The battle lasted more than 60 hours, and on the surface it still seemed that the Japanese side was still losing, but Nagumo still held on. To a certain extent, his practice of dispersing the fleet offset the accident of the US plane, taking advantage of the Japanese fleet's lack of technical means of early warning, to suddenly fall from the sky and destroy aircraft carriers one after another. So, despite his mistakes in command, there were no successive aircraft carriers that were devastated. And his tactics of staying away from the coast also made the US Army Airlines' aircraft less effective. Both of these points were highlighted by Yamamoto at the right time to remind Nagumo.

After all, the Battle of Midway was fought in June 1942, when the U.S. Army had only terrible Buffalo fighters and heavy bombers that lacked the ability to attack ships, and now it was obviously more important to avoid the coast, not only. The Army Aviation has P38 and P40 fighters with superior performance, as well as B25 bombers with ship-to-ship strike capabilities.

Nagumo was reluctant to withdraw his troops, and Napoleon said that victory or defeat was often decided by the last regiment on the battlefield, which was particularly demagogic to the desperate Japanese who prayed for military luck. He judged that Halsey was finished, and in three days, the Americans had lost 3 fleet carriers, so they had at most one Yorktown, which was also the only American aircraft carrier in the Pacific.

The broken but still large Japanese fleet continued to search eastward, ushering in the bloody remnants of the day.

If the U.S. fleet can't be found, the flotilla will attack the military ports of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, which are strategically important hubs for the U.S. task force to move north to Solomon and south to New Zealand. Regardless of whether the Americans, the last lonely aircraft carrier, dared to fight, Nagumo felt that the initiative was firmly in the hands of the Japanese Navy.

According to Yamamoto's idea, in the first half of 1943, the navy's targets would be the Solomons, New Zealand, Fiji, and Samoa, and the second half of the year would be Hawaii. In this way, the Americans will lose all their bases in the Pacific Ocean.

Halsey's fleet was indeed retreating, but his strength was not one, but two, as the Japanese thought. The Enterprise and Yorktown still maintained their combat effectiveness, while some of the fighters on board the Hornet landed on the two carriers, supplementing the huge losses of the two aircraft carriers in the past two days.

Halsey was indeed hesitant to continue fighting. At present, these two aircraft carriers are the last main American forces in the Pacific. Although it is known that the lead ship of the newly built Essex-class aircraft carrier will be launched at the end of the month, there is still a long period of outfitting and sailor training, and perhaps the official entry into the Pacific Fleet will be in May next year. But the two days of fierce fighting showed that the enemy was not invulnerable, and their lack of radar made them scramble and flawed every time they faced them.

Halsey felt that he could still make the last game with his two aircraft carriers.

Of course, what finally made him decide to stay on the battlefield was a telegram from the enemy.

Naval Intelligence could decipher 40 percent of the latest Japanese codes, enough for intelligence officers to guess something from telegrams. And today, they guessed that the most important telegram was Nagumo reporting the loss to the rear. The telegram mentions all the lost aircraft carriers including: Akagi, Wyvern, as well as Zuihe and Xianghe.

Halsey was taken aback by this telegram, he didn't expect him to fight so well, and according to the information that the pilot brought back when he returned, he could only confirm that Akagi and Zuizuru had been sunk by himself. As for Wyvern and Lucky Crane, he didn't get any conclusive information about the sinking at all, he only knew that a submarine claimed to have hit Wyvern. But he didn't quite believe the submariner's ambiguous description, and the telegram described that he had first aimed at Zuizuru, and then that the Oni had sent a god to hit the Wyvern, and only one*.

Of course, due to the brutality of the battle, several of his squadrons of dive bombers and * aircraft went without returning, and none of the members lived to bring back news, which cannot be ruled out as the harvest of these squadrons. In any case, things always feel strange, because usually the opponent's battle damage assessment is always overestimated, but the news from the enemy is underestimated. In a way, this Japanese telegram alone confirmed that he had become the savior of the United States. These four aircraft carriers are sinking, then Nagumo's mobile forces should be close to the end, and now it is obviously not the time to retreat, but to do the final counterattack.

Of course, the telegram he received was forged by 419 to encourage him to return to the battlefield, which was not entirely true, such as the Xianghe, which had not sunk at this moment, but the ocean had already decided that the aircraft carrier would sink at night, so it was not a lie. It's just that he told the Americans in advance that the other one was the sunken Wyvern, and the Americans did not have this information, so he specifically told the Americans.

Cheng Dayang studied the structure of the auspicious class, and two * pieces are enough. Of course, several American submarines were loitering nearby, searching for the Japanese fleet. Having to forge a telegram to lure them over and cover them up may also have some effect. Simply relying on these backward submarines to run around the sea like headless flies, it is unlikely that they will find the Japanese aircraft carrier, and even if they do, they will not be able to catch up, and the aircraft carrier will come and go like the wind, even faster than the 419, and it is not so easy to catch up. So you have to give them the right guidance and let them appear on the right route to intercept.

