The effective range of the shells was at least two to three thousand meters, and even the thick-skinned bombers would crash if they were hit by one.

Battalion Commander Numata Eiya's order was tinged with panic. He had originally thought that a dense formation would allow as many machine gunners as possible to simultaneously shoot down several enemy planes.

He hadn't expected the scheme to backfire, costing them several fighters instead.

Having received the captain's orders, the fighters moved nimbly, some climbing quickly, others descending, and still others scattering left and right. They fled swiftly.

But the bombers were in trouble. They were large and their maneuverability was far inferior to the smaller fighters.

Even as they attempted evasive maneuvers, Guan Guohao and his fighters targeted them head-on.

Taking advantage of the Japanese confusion, Captain Guan and his men each targeted a Japanese bomber and gave chase.

Just now, the dozen or so fighters from the Special Operations Brigade had scattered the Japanese formation. After flying out some distance, they were shocked to discover that many fighters were flying in from the periphery.

Pilot Kofukuda Dai exclaimed, "We've been tricked! We're surrounded!"

Following his cry, more Japanese pilots shouted, "Many enemy planes detected! Many enemy planes detected!"

At this time, all the remaining fighters under Captain Guan's command had arrived on the battlefield, as had the fighters of Xiao Jianying and Pan Yongshan's battalions.

The balance of aircraft on the battlefield had completely shifted. The Special Operations Brigade's air wing had a total of ninety-seven fighters, while the entire Numata air wing now had less than fifty aircraft, of which only about thirty were fighters, with the rest being bombers and reconnaissance planes.

Battalion Commander Numata Eiya heard the jumbled reports coming through his headphones, and his heart sank: had they really fallen into an ambush?

He still wanted to struggle to the death. He couldn't quite believe it.

Kofukuda Dai looked at the group of fighters flying towards him. Five against one! How could they fight a battle like this?

Only one thing came to his mind: turn! Avoid a head-on collision!

Zhu Qingmao could see at a glance that the Japanese planes wanted to avoid battle. His air wing hadn't had a good fight today yet.

Zhu Qingmao ordered, "The Japanese are trying to escape. Lei Wenshan, pursue them."

Lei Wenshan, who had been singled out, responded and immediately chased after them with his wingman. The Japanese fighter was descending to a low altitude, clearly trying to slip away from below.

Lei Wenshan: "Feng Wencheng, I'll take the left, you take the right!"

Feng Wencheng, his wingman, replied loudly after receiving the order, "Yes, sir!"

The two fighters followed closely behind Kofukuda Dai's plane, which continued to dive towards the ground.

This attracted the attention of many onlookers on the ground.

Among these ordinary people, some had heard from newspapers and teahouses that the planes of the Special Operations Brigade all had a chubby tiger painted on their bellies, which was very festive.

Now, seeing many planes engaged in a dogfight in the sky, these people watched nervously from the ground.

They liked to watch the excitement, but they were also afraid that a plane would fall on their heads at any moment, which would be terrible.

With such uneasy feelings, they saw a plane diving from the sky towards the ground.

All of them screamed, regardless of which side the plane belonged to. Such a direct crash would surely smash someone's house.

Following behind this plane were two other planes. It was clear that the two planes behind were chasing the one in front.

Kofukuda Dai's plane was getting closer and closer to the ground, which seemed a little dangerous. But Kofukuda Dai felt relieved: at least no plane had shot at him yet.

This meant that he had successfully escaped from under the enemy's noses. If there were planes chasing him, they would definitely be firing their machine guns at this time.

Seeing that he was less than three hundred meters from the ground, Kofukuda Dai suddenly pulled up on the plane, turning the dive into a level flight.

The plane's response was a little slow, and it continued to descend in a diving posture for another two hundred meters, before finally leveling out at a height of about one hundred meters.

Those onlookers standing in their yards and on their roofs breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Kofukuda Dai could clearly see the faces of those on the ground looking up at the sky, and even the expressions on their faces.

