The violent explosion caused the power to lose power in some compartments of the Tongling, but the power was still there, and the emergency power supply equipment was also operating normally.

The damage management team and other sailors did their best to quickly control the water ingress, and it didn't take long for the power outage to recover. The Tongling now straightened its rudder and then continued to reverse, slowly retreating away from the dangerous mine area ahead.

The fractures were rough and messy, and the steel plates of the ship's hull were curled and deformed, and various pipes and cables were exposed, as if they had been broken by force, rather than neatly cut with a sharp blade.

However, despite the tragic appearance, there was no risk of sinking, and the casualties were relatively small, with four missing, one killed, and seven seriously wounded.

Adhering to the rules of wartime radio silence, the Tongling used flags and lights to report the situation to the fleet.

Several flags were hung on masts, and the signal lights flashed - mines were laid in front, which was highly dangerous, and our ship was seriously injured and in stable condition.

The fleet then halted its advance, and the minesweeping detachment was immediately dispatched, and the four minesweepers formed a trapezoidal formation and sailed back and forth in a zigzag shape in the target sea area, firing at floating mines to detonate them, and using minesweepers to clear the fixed anchor mines.

The unfortunate encounter with the destroyer Tongling made the entire fleet realize that the battle had really begun, and now everyone was in danger and could inadvertently lose their lives at any moment.

However, it is still unclear what the level of resistance of the Japanese will be, light or severe.

Loud explosions were heard in front of them, drifting mines discovered by minesweepers using machine guns or heavy machine gun fire.

Because of the limited time left for the Resistance forces, less than thirty hours, and the lack of professional minelayerers, they laid a limited number of mines in the waterway near Kawasaki.

The fine weather also improved the efficiency of clearing the minefield, and in just over an hour, the four minesweepers quickly cleared hundreds of mines.

Several dive bombers on reconnaissance missions also returned, reporting what they had seen and heard—there were no visible fortifications near Kawasaki.

It may be true that the other side did not set up a defensive line, but it is also possible that they disguised the field fortifications well and successfully deceived the eyes of the pilots.

Although the encounter with the Tongling was shocking, it did not dampen the morale of the Ming officers and men, and the Fourth Infantry Division was still in a very positive state and had begun to prepare for the landing.

At the same time, a little north, the main force of the fleet had already reached the area around the Tokyo docks.

The fleet of dozens of large and small warships changed its formation, with the main body in two parallel and staggered long snake formations, and a number of destroyers patrolling back and forth on the periphery, to prevent possible torpedo boats or frogmen.

During the European War, an Italian frogman team secretly infiltrated the Austro-Hungarian naval base from underwater, and the daring frogmen created a glorious record - they successfully sank the 20,000-ton battleship Unitis.

Having learned from the previous experience, the navies of the great powers naturally paid more attention to the study of ways to deal with frogman raids, and supplemented them in their naval regulations.

Although the Ming Dynasty did not participate in the war, the officials and lords were very happy to prostitute the lessons of other countries.

“…… It is expected that the third echelon will be able to go ashore at about five o'clock, after which it will only be necessary to hold the beachhead. Still, if all goes well, well... Then let's implement Plan 2 and go a little deeper. ”

After finishing speaking, Zhou Changfeng tapped lightly on the map with his hand, and then looked at the officers with different expressions in front of him.

Everyone immediately clasped their fists and responded in unison: "Order!" ”

Just after Shen Shi, at 15:12, the landing operation of the 1st Marine Regiment began.

The battleships Zhanghe and Yongping both laid down their fast reconnaissance boats on both sides of the stern, a total of four, and they carried more than 20 officers and men of the reconnaissance team of the first regiment of the landing battle.

This is a high-speed speedboat used to reconnoiter the beachhead before the landing of large troops, the whole body is smooth and rounded, made of aluminum alloy, which can carry six to eight soldiers, and there are folding aluminum alloy ladders on both sides for the crew to go up and down.

As always, the navy did not name this little thing with a year, but directly called it "No. 1 reconnaissance boat," with a total length of 15 meters and a displacement of six and a half tons, and in order to achieve the purpose of rapid reconnaissance and search, it was equipped with a 350-horsepower C-shaped type 3 diesel engine with a maximum speed of 36 knots.

The four reconnaissance boats sped towards the beachhead, leaving trails on the calm sea.

The more than 20 officers and men of the reconnaissance team rushed ashore without encountering any attack, and they became the first people of the 1st Marine Regiment to set foot on foreign land.

They inspected their surroundings and decided that nothing was out of the ordinary, so they fired two green flares.