The Lucky Crane, which does not know the impending doom, has been receiving planes to land, and the officers of the flight team are below deck, making a temporary formation, and there is no doubt that this aircraft carrier will be the protagonist in tomorrow's decisive battle.

The last one to land was a Type 2 shipboard reconnaissance plane that found the aircraft carrier when it was close to running out of fuel. The fate of this plane is tortuous, half a year ago, it was a member of the reconnaissance team on the Soryu, after the Soryu was sunk, he was transferred to the Wyvern, and after the Wyvern was attacked by a submarine yesterday, the pilot took off from the sloping deck and was assigned to the Zuihe after his death. It had just taken off when it sank, and now it was forced to land on the Crane.

Soon after it staggered down, rumors began to circulate on the ship that the plane was unlucky, and some people believed that the Type 2 reconnaissance was a disaster for the mobile force, so Nagumo did not land the Kaga in a naval battle.

419 underwater, patiently waiting for the time to come, the four aircraft carriers of the Japanese fleet, using a tortuous course to avoid the submarines, this kind of route seems to be a long way, but it can make the slow submarines never be able to occupy a favorable position. They were still heading west, as if they didn't hit the south wall and didn't look back.

Just before sunset, an American submarine was spotted by a Japanese destroyer at a great distance from the core fleet, and the submarine scrambled to dive, and the two sides engaged in a chase in the HNA . 419 continued to follow the crane, and at 9 o'clock in the night, Cheng Dayang fired two * in succession, fulfilling his lie to the Americans

He could have fired just one, and as long as he destroyed its power, he was sure to attract a nearby American submarine to refill the gun. But he was worried about the arrival of American submarines, and the Japanese had time to transfer the crew and pilots with lifeboats. So don't worry about it*.

* At a very low speed, quietly approach the target. Exploded under the keel almost simultaneously. Such a "directional blasting" completely targets structural weaknesses, increases the speed of water intake, and prevents the enemy from using the compartment to control water intake and restore balance.

Cheng Dayang pinched his watch and waited for the aircraft carrier to sink. In less than ten minutes, another capital ship of Nagumo's sank into the South Pacific. The drone is still under maintenance, and it is impossible to observe the entire process of sinking from the air, and it is impossible to determine whether anyone has escaped, but even if there is, it will not be much.

The sonar recorded panicked Japanese destroyers approaching, but to no avail. The plan developed by Yamamoto, having learned the lessons of Midway, can be said to have been thwarted with the sinking of this aircraft carrier. So far, the actual losses of the Japanese are slightly smaller than those of Midway, and the two aircraft carriers of the First Air Battle have been saved, although there is still a battle for tomorrow. At that time, Nagumo's strength will be about the same as Halsey's.

At the same time, it was still evening in northern Myanmar. Taking advantage of the correction of the troops, a simple award ceremony is unfolding.

Chen Cheng, a first-class army general who flew from Chongqing, was in front of a row of tanks to award medals to Chu Tingchang and others.

Accompanying Chen Cheng was Chu's old friend Guo Rugui. Chen Cheng had just accepted the post of commander-in-chief of the Nujiangdong Expeditionary Force, and he highly respected Chu's strategy of using troops against Thailand, so this time he also wanted to talk about the plan of the two armies to attack Thailand.

As for this medal, it is also rare, the first two to get this medal this year are Xue Yue and Li Yutang, who performed well in the defense of Changsha, and now Chu Tingchang has become the third.

This medal came two weeks after the conflict broke out between Chu and Jiang, and of course it had the intention of buying people's hearts. Deputy Division Commander Xiong's idea of taking the lady's route to Chu Tingchang played a role. Chiang Kai-shek, who was a hard-nosed man, listened to his wife's advice and realized that this was by no means a good time to exclude dissidents.

Of course, the Japanese offensive in Hunan and Guangxi made Chiang feel great pressure. The military committee suggested several times that part of Chu Tingchang's elite division be transferred back to China, and he was moved by his thoughts, which was an incentive for him to try to move Chu Tingchang's military power a while ago. But each time it was opposed by Chen Cheng.

During the discussion at the National Defense Research Committee, Chen Cheng's favorite general Guo Rugui proposed that transferring Chu Ting's troops back to China was a quack practice of headaches, and that he could contain far more Japanese troops in northern Burma than at home. This does not count the bad feelings that Australia's withdrawal from northern Myanmar may cause to its international allies when it is in crisis. You know, the Americans are risking huge casualties to maintain the Hump route.

Chu Tingchang's plan appeared at this time, which complemented Guo Rugui's suggestion. According to Chu's plan, he attacked all the way to Vietnam, which could relieve the pressure in the direction of Guangxi, and then alleviate the situation in Hunan.

What really made Jiang's eyes light up was that Chu Tingchang's plan mentioned two strategic issues. The first is the most difficult mountain range in the whole of South Asia, that is, the Kachin Mountains, which the Fifth Army has now crossed, and the southeast is a smooth road.

The second is that Chu speculated that next spring, Japan is likely to face a shortage of rice, and Thailand and Vietnam are both rice-producing regions, which can help to fill the domestic food shortage.