Chapter 249: The world is shocked

When he received the news, Mu Haoyang was stunned and did not come back to his senses for a long time.

Who would have thought that a task that should have been very easy turned into a disaster, and the murderer was still those inconspicuous mines!

At that time, the "Songshan" had already sunk.

Fortunately, the other warships stopped outside the sea and launched rescue work very timely. The thunderstorm of the "Songshan" was at the bottom of the ship and outside the balanced ship, which was very far from the concentrated area. More importantly, the captain issued a despatch order in a timely manner, so only fourteen officers and soldiers were killed, more than 30 injured, and the remaining more than 3,000 officers and soldiers survived and moved to other warships.

Later, only more than 100 officers and soldiers were killed on the "Taishan".

Because the lightning point is all outside the balance hull, no officers and soldiers on the Hengshan were killed. Only a few officers and soldiers who were resting fell off the bed and broke their foreheads during the explosion.

The problem is that it is absolutely a catastrophe to lose three aircraft carriers for no reason, two of which sank.

At that time, the Chinese government blocked the news until the end of the war, and the naval officers and soldiers involved in the operation were asked to swear to keep the secret.

Interestingly, this incident actually brought the fifth marshal to the Navy.

At that time, the "Songshan" was the flagship of the Third Fleet of the Pacific Fleet. The aircraft carriers in the later batches were not used as flagships. The main reason was that when the latter batches of aircraft carriers were built, in order to reduce costs and shorten the construction period, the flagship command equipment was simplified. The fourth batch of "Taishan" class did not even have the fleet command capabilities. Instead, the four "Taishan" class built at the earliest had a complete command system. The result was that as the fleet expanded, three of the first batch were dispatched to three fleets and became the fleet flagships.

Gong Jifei has always opposed whether to enter the Bay of San Francisco and believes that it is not necessary.

Unfortunately, he is just the commander of the Third Fleet and is under Tong Shaoyun.

The most important thing is that when the "Songshan" was about to sink, Gong Jifei ordered the captain to ensure the safety of the fleet officers and soldiers first, so that the captain issued a very timely abandonment order. Immediately afterwards, several warships of the third fleet rushed over and rescued the officers and soldiers on the "Songshan".

Later, because of the correct judgment in this operation, decisive action, and timely rescue, Gong Jifei won the rank of marshal.

Of course, this is just a reason.

Although Tong Shaoyun was valued in the late stage of the war and Gong Jifei's status was reduced, Mu Haoyang did not forget that during the two most difficult years of the Chinese Navy's situation, it was Gong Jifei who assisted him in commanding the fleet, and it was Gong Jifei who saved the fleet at a critical moment.

The problem is that this action not only failed to achieve its goal, but also lost face.

Even if the Chinese authorities do not admit it, it cannot cover up the facts.

The news spread quickly. By May 15, even some allied ambassadors specifically asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the results of the Chinese Navy's operations in the Bay of San Francisco.

Things have come to this point, and it is no longer a problem of the outcome.

To put it seriously, if it is not done well, someone will definitely take the blame, and this person is likely to be Tong Shaoyun, who has been reused by Mu Haoyang.

Obviously, Mu Haoyang will not let Tong Shaoyun take the blame.

In fact, Mu Haoyang was the last one to approve the action, so even if Tong Shaoyun took the blame, those who were staring at the position of the Minister of War would cause trouble for Mu Haoyang.

At that time, Mu Haoyang even mentioned the idea of ​​resigning to Huang Hanlin.

Unfortunately, this cannot solve the problem, because it is not only an internal problem in China, but also a satisfactory answer to the allies.

Huang Hanlin's reply to Mu Haoyang was very direct: Even if he wanted to resign, he had to settle the matter first.

No matter what, Mu Haoyang couldn't just leave it and throw the mess to others, and no one could clean up the mess for him.

The question is, how to settle it?

Just when Mu Haoyang was in a dilemma, Zhou Yusheng proposed a solution: take out a few new weapons to prove China's military strength.

There is no doubt that this was the only solution at that time.

Fortunately, the Navy has several new weapons in its hands. In addition to the j-33m that has been in service in large quantities, there are also new large-scale comprehensive warships.

Of course, none of these weapons are shocking.

The most shocking thing is the "Flying Dragon" airborne ship built in early May.

The "Flying Dragon" is the first air carrier built by the Chinese Navy and the smallest tonnage. It only has more than 5,000 tons at full load, and can only carry twelve J-33m fighter jets and only more than 400 officers and soldiers. Although it is claimed to have unlimited endurance, its continuous combat capability is very limited.

In fact, the "Flying Dragon" is an experimental air carrier and has no ability to fight on the battlefield at all.

At that time, the Navy was still building the "Tianlong" and "Yunlong". The former was a medium-sized airborne with tonnage of 28,000 tons and carrying 48 aircraft, and the latter was a heavy airborne with tonnage of 50,000 tons and carrying 96 aircraft, and they all had practical combat capabilities.