An idea popped into his head for no reason, a desire to vent, and he skillfully pressed the machine gun firing button: "Da-da-da! Da-da-da!"

The sound of machine gun fire rang out as he flew along, spraying bullets.

He watched as the tiles on the roofs were shattered by the machine gun bullets, and as those standing on the roofs screamed and scattered in all directions.

Some people didn't have time to think and jumped directly off the roofs, rolling down, who knows how many.

Seeing their pathetic appearances, Kofukuda Dai shouted excitedly. At this moment, he had forgotten the battle still raging in the air, and continued to strafe along his path, his flight posture unchanged.

Feng Wencheng shouted, "Captain Lei! The Japanese are harming civilians!"

Lei Wenshan ordered, "Feng Wencheng! Stay calm! The more it is at this time, the more you must be calm! Don't rush to fire!"

Feng Wencheng watched as the Japanese used machine guns to strafe the civilians. His hand was already on the firing button of the autocannon, and after hearing the order, he asked loudly, "Why? I can't watch the Japanese be so rampant!"

"If you fire the cannon at this time, if you don't hit the enemy plane, all the shells will hit them!"

In fact, even if they hit the enemy plane at this time, if the plane crashed in a residential area, the whole area would probably be set on fire.

How many of these wooden houses could be salvaged after the fire? No one knew.

Feng Wencheng's hand left the launch button of the autocannon, his eyes staring at the Japanese plane that was still wreaking havoc below. At this time, he had already locked the Japanese plane in the sight.

But Feng Wencheng didn't dare to fire. Yes! Even if he hit the target, this area would be finished. If he didn't hit it, these shells would be borne by his own countrymen.

Those who had not been strafed on the ground had already seen the situation in the air: the Japanese plane was strafing at low altitude, followed by two planes with painted chubby tigers.

It seemed that this Japanese plane was finished, but why hadn't they fired all this time?

This was something that the people on the ground could not understand.

Kofukuda Dai continued to strafe, unaware that there were two planes following him.

He finally finished strafing this area, and in front of him was the Pearl River. Kofukuda Dai wagged his wings triumphantly, as if saying goodbye to his actions of strafing the civilians just now.

Lei Wenshan ordered loudly, "Fire!" With a slight flick of his finger, the sound of "Boom! Boom!" rang out.

Shells were fired one after another.

Feng Wencheng had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The Japanese plane had already reached the Pearl River, and even if it shot it down at this time, it would only fall on the beach or in the water, and there would be no other losses.

Kofukuda Dai had just wanted to climb the plane when he suddenly felt the plane hit hard by something, followed by a burst of heat behind him.

"I've been hit!" This was his last thought!

Those who had been knocked off the roofs and those who had been dodging all shouted in unison at this time: "The Japanese have been blown up! The Japanese have been blown up!"

Ignoring their embarrassment at falling off the roofs, they all ran towards the place where the Japanese plane had exploded.

When these people arrived, all that was left on the滩涂 (tān tú, mud flat) was a pile of burning wreckage, and the two planes with the chubby tigers had already flown into the sky.

By the time Battalion Commander Numata Eiya recognized the situation, it was too late. When he saw more than a dozen fighters suddenly rushing out from his flank, he finally believed the reports of those pilots just now.

He was so frightened that he quickly ordered, "Retreat! Retreat!"

Obviously, the strength of the two sides was out of proportion. So many fighters suddenly rushed out from the Special Operations Brigade, it was too terrifying!

But at this time, they were already deeply surrounded, and they could not escape the pursuit of the Special Operations Brigade's air force.

Guan Guohao led a part of his battalion's fighters and had already shot down a dozen or so Japanese bombers at this time.

These Japanese bomber pilots had originally thought that the bombers they were driving were thick-skinned and might be able to withstand it for a while.

But they were shot at by the fighters that rushed up, and their huge bodies became the best moving targets.

