Episode 166 Humanitarian Disaster

The Brazilian and Argentine crew members on board were immediately released and given tickets to return home. But more Japanese crew members didn't give tickets. Not only did they not give them tickets, but they were all detained. It is to send them, like Japanese overseas Chinese in the Ming Kingdom, to residential surveillance in the controlled area. Although it is not in line with international conventions, it is also unreasonable.

Unlike South American countries, Japan is an enemy country, and these well-trained captains and crews are important war resources of enemy countries. Sink a Japanese cargo ship, and Japan can quickly build another. And the seizure of the captain and crew of a cargo ship is not something that can be cultivated overnight.

The Weiqing sank 8 Japanese cargo ships, 2 oil tankers, and 4 destroyers, and sank 2 Brazilian and Argentine cargo ships, totaling about 74,000 tons. It can be said that the sinking volume of a cruiser of the Weiqing in a month is about equal to the sinking volume of 20 submarines in a month. It can be seen that surface ships are more efficient than submarines in breaking diplomatic relations. This also confirms Xiong Dingming's prediction that the Weiqing is not only an excellent fleet cruiser, but also an ocean-going assault ship that is very suitable for breaking diplomatic relations.

But the scars on the Wei Qing when he came, as well as this thrilling and almost confessional encounter, also confirmed Xiang Xiaoqiang's prediction. The efficiency of breaking up the diplomatic relationship between surface ships is very high, but the cost is also high and the risk is also very high.

The General Staff of the Strait summed up the lessons and lessons of this occasion and came to the conclusion that it is feasible for surface warships to break up diplomatic relations with submarines. However, in today's era of naval and air warfare, ocean-going assault ships must be extremely careful and absolutely must not enter the combat radius of enemy bombers. The submarine can dive to dodge, and when it comes up, it will definitely get rid of the plane. And not with surface ships. In the sea area far away from assistance, once it is targeted by enemy aircraft, it will be more than lucky. In the past, ocean-going assault ships could even blockade enemy ports, but now they absolutely can't. In the past and in the present, ocean-going assault ships must protect themselves first, and attack enemy merchant ships second.

Xiang Xiaoqiang, who was also a general in charge of the war against Japan, also attended the meeting. He expressed some views on the naval battle between the Weiqing and the Japanese destroyer.

What he meant was that in order to quickly solve the large Japanese merchant fleet, the Wei Qing took the initiative to give up its naval gun range advantage and sail to a close range to engage in a gun battle with the Japanese destroyers, which was an extremely unwise approach. Although half of the destroyers were quickly destroyed, they were also damaged. This will be listed as a taboo in the future. When encountering a merchant fleet with escort, it is necessary to give full play to the range advantage of the cruiser, keep it at a long distance, give priority to attacking the merchant ships, and ignore the destroyers. In this way, although the accuracy is poor and the speed is slow, it can ensure that you do not get hurt. Ocean-going assault ships travel thousands of miles deep into enemy-controlled waters to fight, alone and far away from all rear supplies and repairs, and even the slightest serious damage may result in no return. Therefore, it is better to let the results of the battle be smaller, and it is better to let the entire merchant fleet run away than to risk being injured and fall into a naval battle.

The Ming Navy did not give up food because of choking. After fully summing up the lessons learned, they had the Weiqing repair in the harbor, and at the end of January, they sent out its sister ship, the "Sick Ship".

Now in the month from late December to late January, nearly forty new submarines are in service. And the addition of these new submarines has allowed the Daming submarine force to maintain more submarines in the theater of operations. At present, the total number of submarines of the Ming army has reached 195, and the number of submarines that can be kept in the waters around Japan has also reached about 70. However, most of them are still the original old submarines and old boat crews. That is, before Xiaoqiang proposed "submarine warfare", the original submarines of the Daming submarine force, that is, Qiu Qiu, Wu Haiqiong, Shi Juanzi, their generation of veterans. On the one hand, the novice submarine is too badly damaged and too easy to be sunk, and on the other hand, the novice submarine is sent out too little.

At present, the total number of submarines in the Ming army has more than doubled compared with a year ago, from more than 90 in 36 years to more than 190, but the submarines and crews that entered service after the "era of large-scale submarine production" are still novices. It will take a long time for these newly "flipped over" crews to turn from rookies to qualified killers. It was better to attack a single merchant ship before, as long as you find a merchant ship, it is not too difficult to sink it. Now it is necessary to attack the merchant fleet escorted by destroyers, and it is necessary to have a number of submarines to fight in concert, and it is necessary to have a series of skills in liaison, tracking, lurking, maneuvering, and evading, and the technical difficulty has greatly increased. This is an extremely harsh test for novices.

In any case, it is a fact that there are now more than 70 submarines scattered across Japan's shipping lines. These more than 70 submarines have already made Japan breathless. Xiang Xiaoqiang's original goal was to keep 100 submarines around Japan, so that Japan could bend its knees and beg for mercy in half a year. He proposed this figure entirely from the historical materials of World War II. At that time, German submarine commander Dönitz and naval commander Raeder proposed that as long as I could guarantee 300 submarines before the war, I would be able to guarantee victory against Britain. Of his 300 submarines, 100 were resting at the base, 100 were fighting at sea, and 100 were going back and forth between the battlefield and the base. Now, Xiang Xiaoqiang has also copied this number as it is.

Japan is not Britain, and Japan's industrial capacity, shipbuilding capacity, and the support forces of the allies are far inferior to Britain. During World War II, the British and American merchant fleets often had dozens or hundreds of ships, but now the Japanese merchant fleet is much smaller in size and much smaller in tonnage. Moreover, after Germany sank one, the strong shipbuilding capabilities of Britain and the United States could quickly build two or three, but Japan could not. While the Ming army sank two ships, it would be good if Japan could build one.

But Xiang Xiaoqiang is also well aware that Japan, both the government and its citizens, are much more tolerant of the blockade than the United Kingdom. It is a country where everyone from the emperor to civilians is willing to tighten their belts to support the war. It is possible that after reaching the number of 100 submarines, it will remain for quite some time. It is difficult to say how long Japan will be able to hold out before surrendering, even if Japan's sea transportation lines are completely cut off. He was a little worried that when the Ming army, or observers, landed on the Japanese archipelago, they found themselves starving. This is a huge humanitarian disaster, and even if the Ming Dynasty is justified, I am afraid that its reputation in the international community will be seriously damaged at that time.

At this time, Japan was different from the Japanese soldiers in World War II, and did not offend Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands and other countries, but only offended the Ming family. Moreover, this "offense" did not occupy half of the Ming Dynasty, there was no Sanguang, and there was no Nanjing Massacre...... At that time, whether the public opinion in Daming can hold up is a question.