Episode 91 Dilemma

About 40 minutes later, the group of planes divided into four four-plane formations and searched for them in the vast sea 160 kilometers wide between the islands of Taiwan and the Diaoyu Islands.

Soon, a four-plane formation spotted a Japanese destroyer cruising. The Japanese destroyers immediately launched an artillery bombardment into the air. The Ming aircraft group evaded artillery fire, swept past the destroyer, continued the search, and soon found a heavy cruiser more than a dozen nautical miles away. Almost at the same time, the other three four-plane formations also spotted the Japanese destroyer, as well as another heavy cruiser. It seems that the Japanese warships were fully dispersed in order to fully guard the entire strait. The planes of each group were summed up, and there were two Japanese heavy cruisers and four destroyers in this sea area.

The pilot judged that the two heavy cruisers, one should be a 10,341-ton Furuhawk-class, and the other should be a 14,743-ton Myo-class. The latter was certainly not Myoko, as the Myoko was seriously injured in the Battle of the Sea of Japan. It should be one of the remaining three ships of Myo-Gao.

The specific location of the enemy ship was determined, and the Ming fighters returned. On the way back, one of the fighters encountered a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft. The Japanese reconnaissance plane could not escape and was shot down.

At this time, the Ming aircraft carrier group, which was 100 nautical miles away in the north, received a report and began to release the first wave of attack planes.

The first wave of attack aircraft consisted of 6 4 fighters, 36 torpedo bombers, 42 dive bombers. A large group of 142 planes, roaring in the vast sea, with glass covers glistening in the scorching sun, rushed towards the Japanese warships in the southeast.

……

At this time, the Okinawa Naval Base had also received alerts from various ships, saying that Ming fighters had appeared in the sky above them, and they should be carrier-based kingfishers, with a total of one squadron. Immediately after that, the Okinawa airport received another call for help from a reconnaissance plane, saying that it had encountered four Ming fighters and was being attacked. Then the signal is gone.

As soon as the Japanese staff officers contacted the report they had just received that "the Ming aircraft carrier formation had been discovered," they immediately came to the conclusion that this was the plane on the Ming aircraft carrier, and that the other side was conducting reconnaissance of the Nachi detachment.

The commander of the Okinawa base was sweating on his forehead and immediately sent a report to the Tokyo Navy Command Department asking for instructions. If it was the Japanese Army, it would not have asked for instructions at all at this time, and as soon as several staff officers put it together, they would immediately start fighting. However, the Japanese Navy is still very particular about the superiority and inferiority. The secret telegram was sent to Tokyo, encrypted and decrypted, and then the Tokyo Navy Command Department sent the order in a secret telegram, and then encrypted and decrypted...... Twenty minutes passed.

However, the Japanese army followed the habit of commanding naval battles on traditional battleships. In a traditional battleship naval battle, these twenty minutes can really afford to be delayed. Because it was only the reconnaissance aircraft of the opposing side that was discovered, and the opposing fleet could be far away. In traditional naval warfare, this means that it will take at least a few hours for the fleets of both sides to come into contact and start fighting. In that case, it would be necessary to spend twenty minutes communicating with the Military Command Department.

But now the Ming army is an aircraft carrier formation, and the weapons are not artillery, but aircraft. Although the cannon was still a hundred nautical miles away, the plane flew in half an hour. Of course, the Japanese commander in Okinawa also understood that it was an airplane, but at the moment his mind was still stuck in the traditional way of fleet warfare.

The island of Okinawa is 500 kilometers away from this area, and the Ming fleet is only 180 kilometers away. Even if the Japanese planes took off now, the Ming army's fleet would still arrive 40-50 minutes earlier. These forty or fifty minutes were enough to destroy two heavy cruisers one by one.

……

The Ming army also expected that the Japanese army must have received an alarm at this moment, and the Japanese planes at the Okinawa base would also take off to reinforce them. The General Staff of the Nanjing Maritime Department also sent a telegram to Taiwan's naval base and ordered the land-based planes at Taoyuan Airport to take off immediately to intercept the Japanese planes flying over Okinawa.