At this point, the follow-up landing operation was officially launched.

The Ming Army and Navy themselves have studied and finalized the mode of landing operations, which is also the guiding principle for the Marine Corps to carry out its main business, and many landing operations are based on it.

On the basis of this, Zhou Changfeng further refined the details, and added many auxiliary concepts of later generations, but these advanced concepts only exist in writing and sand table deduction for the time being, and I am afraid that they will not come in handy until they land in the South Seas in the future.

All in all, the Ming army is now tactically divided into three major steps when carrying out a landing operation on a definite landing area.

First, planes and high-speed reconnaissance boats are used to conduct a thorough survey of the beach, the arrangement of obstacles, the steep slope of the beach, the distribution of fire points, and so on.

Secondly, the warships of the Navy prepared the beachhead for fire, attacking the discovered targets. After that, the shelling continued, covering the landing force to the shore. When they were less than a mile from the beachhead, the battleships began to extend their fire deep into the rear.

Thirdly, if there is an obstacle in the way, the engineer unit must first dock to destroy it, and if not, skip it. Subsequently, the landing force landed on various landing ships and seized the beachhead.

Battleships, aircraft carriers, and six landing ships successively laid down more than 20 landing craft, this wooden dinghy is about 12 meters long, propelled by a 100-horsepower diesel engine, with a maximum speed of 10 knots, and can carry 11 tons of cargo. When transporting troops, it can fit about forty people.

One by one, the heavily armed soldiers climbed down through the rope nets and finally jumped into the landing craft.

Xue Can's first battalion took the lead, and the eighteen landing craft also lined up after leaving the fleet, rushing to the beachhead at full speed.

Standing on the bridge of the battleship Zhanghe, the perimeter wind held the binoculars, and in his eyes, the tracks left by the landing craft were like a row of snow-white combs.

The landing went smoothly, and one after another the landing craft rushed to the beachhead, the gangplanks in front of them were "clattering" and lowered, and the soldiers carrying rifles ran out, quickly dispersed to the left and right, spread out a line, and then crouched or crouched on the alert.

In this way, except for a few people who fell and were injured, hundreds of officers and men of the first battalion established a beachhead almost unharmed.

Subsequently, the second echelon also went ashore with no less ease.

Didn't you say that there was any resistance? Why haven't you seen a shadow until now?

At 16:46 in the afternoon, the regimental headquarters, the battle defense artillery team, the engineer team, and the amphibious combat convoy of the third echelon set off.

Zhou Changfeng was also in one of the landing craft, and he intuitively believed that the resistance army organized by the Japanese could not be groundless, and since there was no attack during the beach-grabbing landing, it was likely that the other side chose to defend in depth?

Rationally extrapolating, this is completely reasonable.

There was a huge Ming fleet moored in Tokyo Bay, and it would be self-defeating to dare to defend the beachhead - in the face of 12-and-a-half-inch, 400mm battleship armor-piercing shells, even the permanent fortifications made of reinforced concrete were as fragile as building blocks.

Instead of losing troops in vain, it is better to put the Ming army in depth and resist step by step.

In Japan, which lacks strategic depth, if the enemy cannot be annihilated on the beachhead, once a large number of enemy troops come ashore, it will be defeated.

However, because the brave defenders knew from the beginning that it would be a doomed war, they did not hesitate to abandon the defensive line on the beachhead.

Suddenly, a flash of light burst on the beach, followed by the second and third groups......

A few seconds later, the sound of a rumbling explosion reached the ears of the officers and men of the third echelon, who were still sailing at sea.

Zhou Changfeng frowned subconsciously, and then raised the telescope.

Because the beach was wetter than the inland land, the explosion did not stir up too much dust, and the smoke dissipated quickly, and the Marine Corps Three Mountains wave flag planted on the beach was still flying.

In his experience, that should be a shell fired from a medium mortar.

The Japanese, who have few heavy industries, now have only the ability to process contract materials. The Tokyo Artillery Factory was able to manufacture a small number of 75mm mountain guns by importing British gun barrel steel. However, because of the high cost, in recent years, they can only focus on manufacturing mortars that can be completely self-produced, and the imitation products are also the French Blund 81mm mortars that are used by countries all over the world.

After a brief period of confusion, the beachhead troops, who had been hit by a dozen shells, began to try to return fire, and some of them maintained their maximum composure under the shelling, and saw the smoke and faint fire of the enemy mortars firing with sharp eyes.

After hastily ranging and coordinating, the eight 80mm mortars belonging to the 1st and 2nd Battalions returned fire in that general direction.