However, these two air carriers have not been completed yet.

While Mu Haoyang was considering whether to allow the "Flying Dragon" to participate in the war, the situation on the front line also changed significantly.

On May 17, the 740,000 American troops guarding Seattle surrendered, and the Chinese team immediately entered Seattle and occupied the most important aviation manufacturing city in the United States.

In the next few days, the US troops in Cleveland, Sacramento and Los Angeles surrendered one after another.

By the end of May, only the US military in San Diego was still holding on, because San Diego was the largest military port on the west coast of the United States. It was once the home port of the US Pacific Fleet and was close to the US-Mexico border, so the elite troops stationed there were the US military and their fighting will was relatively tenacious.

However, the US military will definitely not be able to defend San Diego.

Sima Wenzheng has begun to mobilize troops and is preparing to use heavy troops to siege San Diego after completing the occupation of Greater Los Angeles.

According to the Marines' plan, San Diego will be occupied by mid-June at the latest.

Now, Mu Haoyang did not hesitate anymore and decided to let the "Flying Dragon" go to the battlefield of San Diego to show his skills and let the air mothership be baptized by the war.

On May 27, the "Flying Dragon" rose from Chongming Island at the estuary of the Yangtze River.

In order to allow the newly built air carrier to reach its destination smoothly, the Navy not only deployed a large number of fighter jets on the islands along the way, but also dispatched thousands of charging aircraft to fly with the Flying Dragon throughout the journey, so as to provide electricity to it when necessary.

Of course, as long as the "Flying Dragon" does not fail, there is no need to charge the plane to help.

On this airborne mothership, there are two fusion reactors with a power of 15 million megawatts. As long as one reactor works normally, it can drive the anti-gravity field propulsion system. The technology of the fusion reactor is already very mature, and the probability of two reactors failing at the same time is very low.

What I really need to worry about is the first anti-gravity field propulsion system to be used in practical applications.

You should know that if there is a problem with this propulsion system, the Feilong will not only lose the motivation to move forward, but will also completely lose the buoyancy to take off. In other words, the Feilong will become a large iron ball of more than 5,000 tons, falling from a height of 10,000 meters to the sea.

At that time, the "Flying Dragon" was not equipped with fighter jets, but more than 30 lift engines.

In other words, if the anti-gravity field propulsion system fails, these lift engines will be started, allowing the "Flying Dragon" to land slowly on the sea surface.

In addition, the officers, soldiers and engineers on the Feilong have a skydiving escape system.

If the lift engine cannot stop the Flying Dragon from falling, then the personnel will have a chance to escape.

In short, the Navy was preparing for the worst result at that time. Mu Haoyang even thought about it that if the "Flying Dragon" failed to reach its destination, he would regard this operation as a naval acceptance test. In any case, it was not a strange thing to cause equipment losses during the acceptance test.

Fortunately, the Feilong arrived at the destination safely two days later, and the anti-gravity field propulsion system was very reliable.

Next, there was a shocking scene for the whole world.

On June 1st, the "Flying Dragon" first dispatched fighter jets and participated in the combat operations of bombing San Diego, proving its ability to dispatch and recover fighter jets.

Of course, the way the "Flying Dragon" uses fighter aircraft is completely different from that of an aircraft carrier.

When dispatching, the fighter was directly thrown out of the Flying Dragon, or was separated from the connection system at the bottom of the Flying Dragon. Because the Flying Dragon flies at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per hour, exceeding the liftoff speed of the fighter, the acceleration stage before takeoff is eliminated. When recycling the fighter, a similar method is adopted to air refueling, except that the docking pipe and the fuel receiving nozzle, the fighter is docked with the Flying Dragon recycling system, and then deflected by the recovery system by 180 degrees, the fighter flips over, and then fixedly tied to the fixed position at the bottom of the Flying Dragon. This is mainly to facilitate service personnel to check the fighter and load ammunition for the fighter. Of course, service personnel must master the skills of maintaining the fighter when reversing.

In fact, this dispatch and recycling method is only used on the "Flying Dragon".

Later, the "Tianlong" and "Yunlong" both adopted the exit and recycling methods of ejection and suction. The main difference lies in the recycling method, that is, when the fighter returns, it reaches the recovery area at the bottom of the mothership, and then the suction device driven by the anti-gravity field system, directly sucks the fighter into the mothership's hangar. The biggest advantage of doing this is that the pilot does not have to master the skills of docking with the mothership. In addition, after being recycled into the hangar, the fighter can be fully maintained, which improves the combat efficiency of the fighter.

However, the battle on June 1st is not the most shocking one.

At that time, not many people even knew that the first airborne mothership of the Chinese Navy had appeared on the battlefield, and even many Chinese people did not know.

There is nothing strange about this. The Flying Dragon dispatched fighter planes over the East Pacific Ocean and did not enter the battlefield at all.

It was not until five days later that the outside world truly witnessed this epoch-making military platform.
Chapter completed!