Is this it?

The little-known "Humen Naval Battle" between China and Japan

In the early morning of September 14, 1937, the Humen Naval Battle broke out.

This battle was quite unexpected for the Chinese Navy, because Japanese ships were intimidated by China’s coastal defense positions and generally did not dare to enter the Pearl River Estuary. On this day, the cruiser Zhaohe and the navy The gunboat Zhou began a routine patrol. As soon as it sailed out of the Sampan Island anchorage, the lookout soldiers discovered that three Japanese ships were already approaching. Fang Nianzu, the captain of the Zhaohe ship, quickly ordered the sailors to take up gun positions.

The Japanese warships were obviously well-prepared. Before the Chinese warships got into battle formation, the Japanese artillery shells were already coming towards them, and the first shell hit the Haizhou ship in front!

It turns out that when there was a misunderstanding between the Chinese Air Force and the Navy the day before, the Japanese destroyer Hayate of the 29th Destroyer Group was patrolling outside the mouth and deduced the anchorage of Haikawa and Kaishu based on the blast points of the anti-aircraft guns. Therefore, Three main warships including Yubari, the flagship of the Fifth Mine Squadron, were mobilized overnight to intercept, trying to eliminate the main force of the Guangdong Fleet, and preparing to use the Marine Corps to seize the Humen Fort!

The following is a comparison of the strength of the two sides:< /p>

Japanese Navy Chinese Navy

Ship name tonnage/construction time ship name tonnage/construction time

Cruiser Yubari 3,450/1923 Cruiser Haowa 2,600/1909

Destroyer Hayate 1,340/1930 Gunboat Kaishu 1,250/1904

Destroyer Chasing Wind 1,340/1930

This is just a superficial number, if calculated it is true With their combat effectiveness, the two warships of the Chinese Navy are even less of a match. The Haizhou was an old-fashioned minesweeper that France had retired. It was bought by Chen Jitang for customs anti-smuggling. It only had a 127mm gun that was relatively powerful. The Zhaohe was a turbine-driven cruiser ordered by the Qing Dynasty from the British Armstrong factory, but in successive years It was injured many times during the civil war, and its hull was in disrepair. The three Japanese warships are the essence of the Japanese Navy. The Yubari is known as the milestone of modern cruisers of the Japanese Navy. The 3,500-ton battleship is extremely exquisitely designed, and its combat effectiveness is equivalent to that of a 5,500-ton cruiser. Because of its excellent performance, the Japanese Navy designed the 8,500-ton Furutaka-class heavy cruiser based on it. The ship fought in the East and West during the Pacific War. In 1942, it fought against Savo Island under the command of Vice Admiral Mikawa, the commander of the Eighth Fleet. It cooperated with Aoba and other ships in night battles and successively sank the Allied Quincy and Astoria. The four 10,000-ton heavy cruisers, USS Vincennes and USS Canberra, can be regarded as world-famous ships. Hayate and Chasing Wind are the first Japanese modern destroyers of the Minekaze class with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. The torpedo launch tubes are located in front of the bridge and have a unique shape. Each of them is equipped with four 127mm guns and can reach a speed of 40 knots. !

In fact, the two warships of the Chinese Navy also have an advantage, that is, they are familiar with the Pearl River waterway. If they retreat immediately after discovering the Japanese warships, there will be no chance of evacuation. But the Chinese Navy had a famous saying at the time, that is - whoever retreats upstream will be Fang Boqian second! These words stimulated Rear Admiral Fang Ying of the First Fleet to tie herself to a compass to fight against the Jiangyin blockade, because he was Fang Boqian's My nephew. Although Fang Nianzu did not have such a relationship, he was never willing to be a coward in front of the Japanese navy, so he braved the rain of bullets and ordered a fierce counterattack against the Japanese ships.

The Chinese Navy’s unforgettable Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Navy’s painful Sino-Japanese War.

Japan's "Ships of the World" Issue 2, 1982, and "Historical Records of the Defense Agency - Imperial Era Navy Edition" all have detailed records of this naval battle.

The Japanese ships attacked Haizhou with high winds and chasing winds, and the flagship of the fifth torpedo squadron, the Yubari, concentrated its firepower on Zhaowa.

At this time, Chen Ce, who was in Humen Fortress, received the report. With his character, if he had received the news earlier, he might have boarded the ship in person to fight Yubari. It is probably Chen Ce's great regret that he could not compete with the Japanese navy at sea. He could only board the Humen Fort to command operations. Chen Ce ordered the Shajiao Dengtai Island fort closest to Sampan Island to fire artillery to support Zhaohe and Haizhou.

