On such a naval battle stage where hundreds of main warships gathered, the two sides of the battle were only more than 500 nautical miles apart. Although these warships were slow to move, they could enter the offensive distance in just one night, and the period was full of dangers and uncertain factors.

According to the complex plan to lure the enemy into the enemy, the Ozawa fleet must arrive at the Okinawa waters in the early morning of June 5 and lure the Axis fleet to sail to the Philippine sea basin. But the problem is: even if the enemy has half of its air force, it is much stronger than the Ozawa fleet. This is almost an impossible task. The so-called "A-sea combat" is just a fantasy and cannot be successful from the beginning. Regarding this, the staff of the Military Command did not think about it at all, or were unwilling to face such a complex problem.

On the other side, Sa Shijun, opposite Ozawa, lost the whereabouts of Ozawa's fleet at dusk on June 4, and the submarine forces were unable to track the enemy fleet sailing at high speed. However, it can be judged that Ozawa is likely to use the night to move south in order to expect to launch an attack first in the early morning.

There is no need to take risks.

Sa Shijun, who knew the risks of aviation operations, did not advance but retreated, causing the Sino-German joint fleet to retreat 50 nautical miles southward and moved to the waters about 40 nautical miles south of Chongdae Island at night.

On June 5, Sa Shijun got up early before dawn and walked onto the bridge of the Beihai. The weather was not very good, and the sea was swinging and waves, but this heavy aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of nearly 41,000 tons maintained an amazing stability while driving. In the high bridge, Zhang Hainuo stood silently by the porthole and looked at the sea in the dark. The bridge of the aircraft carrier was far less tall than the battleship, but he had no doubt that he had

The flagship commanded has an amazing combat power far exceeding the battleships. The improved "Romanian-class" aircraft carrier is loaded with 136 combat aircraft, including four fighter squadrons, three bomber squadrons and one torpedo squadron, and its combat effectiveness is half higher than that of ordinary aircraft carriers. Although some carrier-based aircraft and pilots were lost during the entire Okinawa campaign, they were soon replenished, and these warships have maintained sufficient combat power.

The combat control room on the aircraft carrier is a large room with dim lights. It is located on the side of a deck next to the bridge. You can walk directly to the combat command room on the bridge from a separate escalator on the bridge. In the control room, the radar display reflects the location of the warship on the sea on the green tracking screen of the phosphorescence. The outline of the sea near the sea is better seen than the naked eye at the sea. Here, the huge plexiglass display is guarded by several telephone messengers. You can see at a glance what happened at that time from the bright orange or red mimeogram summary. During the battle, a large number of urgent signals rushed in and handed them over to the officers on duty to make a quick briefing. Ready to release.

Now, the combat control room seemed very quiet, with several blurred silly officers sitting in front of the monitor. Some officers were smoking cigarettes in their mouths, leaning over to approach the chart, whispering while calculating. At this time, the combat staff had already sat in front of the chart table in the center and began to prepare for the battle in the early morning.

"Prepare to send aerial search at 4:30 am, sir!"

Seeing the fleet commander enter the combat room, Lieutenant Colonel Chen Zhiping, the on-duty combat staff officer, got up and saluted him, and then reported.

"Well. The point is the Northeast waters. The first wave will send enough aerial reconnaissance. We need to find the enemy first!" Sa Shijun said. Everything was normal, so he followed the passage and returned to his cabin and asked the orderly soldiers to bring breakfast. Maybe it would take a long time today before he could sit back and have a safe meal.

After breakfast, Sa Shijun sat on a chair and lit a cigarette, drinking black tea while tidying up his thoughts. Today is the first time he commanded the fleet to face the Japanese. Not only did he fight beautifully, but he also had to play momentum and reads; let the Japanese know that they launched the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 that was a big mistake in itself.

The victory of the "Japanese-Singapore War" and the "Russian War" expanded the Japanese ambitions and allowed them to taste the sweetness in the war. The war reparations of nearly 300 million taels of silver and the cession of land in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 were simply pie falling from the sky, allowing Japan to skip the difficult primitive accumulation process in the initial stage of industrialization. The war brought more rewards to the Japanese, making most Japanese feel that it was a matter of course to start a war.

But they forgot that there are not only victory in the war, but also failures.

Now, the time for retribution has come!

At this time, Chen Zhiping's buzzing voice came from the speakers on the bulkhead.

"Now prepare to start the air search, sir."

“Very well, act as planned.”

Sa Shijun left the cabin, climbed the escalator, and came to the commander's tower on the bridge. Facing the milky white sky at dawn, the first batch of "Sea Hunter" fighters to perform reconnaissance missions flew away from the "Beihai", "Xihai" and "Zhejiang" at the bottom of the faint sky with morning starry sky. At the same time, four German aircraft carriers also sent the first batch of reconnaissance fighters.

As a senior aviation fleet commander, Sa Shijun knew the importance of first discovering the enemy in naval battles, so he sent five civil squadrons, a total of 90 reconnaissance fighter jets in the first batch. In an hour, five squadrons of combat reconnaissance aircraft would take off again.

Everything is normal!

Seeing the "Zhejiang" which is very similar to the "Jiangsu" that was in war, Sa Shijun felt a vague pain in his heart. This is the only aircraft carrier in the Axis navy to be in war so far. As the commander of this battle, he was repeatedly mentioned by the tactical instructors of the Axis powers, "has become famous", but this is not a matter of showing his face.

It was not until the last batch of planes flew away that he returned to the combat control room on the surface. In the future, many important information on the battlefield: the enemy's position, distance, route speed and other reports will be transmitted here as soon as possible. At the huge chart table, the staff officers have begun to get busy, marking the morning observation and attack reports on the chart with red and blue ink.

What is strange is that the Japanese fleet actually divided into two teams in the Osumi Strait. The submarines that were surveillance were sending back a report that the Japanese's main fleet was heading towards Okinawa. It seemed that Yamamoto wanted to break into the Okinawa waters at night to fight the Axis fleet. The Ozawa fleet took a feint attack aimed at restraining the offensive, which is a typical tactic of the Japanese.

It is obvious that the Japanese still do not understand the true meaning of aviation tactics and are still counting on those battleships to play a decisive role. They have not realized that battleships have actually become vassals in naval warfare. Without aviation protection, these past maritime "overlords" will only become targets in the eyes of carrier-based aircraft pilots.

Admiral Yankel made an unexpected move. It seemed that he was preparing to have a battleship duel with the Japanese, and fought with Yamamoto on real guns and live ammunition. In fact, every naval general had such an impulse in his heart, eager to use giant ships and cannons to fight against the enemy on the sea. In the aviation era, naval battles were far away from their original dreams, and the battles were carried out hundreds of nautical miles away. Except for carrier-based aircraft pilots, they could not feel the atmosphere in the battlefield at all. When the enemy's fighter jets attacked, they became target games for anti-aircraft artillery. The majestic large-caliber main guns and secondary guns on the warships became useless decorations, and they could not do anything except bombard the enemy's coast.

This is really depressing.

Of course, what Sa Junjun has to do is to deal with the "bait" of the enemy in front of him. No matter what he is, he cannot let the Japanese go back in a hurry. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!