When Xu Rui's third group arrived in New Zealand, they encountered a strike by dock workers in New Zealand who were unable to unload cargo. Xu Rui told He Shuya that there were Japanese spies secretly causing trouble. They must catch the Japanese spies and let these dock workers come back to work.
He Shuya frowned. He already understood the meaning of Xu Rui's words. Xu Rui wanted him to suppress the strike in the name of catching Japanese spies, but he really couldn't do it.
While hesitating, Gao Chu stood up and said: "Bookworm, you have read too many books, which is not always a good thing. You are too pedantic. Let me be the bad guy."
After Gao Chu finished speaking, he immediately rushed to the dock with a battalion and surrounded thousands of dock workers who were on strike.
"God, what are you going to do? We are on a legal strike, you can't point guns at us." said the leader of the organized strike workers.
Gao Chu said: "We found that Japanese spies have infiltrated your ranks and instigated a strike!"
"No! no! How can there be Japanese spies among us? You must have made a mistake." said the worker leader.
"How could you have gone on strike without the instigation of Japanese spies?" Gao Chu shouted.
"It's raining so hard now that we have to work in the rain and our health will not be protected, so we need more money to maintain our health and the lives of our families," the worker leader said.
At this time, Gao Chu had someone push out the labor leader who was speaking, and said in front of his ear: "We don't have any money, but we have a lot of supplies, a lot of grain and canned food, as you can see, because it has been raining continuously. , a lot of these supplies have been washed away, how about we make a deal?"
"What deal?" asked the labor leader.
"We use these supplies as part of the payment for your work. Of course, you can refuse. In that case, I will not hesitate to arrest you and accuse you of being a Japanese spy. You may have to stay in prison for the rest of your life. You can choose between these two paths."
"God, you can't do this." The worker leader did not expect that these Chinese soldiers would play tricks instead of using New Zealand's laws to solve the problem. After hesitating for a moment, he decided to cooperate with Gao Chu. This worker leader was not a fool. If you cooperate, the workers will not lose money and things. But if you don't cooperate, you will suffer. These soldiers have really accused themselves of being Japanese spies, and it is very important whether their lives can be saved. Hard to say.
So, the worker leader nodded helplessly and went back to work for thousands of dock workers. The dock workers then started working again, and the supplies of the third regiment were unloaded on time, and everyone was happy.
"Gao Chu, what did you say to those workers that made them change their attitude so quickly?" Huang Shouxin asked.
Gao Chu chuckled and told everyone what he did. Everyone nodded and praised Gao Chu for his good idea. Xu Rui also said: "Gao Chu, you have a smart mind. I think you are more suitable for this job." Work."
"No, Captain, I don't want to work in a local area. Fighting Japanese is more suitable for me." Gao Chu said.
He Shuya hid aside with a look of shame on his face, and Xu Rui said: "Nerd, everyone has his own strengths and weaknesses. When it comes to fighting, no one can beat you, kid, but when it comes to dealing with these trivial matters, you may not be able to do it. , if you can do everything, wouldn't you be better than me?"
After Xu Rui said this, everyone laughed, and the knot in He Shuya's heart was relieved.
After solving the material problem, Xu Rui's third regiment got enough rest time, which made the American officers and soldiers look very jealous, thinking why are these dock workers willing to serve Chinese soldiers but not American soldiers? If they knew what Xu Rui was doing, they would do the same thing. After all, instead of being washed away by the water, it would be better to use them to trade with dock workers. Unfortunately, this matter has not been revealed, so the American soldiers could only He watched the Chinese soldiers eat and drink well and sleep while he worked exhaustedly in the rain.
Despite the chaos, the U.S. military still completed the preparations for the battle. Of course, the Americans themselves did not have a figure on how much supplies were lost during the preparation process. Xu Rui only reported the losses in the rain and left the account. The figures above were smoothed out, and these "losses" were quickly made up for by Xu Rui, a wealthy American.
After the preparations were completed, the transport ship carrying the 1st Marine Division and 3rd Regiment began to advance toward Guadalcanal under the escort of hundreds of American warships.
Guadalcanal is the second largest island in the Solomon Islands. It was discovered by Spanish explorers in the 16th century who were looking for the legendary Golden Kingdom of King Solomon. It is located in the tropics, but the island is far from the golden beaches and beautiful palm trees that people imagine. , the air here is always filled with a disgusting stench, which is the smell emitted by decaying plants for thousands of years. The tropical insects here are fat and strong, making diseases rampant.
At this time, the U.S. fleet was sailing on the waterway to Guadalcanal. There was very little information about Guadalcanal before the case of Lieutenant General Gormley. However, Lieutenant General Gormley was able to promptly capture Xu Rui's troops. After all the supplies were moved, he was very interested. He also heard about Xu Rui's previous achievements, so he invited Xu Rui to his ship and wanted to ask Xu Rui how to proceed in the subsequent battle.