At sea, the Dengtai Island fort was restricted by its shooting angle and could only fire at the Japanese ship attacking the Kaishu. Yubari's six 140mm heavy guns hit Hajime one after another. The Haowa's turret was open at the back, so the Japanese military on the Yubari used binoculars to see that every time Haowa was hit by a bullet, the sailors on the deck would fall to pieces. However, the artillery fire of the Zhaowa was still fierce. Although its two 150mm Armstrong main guns were old, they were still accurate. The third salvo hit Yubari!

The cruiser Zhaowa, probably all Chinese Do middle school students have an impression of it? In the middle school history textbook, regarding the opposition to Yuan Shikai, it was mentioned that the revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen launched the Zhaohe Uprising and bombarded the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau. But probably very few people know what this warship looks like.

The Zhaohe ship was one of the three cruisers ordered by the Qing Dynasty Regent Zaifeng and Navy Commander-in-Chief Sa Zhenbing when they visited Europe and the United States in 1909. It was also the last order of the Qing Dynasty in the navy. It has a graceful shape, with its bow as vertical as a steel cliff.

However, before these three cruisers were completed, the Revolution of 1911 occurred in China and the Manchu Qing Dynasty was overthrown, making their subsequent funding unsustainable. The financially strapped Beiyang government was once ready to sell them, but due to the navy's efforts, the two ships, Zhaohe and Yingrui, were retained and incorporated into the practice fleet. The other ship, the Feihong, finally failed to be saved and had to be auctioned off and was sold to the Greek government. Bought as the cruiser Hera. Fortunately, the money from the sale of the ship was used appropriately, and was used to support the first batch of seventeen international students from China to study aircraft engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These overseas students were also talented. Later, Wang Zhu, the first chief engineer of Boeing Company, Ba Yuzao, director of the Chinese Navy's Aircraft Engineering Department, famous aircraft designers Zeng Yijing and Wang Xiaofeng, thinker Wei Han, navy generals Chen Hongtai and Li Shijia, etc. are their members.

The fate of Chen Ce and the Zhaohe ship also started very early. Yuan Shikai went against the grain and Chen Ce, like many revolutionaries, participated in the war to protect the country. His first battle was to attack the Zhaohe ship. The attack he participated in was not the famous bombardment of the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau uprising, but in Macau.

In 1916, the Zhaohe ship anchored in Macau. Zhu Zhixin, the leader of the Tongmenghui, secretly established a military command organization in Macau to expand the Chinese Revolutionary Party organization and actively coordinate Cai E's Yunnan National Guard Army in their expedition to Guangdong and Guangxi. On March 7, Zhu organized a suicide squad of revolutionaries to take the Yonggu ferry to rob the Zhaohe warship. Unfortunately, it failed due to the tight defense of the defenders. Chen Ce and later Qing Gang tycoon Yang Hu were both members of the death squads.

The Zhaohe uprising recorded in history textbooks was on December 5, 1915, a few months earlier than Chen Ce and his others. The commander was Chen Qimei, and the deputy commander was - Chiang Kai-shek! They They assassinated Yuan Shikai's confidant Zheng Rucheng, the Shanghai garrison envoy, in advance, and persuaded Huang Mingqiu, the captain of the Zhaohe ship, to join the uprising. Therefore, he successfully captured the Zhaohe ship that night and bombarded downtown Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Qimei personally visited the front line of the Nanshi General Administration of Engineering to supervise the battle. Under the command of Chen Qimei and Chiang Kai-shek, various rebel armies separately attacked targets such as the Shanghai Police Station, electric lighting factory, and telephone exchange. However, due to the support of Sun Xiangfu (Sun Yat-sen's Marine Corps commander when the Yongfeng shipwrecked), he was unable to seize another cruiser Yingrui at the same time. The Ying Rui ship and the Tongji ship jointly attacked and severely damaged the Zhaohe. The Jianwei and Jian'an ships, which were originally scheduled to participate in the uprising, did not dare to act. At dawn, the rebel army was divided and surrounded by Yuan's army, causing heavy casualties. Chen Qimei, Chiang Kai-shek and others had no choice but to retreat to the headquarters, and the uprising failed. Chen Kejun and other naval officers on the Zhaohe ship were martyred. This was Sun Yat-sen's first military counterattack against Yuan Shikai after he founded the Chinese Revolutionary Party.

