Chapter 543: Curse - Angry Seas and Wild Waves; Trouble comes from the mouth, wait for death!

At 6:05 a.m. on August 25, the 72nd Practice Fleet arrived 230 km south of the Ryukyu Islands.

As the sun rose, the fleet turned southeast for the morning fleet release training, and the middle and rear sections of the flight deck of the Glowing were full of warm-up carrier-based aircraft.

The carrier-based aircraft used the usual navy livery of blue on the top and white on the bottom, and dozens of crew members gathered under the bridge to line up, and then disbanded and rushed to their respective planes.

The speed of the Glowing was increased to 24 knots, and its course was slightly to the right relative to the oncoming sea breeze, allowing the wind to blow the chimney exhaust off the aft deck.

One after another, planes whizzed and taxied to accelerate, slowly pulling up as they burst off the flight deck.

The release process went smoothly, and these carrier-based pilots were first trained at the aircraft carrier deck simulation field on land, and then familiarized themselves with real take-off and landing on the retired Qiming practice aircraft carrier, and finally qualified for aircraft carrier take-off and landing.

The air guide climbed the stairs and walked into the bridge, and said with a smile: "The rabbit cubs are all very good, and they are about to catch up with the old guys of the air raid fleet." ”

"Yes, the run-in is pretty fast." Guan Zeming put down his binoculars and ordered casually: "This ship slows down, four vehicles enter two, and keep an eye on enemy submarines." ”

The Glowing slows down to cruising speed, and at the same time, changes in the natural environment come unnoticed.

Only an hour after the attack wave took off, the wind blowing from the sea began to surge.

As of 7:45 a.m., the wind speed has reached 18m/s, and the wind direction is southeast. This led to a noticeable roll of the ships, which affected normal navigation.

Soon, Dongyou 11 had difficulties in steering, and she asked for instructions through the light in the hope of increasing the speed.

Guan Zeming then agreed, and soon, the speed of the 72 practice fleet gradually increased from 9 knots to 11 knots.

The fleet had received weather reports from Luzon and Ryukyu last night, both of which warned of the possibility of a larger storm to come, estimated to be force 7.

If you look at the waters of the Ryukyus from low Earth orbit, you will find that a tropical cyclone is moving rapidly in the southeast and northwest direction of the Ryukyu Islands, and its trajectory is not a straight line, but an arc.

At 9:20, the wind increased further as the distance between the fleet and the typhoon decreased.

The ship's constant swaying was too difficult to walk, and the Glow's adjutant tugged at the railings and bulkheads, and finally came to a platform behind the superstructure, the hatch was so heavy that it took a lot of effort to finally push it open.

Outside, the wind was howling and the waves were undulating, and he asked in a loud voice, "Report!" Wind velocity! Atmospheric pressure! ”

"Twenty-four meters in wind! Bar! One of the sergeants replied equally loudly.

At this time, the barometer showed 100.2 kPa, and as it continued to fall, the southeast wind became more and more intense, the sea conditions deteriorated rapidly, and the overcast sky began to rain.

Just a few minutes later, at 8:37, the Zhiqing No. 5 submarine hunting ship sent a signal through the light language, reporting that someone on the ship had fallen into the water, and the trace was unknown and could not be searched and rescued.

"No, the estimate in the telegram yesterday was not so fierce, and the wave must be three feet high." A major staff officer said solemnly.

Guan Zeming leaned on the bulkhead, looked at the big waves outside the round window, and muttered: "It doesn't look like it will be able to stop for a while, lift the radio silence, and let the fleet return to Ryukyu." ”

Everyone realized that this time they were afraid of big trouble, and it was not just the wind and waves under the cumulonimbus clouds that they thought before!

The wind was getting stronger every second, the sea was getting worse every minute, and the massive roll caused an orange that had fallen to the ground to roll from left to right and from right to left.

The navigator took a huge risk to go out of the cabin to the deck and look at it for a while, then walked in wet and said, "Obediently, this is a collision with the biāo wind, captain, you have to avoid it quickly!" ”

The officers present all looked solemn, and some of them turned pale.

Parry? How to avoid it?

The typhoon is roughly located in the southeast direction and is moving at high speed in an unknown arc trajectory.

Should the fleet continue sailing or adjust its course? If you adjust your course, which way should you go?

Suddenly, due to the continuous and violent rolling, the fixed steel cable of a Type 37 ship bombard on the rear flight deck was loosened. The two landing gears in front of them lost their restraints, and only the tail wheel was still tied, but the next second the tail wheel was torn off, and the whole plane crashed into the sea in the blink of an eye, and a big wave rushed and disappeared.

At 10:13, Guan Zeming made an important decision, ordering the fleet to further increase its speed, adjust its course to the northeast, and escape from the typhoon's area as soon as possible.

The speed of the seventy-two practice fleet soon reached 21 knots, and it galloped in a northeast direction.

