Episode 23 Mountain Drop

"I fought Jebel!"

"Who else saw it?"

"My wingman!"

"Okay, except for your wingman?"

"I saw it," said the other pilot.

"Very well, then confirmed. Zhao Shuisheng, the result: a Jebe fighter. …… Next, Liu Changqing. Knife Liu, how many fights have you done? ”

There was a burst of laughter from the pilots around them. "Knife Liu" shook his head and muttered:

"Day, this time less, a torpedo machine, a Jebe. Alas, the main thing is that we only have six, and others have more than 30, and they can't use it at all, so we just get rid of it...... Otherwise, you can get one or two. ”

The officer smiled:

"The problem is that the Jebe you fought was the same as Zhao Shuisheng. It can only count 0.5 of each of you. ”

"It doesn't matter," Liu Changqing waved his hand and took a cigarette in his mouth, "Half a shelf is half a shelf." ”

He slapped Zhao Shuisheng on the shoulder:

"Boy, you're good! It's only 300 hours to dry down half of the rack! By 1000 hours it must be much better than me! ”

In the results statistics room of the Dimensity and Tianxuan aircraft carriers, dozens of pilots did not take off their flight suits, eating lunch with lunch boxes, and lined up to report the results.

Suddenly, a pilot shouted:

"Sir, we have three brothers who have parachuted out, and they are still in the sea, what are we going to do? Go and save it! ”

Such a shout immediately resonated with the other pilots, who were all shouting and demanding that a ship be sent to rescue.

The Statistical Officer, standing up and shouting:

"Brothers, be quiet, seaplanes have been sent over! Brethren, don't worry! We will not leave every brother behind! ”

……

There were three seaplanes on the battleship Hongwu, and two seaplanes each on the heavy cruisers Sun Wu and Lü Bu. Now seven seaplanes are dispatched together to search for and rescue the three parachuted pilots in the air combat area. Because it was reported that a large number of Haidongqing fighters had appeared nearby, two kingfishers were sent to each seaplane as escorts.

The pilots are wearing inflatable life jackets, and their lives are safe for a while, and now in May, the water in the Bohai Sea is not too cold, so you can soak for a while. And at this latitude of the Bohai Sea, there are very few sharks. But the problem is that the air battle area is so close to the coast of Dongying, if the Qing army is asked to rush to the front and take prisoners, it will be troublesome.

Now that the era of mankind's great air warfare has not yet arrived, the article "pilots are far more precious than airplanes" will not be profoundly understood by all countries until a few years later, when thousands of planes are produced every month, but pilots are far from keeping up. Now the Ming army is sending planes to search and rescue, indeed relying on the humanitarian spirit of "not abandoning brothers". Although only three pilots fell into the sea, the fleet sent 21 planes to the rescue, which won the applause of the pilots on the spot.

This is a great morale boost, and makes every pilot feel this way: this time it was my comrade who fell into the sea, and I was going to save him; The next time I fall into the sea, my comrades will definitely come to my rescue.

In this way, the pilots will be braver and more willing to sacrifice.

……

The fighters that had been sent out for reconnaissance returned to the aircraft carrier one after another. Immediately after that, another rotation was sent out, and 40 Kingfishers were re-launched to defend the skies over the fleet.

The reconnaissance pilots who had just returned reported that they had come into contact with the Qing army's Haidongqing aircraft group, about 80 kilometers to the northwest. After a number of pilots checked and confirmed, it was confirmed that the incoming Haidongqing fighters were not two squadrons, but at least three squadrons, that is, 36 fighters.

Moreover, it was determined that all were fighters, there were no torpedo machines or bombers.

The commander of the aircraft carrier formation pondered for a moment, and immediately ordered the 40 fighters above to continue to climb high, ambush 15 kilometers east of the fleet, and at the same time quickly lower the planes on the deck into the hangar. At the same time, the commander of the fleet on the flagship Hongwu issued an order to all ships of the fleet to replace all guns with anti-aircraft bombs and prepare to fire at the air.

Qing fighters could not do anything to the Ming warships, but they could seriously damage the Ming planes. Although the Ming fleet brought many fighters, there were only so many, and the Qing army had several airfields around the Bohai Sea, and the planes that could be dispatched must be far more than the Ming army. The fighters of the Ming army are here to escort the escort, and none of them are intended to be wasted.

……

At 11:50 p.m., after searching the sea for several laps, the Haidongqing fighter group finally found the Ming fleet more than 10,000 meters away and slowly moving on the sea with a white line in tow.

At a distance of more than 10,000 meters, the fleet will definitely not see the planes, and the planes can only see that there is a fleet. As for whether there are aircraft carriers inside, whether there are planes on the aircraft carriers, and whether there are planes in the sky, we have to wait until we get closer.

More than a minute later, the Haidongqing group was discovered.