Therefore, Chen Ce and others had no internal response when they hijacked the Zhaohe ship for the second time. Failure was inevitable when planting flowers on raw soil.

The Haowa ship in 1910 can be said to be quite advanced, but in 1937 it was already too outdated, including the cannonballs. The curved chimney of the Yubari ship was hit by a bomb, but the cannonballs But there was no explosion. On the contrary, the Yubari ship's bombardment repeatedly tore apart the Haowa ship's armor. The Haowa ship's engine room was penetrated and flooded. It suffered heavy casualties and could not support itself. Captain Fang Nianzu ordered to turn the rudder and retreat.

The Japanese army recorded: "The ship tilted and turned to escape the battlefield after being hit, but the Yubari's shells continued to hit. The cruiser was wounded and ran aground on the shoal...another cruiser was also hit. "Wounded and stranded." At that time, the Chinese Navy did not have a second cruiser in South China, which should refer to the Haizhou.

From a technical point of view, Fang Nianzu's order was not wrong. In fact, the steel plates of the Zhaohe ship had already aged and were overwhelmed. She was injured and flooded, and she had to run aground before reaching the anchorage. But it was an escape anyway. The Chinese Navy after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894 could no longer tolerate the word "escape". Therefore, in Chinese records, the process of this battle is: "Before Pingming on the 13th, the Guangdong Air Force blocked the Pearl River Estuary and mistakenly thought that the two ships "Haizhou" and "Zhaohe" on duty were Japanese ships, so they flew low During the bombing, this misunderstanding was discovered by Japanese warships, who planned to attack by stealth aircraft. It was night, and three Japanese warships were lurking behind Sanpanzhou. The next day at dawn, the Haizhou patrolled the sea at Dajiao, and when it was turning left to Shajiao, the Japanese warships attacked. , the two sides launched a fierce naval battle, and the Shajiao garrison fired artillery support, but the "Zhaohe" captain Fang Nianzu who patrolled behind was too afraid to resist..."

Poor Fang Nianzu will regret this for the rest of his life. command. What is even more tragic is that after the war, Fang Nianzu was tried by the military for "coveting life and fearing death, and escaping from battle" and executed him.

The remaining Haizhou was isolated and helpless, and was immediately destroyed. The Japanese ship's gunfire accurately poured on its deck. The main gun of the Haizhou failed, and it was about to turn the rudder to follow Zhaohe. During the evacuation, the anchor windlass was blown up by another bomb, and the two anchor chains dropped automatically, fixing the Hai Zhou ship in place. In just a few minutes, the stern of the Haizhou was penetrated and sank. Fortunately, the water was shallow and the ship managed to sit on the rocks without sinking.

The Japanese army, which defeated the Chinese warship force, immediately bombarded the Humen Fortress and ordered the Marine Corps to prepare for landing!

But they underestimated the ability of the Chinese commanders. To be precise, they underestimated Chen Ce.

Navy veteran Chen Ce has already prepared three unique moves, but he will not reveal them until the critical moment.

This time is critical enough.

The sinking of the Zhaohe was actually not unexpected by Chen Ce. The combat effectiveness of this old cruiser, which was more than 20 years old, was already difficult to withstand compared with the advanced destroyer-class ships at the time.

At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese Navy was unable to compete with the Japanese army for sea control. Both Chen Ce and Navy Minister Chen Shaokuan knew this. Therefore, the Chinese Navy only built two new shallow-draft light cruisers, Ninghai and Pinghai, before the war, but manufactured a large number of them. Shallow-water gunboats modified for use in the Yangtze River, such as "Ten Little Seas", "Twelve Victories", etc., are held every year in autumn exercises not in the open sea, but at Hukou on the Yangtze River. There was constant ridicule in the press at that time. Ta Kung Pao reported this with the title "Is the Navy? Is the Jiang Army?", believing that the navy did not dare to go to sea and only dared to scare the army. In fact, this is because the top brass of the Chinese Navy have foreseen that the Chinese Navy will be unable to compete with the Japanese army for sea control at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War. The future battlefields will be inland rivers such as the Yangtze River and the Pearl River.