The top speed of the Dongyou 11 oil ship was only 18 knots, and she could not keep up with the fleet, and gradually fell behind, so she could only ask for more blessings.

At 11:05, the Dagu, Fuzhou, and Hangzhou naval bases all received a telegram from the Yingfu.

"The team encountered a strong wind, which was evading in the direction of 40 degrees, and is now located at 25°17'N, 131°26'E, the sky is dark, heavy rain, the height of the cloud base is 400 meters, the visibility is 1,000 meters, the wind direction is southeast, the wind speed is 29, and the wave height is 14 meters."

At this time, the scene is terrifying, with wind speeds of up to 29.5 m/s and an average wave height of 14 m, which is already a force 11 wind and a level 9 sea state.

I saw the raging waves sweeping all over the world, and the sea was covered with thick white foam waves, like a fluffy wool carpet, the water mist was filled, and the sky and the sea were extremely dark.

The giant ship of more than 40,000 tons also looks very small in such stormy seas, and seems to be just a flat boat, while the destroyers and submarine hunters accompanying it have almost become paper boats floating in the angry waves because of their small tonnage.

[Picture]

The sea conditions are extremely bad, but the situation does not seem to be improving, with winds increasing further and air pressure dropping further.

Visibility was quite low, and the lights from the navigation lights seemed to be swallowed up by the wind and waves.

"Give the order, turn on the searchlights, and increase the distance between the ships by 300 meters."

"Order!"

A moment later, suddenly, more than a dozen beams of light appeared between the gray sky and the sea, piercing the terrible storm picture.

Guan Zeming recalled the incident of 20 years ago - he was still a military cadet warrant officer at the Hangzhou Military Academy, and the training cruiser he was on at that time encountered a typhoon after going to sea, but fortunately it was far away and had little impact, and afterwards on the way back to the port, he was ordered to turn to Taizhou to participate in the rescue, and the entire port area was in a mess.

Compared with the great power of nature, man is still too small after all.

In view of the fact that many of the ships had an overrun of the roll, he ordered: "Throw away the useless load on the deck and adjust the ballast!" ”

At 13:30, because it was impossible to cook properly, the ships turned on backup ready-to-eat food, that is, canned food and a kind of sweet and salty biscuits.

At 14:17, the Zhiqing-9 submarine hunter ship reported a mechanical failure of one of its diesel engine engines, and then the ship slowed down and fell behind.

At 14:59, the destroyer Qingfeng reported that someone had fallen overboard and could not be searched and rescued.

At 15:18, the light cruiser Talam reported that one of its seaplanes had fallen into the sea.

At 15:25, the destroyer Shicheng reported difficulty steering, and five minutes later said that it could not steer, and the ship gradually yawed away shortly after, moving farther and farther away from the fleet.

At 16:30 p.m., the impact of the typhoon on the fleet reached an unprecedented extreme level - the wind speed was 33 m/s, and the average wave height reached 15 meters.

At 17:21, the roll of the Zhiqing No. 8 submarine hunter exceeded the design limit of 80 degrees, reaching a huge 89 degrees, and the ship capsized on its side and fell into the sea to the left.

The sheer was also exaggerated, and the steel cables holding the planes in the hangar loosened under repeated shaking, causing a series of collisions between many aircraft, which in turn caused fires.

Akito had learned a good way for the Americans to further increase the number of aircraft by hanging spare planes from the ceiling of the hangar, but now the planes hanging overhead kept colliding, and all kinds of debris and parts fell cracklingly, and no one knew when they would all fall down.

Although the Lexington-class was an enclosed hangar, the poor sea conditions still allowed a lot of seawater to get into, the hangar deck was wet, and the aviation gasoline from the damaged aircraft was scattered and burned in the water.

The staggering damage management team members fought in such a terrible scene......

At the same time, Zhou Changfeng was returning to Jingshi Yingtianfu on a Type 38 heavy fighter.

On the one hand, he promised his wife not to go to other places for too long, and on the other hand, he was in a hurry to return to Beijing to do business, so he did not choose to take a slow transport plane or passenger plane.

The Type 38 heavy fighter was developed by the Sunrise Aircraft Company and can be used for a variety of missions such as long-range escort, ground attack, interception of enemy bombers, and has a crew of two crew members, a pilot and a rear-seat machine gunner.

At that time, the concept of "fast bombers" was popular all over the world - as long as my bomber flew faster than your (single-engine) fighter, you would be helpless and bombed.

Therefore, many countries have begun to develop faster fighters, and in order to achieve a high enough speed index, the twin-engine design has become an inevitable choice under the conditions of limited aviation technology.

The latest Type 38 C heavy fighter uses two Eagle-6 nine-cylinder star engines, each with a nominal probability of 1,200 horsepower, a maximum take-off weight of 6,100 kg, a top speed of 560 km/h, and a maximum range of 2,200 km.

