At 2:30 p.m., the bridge of the Thunderbolt.

"A call from the theater air force: At 1:50 a.m., our reconnaissance plane discovered the enemy's aircraft carrier mobile unit 200 nautical miles southeast of the Munda base. Two aircraft carriers and six cruisers headed northwest at a speed of twenty-four knots. Al Qaeda will organize air raids to intercept them, but it may not be effective in the short term, and it is hoped that a response will be made quickly. ”

After reading the telegram in his hand, He Yuting glanced at the chart: "Forty minutes have passed, and the current straight-line distance between our fleet and the Munda base is one hundred and ten nautical miles.

Yuan Feng was stunned, and the telegram sent by Marshal Zhang Yiye, the commander of the theater of operations, half an hour ago, was still tightly held in his hand.

Seeing that Yuan Feng was silent for half a cigarette, a staff officer who was obviously older than He Yuting coldly proposed: "Since the distance is so close, how about killing a horse pistol?" The artillery troops continue to move closer to the Munda base, and the main force turns around and attacks the enemy's mobile troops at full speed; if we are lucky, we will be able to bring the other side into the course of our 50 main artillery in two or three hours. ”

Without waiting for He Yuting to react, Yuan Feng over there had already begun to nod: "It makes sense, instead of being beaten passively, it is better to take the initiative to attack, and attack the enemy as soon as it sees it, which is the supreme glorious tradition of our imperial navy......"

He Yuting panicked: "Commander, this is the way to die!" There were still several hours before dark, and during this period, the enemy's reconnaissance planes were fully capable of discovering the movement of our troops in advance, promptly informing their mobile units to evade, and guiding the air attack units to launch strikes against our main forces. According to previous intelligence, the enemy's main forces have appeared near Malaita Island, and even if the enemy's mobile forces cannot get rid of the pursuit of our main forces, they will inevitably lead our troops to the enemy's main forces with superior forces - at that time, people will be swordsmen, I will be fish and meat, hurry, hurry! ”

Yuan Feng hesitated for a moment, and He Yuting took advantage of the situation to increase: "Just now, Commander Zhang has issued a clear order, asking us to drop the lightning and withdraw first, although this is against the norm, but if the commander disobeys the order and goes to a military court in the future, you will lose a city first." On the other hand, if you follow the orders of the commander, even if the lightning is gone, Commander Zhang will inevitably have to take responsibility, and the board on you will be much lighter. ”

Yuan Feng frowned, and said angrily: "I, Yuan, can walk upright and sit up straight, you are comparing me with that kind of cowardly and irresponsible obscenity!" ”

He Yuting was not timid: "Commander, this has nothing to do with character, it is about your honor as an imperial admiral, please think twice." ”

Wiping off the beads of sweat on his forehead, and looking at the clear sky outside the window, at the critical moment, Yuan Feng finally found the only remaining bit of reason.

"Pass on my order, and from now on, Vice Admiral Yamaya will act as the commander of the theater task force and lead the main force of the fleet to approach the Munda base at full speed, and this commander will personally lead the Lightning and expel the 21st Squadron, and the above ——。"

A quarter of an hour later, the ships of Vice Admiral Yamaya's main force, together with the three ships of the artillery unit, Haruna, Bonghua, and Reihua, began to speed away from the Thunder, and the four ships of the 21st Sentai "Wenyang", "Shunyang", "Zhenyang", and "Liangyang", which were part of the shelling unit, were ordered to stay behind to cover.

Yuan Feng's original plan was to hide the Thunderbolt in the entire fleet's anti-aircraft fire circle, and the other capital ships in the fleet would share the blow of the enemy's air attack forces. If you're lucky, even if the other four capital ships eat one or two torpedoes before dark, it shouldn't cause too serious consequences.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the enemy came up, he concentrated on attacking the Haruna, although the two torpedoes that hit did not hurt the vital point, and the captain of the Haruna also promised that it could be driven to 22 knots at the earliest, but Yuan Feng saw that the escort fighters above his head were completely suppressed by the enemy fighter team that occupied the numerical superiority, and the opponent's torpedo planes rushed directly into the fleet's air defense fire circle almost without air interference, and the fleet may also be hit by two or three similar blows before dark, not only the Haruna may sink, The three high-speed warships, which would have been intact, could also have suffered more damage than expected······ It wasn't until the fanatical idea of being alone at the end of the day was also cooled by He Yuting's Daigo empowerment that Yuan Feng realized that his wishful thinking might really be wrong.