Black clouds of anti-aircraft guns began to appear in the front, rear, left, and right of each plane, and at the same time they all felt violent turbulence, as well as the sound of shrapnel and steel balls hitting the fuselage.

The closer and closer he flew, the white clouds like cotton wool flew by, and the gray-black figures on the gray-yellow sea surface looked very small from above:

Spindle-shaped battleships, cruisers, rectangular aircraft carriers, bullet-shaped destroyers, and smaller minesweepers...... Basically, every figure has bright spots all over its body, like a Christmas tree. But the "highlight" is not the little light bulb on the Christmas tree, but the tongue of fire. With every flicker, a shell was delivered.

If we talk about the density of firepower formed in a small area of airspace, the firepower of the fleet is really incomparable with the land anti-aircraft artillery units.

The battleship was the best weapon platform, and the guns of the whole body were like hedgehogs, from the largest caliber 381 mm main gun, to the medium caliber secondary gun, to the 40 mm anti-aircraft gun, to the smallest 20 mm machine gun, to the 12 mm machine gun...... The weapons draped all over the body form a four-layer barrage inside and outside, although it will not be "impossible to penetrate the needle and splash the water", but if you want to dive down and attack, you will have to pay a certain amount of casualties.

Of course, if it is a dive bomber or torpedo plane, it is worth paying a certain amount of casualties, after all, it is possible to hit an enemy ship. But the weapons of the fighters are only machine guns, which is really useless to die.

More than 30 Hai Dongqing circled over the fleet for a while, but they did not find the planes of the Ming army.

Seeing that the Qing army aircraft group did not swoop down stupidly, the Ming fleet summoned the Kingfisher fighter group that was ambushed 15,000 meters to the east.

……

For the next few hours, the Hongwu detachment maintained a speed of 20 knots and headed west. I didn't wait for the remaining 15 torpedo planes of the Qing army in the afternoon. It wasn't until half past three in the afternoon that a secret telegram was received from Nanjing: According to the intelligence from Dongying Airport, all the torpedo aircraft brigade of the Qing army that could take off had taken off, and the rest were all faulty and could not fly, and there were about a dozen or so planes. Five more came back halfway and didn't go back, for some reason.

Now the Hongwu fleet is relieved, and there is nothing that can threaten the fleet.

At 16:00, fifteen Junkers-52s loaded with cargo, took off from the Dongjiang Fleet, first sailed to the southwest, bypassed the Arthur Peninsula, and then turned due west and flew directly over the vast Bohai Sea to the mainland of North China.

At 16:10, the Hongwu detachment sailed all the way to 50 kilometers east of Dagukou in Tianjin.

Near the mouth of Dagukou in Tianjin, it used to be a very busy sea area, but now there is nothing but the vast sea on all sides.

Since the Ming fleet entered the Bohai Sea in the morning, the entire Bohai Rim has been full of rumors and gates, and not a single ship has set sail. The government and military police in various coastal areas were dispatched at once, and all the fishing boats and merchant ships were watched, and they went out to sea tightly.

Usually, whether it is a merchant ship or a fishing boat, if you want to go out of the Bohai Sea, you have to go through a lot of scrutiny. Coastal fishermen outside the Bohai Sea also have to detain their families on land in the village when they go out to sea. Because the Qing court knew that as soon as the Bohai Sea was out, the power to control the sea was in the hands of Nanming, and the coastal people would sail south to Nanming as soon as they had the opportunity. There are often incidents of coastal people driving small boats and smuggling out of the Bohai Strait at night.

And now a Nanming fleet still broke in, that is, even the sea control in the Bohai Sea was not in the hands of the Manchus. The Qing government immediately became nervous, fearing that there would be an incident in which a large number of fishermen sailed out to sea to find the Nanming fleet and defected to the Nanming en masse.

In doing so, the Qing court naturally blocked the way for the people to escape from the darkness, but it also blindfolded itself. Although the Hongwu detachment was only 50 kilometers east of Tianjin, it seemed to be in the middle of a vast ocean. There was not a single airplane in the sky, there was not a sampan around, and there was no land in sight.

Here, the two aircraft carriers turned southeast and drove at full speed against the wind, and began to release fighter jets on a large scale.

At 16:40, 100 Kingfisher fighters out of a total of 168 aircraft carriers took off, and then circled in formation overhead, while waiting for the arrival of the Junker transport aircraft formation.

At 16:45, 15 Junkers-52 transport planes arrived at the rendezvous point, and the two groups of planes converged into a large group and flew towards the west-southwest - Baoding direction.

……

100 kilometers to the north, a large number of fighter jets gathered over Beijing, Tianjin, Langfang, Tangshan and other places. Four fighter groups, about 120 old and new models, are patrolling southeast, ready to defend Beijing.

In addition, Shandong also has three fighter groups, about 100 planes, which are flying to the sea and want to stop on the way of the Ming bombers to intercept them. More than 200 fighters, this is all the goods that the Beiqing Air Force can take out in the Beijing-Tianjin air defense zone.

