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Text/Da Zhuang Laboratory
Editor/Big Strong Labs
On the morning of December 22, 2020, with the sea trial of China's second 075 amphibious assault ship, the amphibious combat capability of the Chinese People's Liberation Army was greatly improved, and China's navy, with the development of the times, has become the premier maritime military force in East Asia.
But when China's first domestically built aircraft carrier was undergoing sea trials, some military fans found a strange place, which instantly caused heated discussions on the Internet, what did they find that could cause an "uproar"?
First, the Japanese flag appeared on Chinese warships
On August 26, 2018, China's first aircraft carrier attracted the attention of the whole country during the second sea trial, and China's aircraft carrier, the country's heavy weapon, stood on the blue sea, appearing powerful and majestic, however, on this solemn occasion, a ridiculous thing happened.
On the deck of the aircraft carrier, there are all kinds of flags, one of which is the Japanese flag? This scene makes people wonder, is the aircraft carrier full of foreign flags?
In fact, the truth is not as people think, when people have questions about this flag, people who know the flag quickly clarify the fact, it is not the Japanese flag, but the maritime signal flag on the aircraft carrier, the maritime signal flag and the Japanese flag look similar in appearance, but in fact have a completely different meaning.
In fact, when each country is trying to sea, they must hang such a combination of flags on the ship, of which the flag of the yellow cross on a red background on the top represents the letter "R", the red and white flagship in the middle represents the letter "U", and the bottom is the plaster flag that most resembles the Japanese flag, and he represents the number "1", so that the combined flag represents that the ship is undergoing sea trials.
The flag of Japan is a white cloth with a length to width ratio of three to two, a red circle in the middle, and its background color is white, which is to symbolize the purity of Japanese character, and the Japanese red circle, on the one hand, represents Japan's expectation of the sun, on the other hand, it represents its own Amaterasu.
However, due to Japan's history of aggression, Chinese hated Japan, so they called Japan's flag the plaster flag in China.
In this way, is there a big difference between China's maritime signal flag and Japan's national flag, so when did such a maritime signal flag develop?
2. The semaphore of the maritime signal flag
In the past, the International Flag System was just a flag communication system between ships, which could quickly and easily let other ships clearly know the intentions of the vessel.
Due to the difference in hell and fleet, there are also big differences in the style and use of signal flags, but a set of international signal flags has a total of 40, but battleship flags will have 46.
Among them, there are 26 letter flags, the two flags A and B of the letter flag are dovetail flags, the remaining 24 are rectangular flags, the flag indicating the number has 10 flags, and the number flags are long trapezoidal, so it is also known as the pointed flag, and the maritime signal flag that is very similar to the Japanese flag during the aircraft carrier trial is the number "1".
There are also 4 flags representing the alphabetic flag or the number flag as triangular flags, and so on, these signal flags will represent different meanings depending on the position.
For example, "WTC" stands for welcome to China, "GDB" means goodbye, "LBF" stands for welcoming the chief guidance and "LBV" represents saluting the chief, these are all Chinese navy flags flying greeting the chief on the voyage when sending off the naval formation team.
In addition, if a warship is flying a flag, that is, the spectacular scene of hanging the signal flag from the bow to the stern of the ship, it also means a special meaning, indicating that the warship is undergoing a very important military parade ceremony, or greeting important foreign leaders will make such a big move.
Once because the US warship did not fly the flag when it visited China, it caused a lot of diplomatic turmoil, and in 1986, China's port of Qingdao was involved in such a storm.
When the US Navy visited China for the first time, it did not fly its flag as usual, and this act of disrespecting diplomatic interests made General Liu Huaqing feel very angry at the Chinese remodel, Jiangling Jiangling, and he took decisive action, withdrew the red carpet and honor guard at the port, and issued a strong protest to the United States, and it was that diplomatic accident that brought China-US relations to a stalemate.
Of course, every country has a relatively special flag, what is China's special flag? And what are the special flags of other countries?
3. The special flags of each country
The flag with special significance in the Chinese Navy is the "D-Banner", because the "D-Banner" commemorates China's first defeat of South Vietnam.
Because in late 1973, Vietnam was in a period of division between the North and the South, and South Vietnam, which was controlled by the United States, began to gradually invade China's Paracel Islands.
Before South Vietnam officially began its aggression, it secretly replaced the sovereignty boundary markers of many Chinese islands, and seeing that China had changed the boundary pillars did not react, it began to forcibly send troops to invade and occupy China's islands.
When China received the information sheet of the invasion, of course, it was unwilling and decided to give the Spratly Islands a serious deal, and the South Vietnamese war appeared.
At that time, the South Vietnamese Navy not only sent its own navy to attack Chinese fishermen, but also bombarded the fishermen's refuge island of Kamphuan Island with artillery, and the South Vietnamese Navy, which was not only heaven and earth, actually hit the naval shell landing point on China's flagship, which was clearly a provocation to China's sovereignty.
On 11 January 1974, the spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs solemnly stated that it strongly condemned the arbitrary violations of China's territorial sovereignty by the authorities in the South China Sea and reiterated once again that the Nansha Qundao and the Paracel Qundao are China's territory and will never be inadmissible.
So on January 17, 1974, the South China Sea Fleet held an emergency early operational meeting to declare a state of war, and soon after the landing of the South Vietnamese Navy, Chinese ships rushed to the combat area, and the warships used by the South Vietnamese Navy at that time were still American warships.
But what people did not expect was that the quality of the South Vietnamese Navy would be so poor, as soon as it saw the Chinese ships, it retreated, are they so afraid of the Chinese warships?
It was not until the next day, when the U.S. military provided Chinese naval intelligence to the South Vietnamese Navy, that the South Vietnamese Navy attacked China further, knowing that only minesweepers had been sent to the war between China and South Vietnam.
They even despised the Chinese minesweeper, which used the lightness and flexibility of its own ships to avoid the firing angle of the South Vietnamese destroyer, and after flexibly approaching the South Vietnamese destroyer Narcissus, they began to shoot at it.
Later, with the "D-shaped flag" of South Vietnam being hoisted, China won a complete victory, this first foreign war, and a big victory, which greatly increased the momentum of Chinese soldiers, so the "D-shaped flag" has great significance for China.
For the country of Japan, they are more interested in the "Z-shaped flag", originally the "Z-shaped flag" represents the need for a tugboat, but because it is ranked last, it also means to sink the cauldron.
During the sea battle, the "Z-shaped flag" represented the determination to win, and the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II used the Z-shaped flag as the battle flag.
During the war between Japan and Russia against the Mahai, the Japanese Navy hoisted the Z-shaped flag to show its determination to win, and with the Z-shaped flag encouragement, the momentum of the Japanese Navy soared, directly killing the entire Russian fleet.
Therefore, the Japanese Navy, which was originally in a low position, won back the victory with the Z-shaped flag, so for Japan, the Z-shaped flag is the representative of the national flag.
At this point, some netizens are wondering, why is such a modern technology still using this traditional way of transmitting signals? In fact, this kind of doubt is normal, this situation is not only in China, but also in all countries.
Although the development of satellite navigation systems is relatively good, the signal at sea is extremely low, and ships have been operating at sea, so there are still certain deficiencies in the technology of electronic expression at sea.
In addition, there is an important reason is that military activities at sea are important secrets, we all know how powerful hackers are now, if you use electronic information transmission, once hacked, then important secrets will definitely be leaked, so at sea has always been using such a traditional flag to convey information.
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