As a result, the navy's few old-fashioned cruisers left over from the Qing Dynasty have become useless. They have deep drafts, large targets, and are not suitable for inland river operations. Their air defense firepower is weak, and they are unable to defend and escape. An embarrassing situation that cannot be escaped. Since the Japanese army mainly dispatched aviation forces to attack Chinese naval ships in the battle on the Yangtze River, these warships were not available even if they wanted to compete with the Japanese army. As a result, the practice cruiser Yingrui, the quasi-sister ship of the Zhaohe ship, was seriously injured by a Japanese bombing on September 25, and was finally sunk in Caishiji on October 23. The remaining five old cruisers left over from the Qing Dynasty were at sea. Qi, Hairong, Haichou, Haichen, and Tongji had a more tragic fate. They were used as blocking ships and sank in the Jiangyin blockade. In comparison, Zhaohe's ending was the most heroic among them. If it survived until the fall of Humen, it would not be able to sail up the Pearl River due to its deep draft, and it might not be able to escape the fate of sinking.

When the Zhaohe ship was facing catastrophe, another Japanese warship was waiting at the Pearl River Estuary.

This is the Japanese naval transport ship Kamamaru. It broke down here because preparations were being made to organize a transfer of Marines to board the Humen Fort.

In fact, the Japanese army did not have many troops in Guangzhou at that time, and there were less than a thousand marines capable of being used in land warfare. If calculated in terms of military strength, the difference with the Chinese Army in Guangdong is several ten times. Therefore, the Japanese army had no operational plan to capture Guangzhou. The main purpose was to block the Pearl River estuary and cut off overseas transportation and aid routes to mainland China. The initial combat plan adopted by the Japanese army was to seize the Wanshan Islands and blockade Guangzhou Haikou. However, most of Guangdong's imports and exports passed through neutral Hong Kong, and the Wanshan Islands sea area was too large and the Japanese troops were insufficient. The entire blockade was like a large colander, and the effect was extremely unsatisfactory.

In order to truly achieve the purpose of blockade, Japanese Vice Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa instructed the Fifth Mine Team in South China to adjust its deployment. The Japanese army soon discovered that the easiest way to achieve a blockade was to capture the Humen Fortress. Because the Humen Fortress is right at the throat of the Pearl River, all waterways from Guangzhou to overseas must pass through Humen. If it is captured, the entire transportation line in Guangzhou and Haikou will be completely closed.

Even so, Chen Ce's Humen garrison numbered more than two thousand, far exceeding the Japanese army. However, due to the poor equipment and training of the Chinese army at that time, it was often difficult to withstand the elite Japanese army even if it used larger numbers to fight smaller numbers. The combat power calculations at that time were basically that six Chinese government soldiers could resist one Japanese soldier. Therefore, the Japanese commander Hara Kenzaburo did not think that his troops were insufficient.

Seeing that the Chinese fleet was defeated, the Japanese Marines boarded the Ganmaru transport ship and began to transfer to small boats outside Humenkou in preparation for landing. Regarding the Kammaru transport ship, later reports were very vague. The Chinese war report stated that "the Japanese Navy's Kammaru transport ship was sunk." The Japanese military only mentioned that "one transport ship was damaged." Whether the ship was sunk or damaged, the two sides disagreed. According to the information found by my brother, Kammaru was manufactured by Ishikawa Heavy Industries. It was originally a liner of Kansai Steamship Company with a displacement of 2,450 tons. It was requisitioned by the Japanese Navy in 1937 and converted into a transport ship. It was sunk by the US submarine USS Anchovy in the Marshall Islands in 1943.

Therefore, Ganwan should have been wounded in the Battle of Humen, but not sunk. It is worth mentioning that when you look at the names of Japanese warships, you can often see the so-and-so pill, so some friends think that this is the meaning of the so-and-so. In fact, it is not the case. Maru means success and business prosperity in Japanese. Generally, merchant ships often have the word "maru" in their names to express blessings. Therefore, if you see the words "Xijing Maru" on a Japanese Navy ship, it means that the warship was transformed from a merchant ship. For example, the Saikyo Maru in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 was not an original ship of the Navy. In the name of the Japanese Navy's authentic warship, It does not contain the word "pellet".

The Japanese army did not expect that Ganwan would be hit at all, because the location where Ganwan stopped at that time was still 15,000 meters away from the Dajiao Shajiao Fort at the front of the Humen Fortress. According to intelligence, the Humen Fort originally had heavy artillery with a range of more than 15 kilometers, but it was disassembled and taken away by Sun Yat-sen during Chen Jiongming's campaign on land. The current artillery of the Chinese defenders has a maximum range of only 12 kilometers, and according to convention, it should be deployed in The Weiyuan Fort is relatively far back. Therefore, fifteen kilometers is a safe distance.

