Therefore, Du Kaishan decided to lay mines only in key areas. The remaining mines were laid by airplanes in the air and placed in the Laotieshan Waterway, an important passage for Japanese naval ships to enter and exit the Bohai Sea. It's close to the open sea, and even if the minefield drifts, it doesn't matter much.

And close to the Japanese Navy Arthur base, if the Japanese naval fleet is really bombed. Unless the Japanese navy's mine-sweeping units stationed in Lushun completely abandon the entire Bohai Sea and still control the coasts of South Manchuria and Shandong, they must clear out the minefields as soon as they want to or not.

Although the Japanese will definitely clean the old iron mountain waterway after this war. But for Du Kaishan, this is not a big deal. It didn't matter to him how long the minefields held out, as long as they could be useful in this battle.

When laying mines, Du Kaishan hollowed out his mind and let the group of light ships led by the Japanese Navy arrive at the landing site unscathed. And after the landing fleet arrived at the predetermined landing area unimpeded and without a single hair of hair, the large ships providing fire support in the rear were even more unscrupulous.

Because for the very dogma, the Japanese Navy, which has become accustomed to the practice of international naval warfare, thinks. Generally, when countries lay mines, they are laid in waterways. Not many people would lay mines in the open sea where the ghost knows where the ships would be stationed.

Other than a special case such as the Seto Inland Sea, and a narrow strait. Any sea area is vast, and if a complete closure is adopted, how many mines will be needed to fill the entire sea area? No country in the world would do such a stupid thing.

Therefore, after seeing that the channel was unimpeded, the last bit of almost trivial worry of the Japanese naval top brass who commanded the operation completely disappeared. And the rigid Japanese Navy, which has always been not bad for a second in carrying out orders, is not out of shape in the slightest.

The position of several large ships participating in the battle to provide fire support in the direction of Qikou is almost exactly the same as the position where the large ships of the Japanese Navy opened fire last time. Du Kaishan's painstaking calculations, the contempt and carelessness of the Japanese Navy against the Alliance, and the rigid execution directly led to the heavy losses of the Japanese Navy.

Unexpectedly, the opponent in front of him, the Japanese Navy, which had hollowed out its mind in order to deal with itself, was bombed by a minefield laid by Du Kaishan and suffered heavy losses. Three battleships, two were sunk on the spot, and one was damaged, which is not an exaggeration to describe the total annihilation.

The first battleship to win the bid, which was also the flagship of the Japanese Navy's operation, sank with a rapid mine strike that made people unresponsive, not only becoming the first warship above the destroyer lost by the entire Japanese Navy on the Chinese battlefield, but also causing another rather severe consequence.

The Japanese navy dispatched this time, including Admiral Kondo, commander of the Chinese fleet, who was responsible for commanding the operation, and almost all the senior commanders sank into the Bohai Bay with the battleship. That is to say, the entire command of the Japanese naval fleet, as well as the senior staff officers on this flagship, were almost served in one pot.

Originally, according to the practice of the world's navies, reserve commanders were selected according to rank before each operation. So as not to cause problems with the flagship or the death of the commander, and the whole fleet from falling into chaos due to lack of command. Even if the superior does not appoint it, the commander of the fleet in charge of the command usually appoints an heir on a temporary basis.

However, this time, the Japanese Navy believed that this operation was nothing more than an artillery bombardment operation without any risk. So very exceptionally, no one has been designated to serve as this reserve commander. And the rapid sinking of the battleship Yamashiro also made Kondo Nobutake not have time to designate a replacement, so he went to the Bohai Dragon King to sit as a guest.

The Yamashiro was sunk by a mine, and the brains of the Japanese Navy's command system in this operation can be said to have been wiped out. The follow-up operations of the Japanese Navy almost plunged into chaos. Fortunately, on board the Ise, who was only seriously injured by the bombing, there was also Lieutenant General Chiaki Matsuda, who served as the commander of the Fourth Air Force, which consisted of the Ise and Hyuga, and his Fourth Air Force Command was still alive.

To say that this old man, who once served as the captain of the Hyuga and the Yamato, and is called a geek in the navy, is indeed quite decisive. In the absence of an order from his superiors, after taking over the command on his own, he ordered all ships to stay still and turn on all anti-aircraft firepower to prevent the enemy from fishing in troubled waters.

The naval aviation units that were supporting the landing of the army at the front were ordered to immediately return to the berthing area of the large warships to cover the main force of the fleet here, except for a part of the ships that continued to cover the front-line combat ships. Now that two battleships have been lost, the remaining half-crippled battleship of his own flagship, the battleship Ise, and the heavy cruiser Maya must not be lost again.

At the same time, a telegram was sent to the Lushun Naval Base, asking them to immediately send minesweepers to clear mines. As for the other warships that were covering the landing fleet at the front, he gave the same order. It was strictly forbidden for the ships in front to retreat, and it was required that after the land had completed the landing, they should be stationed on the spot before receiving orders.

It's just that although this old man is extremely decisive, whether the development of the shape can give him this face and persist until the minesweeper Lushun arrives all the way is another matter. Less than five minutes after this old man had just given the order, the anti-coalition air force, which had just hastily dropped the bomb and flew away, flew back again under the cover of the fighter group.

