Episode 188 Decisive Battle at Sea (7)

The sinking of the Mutsu, the flagship of the Japanese fleet, gave a shot in the arm to all the officers and men of the Ming fleet, and the Mutsu, as a Nagato-class battleship, also became a steel idol for all Japanese people along with the Nagato, and was regarded as a symbol of the Japanese Navy. Now the sinking of the Mutsu is a heavy blow to the morale of the Japanese fleet.

But at this moment, the Ming fleet turned twice to the port side, and at the same time increased its speed. Soon, the distance between the two sides widened.

At this time, the Japanese fleet was still in shambles, and hundreds of Japanese officers and men who jumped off the Mutsu were still struggling in the water, including Takasu Shiro and the command team of his fleet headquarters. Before they were all transferred to the "Hyuga", the entire Japanese fleet was in the stage of being leaderless. It was in this gap that the Ming fleet gradually disappeared into the darkness.

Finally, the commander of the Japanese fleet, Takasu Shiro, was embarrassed to transfer to the "Hyuga", and the Hyuga became the flagship. Now the strength of the two sides is leveled again, and the Ming army Changping, Yanping, and Yongle are facing the Japanese Hyuga, Kongo, Haruna, and Kirishima. However, the main fleets of the two sides have disengaged, and only some destroyers and light cruisers on the periphery are still exchanging fire sporadically.

Takasu Shiro quickly guessed why the Ming fleet was leaving the battlefield. Obviously, now the Japanese 16-inch guns of the Mutsu have been sunk, and the remaining five battleships are only 14-inch guns, while the remaining four battleships of the Ming army are all 16- and 15-inch guns. Moreover, the Ming army had a small number of artillery doors and the Japanese army had a large number of artillery doors, and close combat was beneficial to the Japanese army and disadvantageous to the Ming army. The Ming army planned to disengage a few hours before dawn and wait until dawn to resume artillery battles in the distance, giving full play to the advantages of large-caliber main guns.

Gao Su knew that the Ming army could not be allowed to succeed. Now in the dark night, the "veneer battle" is all fought like this, if the dawn allows the Ming army to fully give full play to the long-range advantage of large-caliber naval guns, then it will be worth it! Now only one battleship of the Ming army has been sunk, and the Japanese army itself has lost three battleships, the Mutsu, the Isse, and the Yamashiro.

He immediately ordered the whole fleet to speed up and chase forward, so that the Ming army could not be separated from the battle. But at this time, it was discovered that his fleet was no longer fast. The armor of the three Kongo-class battleships was thin, and the vertical armor belt on the side was seriously damaged in close combat, and they all entered a lot of water, and now they are driving a little more than 15 knots at most, and they can no longer catch up with the Ming fleet at 17 and 18 knots. Even if the Hyuga is relatively intact and can still drive to more than 20 knots, it can't be chased alone, right?

……

That's when something even more terrible happened. The "underwater ghost" is out again.

Just when Takasu Shiro was restless, two torpedoes hit the right side of the "Hyuga" almost simultaneously. A dozen seconds later, a destroyer not far from the Hyuga also hit a torpedo. The destroyer was immediately destroyed and began to sink.

Furious, Takasu Shiro ordered the entire fleet to speed up and drive as fast as he could, while turning on the searchlights and searching the surface with flares. Now that the Ming fleet has left, it can be anti-submarine without interference. Now the Japanese officers and men all know that there really is a "monster submarine" underwater, which can not only drive to a dozen knots, but also maintain a dozen knots for a long time. Now, no one doubts it.

However, Takasu Shiro concluded that even if these submarines could drive to more than a dozen knots, they were close to the limit speed, and it was impossible to drive faster. If their own fleet also maintains a speed of more than a dozen knots, then the most the Ming submarines can do is to keep up with the fleet, and other actions will be greatly limited, such as it is difficult to shuttle freely in the fleet and select targets. Then they will be left behind. And the faster destroyers of the Japanese army, they could find them and drop depth charges.

Soon, the speed of the Japanese Grand Fleet was raised, and the three Kongo-class battleships also worked hard to maintain maximum speed. The sea between the warships was brightly illuminated by flares, countless columns of searchlights swept across the water, and destroyers spouted black smoke at high speed, searching for any pipes that came out of the water.

But the underwater submarine seemed to be a real "ghost", but at this time it completely disappeared without a trace, and not even a single pipe could be seen on the water.

The Japanese fleet searched for more than an hour and found nothing. Calm returned to the seas.

It seems that the Ming submarine completely thought of going forward, and now that the naval battle has stopped, there is no longer chaos on the sea, and the destroyer can also do a good job of anti-submarine, and now is not a good time for the submarine to carry out large-scale activities. So the submarines also followed the Ming fleet. The two torpedoes just now were probably the "last memorial" left before leaving. The Hyuga was lucky, only two torpedoes were hit. Obviously, there were more than two of them, and the fact that the unlucky destroyer suffered a "stray bullet" is proof of this.

……

Twenty nautical miles to the west, the Ming fleet was gathering ships, regrouping, and repairing damaged areas. Destroyers and light cruisers were sent out again to make sure that the Japanese fleet would not follow.

On the flagship Changping, it is now a festive atmosphere. The champagne was rolled out, and the officers uncorked their bottles and toasted each other in congratulations. The Fleet Commander then addressed the entire fleet, exhorting the officers and men, praising each and every one of them for participating in making history.

Then, the commander specially praised the outstanding combat exploits of several submarine captains, gave them extremely high praise, and gave them the first merit of tonight's naval battle. Actually, they deserve it. The three Japanese battleships were basically sunk due to successive torpedo hits. Otherwise, with the number of Ming battleships and the level of night artillery battles, I am afraid that the result will be reversed.

But for the sake of secrecy, the commander of the fleet simply said "submarine forces" and did not disclose how the "submarine forces" differed tonight.

Four high-speed submarines of the "Killer Whale class", which are now also in the fleet, have surfaced. The officers on the boat all stood on the deck, standing straight and neat, bathed in the sea breeze, their short hair fluttering in the wind, and their heroic posture. The fleet commander's speech drifted through the loudspeakers on the sea around the flagship, and when he spoke of submarine forces, searchlights hit four submarines. The young men of several warships around were cheering, stomping, and whistling excitedly, and the excitement of an unprecedented victory, admiration for the girls, and a high level of mental tension in the middle of the night were all vented at this moment.

Only a few attentive officers and soldiers found that there seemed to be something unusual about the submarine in the pillar of light. First of all, the length is long enough, which means that the tonnage of the submarine is large enough to belong to the cruiser class, but there is no main gun on the foredeck. Secondly, the conning tower is not too high, but it is very long and has a certain streamline. Also, the bow is not ship-shaped, but round, arcing into the water. The shape of the whole submarine is like a cigar soaked in the water.

……

After another two hours or so, it began to dawn. The fiery red sun rises above the sea level from the east. Suddenly, the entire sea and sky were in the morning glow. All officers and men can see that in addition to the four battleships, the core of the entire fleet has two more behemoths - those are two aircraft carriers, the Tianquan and the Tianshu. And those submarines, again, are gone.