However, something incredible happened to the Japanese. As soon as the Japanese army started to transfer, the Chinese army's artillery shells accurately flew towards Ganwan, exploding water columns around it.

It turns out that this cannon with a range of fifteen kilometers is one of the three trump cards arranged by Chen Ce. This person with the word "ce" in his name is indeed very scheming.

Chen Ce has been running the Humen Fortress for many years and knows his own strength well. His name is Vice Admiral of the Navy, and his ashore troops are not even comparable to that of an army colonel’s brigade. He is a recruiter against the Japanese army. Unable to stand it. However, he has rich combat experience and is well aware of the principle in the art of war that virtuality is the real thing and reality is the real thing. Therefore, the largest 15cm Vickers cannon and 70% of the troops were deployed in the front-line Dajiao and Shajiao forts. What is taken is the principle of showing that there is more than enough.

However, the lack of artillery range has always troubled Chen Ce. At that time, the Ordnance Industry Administration had a cannon manufacturing factory in Guangzhou. In preparation for the protracted war of resistance, it was moving to the mainland. An artillery expert came and asked Shen Xingeng to guide the disassembly of the equipment. Chen Ce met Shen once during his inspection trip to Germany, so he invited him to the fort for guidance. Shen was one of the few artillery experts in China at the time, and immediately put forward ten suggestions for improvement, including reducing the warhead charge, especially the use of tilt guns. Measures to improve the artillery elevation angle. The experiment proved to be very effective. The firing range of the Vickers 15cm cannon was increased from 12 kilometers to 15 kilometers, but this secret was not known even by Commander Yu Hanmou in Guangzhou. The Japanese army invaded Humen several times, but Chen Ce was reluctant to use this fifteen-centimeter cannon. Today he finally used it.

The artillery shells flew to fifteen kilometers, and the accuracy was originally poor, but the Japanese army was too confident and even asked Ganmaru to anchor to organize a transfer. As a result, the Chinese navy hit a dead target.

The Humen Fort defenders revised their firing according to the shell's explosion point. A 15-centimeter shell hit the bow of the Ganmaru ship, and then hit its middle cabin. The Japanese marines waiting to land suffered heavy casualties.

Captain Ganmaru was so anxious that he ordered to cut off the anchor chain and escaped from the Pearl River Estuary with the ship full of fire. I think the reduction of three charges in the 15cm cannon shell may be one of the reasons why Ganwan was not able to sink. Otherwise, how could a merchant ship-standard transport ship withstand the blow of such a heavy artillery?

However, Chen Ce gained the upper hand. Unforgiving, the second killer immediately took action. Lieutenant Colonel Liang Kangnian, the captain of the group, led four torpedo boats to rush out of Humen like lightning and went straight to the injured Gan Wan.

The four high-speed torpedo boats of the Guangdong Navy are Chen Ce's darling, this is an outstanding weapon that even the Central Navy does not have. Torpedo boats No. 1 and 2 are British-made and have a speed of 40 knots. Torpedo boats No. 3 and 4 are Italian-made and have a speed of 41 knots! They are all the latest products in the 1930s. In contrast, the four star-rated torpedo boats of the Central Navy are products of 1895, and the four Hu-class boats are slightly newer, but they are also old guys from 1907.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the Japanese army did not bother to continue attacking the Zhaohe and Haizhou ships, which were injured and stranded, and turned around to attack them. Yubari used all his strength to suppress the fort's artillery, while Chai Feng and Hayate blocked the torpedo boat's attack.

However, the Chinese Navy’s torpedo boat was too fast and launched the torpedo regardless of the interference and then returned at high speed.

The Guangdong Navy battle report stated that a torpedo hit Ganwan and sank it, but the Japanese army had no record of hitting it. On this issue, I personally prefer to believe the records of the Japanese army.

This is because the torpedo boats used by the Guangdong Navy are relatively special. In order to pursue high speed, they use the throw launch method without a launch tube to launch torpedoes, so the hit rate at long distances is relatively low. The Shi Kefa Squadron of the Lightning School using the same boat type attacked the Japanese flagship Izumo in Shanghai, but failed to hit it for the same reason. Relatively speaking, the hit rate of the tubular launchers used by the torpedo boats of the People's Liberation Army Navy is much higher, while the Kuomintang Navy hit the south wall and the torpedo boats developed after arriving in Taiwan still launch by throwing. In the Straits Civil War, the torpedo boats of the Communist Party had a brilliant record, but the Kuomintang failed to make any achievements. This is not the same reason.