The pilot was a deputy of the Second Destroyer Detachment of the Air Force, and he personally drove Zhou back to Beijing.

When he arrived, it was already the middle of the night, and it was not easy to go home to rest, and he received a call from the palace just after dawn.

"Hello? Do you want to be edicted? Your Majesty has summoned you to the palace to discuss matters, so come as soon as possible. ”

The dawn on August 26 was no different, the cicadas chirping a little more often, but the morning was still hot and dry in the late summer months, and although the wind was cool, it could not take away the heat from the body.

Street vendors and shops have opened, the first trams have departed a quarter of an hour before, and countless armies of bicycles are preparing to leave their homes.

Stop and get off the ground, enter the palace city from Xihua Gate, then take the shuttle bus to turn left and right along the familiar route, and finally come to the Qianqing Gate.

Zhu Lingjing's dresses today are all light-colored, and as soon as they met, she stretched out her index finger and middle finger and shook it, and said lightly: "Two things, one, the practice fleet to which the Yingfu belongs suddenly encountered a strong wind when going to sea for training yesterday, and escaped today. ”

Yes? Got a typhoon?

The comprehensive performance of the Lexington is very good, the speed, aircraft capacity, and protection capabilities are quite impressive, and the Ming Navy will not dislike her, so it has already been fully calculated - it will be deployed to Hawaii after completing the training.

A little nervous Zhou Changfeng asked, "Is the loss big?" ”

"The Glowing Confusion itself is fine." Zhu Lingjing, who had a grim expression, slid the telegram from the center of the imperial case to the corner as she spoke.

Zhou Changfeng took the telegram and read it at a glance, and what was described above was only the damage reported by the fleet for the time being.

At present, all the warships of the 72nd Practice Fleet have suffered varying degrees of damage, and the more serious one is the capsizing of a submarine hunting ship, but it seems that it has not sunk; Another destroyer had its bow torn off, and the mainmasts of two submarine hunters had been blown down.

As for the Glowing itself, she mainly suffered several breaks in the flight deck, as well as a fire in the hangar that destroyed some of the equipment. At first glance, it is not a major problem, but there may be unexplained internal injuries due to severe jolting and rolling.

"The fleet is so unlucky, and the navy did not provide a weather forecast in advance?" Zhou Changfeng said in a deep voice.

"No, I did, but I miscalculated."

"Your Majesty, all but one of the carrier-based planes that took off landed in the Ryukyus, and the aircraft carrier is fine, which can be regarded as a blessing in misfortune."

In a sense, the dozens of pilots on the 40-odd carrier-based planes that took off are the most valuable, and they are probably more valuable than the Lexington, after all, the Lexington was picked up for nothing, and the pilots of carrier-based aircraft were trained by themselves with real money.

However, at this time, Zhou Changfeng felt that something was wrong.

This is not a matter of urgency, the shipwreck is a fait accompli, and the navy has already begun to carry out search and rescue work, so there is no need to call itself over early in the morning in such a hurry.

And the emperor's attitude and aura are a bit ...... Cold?

"And then there's the second thing." Zhu Lingjing, who was expressionless, glanced at him, clenched her fists and said, "Did you tell anyone about carving up Honolulu or something?" ”

The eastern part of the Shohito Hall became extremely quiet for a while.

Zhou Changfeng struggled to recall for nearly ten seconds, and finally captured the target in the memory fragments in his mind.

"When I went to the airport to take a plane the morning before yesterday, many reporters intercepted me, and some people asked how to evaluate whether the North Korean elites had carved up Hawaii's goods......

"So what did you say?"

"I forgot, it's probably just sitting back, short-sighted, not knowing the truth or something."

Zhu Lingjing rolled her eyes, reached out and took out a roll of newspaper and threw it at him, and said fiercely in an annoyed tone: "Woe comes from your mouth, wait for death, someone accused you of reselling the spoils of war for money." ”

Hearing this, Zhou Changfeng chuckled in his heart.

Hiss! Wouldn't the two companies that invested in the U.S. also be discovered?

Damn it! What a game of chess to thwart the Manhattan Project! If it's because of being stirred up by the people on the side of the Ming Dynasty......

He cautiously asked, "Your Majesty, did you only report the matter of 'reselling loot'?" ”

Zhu Lingjing, who was helpless, squinted at him, gritted her teeth and said, "'Only'? Isn't it a hassle? ”

Realizing that it had not led to more questions for the time being, Zhou Changfeng breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, "Who is this, so narrow-minded, I just said the facts." ”

"Oh, in the final analysis, I think I have made great contributions to the court, and I am arrogant in my heart." Zhu Lingjing sneered and shook her head slightly, "That's it, what kind of face do you have to refute others?" ”

"Your Majesty, I commanded the Battle of Oahu." Zhou Changfeng replied confidently.

(End of chapter)