This formation far exceeded the number of anti-union aircraft in the previous sortie, but it was obviously not as simple as the last time. Adhering to the posture of taking advantage of your illness and asking for your life, they came up with aerial bombs and rockets to carry out air strikes on Japanese ships that were caught in a minefield and could only wait honestly.

The Japanese naval vessels in the minefield did not know how many mines there were in the vicinity, so they could not maneuver or make any evasive moves, so they could only launch anti-aircraft fire with all their might and desperately return fire. Trying to use intensive anti-aircraft artillery fire to drive away this group of fallen guys.

However, the group of anti-United bombers that pounced on this time was obviously the result of a special tactical exercise. In addition to the fighters desperately entangled the Japanese fighters, a fierce air battle broke out in the air. The first group of Blenheim bombers to pounce on them was the first to strike at the anti-aircraft fire of Japanese naval ships with rockets.

Or they skipped the Japanese ships at low altitude and high speed from the bow of the ship, and dropped the BTAB cluster bombs that were originally used for anti-tank warfare and had shown their might on the battlefield of Baoding. The threat of PTAB cluster bombs is much more lethal to the anti-aircraft fire of Japanese naval ships than rockets.

Although the power of such cluster bombs cannot sink a warship, it is basically unable to cause fatal damage to a warship. However, the dense rain of bombs was extremely lethal to the anti-aircraft gun positions of the Japanese naval ships, which were basically unprotected. This kind of bomb, which weighed only 1.5 kilograms, was flying everywhere, killing and wounding many people in the anti-aircraft gun positions on the warship, and even directly blew up quite a number of antiaircraft guns.

Unless it is a super ship like the Ise, the rest of the Japanese warships, especially light ships such as destroyers and coastal defense ships, as long as they are hit by such cluster bombs, it also indicates that all the anti-aircraft firepower of this warship, plus the upper layers, will also be beaten into dumb.

The anti-aircraft guns were beaten to dumbness, and even the radio communication equipment was completely destroyed, which meant that the last layer of protection of the Japanese naval ships was torn off. For those bombers that really carried bombs, it was easy to deal with these large and small ships that did not dare to maneuver.

When all the PTAB cluster bomb boxes were dropped, all the rockets mounted under the wings on both sides of the cover group broke away at high speed. The SBD dive bombers, which were full of aerial bombs, swooped down from a high altitude with a roar, and dropped bombs one after another on the Japanese Navy ships that were honestly waiting on the surface of the sea and at the same time lost the cover of anti-aircraft fire.

This kind of bomb is an extremely excellent performance on the battlefield of Baoding, so that Du Kaishan, who has always been quick to accept new things, immediately likes this weapon. At his insistent request, the air force finally developed a set of tactics for using such anti-tank bombs in anti-ship warfare through painstaking study and drills.

The bombers carrying these cluster bombs chose to enter on the windward side and quickly swept over the Japanese ships at low altitudes from the bow or stern of the ship, which had a relatively poor density of anti-aircraft fire. After the plane arrives at the chimney in the middle of the warship, open the bomb box and try to drop as many bombs as possible on the Japanese ships. The point was not to destroy the entire ship, but to target the largely unprotected anti-aircraft artillery group on the Japanese ships.

This is a tactic that was specifically implemented by the aviation forces at the request of Du Kaishan. Although only one of the Japanese ships directly lost to such bombers was a submarine destroyer, it also exerted considerable power. When the bombers loaded with such bombs swept longitudinally at high speed and dropped the PTAB bombs they carried like scattered flowers, the Japanese ships were in a mess.

The anti-aircraft fire of the ships, which was basically dumbfounded. Most of the sighting and communication equipment that was exposed to the outside was destroyed. There are even several transport ships and ships that have been blown up by these small bombs that are pervasive and have some armor-piercing ability, either from chimneys or through the deck into the engine room.

It was these inconspicuous small bombs that paralyzed the entire engine system, causing the ship to be directly paralyzed on the sea surface and unable to move. If it falls into the ammunition storage compartment and explodes, it may even trigger a chain reaction that will blow up and sink the warship.

Unfortunately, the submarine was detonated with depth charges, and the entire small ship was directly blown up into the sky by the tremendous power of more than a dozen depth charges. A transport ship full of ammunition was also detonated by the shells that were carried by such bombs into the cargo hold, and exploded into a fireworks.

In the face of the surprise attack of the anti-coalition air force, as well as the adoption of a variety of means of attack. Vice Admiral Chiaki Matsuda, who wanted to cry without tears, after losing three destroyers and several transport ships, had no choice but to order all the surviving ships to immediately withdraw from Bohai Bay at full speed. As for the minefield, Lieutenant General Chiaki Matsuda didn't care about it.

What else can be done, rushing out hard may be able to keep a few ships. If you continue to stay here, there will be mines everywhere, and the danger of hitting mines will be even greater. If you don't maneuver, if you don't do it like this, you will be given a nest by the anti-United bombers on your head. His fighter group was entangled by the enemy, and he couldn't rescue even if he wanted to.

Looking at the staggered ships that were bombed on the sea, Chiaki Matsuda hated the Military Command Department's determination to refuse to mobilize aircraft carriers to participate in the war at this time. At this time, even if only one aircraft carrier is moored in the Bohai Strait and fights hand in hand with the land-based air force, how will it suffer such heavy losses?