantung Army to be affected by the defeat of the Kwantung Army, and that the number of people in the occupied area who were hostile to the Imperial Army was increasing, and that if the sensitive nerves of the people in the occupied area were further stimulated, it would probably cause unpredictable consequences. In addition, Sugiyama asked for another dispatch of troops from Central China to reinforce North China, which has resisted the threat from the north.

Originally, the original intention of the base camp was to let the Japanese army in China reduce the pressure on the homeland, but now the two dispatch troops are reaching out to the base camp to ask for military strength and materials, which can make Prince Zaihito of Kanin, who is the chief adviser of the general adviser, very angry, and scolded Sugiyama Moto and Shunroku Hata in public as two fools who will only reach out to the empire and ask for tools.

However, the problem must be solved, and the base camp in desperation had no choice but to continue to dispatch materials to the two dispatch troops in China, but fortunately, the number of submarines in Chahar is still relatively small, and the tentacles cannot reach the Yellow Sea, which can be regarded as a great luck in misfortune.

Just when everyone's eyes were focused on the Beiping side, another war broke out on the land of China, and this time it was neither the Seventh Theater led by Su Tong nor the Japanese army that took the lead in initiating the offensive, but the Central Army led by our Chairman Chiang.

Stimulated by the great victory in Taierzhuang and the invincible situation of the Seventh Theater under the leadership of Su Tong, the chairman finally couldn't sit still and gave Li Zongren, the commander of the Fifth Theater, an order to conduct the 'Xuzhou General Battle'.

On June 6, 1938, under the strict order of the chairman of the National People's Congress, General Li Zongren commanded the 300,000-strong army of the Fifth Theater to initiate a counterattack against the Japanese troops on the outskirts of Xuzhou. Because the Japanese army was caught off guard at the beginning, it retreated more than 30 kilometers in one day, but soon the Japanese army reacted and organized a counterattack, and the fire of Xuzhou, which had just subsided, began to burn again.