The two Type 37 fighters hovering in the air dropped their altitude and swung their wings from side to side while circling above the heads of the beachhead team, signaling the mortars to stop firing back, so as not to make a big joke by the parabolic trajectory overlapping with the plane's course.

Subsequently, two warplanes dived and strafed the enemy mortar positions that had just been exposed, one after the other.

A string of 7.36mm machine gun shells stirred up clouds of dust in the field, and the dropped 50kg aerial bomb exploded, destroying one of the mortar firing bunkers.

When Zhou Changfeng stepped onto the beach from the landing craft, he couldn't help but have mixed feelings for a while.

I am now a soldier in Japan, and the city of Tokyo is within easy reach.

I can't talk about glory, I can only say that I have some obsessions.

Japan in this plane is completely unqualified as an opponent, and it is true that if he completely abandons the identity of his previous life, he should have no waves in his heart like the other thousands of Ming soldiers.

I'm afraid that even when the Sun and Moon Flag was planted in Batavia, there was nothing to be proud of, and I wanted everyone's hearts to fluctuate? At the very least, the Sun and Moon Flag must be planted in Canberra.

The artillery shelling of the Resistance caused some casualties to the 1st Marine Regiment, three dead and 19 wounded.

The well-trained officers and men reacted quickly after being shelled, so except for the first shell, everyone lay down in time to find cover, and the subsequent dozen shells did not have much effect, but only blew up a landing craft.

"The order was given, and the first battalion advanced two miles to the northwest; The 2nd Battalion advanced two miles to the northeast and then built a defensive line; The Heavy Duty Battalion and the Mountain Artillery Battalion were deployed in situ after they went ashore; The convoy guarantees that there is a platoon available to support it at all times. ”

"Yes." Xie Wancheng repeated his order aloud, "The two battalions advanced two miles to the northwest and northeast to build a defensive line, the artillery was deployed in place, and the chariots were on standby. ”

"By the way, remind all departments to beware of enemy night attacks."

"Order."

The two battalions were soon in motion, and the heavily armed soldiers shifted to a loose formation to defend themselves against shelling, and pressed deep under the guidance of several groups of sharp men.

The enemy seemed to have vanished, and for two quarters of an hour nothing had happened, and the previous shelling seemed like a dream.

The situation faced by the 1st Marine Regiment was not representative of the other Ming troops, because everyone could faintly hear the subtle movement coming from the southwest.

It was Kawasaki City, where the Fourth Division had landed, about ten kilometers in a straight line, and some earth-shattering sounds were heard over a long distance.

At this moment, the 4th Infantry Division had been engaged in a fierce battle with the Resistance for a full hour.

The 10th Regiment was fully engaged in battle, and the 3rd Battalion of the 11th Regiment was also in place, and their opponent was the Matsumoto detachment, which was fighting bravely to defend the Turkish army.

As the commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 11th Regiment, in He Cheng's view, as long as he broke through the crumbling defense line of the enemy in front of him, he could completely break their will to resist, and the subsequent Tokyo was almost within reach.

However, to his surprise and all the soldiers of the Ming army, the resistance army's will to fight was very strong, and it was almost impossible to give up an inch of territory.

In order to indicate the identity of civilian volunteers, the Brave Defenders did not wear military uniforms, but wore a variety of ordinary clothes, with strips of cloth of various colors tied around their arms to distinguish them.

The setting sun was red as blood, and the evening field was swept away by a storm of steel and explosives.

Mortars, infantry guns, and anti-aircraft guns belonging to the infantry regiment were firing all the time, empty artillery shells were piled up into hills, and naval guns carried by Ming destroyers and light cruisers on the sea were roaring.

Countless shells rained down on enemy positions like hail, and the positions that the Resistance had built with all their might overnight were filled with smoke and debris, a spectacle that was indescribable.

The roaring cannon sound is used as the background sound, and the shouts, whistles, and suona sounds of the Ming army are intertwined into a unique ensemble.

"Damn! It's not easy to play from the front, so you have to try it from the flanks. Pass the order down, and the three teams are ready to take a detour! He Cheng was wounded in the left arm by a 6.5×50mm rifle bullet, but he was still bleeding after being bandaged.

"Yes!"

The battle began at 15:57 p.m. and did not stop until the sun had completely set.

However, more than two hours of fierce fighting had little effect - two battalions of the 10th Regiment advanced 300 meters and suffered more than 300 casualties; A battalion of the 11th Regiment advanced 200 meters and suffered more than 110 casualties.

(End of chapter)