On August 20th, the weather was fine.

As soon as the sky was light, 12 Firmament-12 reconnaissance planes took off from Shandong's Rongcheng Airport, Qingdao Airport, and Shanghai Military Airport.

According to intelligence, the Japanese naval fleet set off from Nagasaki Military Port four days ago with a total of about 60,000 troops carrying the 6th and 18th Independent Divisions and other units. According to the speed of the main warships of the Japanese Navy, they should have arrived in China's territorial waters by now, but in the past three days of searching, no trace of the Japanese naval fleet has been found.

The Japanese naval fleet is coming for China and will not disappear out of thin air, it stands to reason that they must be somewhere on the surface of the Yellow Sea, but the search of the air force has found nothing, what does this mean? This shows that the reconnaissance planes that have been developed at great expense have nothing to show for themselves, and the newly formed air force units are useless, and this will even greatly reduce the confidence of the people in China in winning this war!

He Yingqin, the new commander of the Air Force, was also a little anxious.

As everyone knows, the Air Force has achieved brilliant results in the past few years, and it is one of Sun Yuanqi's killer weapons in internal and external conquests, so it has rightly become the third largest branch of the armed forces after the army and navy not long ago. Originally, He Yingqin also wanted to take this opportunity to show his strength, change the name of the Air Force to the Ministry of the Air Force, and become China's first air force commander in the world. I didn't expect to be hit on the head just halfway through the dream, do you think he can not be annoyed?

But he was depressed, but he could not easily get angry with the pilots, because searching for a mustard-sized fleet on the vast sea was an extremely hard task. Besides, why didn't the pilots want to discover the Japanese fleet earlier? Therefore, he could only stay in the headquarters all night, check the photos brought back by the reconnaissance plane with the staff officers, and then rule out the possibility on the military charts little by little. Finally, a new reconnaissance path is determined.

Of course, pilots and scouts work as hard as staff officers who work overtime and stay up late. Although Sun Yuanqi has set up flight schools in Sichuan and Shanxi respectively, the time is still short, and the conditions are extremely high, and qualified pilots are still rare, especially those pilots who have long flight time, rich experience, and can be put into actual combat, are even more priceless. As a result, the search at sea can only be carried out in shifts. And the hard work of pilots is far from being possible with ground personnel!

For example, low temperatures brought about by high speeds and high altitudes. It is dog weather right now, and the ground personnel are wearing single clothes and waving pu fans, hiding in the house and sweating like pulp. But the pilots sat in sealed cockpits in leather suits, still shivering from the cold. Especially when looking at the sun in the sky that is brighter, but you are frozen and stiff, most people can't help but have crazy thoughts from the bottom of their hearts!

Another example is the threat of plane crash and death. Although the University of Honshi and the Institute of Aeronautical Technology have been developing aircraft for more than 10 years. It has a relatively complete set of detection technology. It represents the highest level in the world today, but this huge, roaring machine really flies into the sky, and no one knows when and where there will be any problems, and once the problem occurs, it is basically the destruction of the machine and the death of people. In the past decade, there have been countless fatal accidents, and it is expected that they will not stop in the future, so pilots must always be careful to see if the flight attitude is correct, whether the engine roar is abnormal, whether the fuel tank is sufficient, etc. Very easy to get tired.

The scouts who sat in the cabin and looked out were not easy, except that it was also very cold and they also needed to pray to the gods and Buddhas that the plane would not go wrong. They also had to keep searching the sea with binoculars to see if there was any trace of the Japanese fleet. Looking down from the high altitude, there is already the feeling of "looking at Qizhou at nine o'clock smoke from afar", and a ship with a displacement of less than 10,000 tons is not much bigger than an ant, even if the Japanese Navy is dispatched, it is at most a team of ants that are sometimes lined up in an S shape and sometimes in a B shape, who cares about ordinary people?

And now is the brightest and most dazzling season of the year, and the reflection of the sun on the sea surface is like a large glass mirror, and the light is shining everywhere, so that people dare not open their eyes easily. The Japanese Navy ships used the finest anthracite imported from Shanxi, China, and this fuel was so sparse that the chimneys of the ships kept spewing white smoke throughout the voyage, which would have been mistaken as clouds in the sky if you were not careful. However, the slightest negligence could make this large-scale search unsuccessful, so everyone can only try to open their red and swollen eyes and try to find the traces of those villains.

Feng Xianshu, Hu Xiao, and Dong Zechen were all cadets who had just graduated from the Sichuan Flying School this summer, and they were first assigned to the newly formed Third Reconnaissance Brigade of the Hunan Air Regiment. In the past three days, they have been dispatched four times, and each one is exhausted. But whenever he thought that his mission was related to the victory or defeat of the war, he cheered up one by one and took the initiative to apply for a search mission.

