Therefore, Hu Weidong has the advantage in the number of fighters that can be put into combat in this area, and in addition to the performance advantages of the latest modification of the I-16 fighter compared with the current fighters of the Japanese Army and Navy Airlines, even if the Japanese put all the new fighters produced every month into the battlefield in Central China, they may not be without the strength to fight a war. And when the Soviet aid air force dispatched a formation of 1,000 planes for the first time since its establishment and destroyed Xuzhou Airport, a large-scale regular airfield, it was even more difficult for the devils to regain air supremacy. Even if they finally discovered the secret of the steamroller to a field airfield soon after, they could not follow suit, and by the time they bought a giant steamroller from the Yankees, it would be two or three months later, and it was already too late for the Japanese army

During the exchange of prisoners of war, there was another thing that had to be mentioned: the officers and men of the Soviet Red Navy who came to receive the two battleships finally arrived in Qingdao by land, but they did not immediately drive the two battleships away, but asked to spend the winter in Qingdao on the grounds that Vladivostok (Vladivostok) was frozen in winter, and also hoped that some ships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok would also sail to Qingdao. Valuable training time is wasted

The great man of national pride thought that Stalin wanted to use this to ask for a way to lease the port of Qingdao, and naturally he was reluctant to agree, but at the current critical period when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was about to enter a turning point, it would definitely not be a good thing for China to fall out with the Soviets prematurely. For this reason, Hu Weidong came up with an idea based on the principle of "choosing the lesser of two evils"; since the reason of the Soviets was to spend the winter, then as long as it was an ice-free port that could be used for the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Red Navy to dock and replenish, it did not necessarily have to be Qingdao, but considering that the maintenance of warships required special equipment, there was currently only one port in the Central Plains border region besides Qingdao that met the conditions. That is the former base camp of the Beiyang Navy Division - Weihai Weijun Port.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, Britain forcibly leased Weihaiwei from the Qing government through the Sino-British Treaty on the Lease of Weihaiwei. December 1921. At the Washington Conference, representatives of the Beiyang government demanded the return of the leased land in China, after which the Chinese government began negotiations with the British government on the issue of the Weihaiwei concession. On October 1, 1930, Weihaiwei, a Chinese seaport forcibly leased by the British for 32 years, finally returned to China. However, this so-called recovery was not complete, and British warships were still free to enter and exit Weihaiwei Military Port. The docks and other facilities built by the British in Weihaiwei are still owned by the British. Historically, it was not until the end of 1938 that the British warships were completely expelled from Weihaiwei by the Japanese army, which was the aggressor. And even in this time and space, Hu Weidong also let the Japanese pretend to be a devil to scare the British warships away, although there is a little bit of a desire to provoke Anglo-Japanese relations, but in the final analysis, it is because of China's lack of strength

The British had been operating Weihaiwei for nearly half a century, and all the facilities in the port were quite complete, although the forts were completely dismantled soon after Weihaiwei was "returned" to China, but some basic facilities such as military docks and shipyards have been preserved to this day. And because the British retreated in a hurry during this time, these facilities were not demolished as they were in history, enough to allow some or even all of the Soviet Red Navy's Pacific Fleet, which was actually not too large, to be stationed and provide basic supply and maintenance services. Of course, compared with Jiaozhou Bay, which is blessed with congenital conditions. Weihaiwei is still a little worse, and as a military port, the corresponding facilities are not as complete as Qingdao (Note 1), and after the liberation, it was seriously damaged by many Japanese air raids, but the former should be attractive enough for Lao Maozi, who has always been eager to obtain an ice-free port in the Far East, and as for the lack of facilities and supporting industries, the Soviets must not be stingy with this investment

And if you only talk about the geographical location, Weihaiwei is not inferior even compared with Qingdao, even if it is just a military fan who is not a senior, as long as you know that it is located near the sharp corner of the Jiaodong Peninsula, you can understand how important it is. In fact, Weihai is also the closest city in China to the Japanese mainland, and it is also the closest city in the non-occupied area to North Korea and Luda. It is also conceivable from this that once the Soviet Red Navy was stationed in Weihaiwei, the Japanese would react violently. The Soviets were not stupid and could have thought of this, but since the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Stalin's poor performance has made Stalin increasingly despise them, so how could they take this threat to heart? You must know that as early as the Tsarist period, Maozi had been eager to get an ice-free port in the Far East

As a matter of fact, Hu Weidong's use of Weihaiwei instead of Qingdao to provide the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Red Navy for the "winter" was not only the consideration of "choosing the lesser of two evils," but also the idea of taking the opportunity to use the Soviet Union's tiger skin to deter the Japanese army. Although Weihaiwei has been regained for a long time, because this port is too close to the Japanese mainland, Korea, and Luda, the Japanese planes and fleets are enough to pose a serious threat to it, especially the air strike, as long as the devils move quickly, even if China's radar can detect them in time, the devils' aircraft group can complete the bombing mission and return safely before the Chinese and Soviet fighters mainly deployed in the Qingdao area arrive.

Note 1: If you don't count the occupied areas, the Qingdao 10,000-ton dock built by Shen Honglie is currently the largest dock in China, and since the 15th Group Army recovered Qingdao, Hu Weidong has continued to strengthen its defense and added a lot of equipment in the past few months, making it soon become the largest and most modern naval base in China.

PS: On the eve of the full-scale outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, China's largest shipyard is the 20,000-ton dock of Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard, here I apologize to everyone, the author made a mistake in the plot above, the Japanese army was salvaged after the 4 aircraft carriers sunk by the bomb were salvaged and the devil was repaired on the spot, in fact, this is impossible. Later, I found out some information that neither Dalian nor Lushun had the ability to repair 10,000-ton warships at that time, and Japan's bases that could repair large warships of the heavy cruiser class or above were all on the mainland, and as for building ships, the shipyard of Luda had not even built light cruisers. To put it bluntly, the devil has always only regarded the Northeast as his own colony, and it is impossible to build it as if it were his own territory as some guys with ulterior motives say (to be continued. )