Although there was only a near miss, the Japanese army no longer dared to continue the landing. Amamaru escaped, and Yubari was unwilling to continue the artillery battle with Okkako and Shajiao forts in an attempt to regain face.

At this time, Chen Ce’s third trump card came out.

The Japanese army suddenly heard the rumbling sound of a machine overhead. Looking up, I saw the Chinese Air Force's Hawker fighter jets approaching from the sky.

The coordination of arms has always been a big problem in China's Anti-Japanese War. Chen Shaokuan's battle in Jiangyin never received any support from the Air Force, and the Air Force's cover on other battlefields was always late. Only in Chen Ce's battle, the air force came quickly and on time. This is because Chen Ce has deep connections in Guangdong and all roads are inaccessible to him. Before the war, he had a strong relationship with the Air Force. The Guangdong Air Force was originally a little wary of Chen because of the incident of sinking the Flying Eagle. As a result, Chen Qingpao was slow and magnanimous, and spent his own money to invite the air force officers and soldiers to Hong Kong to have fun (a memoir of the Dongjiang Column at that time did not comment highly on this matter, saying that the navy and air force in Guangdong "collaborated and went to Hong Kong to have sex" "Indiscriminate gambling"). No one has seen the real situation, but since then the Guangdong Air Force has indeed reached a level of tacit understanding with Chen Ce that is just a phone call away.

Hara Kenzaburo then realized that he was too trusting, thinking that relying on the fifth torpedo squadron would solve the problem, leaving the two aircraft carriers Ryujo and Hosho unused, and letting Chinese planes blow up his cruisers !

The Japanese side’s own record is this: “Immediately stopped the bombardment of the Humen Fortress, suspended the artillery battle, and the entire fleet retreated along the Pearl River to the Dachan Island anchorage. Chinese aircraft continued In pursuit, four attacks were launched successively. The Yubari ship was hit by close-range missiles, causing casualties but not affecting navigation.

”

The Japanese ships were confused by Chen Ce’s three trump cards. Although they won the naval battle by sinking Zhao and Haizhou, they did not dare to stay in the Pearl River and fled to the open sea in a hurry.

The combined fleet believed that Hara Kenzaburo had not fully accomplished his mission and that the Chinese navy in Guangdong was still very powerful and must be mopped up. Therefore, additional ships were immediately dispatched, commanded by Lieutenant General Takasu Shiro, in an attempt to completely eliminate the Chinese navy in South China. Strength.

In addition to the original 1st Air Force (aircraft carriers Ryujo and Hosho) and 5th Mine Force (Yubari, 29th Destroyer Fleet, 16th Destroyer Fleet), additional 1st United Air Force (79 aircraft), 9th Cruiser Force (heavy cruiser Myoko, light cruiser Tama), 23rd Air Force (seaplane carrier Kōkumaru, cruiser Isuzu etc.) to the Pearl River Estuary in South China.

Takasu Shiro was a famous Japanese naval officer. After the beginning of the Pacific War, Admiral Koga Mine was killed in a crash. Takasu served as the commander-in-chief of the combined fleet and was promoted to admiral. After taking command, he believed that the reason why the Chinese navy had strong combat effectiveness was that the Japanese army did not gain absolute air supremacy. Therefore, from September 20 to September 23, it launched continuous air attacks on Guangzhou Baiyun Airport and Tianhe Airport. Although the Guangdong Air Force tried its best. However, they were outnumbered and suffered heavy losses. In the end, only three available aircraft were left, and they retreated to Conghua and Shaoguan airports. They could only occasionally fly to the Pearl River Estuary for some guerrilla warfare, and were no longer able to cover the naval battle.

< p> Subsequently, the Japanese army took advantage of the favorable conditions of clear weather to pursue and bombard Chen Ce's navy ships for several days. Although the Guangdong Navy fought with all its strength, it was alone and lacked air defense firepower. By the 30th, it had completely destroyed the stranded ships. Outside Zhaohe, the gunboats Haihu, Haiqiang, Jiangda, Jianru, and Wufeng were sunk, and the transport ship Fuyou was sunk. At this point, the main surface ships of the Guangdong Navy, except for Zhixin, Zhongyuan and other shallow-water gunboats, retreated to the upper reaches of the Pearl River. The entire army was wiped out.

However, in the face of Chen Ce's false defense, Takasu could not figure out his details, and finally did not dare to attack the Humen Fortress. Until February 1938, the two sides remained in a stalemate. The Pearl River Estuary before Humen Fortress.