The Taiwan naval base has two military ports and two military airfields. Keelung Port and Taoyuan Airport at the north end, and Kaohsiung Port and Kaohsiung Airport at the south end. However, whether it was the Ming army's Taiwan base or the Japanese army's base in Okinawa, there were not many planes stationed, and basically there were only 70 or 80 fighters and bombers. After receiving the order, the Taiwan base first sent two squadrons of fighters to meet the fight, and the remaining half of the fighters were on standby.

At present, in the southern part of the East China Sea, that is, in the vast sea area of several hundred kilometers between Okinawa and Taiwan, the Ming fighters are in an absolute numerical advantage. The only fighter that the Japanese could send over was a brigade on the island of Okinawa. The nearest airport is the mainland of Japan. Including the four aircraft carriers of the Japanese army, they also stayed in the home military port. That's 108,000 miles away. In addition to one fighter group on the island of Taiwan, the Ming army also had three fighter groups of the aircraft carrier formation. A total of four brigades against one brigade of the Japanese army.

In peacetime, the ratio of Ming and Japanese fighters in the southern part of the East China Sea was basically stable at 1:1. Now it is precisely because of Xiang Xiaoqiang's sudden concentration of three large aircraft carriers that the ratio of fighters of the Ming army has increased suddenly, reaching 4:1 against the Japanese army. Now it can be said that no matter what the Ming army does in the southern part of the East China Sea, it will be difficult for the Japanese army to stop it. And this is exactly the purpose of Xiang Xiaoqiang. He wanted to use this earth-shattering "air and naval battle" to make Nanjing's people from the emperor to the generals have a deep impression - the aircraft carrier should be used in this way.

At this time, the order of the Tokyo Navy Command Department came, but it was very vague. The order did not mention the battleship Hiei, but only ordered the base to send aviation to meet the Ming army.

The commander of the Okinawa base was faced with a choice at this moment: should he send all 40 fighters at the base to meet the Ming army's aircraft group? Or do you want to leave some fighters behind to protect the bomber group to find the Ming aircraft carrier formation?

If they were all sent to meet the Ming army's aircraft group, it would obviously be a battle that would be a sure loss and no gain. The difference is just a matter of losing big and losing little. Because without fighter protection, bombers could not be sent out to find the Ming aircraft carrier fleet. If a part of the fighters were to protect the bombers and go to the Ming fleet, it would certainly be possible to sink the Ming aircraft carriers, but the protection of their two cruisers would be much weaker.

After several minutes of fierce struggle, the Japanese commander finally resisted the temptation of "sinking the Ming aircraft carrier" and ordered all the fighters to take off to meet the Ming aircraft group.

However, he still couldn't figure out why the Military Command Department didn't mention the dispatch of the battleship Hiei. Hiei is a fast battleship, the speed is not much slower than the Ming aircraft carrier, and the firepower is far stronger than the opponent. In any case, as long as it is sent, it will be a huge threat to the Ming aircraft carrier formation. And as a battleship, it also had much more anti-aircraft firepower than a cruiser. The commander of Okinawa is still very confident in the air defense capability of the Hiei. At night, the Ming planes could not take off, and the sea was even more of a battleship.

After thinking about it, he still sent a secret telegram to the Tokyo Naval Command Department, asking the battleship Paibiei to go out of port to fight.

……

At this moment, there is also a fierce dispute in the naval command department in Tokyo. The core of the dispute is whether the Hiei should be sent to meet the Ming aircraft carrier formation.

Like the Ming Navy, the Japanese Navy at this time was also a "cannon club", and it was the world of giant ship artilleryists. What they are arguing about is not "whether the battleship can beat the aircraft carrier", "whether the anti-aircraft firepower of the battleship is really that strong", etc., but:

- Are these three aircraft carriers the main force of the Ming fleet?

In the eyes of these giant ship artillonists, a fleet composed purely of aircraft carriers is incredible, even very weird. Bottom line: I've never heard of such a soldier.

Many people are inclined to believe that this aircraft carrier formation is just a decoy fleet of the Ming army, and its mission is to make a feint attack and divert the tiger from the mountains, in order to lure the battleship Hiei to the southern tip of the Ryukyu Islands, and the real main force of the Ming army, which is estimated to be a fleet with one or two battleships as the core, will take the opportunity to break through into the Pacific Ocean from the northern tip of the Ryukyu Islands.

All this speculation stems from a deep-rooted concept: how can the main force of naval warfare make an aircraft carrier? It must be a battleship!