Shells hit these bombers one after another, and often only one was needed to make the plane crash, but Guan Guohao did not let them go so easily.

His pilots always had to blow up the Japanese bombers before they would stop, which made those who were lucky enough to see this scene on the ground excited.

The firelight produced by the constant explosion of shells in the air, and the large团 (tuán, ball/mass) of fire produced by the explosion of bombers from time to time, this situation was very similar to the fireworks on the Lantern Festival.

Battalion Commander Numata Eiya of the air force also did not escape the fate of being destroyed. It was not that his skills were not good, nor that the performance of the fighter he was driving was not good, but that there were too many fighters in the Special Operations Brigade. The fewer Japanese planes there were in the air, the more attacks the remaining planes faced.

When Mao Wenxing received Captain Guan Guohao's report: "All the invading enemy planes have been wiped out!" the sky in this area was clear, and all the planes flying in the sky were from the Special Operations Brigade.

The bomber group of the Special Operations Brigade had bombed the warships of the Japanese Navy's Fifth Fleet back and forth several times, and the entire surface of the water could no longer see a single small warship.

They were all sunk, and only a few large cruisers and aircraft carriers were still burning tenaciously. Some of them had an inclination angle of more than thirty degrees, and some had their bows and sterns separated.

The sinking of these warships was irreversible, and it was only a matter of time before they sank to the bottom of the sea.

Mao Wenxing ordered: "All planes circle over Guangzhou City once, and then all fly to Huiyang."

The fleet of the Special Operations Brigade was still the same as when they came, with the bomber group in the middle and the fighter group protecting them in front, behind, left and right.

The Japanese Twenty-first Army, including all the planes of the Navy's Fifth Fleet that could fly, had now been completely wiped out.

The planes of the Special Operations Brigade flew over Guangzhou City at low altitude, and many citizens of Guangzhou suddenly discovered that it was clearly almost afternoon.

But the sky suddenly darkened, and a large fleet of planes was flying in the sky.

The Japanese sounded the air raid alarm, and the sharp alarm sounded in the sky above the city.

The citizens of Guangzhou not only did not evade, but ran to the streets and open spaces to watch the planes with the image of a cute chubby tiger painted on their bellies.

"One, two, three, four, five, six..." Some people were counting how many planes there were in the sky.

There were too many planes, and they were counting too slowly, so they couldn't count them all. It was much more convenient for the reporters, who were flexibly pressing the shutter as they faced the fleet of planes flying through the air.

After the Japanese occupied Guangzhou, Lin Fan had been there. At that time, he wanted to capture the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army.

However, after on-the-spot investigation, he found that this plan would not work, so he changed his target of attack.

Now, although he could not capture the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army, he could still throw a few aerial bombs at it.

Lin Fan ordered: "The planes with bombs follow me! Bomb the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army. Mao Wenxing commands the bomber group to bomb the Japanese oil depot at Guangzhou Airport."

The Japanese was a country that lacked resources, and Lin Fan had always focused on consuming the Japanese resources to the greatest extent. Today, he had the opportunity, so of course he would not let go of bombing the Japanese oil depot.

Gu Zuo Ganlang, commander of the Japanese Twenty-first Army, could not help the Navy's Fifth Fleet's request for assistance today. Now, seeing hundreds of planes coming to the sky above Guangzhou.

The surprise in its heart was indescribable: When did this country have such a powerful air force?

Commander Gu Zuo Ganlang still wanted to see more of these planes, but it was carried by its guards into the air raid shelter.

Chief of Staff Ando Toshichi did not believe that these planes were just running to the sky above Guangzhou to demonstrate. It guessed right, Lin Fan was not just here to demonstrate, he was also here to bomb the headquarters of this Japanese army.

The screams made by the dive of the bomber group made the Japanese on the ground tremble. Some of them even picked up machine guns and fired.