So, Xu Rui came to the command ship where Gormli was located, and Gormli introduced the current situation to Xu Rui.
Xu Rui asked: "Lieutenant General, what kind of island is Guadalcanal we are going to? Is there any relevant information?"
Gormley was a little embarrassed and said: "Guadalcanal has always been little known. Apart from the sporadic information provided by Australian planters who were on Guadalcanal, I only have a nautical chart from ninety years ago and a few missionary photos." Old photos taken.”
"That's all?" Xu Rui asked, looking at the hand-drawn sea chart and blurry photos.
"Of course, there is also this." Gormley said, pointing to a book on the table: "This is a novel about the Solomon Islands written by Jack London."
Xu Rui was completely speechless. He did not expect that the Americans had such a lack of information on Guadalcanal. With such preparations, how could they fight future wars
At this moment, an officer walked in from the door. The officer said: "General, Lieutenant General Fletcher said that he did not want his precious aircraft carrier to stay for too long within the radius of enemy shore-based aircraft. That would be too much." Danger."
Gormley said: "I said that as long as his aircraft carrier formation stays in Guadalcanal for five days, can't he wait for these few days?"
"Lieutenant General Fletcher said he can only stay for two days!"
"Shit!" Gormley cursed and punched the table hard.
"General, it would be better if you gave the order directly," the officer said.
"I am a lieutenant general, and he is also a lieutenant general. I have no right to command Fletcher at all. Well, then I will hand over the command to Fletcher and I will go to Noumea!" Gormley was extremely angry. explain.
"General, you have gone to Noumea and you are relieved. But if the American people know that our troops are going to fight like this, everyone will rise up in rebellion." The officer said helplessly.
"Do I have any other options? Leave everything to Fletcher, I'll leave now."
Gormli looked back at Xu Rui and said, "Xu, I made you laugh."
"General Gormley, I hope you can command this Guadalcanal battle." Xu Rui said.
"Fletcher only gave me two days. How could I complete the attack on Guadalcanal in two days? Let's forget it. I can't clean up this mess. Let's leave it to more capable people, Xu , you have to be careful yourself, we will see you later."
"See you later." Xu Rui shook hands with Fletcher, with a hint of helplessness on his face.
Xu Rui couldn't understand, could the Americans really win this Guadalcanal naval battle with such a chaotic command system and such chaotic preparations...
On the evening of August 6, 1942, it was dark, windy, and the waves were huge.
The U.S. landing formation has reached the sea area about 60 nautical miles away from Guadalcanal. The weather is very bad. The U.S. fleet is ups and downs in the wind and waves. However, the weather has also become a cover for the U.S. military. The Japanese reconnaissance aircraft cannot survive in such harsh conditions. The U.S. fleet continued to move forward in the wind and waves without being discovered by the Japanese army.
Almost at the same time, the U.S. shore-based aviation units stationed on Efate Island and Espiritu Santo Island dispatched hundreds of B-17 bombers to conduct air attacks on the Japanese troops in the Solomon Islands. U.S. military aircraft taking off from New Guinea Island closely Monitoring Japanese forces in the Bismarck Islands and northeastern New Guinea.
At 1:00 a.m. on August 7, the landing formation reached the sea ten nautical miles away from Guadalcanal, and then split into two. The unit code-named X-Ray was commanded by Vandegrift, the 1st and 5th Marine Regiments, and Xu Rui's 3rd Regiment. To attack Guadalcanal, four battalions of the code-named Y-ray unit, commanded by deputy division commander Brigadier General Rupstas, attacked Tulagi Island, and the remaining two battalions served as the division's general reserve.
In the early morning, at around six o'clock, the landing ship Xu Rui was on gradually approached the beach of Guadalcanal. However, the landing ship stopped at this time. This was the first island landing operation conducted by the Allied Forces since the Pacific War. All Everyone was inexperienced and very nervous, even Xu Rui's 3rd group was no exception.
"Old Xu, why did the boat stop?" Leng Tiefeng asked.
"Wait, the Americans are going to carry out fire coverage. After the fire coverage, it will be time for us to land." Xu Rui said.
Before Xu Rui finished speaking, bursts of roaring cannon sounds rang in his ears, but the warships covering the formation began to bombard the Japanese positions on Guadalcanal. Then, countless planes flew over the heads of Xu Rui and others. Xu Rui knew , that is the carrier-based aircraft of the US aircraft carrier.
I saw carrier-based aircraft taking off from the aircraft carrier flying towards Guadalcanal and carrying out violent bombing and strafing. In a moment, Guadalcanal was filled with smoke.
The bombardment by warships' artillery and aircraft lasted for three hours and forty minutes. At 9:40 a.m., the battle to land on Guadalcanal finally began...