Shadow Spy

Chapter 287 The Movement of the Asian Fleet

On March 3th, Saturday, not long after they started working, Xiaohu and Xiaoyu came in together and said that the 9 brothers and sisters from Phoenix Village had completed their training and reported to the headquarters...

Li Junhao thought about this immediately, asked them to make arrangements, and went to see them himself.

A few minutes later, he met 15 young people in the conference room, 10 men and 5 women, the youngest was 17 years old and the oldest was 21 years old. The average age was only 19 years old. They knew martial arts themselves and had gone through the police training center. After training, he now has some military temperament, his energy is extremely high, and he looks very pleasing to the eye.

Seeing them, Li Junhao felt a sense of intimacy in his heart. This was mainly because of Xiaoyu and Xiaohu, but also because he had come into contact with the people in Phoenix Village when he first came to this world. In addition, these people were all younger siblings in age. , he was very kind when he spoke. After chatting for a while, he assigned work to them.

Of the five girls, one is assigned to Zheng Pingru who is on duty at the police station, two are assigned to Li Xiaoyu, who is also the director of the Telecommunications Department, and two are assigned to assistant Xiaoyu; all ten boys are assigned to Xiaohu, and they are asked to pay attention to their respective strengths. Adjustments can be made.

After spending an hour with the young people, Li Junhao was in a good mood and returned to the office humming a ditty. As soon as he sat down, he received a call from Colonel Rupp, the commander of the 15th Infantry Regiment.

Rupp said on the phone that he had received a piece of news: an old comrade of his stationed in the Philippines revealed that two days ago, the commander of the Asia Fleet, Admiral Thomas Hart, wanted to move his headquarters to Shanghai or Hong Kong Island. , had a dispute with Lieutenant General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army in the Far East and Commander-in-Chief of the Far Eastern Army, and the two broke up on bad terms!

Just yesterday, Admiral Hart just notified the Far East General Headquarters by telegram, and then left the Manila port with some of the main warships of the 5th Task Force, supposedly to inspect Hong Kong Island and the Shanghai Sea...

This news immediately aroused Li Junhao's interest. He asked Rupp to continue to pay attention to the news from the Philippines, and then immediately contacted the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong Island and asked it to notify Shanghai after Admiral Hart arrived in Hong Kong.

Then he checked the map. The sea distance between Manila, Philippines and Hong Kong Island is about 650 nautical miles. Considering the route problem, the direct sailing distance should be 700 nautical miles. According to the cruising speed of the warship of 15 knots, it can be reached in about two days... Of course, It cannot be ruled out that the fleet speeds up or slows down. This is in the hands of Admiral Hart.

Next, I don’t know how many days Hart will stay in Hong Kong Island. The sea mileage from Hong Kong Island to Shanghai is more than 900 nautical miles. If there is no stopover, the voyage will take nearly three days.

In other words, if it is fast, Admiral Hart's fleet will arrive in Shanghai in about a week at the earliest. Of course, this time is not certain. It is unlikely that it will be early, and it should arrive in late March at the latest. ...This time is very interesting!

He was wondering if he could keep the main force of the Asian fleet in Shanghai?If it can really stay, the strength of the concession will not just increase dramatically, but it will actually have the ability to fight against the Japanese army and navy. This is of great significance!Currently, there is only one inland river gunboat, the Wake, with a displacement of only 500 tons. The only U.S. warship permanently stationed in Shanghai is the Wake, which is only placed in Shanghai by the Yangtze River Fleet as a symbolic presence.Li Junhao felt that even if only half of the US military's Asian fleet ships were transferred to Shanghai, Japan would have to think about it.

Li Junhao didn't know if Colonel Rupp had also thought of this - if he had really thought of it, then he would be a great talent!But the news he told himself was undoubtedly extremely important, and it also opened up an idea for him, that is, not to always focus on Shanghai and the sea, but to focus on a broader place. In addition to the situation on the European battlefield, there are also There is the current situation in the Far East.
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Two days later, news came from Hong Kong Island that Admiral Thomas Hart led Task Force 5, the main force of the Asian Fleet, to arrive in Hong Kong. The flagship was the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Houston, and there were two light cruisers (Omaha). The Concord of the class, the Savannah of the Brooklyn class (these two ships joined the Asian Fleet after escorting the recruits to the Shanghai Sea last time), eight Clemson-class destroyers, etc., this is the combination of the Asian Fleet Most of them were brought out.

简单计算下就知道，现在的菲律宾甲米地只剩下一艘奥马哈级的的马波亥德号、5艘克莱姆森级驱逐舰，都是老旧型号的潜艇部队（28艘，6艘旧S级、7艘P级、16艘新S级)和海军航空队（31艘飞艇、1艘水上飞机母舰、32架卡塔林娜水上飞机）。

Admiral Hart's gesture seemed like he really planned to move the base.
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Li Junhao didn't know when Admiral Hart would arrive in Shanghai, so he had better take care of his own business first.

On the morning of Friday, March 3, on a remote river bank at the Bund of the former French Concession, 15 cigarette dealers who were escorted by hundreds of riot police dug out a 50-meter long and wide cigarette dealer on the river beach. A large pit of ten meters and two meters deep.

At first, these cigarette dealers were so frightened that they thought they would be buried alive and refused to work. They all knelt on the ground and cried and begged for mercy, which made the police officers dumbfounded. It took a lot of effort to explain that the pit was not dug for them. Humans have things to deal with...

What happened on the river bank attracted the attention of the people in the concession. Word of mouth spread, and more and more people focused their attention on the river bank, ready to see what was going on?
Near noon, the big pit was dug, and five hundred tobacco dealers were driven to one side and lined up. Then dozens of military trucks drove over, loaded with large wooden boxes of basically the same size.Many cigarette dealers looked familiar and waited for the truck to drive closer. They were sure that these were cigarette packaging boxes!
The trucks lined up and drove to the big pit. Three hundred laborers were already ready. They immediately stepped forward and started unloading the trucks. They threw the boxes of smoke and soil into the big pit that had been dug before. Many boxes were broken, exposing a piece of the inside. A piece of smoke wrapped in oil paper...

The onlookers who were separated from the big pit by the police on duty also saw what it was and suddenly started making noise...

It didn't take long for more than 3000 boxes of smoke and soil to be thrown into the pit. Then, two special fire hose trucks came over and stopped at both ends of the pit. They pulled out the hoses and several people pressed and boosted them together. Wrench, water hose sprayed towards the pit... Oh, it's kerosene!

Everyone who saw this scene was sure that this was really going to burn such a large amount of smoke!
There was no need for the police to say anything else, the onlookers were excited...

(End of this chapter)