Pearl Harbor.
"Military Gate, we have received a telegram from the General Staff of Beijing. The General Staff believes that the purpose of the British concentration of its main naval force is to attack one of our three fleets!"
"Yes!" Zhuge Weidao, who was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass window in the command center of the Pacific Fleet Admiral's Department and looking at the scenery, responded and immediately turned around and walked to the chart.
The chart is also a bunch of arrows, lines, circles and numbers that are dizzying to look at.
The numbers represent the fleet number. The Pacific Fleet is the first of the three major fleets, and its representative number is "1". The representative number of the First Air Force of the Pacific Fleet is "1" followed by "01", which is "101". The representative number of the second team of the Pacific Fleet is of course "102", the third team is "103", and so on.
The "1" sign is still posted at Pearl Harbor, which means that the main force of the Pacific Fleet is still in Pearl Harbor - well, there is not much of this main force, it just covers dozens of square kilometers!
The "101" sign has moved to the Maluku Strait, which is a bit far from Pearl Harbor. In addition, there are two numbers starting with "1" on the chart: "103" and "104". Among them, "103" is placed in Truk Lagoon. This "103" represents the 3rd Drive Patrol Team of the Pacific Fleet. As the name suggests, this 3rd Drive Patrol Team is a team composed of cruisers and destroyers. The team admiral is Guo Xiaobao, the former chief staff officer of the Pacific Fleet.
Zhuge Weidao sent Guo Xiaobao to lead the 3rd driving patrol to Truk Lagoon for the purpose of escort, warning and reconnaissance. Although Zhuge Weidao has planned to take Australia directly, Truk Lagoon still has to be defended - it is only a thousand and a few hundred kilometers away from the New Guinea Islands and Solomon Islands, the frontiers of the British defense line. It is a new area monitored by the Pacific Fleet. Outposts in the direction of Guinea Islands and Solomon Islands.
The reconnaissance airship deployed in Truk Lagoon can fly directly to the New Guinea Islands and Solomon Islands for reconnaissance, and the "Kongming" class large light cruiser equipped with Yunlong 1 water reconnaissance aircraft can use Truk Lagoon as a base in two days. It’s time to drive to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for reconnaissance.
In this way, the New Guinea Islands and the Solomon Islands due north are under the alert of the 3rd Driving Patrol Team.
In addition to the 4th Kongming-class 3rd drive patrol force, Zhuge Weidao also dispatched the 4th submarine force code-named "104", which was directly stationed in the Marshall Islands and used Kwajalein Atoll as the base of the submarine mothership. A submarine cordon was set up on the Marshall Islands line, northeast of the Solomon Islands. Dozens of ocean-going submarines cooperate with the airships deployed in the Kwajalein Atoll, covering a large area of sea between the Solomon Islands and the Hawaiian Islands.
Behind the cordon composed of the 3rd Drive Patrol Team and the 4th Submarine Squadron, there is a second cordon drawn by dozens of camouflaged reconnaissance ships. Airships taking off from Pearl Harbor are also constantly flying over the second cordon. patrol.
After the second cordon, there is the core cordon of Pearl Harbor - with Pearl Harbor as the core and the surrounding 100 kilometers of sea and airspace, all aircrafts and airships dispatched by Pearl Harbor and subordinate to the Pearl Harbor Guard General Division Under the vigilance of torpedo boats, gunboats, and camouflaged reconnaissance ships!
However, the three warning lines (circles) on this picture look quite tight, but the sea area that needs to be controlled is too large, and the detection methods are too backward - basically rely on looking! Therefore, the loopholes in the first and second cordon lines are very large. Only the core cordon circle at Pearl Harbor is relatively tight because of the limited sea area that needs to be controlled.
Fortunately, the British aircraft are not very powerful nowadays. It is impossible for them to take off carrier-based aircraft for bombing hundreds of kilometers away from Pearl Harbor like the Japanese during World War II... So if they really To attack Pearl Harbor, it was not enough to rely on 6 aircraft carriers and a few escort ships. It was necessary to bring a large fleet of "more than ten or even dozens of square kilometers".
As a result, the momentum will be huge, and it will be very difficult to get through the two cordons of the Pacific Fleet.
However, the main force of the Pacific Fleet cannot lie down at Pearl Harbor and wait for the British fleet to arrive on its own - how can a fleet of dozens of square kilometers lie down at Pearl Harbor?
What if the British don't come?
What if... after they come, they see that they can't be beaten and then slip away?
If the main fleet of the British Royal Navy shrinks into Port Moresby, it will be difficult to implement Zhuge Weidao's battle plan to attack Australia.
So... Zhuge Weidao folded his arms and was about to meditate when the Chief of Staff of the Pacific Fleet Wang Wen came over to speak: "Military Gate, the General Staff has recommended that the Western Fleet attack Ceylon and the Nanyang Fleet attack Java... .... It is also recommended that we take the initiative to attack, but it is up to us to decide where to attack. Of course, we do not need to attack. The telegram from the General Staff said that everything is decided by you, the military officer."
The "suggestions" of the General Staff of the Ming Dynasty are usually orders!
Because the tradition of military command in the New Ming Dynasty is that the frontline commander has the right to act expediently and make decisions on the fly - in the era of King Zhuge Wu Zhong, this was a must! Otherwise, if we use the central military orders to command armies hundreds or even thousands of miles away, wouldn’t this be the Song Dynasty?
But now times have changed. With telephones and telegraphs, the General Staff can fully control the situation not to mention hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.
However, the General Staff still has to follow the tradition left by King Zhuge Wuzhong, so it still has to respect the decision-making power of the frontline coach. Therefore, orders issued by the General Staff will be in the name of "suggestions" rather than orders. Theoretically, the former enemy commander is the one who makes the final military decision.
Of course, the frontline coach can still exercise "theoretical" power, but the consequences... However, the telegram sent by the General Staff to Zhuge Weidao emphasized that "he will make the final decision in everything", which means that it is truly decentralized. The right to decide.
Zhuge Weidao did not make an immediate decision. Instead, he folded his arms and stared at the sea chart, seemingly immersed in the deepest thinking - this was Zhuge's military advisor's thinking!
Everyone in the command center fell silent. They all put down their work and stared at Zhuge Weidao intently.
Zhuge Weidao didn't say a word, and I don't know how long it took before I heard him chuckle and say: "Isn't this just a multiple-choice question? This military advisor knows how to answer questions best! If the British concentrate their main force, they will definitely They want to defeat them one by one. If their target is not the Western Fleet or the Nanyang Fleet, it must be us!"
This is a multiple choice question!
It's a question of choosing A, choosing B, or choosing C. If A and B can be eliminated, choosing C is definitely correct... This kind of multiple-choice question is very important to Zhuge Weidao, who "made questions" and "posed questions" in his previous life. "For professionals, it is not difficult at all.
"Junmen," Wang Wen was also good at answering questions, but obviously not as good as Zhuge Weidao, so he frowned and asked, "Then how do we know who the British will choose?"
Zhuge Weidao smiled and said: "I don't know now, but there will be results soon."
"But before the results come out, how should we plan?" Wang Wen asked.
"Our main force... goes out for a walk!" Zhuge Weidao said with a smile, "At the same time, let the first flight battle go south and cooperate with the Nanyang Fleet to bomb Java."