The Ming army and the nearest Qing army group were only a few dozen kilometers apart, flying in the east and west in the opposite direction, almost passing by each other, and not discovering each other.

At this time, it was already dusk, and the straight-line distance from the Ming army aircraft carrier to the empty location of Taihang Mountain west of Baoding was 200 kilometers, and it took 40 minutes to fly in a single trip. The airdrop should be around half past five in the afternoon, just when it will be dark.

The advantage of this arrangement was that the Taihang Mountain Column would not be in a cloud of darkness to find supplies, and the Junkers could return most of the voyage with the help of night cover, so that they would not be chased and killed by Qing fighters taking off from the coast.

At 17:05, the first batch of fighters of the Qing army finally discovered the Ming fleet 50 kilometers east of Dagukou again. When the news came back, the generals of the Qing Air Force were surprised that the Ming fleet was so close to the land! Half the afternoon is still searching in the vast Bohai Sea in the east!

A squadron of the Qing army searched near the fleet for a while, but did not find Ming fighters, let alone "legendary" bombers. They were greeted only by a dense black cloud of anti-aircraft artillery.

Now the Qing army has nothing to do with this Ming fleet under its nose. They were obviously so close to the shore, but they were not within the range of the shore guns. I obviously have so many planes, but none of them can hurt the warships below. Fighters rush down and shoot, it's like tickling, and judging by the density of artillery fire, the casualties will not be small.

Adjust the horizontal bombers to bomb, high-altitude horizontal bombing will definitely not blow up people. Dive bombing, at that angle, is not much different from horizontal bombing. And the horizontal bomber is so big and bulky, and it glides slowly to a low altitude, which is almost like a target.

……

At this time, Qingxian, Dacheng County, Renqiu County, Gaoyang County and other places began to report layer by layer, saying that they had all seen a large group of planes flying from high in the sky, and the direction was still due west.

But at this time, it was already 5:25, and the administrative system of each county was still slowly grinding.

The Ming army flew over the south of Baoding. In some places in the southern suburbs of Baoding, such as Qingyuan County, I clearly saw the large group of aircraft in the sky, and I could faintly hear a low roar.

This time, it was reported directly to Beijing by Baoding. There has just been a workers' riot in Baoding, and the administrative system is strained, but now the efficiency is very high, and the green light all the way to Beijing is the news.

……

At 5:30, the farmland of various shapes below the fleet disappeared and was replaced by rolling hills.

According to the rhythmic "click" signal received on the radio, the group leader slightly adjusted the course and flew into the vast Taihang Mountains. This signal is the only radio station of the Taihang Mountain Column at present, which is sending a navigation signal to the group according to the agreement.

The swarm did not break the radio silence, but everyone knew in their hearts how lucky they had been so far. The Northern Qing Dynasty thought that the Ming army was coming to bomb Beijing, so they focused their attention on hundreds of kilometers away from the northeast, but they were lucky enough to drill into the north of Zhili.

Ten minutes passed, and it was getting darker outside. On the fifteen Junkers transport planes, none of the crew members spoke, guarding the full load of goods around them, silently looking at the dark blue mountains below.

The only thing in my ears was the roar of the engine, and the howling of the cold wind that burrowed into the engine room.

Suddenly, the voice of the group leader came from the headphones:

"It's close to the airdrop area, and all planes are ready."

Radio silence broke. Now it's going to be airdropped.

Although I don't know if saying such a sentence on the radio will attract enemy planes, everyone knows that the god of luck will not always favor them, and they must be mentally prepared on the way back.

The fleet slows down and lowers the altitude.

After a while, the cabin door opened.

The wind was immediately howling and deafening, and the crew was still cold to the bones in thick leather suits.

What a desolation down there!

Mountain. Except that mountains are still mountains.

Undulating, steep, stretching, and even at high altitude, looking into the distance, you can't see the edge.

Such an environment is really a good place to fight guerrillas! Even if the Qing army really got a thousand divisions to encircle and suppress, there would be nowhere to touch it!

There was a fire on a hill a few kilometers ahead, bright in the dusk. And I don't know what it burns, the smoke that rushes into the sky, like a beacon tower.

On another hill a thousand meters away, there was also such a fire. Soon, it was discovered that several mountains one or two kilometers around were lit with such fires, which happened to circle an area.

The group shifted its direction and flew very low, very slowly, towards the two fires.

From the plane, it can be seen that the area selected by the Taihang Mountain Column is really good, the terrain is relatively gentle, and it belongs to a small mountain basin. Moreover, the distance from the outside of the mountain is far enough that the Qing army will not appear here at all without a long time of preparation and a long journey.

In the center of the area, a cloud of red smoke is rising, quite striking. This is the promised signal, the red smoke screen.

Everyone on board couldn't help but laugh: guerrillas with smoke screens. That's a lot of luxury!

……

The group circled and confirmed, and began to airdrop.