Feng Xianshu put down the high-powered telescope, rubbed his stiff hands, rubbed his red and swollen eyes, and asked loudly, "Zhenyun, where are we now?" "Due to the influence of engines, air currents and other factors, you have to speak loudly on the plane, otherwise you can't hear at all.

Hu Xiao picked up the sextant and measured it slightly, and then compared it on the map for a while before replying: "A few minutes ago, we just flew over the Koju Island on the southwest coast of North Korea. Our mission this time is to patrol around the vicinity of Red Island and Black Mountain Island to see if there is any trace of the Japanese fleet. I guess it will take about 20 minutes to get back! ”

Dong Zechen also put down his binoculars when he heard the voice: "Where do you say little Japan has gone?" It is impossible for such a big target to quietly cross our search net and directly approach our coastal areas of China, right? ”

Feng Xianshu replied with some hesitation: "Probably not, right?" The four veteran aviation regiments of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Jin are closely monitored in the coastal areas of Shandong. Besides, we have to go through our sieve before that? Now there is no news coming from anywhere, it must be that the fleet of small Japan has not yet approached our coast, and it should still be in a certain position on the sea between China and North Korea, but we have not discovered it for the time being! ”

Dong Zechen speculated again: "Then is it possible for the Japanese fleet to temporarily rush to the area of the Tsushima Strait to intercept the German-Austrian mixed fleet that has returned to China first?" We've searched for them several times in the past two days, and they're obviously heading in the direction of the Tsushima Strait! ”

"Impossible!" Feng Xianshu felt that Dong Zechen was good at everything, but he didn't like to use his brain to think, and he was often whimsical, "Do you think, would the little Japanese military department be stupid enough to order three fleets with 60,000 landlubbers to fight the German-Austrian coalition forces?" Slow and poorly equipped troop carriers are often the easiest targets to attack and the most likely to be sunk. If the Japanese military headquarters gave such an order, wouldn't it really be a death sentence? Therefore, little Japan should still be on the way to Shandong, and it is impossible to change direction temporarily. ”

With that, he picked up his binoculars again and looked down through the glass of the cabin, as if he wanted to find out the whereabouts of the Japanese fleet immediately. At this time, the plane had already swept over the upper and lower Taiwan islands, and the front should be the farthest distance of the search, Red Island and Black Mountain Island. Since it is very close to the Korean coastline at this time, it is common to find one or two fishing boats working on the sea, so it is necessary to identify carefully.

Just when Feng Xianshu tried his best to open his eyes to distinguish, he suddenly found that more than a dozen long white lines appeared on the blue-black sea surface northwest of Red Island and Black Mountain Island, just like a finger stained with flour rubbing it on a navy blue tablecloth, and it is definitely not an ordinary small fishing boat that can leave this kind of wave marks, at least it must be gunboats and cruisers with a displacement of hundreds or thousands of tons.

After making sure that it was not his own dazzle, Feng Xianshu reported loudly to Hu Xiao: "The whereabouts of a large-scale fleet have been found in the northwest waters of Red Island and Black Mountain Island, please notify the pilot to approach and investigate!" ”

Airplane is a new thing, before the large-scale use of people found that airplane communication is a huge problem, because the airplane has nothing to rely on in the air, not only the pilots can not talk to each other, even the communication between the plane and the ground is difficult to solve, people have tried flags, lights, sounds, etc., pilots rely on gestures and shouting, but obviously there are great deficiencies.

With the continuous breakthrough of radio technology, people first thought of using airborne wireless telephones, but telephones are prone to engine noise interference. As a later generation, Sun Yuanqi immediately thought of the pilot's helmet, and the problem was easily solved by building a microphone and headphones into the helmet to block the noise of the engine. This also solves the problem of communication between aircraft and land, and between aircraft and aircraft.

When Hu Xiao heard the news, he immediately lifted his spirits, and asked in a hoarse voice, "Please confirm whether the news is accurate!" ”

Dong Zechen also looked in the northwest direction after hearing Feng Xianshu's report, and shouted almost at the same time as Feng Xianshu: "Confirm!" ”

Hu Xiao quickly put on his helmet and began to report: "The No. 1 unit of the Fourth Investigation Group of Shanghai reported that at 11:05 a.m., the whereabouts of a large fleet were found in the northwest waters of Hongdao and Montenegro Islands. ”

Soon Hu Xiao's headphones came with excited replies from the nearby investigation teams:

"The No. 3 machine of the fourth reconnaissance group of the Shanghai side received the news, over!"

"The No. 2 unit of the Fourth Investigation Group of the Shanghai side received the news and is rushing to the relevant sea area, please report the specific coordinate location of the target!"

"The target is expected to be located at about 37 degrees 78 minutes north latitude and 125 degrees 12 minutes east longitude, completed."

"This is the No. 1 plane of the No. 1 reconnaissance group on the Rongcheng side, and our plane will quickly transmit the news back to the Shandong Frontier Command, and I ask you to do a good job of further investigation and confirmation, and it is over."