Immediately, it attracted a more violent counterattack from the bombers. This bombing was in the urban area of Guangzhou. In order to reduce accidental injuries, Lin Fan specially ordered the bombers to fly as low as possible.

In the urban area of Guangzhou, the Japanese did not expect to be bombed at all, so Gu Zuo Ganlang did not set up an anti-aircraft team.

Lin Fan drove the bomber all the way down to a position less than fifty meters above the ground before dropping the bomb.

More than a dozen bombers followed behind him, each bomber dropping two bombs.

For a time, the sound of explosions at the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army resounded throughout Guangzhou City, and the ground was shaking slightly.

The witty reporters immediately climbed up to the high-rise buildings, looking for the explosion area, and then rushed in this direction.

When they arrived, they realized that the fleet that was circling in the air today had only bombed the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army.

All the buildings in the bombed headquarters of the Twenty-first Army collapsed, and it was impossible to find out how many Japanese soldiers were killed or injured.

The team that carried out the task of bombing the airport soon returned to the formation, and the citizens of Guangzhou watched the fleet of planes that covered the sky and the sun fly towards the east.

Some well-informed people guessed: They must have gone to Huiyang.

The chubby tiger was the most obvious mark of the Special Operations Brigade's air force. This huge fleet must be the bomber group of the Special Operations Brigade.

Lin Fan, who returned to Huiyang, did not rest. Instead, he immediately summoned all the commanders above the squadron leader of the aviation brigade to hold a summary meeting.

At this summary meeting, Lin Fan specially asked Chen Ce, Pu Xueliang, Zu Yang, and Shi Han, who had participated in the formulation of the combat plan in the early stage, to come over.

Lin Fan kept in mind the contributions of these few people.

As soon as they met, Lin Fan said with a smile: "Everyone! You have worked hard these days, and the days of being protected every day have also made you feel bored.

But all this is worth it. This morning, we attacked and completely destroyed the fortresses of Humen Fortress. The Japanese artillery did not even touch the edge of our planes, and they were all blown away.

The Japanese Navy's Fifth Fleet no longer exists. Their large and small warships are all sunk in the sea, and not a single plane on the warships escaped.

At the same time, we did not let a single Japanese plane fly back from the direction of Guangzhou and the fleet that flew over the sea to make trouble.

They were all shot down. Just as we were ending the bombing mission against the Japanese Navy's Fifth Fleet, we went to Guangzhou for a circle by the way and bombed the headquarters of the Japanese Twenty-first Army.

We also bombed the Japanese military airport in Guangzhou. The fire that broke out in their oil depot can probably be seen tonight."

Chen Ce and the others were dumbfounded as they listened to Lin Fan's report of the battle results. They simply couldn't believe that this matter had been accomplished so easily.

"Is this true?" Chen Ce asked.

Mao Wenxing said unhappily on the side: "What the brigade commander said is true. After today's battle, the Japanese Navy's Fifth Fleet should no longer have this designation."

Lin Fan said with a smile: "That's not necessarily true. The Japanese are a very face-saving country. They may rebuild the Navy's Fifth Fleet."

"We will destroy them once they build it," Mao Wenxing said viciously.

Chen Ce then reacted and said with a smile: "Brigade Commander Lin! To be able to achieve such great results today, not to mention letting us stay here for half a month, we are willing to stay here for a lifetime."

If he could exchange the demise of the Japanese Navy's Fifth Fleet for his few people's lives, Chen Ce was really willing to exchange it.

As a commander who had directly fought against the Japanese Navy, he was very clear about how powerful the Japanese naval fleet was.

And he also knew that at that time, the Japanese had only sent two small warships to harass them, and their real main warships had not been used yet.

This time, the Special Operations Brigade wiped out a Japanese naval fleet in one fell swoop, which was simply like a dream.

Lin Fan said with a smile: "I am also afraid that you are anxious, so I will tell you the results first to put your minds at ease. Now let's go in and have a summary meeting and arrange what to do next."