At present, the Lightning Thunder is out of the relatively powerful fleet anti-aircraft firepower circle, and the small team headed by it will naturally have much thinner anti-aircraft firepower on paper.

When it participated in the Battle of the Bay of Bengal last year, all the anti-aircraft weapons of the Lightning were only 4 90-mm high shè guns, 4 37-mm high shè machine guns, and 6 13-mm high shè machine guns.

After the Battle of the Bay of Bengal, taking advantage of the opportunity of short-term docking maintenance, the Lightning focused on strengthening its anti-aircraft firepower, and at this moment, all the anti-aircraft weapons of the Lightning include: 8 single 90 mm high shè guns (4 on each side), 8 twin 37 mm high shè guns (3 on each side, 1 on each of the 2nd and 3rd main turrets), and 8 twin 13 mm high shè machine guns (3 on each side of the bridge, 1 on each side of the bridge).

Compared with the Thunderbolt, the anti-aircraft firepower of the four Yangzi destroyers was much weaker, and each ship was armed with only one single 75 mm high shè gun, two single 37 mm high shè machine guns, and four single 13 mm high shè machine guns.

However, the key is not here - since Yuan Feng has made up his mind to sacrifice the Lightning to protect the other capital ships, the escort fighter team that came to duty in batches from the Monda base was naturally assigned by him to protect the main formation of Vice Admiral Yamaya, and there was not a single plane left in the sky above the Lightning formation.

The hour hand was about to point to 3 o'clock, and when Yuan Feng was still silently watching the ships go away, a jǐng report came from the air command post of the Thunderbolt: "A large group of aircraft has been found in the rear!" ”

Rabaul, Theater Command of the South-Eastern Front.

"Yuan Feng has finally figured it out, and we can't let him die in vain - when will the Monda base release the first attack wave?"

Zhang Yiye was shaking a fan made of palm leaves in one hand, holding freshly ground Malaysian white coffee in the afternoon in the other, the marshal's uniform was set up behind a chair, his shirt was open to his chest, and his big shorts were showing his leg hair.

"It's half past three at the earliest"

Zhang Yiye took a sip of coffee, squinted his eyes and said, "So long? As the most important aviation base on the Solomon front, a mobile strike force should be kept on standby. ”

Zhao Zixi bowed his head and said: "It's a pity that in order to cooperate with the Navy's actions, all the four-engine large planes at the Monda base were either sent to bomb the aviation base on San Cristobal Island, or a single plane took turns to carry out long-range reconnaissance missions. Most of the twin-engine medium aircraft are also divided into two- or three-plane formations, which carry out anti-submarine patrols and medium- and short-range search missions in shifts······"

Zhang Yiye put down the specially customized coffee cup with the words "Down with eight feet, return me SC", and tilted his head contemptuously: "I don't want to listen to the reason - it's three past five now, and there should still be a chance to catch the enemy—how many planes are there in the first attack wave?" ”

Zhao Zixi noticed the mysterious code words on Zhang Yiye's cup, but it was inconvenient to ask more, so he hurriedly replied: "There are 17 twin-engine medium planes and four-engine large racks, a total of 25 planes, of which 9 carry torpedoes, and the rest carry bombs to carry out high-altitude horizontal bombing. Due to the fact that the target position exceeded the combat radius of the base fighters, the air attack units could only force the attack without escort

Zhang Yiye cocked Erlang's legs and said with a leisurely smile: "It doesn't matter, it's best to have results, even if you miss a bullet, it's enough to show the strength and determination of our army, to put it bluntly, it's to scare them and force them to take it when they see it." ”

……