Chapter 16: The Great War Comes
At the beginning of the formation of the airborne division, in the original plan, their weapons, ammunition, provisions, and equipment were all American, from guns to bullets, from helmets to shoelaces. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. biquge。 The reason why info made the plan is because it does not require a high level of skill to equip and use American equipment, because American equipment is packed in boxes with instruction manuals inside. The instructions in the grenade box tell you where to install the "safety latch", and the instructions in the can box not only remind you how to properly open the tin lid, but also tell you to pay attention to the shelf life of the beef. Therefore, as long as you can understand English and have a little basic knowledge, it is not difficult to master the use of these weapons and equipment.
However, after Zhuo Fei saw the paratrooper equipment provided by the US government with his own eyes and experienced it himself, he terminated the plan, and all the equipment of the new airborne division was designed and produced by the umbrella's own arsenal. But even so, the paratroopers of the umbrella could not escape the situation of overloading, because they definitely did not want to be the first paratroopers to make other unfavorable choices because they ran out of ammunition and food.
Having personally witnessed the preparation process of the airborne troops, although Zhuo Fei didn't say much, the commanders of the airborne division present knew that their bosses were still not very satisfied. "There's no problem skydiving, right?" Zhuo Fei asked casually, and seeing that the officers of the airborne division present swore a guarantee, he casually ordered two companies to conduct airborne drills.
At 12 o'clock at night, there were more than a dozen transport planes parked on the quiet airport runway, including C46 and C47. It didn't take much effort, and many trucks and jeeps drove up outside the airport, and dozens of sappers jumped out from under the trucks to load boxes onto the plane. One C47 can only transport thirty-five paratroopers, so two companies of paratroopers occupy four C46 transport aircraft and five C47 transport aircraft.
The paratroopers who jumped out of the trucks boarded the plane one after another, and parachute training at night had long been a common occurrence in the airborne divisions, and in the midst of the paratroopers' gossip, the planes began to slide off the runway and flew into the sky with a huge roar. After the plane took off, the airport was quiet again, except for Zhuo Fei, everyone else didn't seem to be sleepy, and no one knew if the night training would go smoothly this time. About an hour later, the news came, the night airborne training was perfectly completed, all the participants returned to the team, and no one was injured or had an accident.
Zhuo Fei was quite satisfied with this result, because not only did he deliberately arrange observers on the training plane, but even the parachute landing site also arranged observers. "General Zhuo, you are a busy man, it is really not easy to see you." Zhuo Fei had just returned to Mandalay when he was blocked by Zhou Enlai, who rushed to hear the news, and Zhuo Fei thought about it for a while, and he already understood the other party's intention. After a few greetings between the two sides, Zhou Enlai first opened the topic, and deliberately wanted to pull the topic to the matter of a large number of national troops going south into Burma.
"Mr. Zhou, I remember the last time I went to Chongqing, I seemed to have already explained this matter. The Umbrella had accepted the British government's employment and decided to send troops into North Africa to help the British resist the German army, but in fact, the Umbrella troops were still on the Korean Peninsula, so after consulting with the British, the Umbrella decided to change the plan temporarily. The Japanese army has now been fully withdrawn from China, and we have hired only a small number of the more than 3 million troops left idle in China. ”
"The British are very hard to defend on their homeland, and it is obviously unrealistic for the umbrella to send troops directly to the British mainland, so we chose North Africa as the battlefield. The forces of the Nationalist army to the south have actually taken the command of our umbrella, and in the near future they will be rushing to North Africa by boat, and the British have urged them many times. Zhuo Fei didn't want to prevaricate Zhou Enlai, but he cleverly shifted the topic to the British, which made Zhou Enlai's prepared rhetoric difficult to say for a while.
"But the news we got is not like this, the Kuomintang has at least transferred more than 1.3 million troops to the south in the past month, and even the new army stationed in the northeast has been transferred two armies, this is not a small part of the troops, right?" Zhou Enlai didn't speak, but the middle-aged man sitting next to him spoke first, and looked directly at Zhuo Fei, as if waiting for Zhuo Fei to answer immediately.
The other party's inquiry did not make Zhuo Fei panic or nervous, but chuckled, Zhuo Fei always knew that the CCP had planted many intelligence personnel within the Kuomintang, and there were also senior intelligence officers who could get close to Chiang Kai-shek. "Mr. Zhou, what does this mean, the umbrella is not under the command of any of your coalition governments, and I am not obliged to give you any explanation. If you think that the Umbrella is your enemy, then send troops to fight it. ”
Zhuo Fei pretended to be angry and pointed at the middle-aged man who had just grabbed the conversation, his words were full of anger, and Zhuo Yan, who had been staying in the corner of the room, had already gotten up and came over at this time, and almost took out the pistol on his waist. "General Zhuo, don't get me wrong, we're not here to accuse anything, we just have some questions. We have never regarded the umbrella as an enemy, and the umbrella has made a lot of contributions for the country and the nation, and we will never forget your contributions. Zhou Enlai made a timely statement, which made Zhuo Yan go back and sit down again.
The first meeting between the two sides ended unhappily, but there was not much anger on Zhuo Fei's face, which couldn't help but make Vivian very strange. "If this little thing can make me angry, then I have to just be angry every day and don't do anything else." Zhuo Fei laughed when he heard this, and explained to Vivien. "I just did that, just to show the current attitude of our umbrella, I think the other party should also understand what I mean, otherwise they wouldn't be so quiet when they left."
Vivian still couldn't understand what kind of dumb riddle Zhuo Fei was playing, but Zhou Enlai had already understood the meaning, and after returning to his residence, Zhou Enlai immediately sent a telegram to Chongqing, emphasizing Zhuo Fei's attitude. "Hehe, it seems that our children are preparing to do something earth-shattering." After reading the telegram, *** laughed after a little thought, and at the same time secretly admired Zhuo Fei's boldness and thoughtfulness.
The meeting between the umbrella and the CCP ended silently, and by the time Chiang Kai-shek learned of this, Zhou Enlai had already returned to Chongqing, and Zhuo Fei did not explain the matter to Chiang Kai-shek, and the latter pretended not to know. On the fourth day of Zhou Enlai's return to Chongqing, Zhuo Fei sent the second batch of "national troops" that had been redressed into India, where they were to take troop transports to the African continent.
The Umbrella's actions did not hide the intelligence personnel deployed by the Japanese army in Burma, and the Japanese army also hired many locals in India to act as eyes and ears, and after the situation was confirmed, the cabinet members far away in Japan could not help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief, it seems that the Umbrella and the Chinese really want to help the British army to fight in North Africa. The fact that Japan is paying close attention to the movements of the umbrella is also an attempt to take advantage of the opportunity to fish in troubled waters, and they want to take advantage of the fact that the umbrella is focusing on the British, and they want to take the opportunity to transfer troops and heavy industry technicians to the American continent.
The Japanese offensive on the American continent has gradually fallen into a stalemate, and the US government, relying on its strong industrial production capacity, is constantly producing heavy equipment such as tanks, armored vehicles, and airplanes. Therefore, the command of the American Dispatch Force strongly demanded that the mainland once again send more military personnel, and there are a large number of industrial facilities and materials in the areas already controlled by the American Dispatch Force, and if there are enough heavy industry technicians, the American Dispatch Force will be able to produce heavy weapons and equipment such as tanks and planes locally for combat.
It was not easy to open the passage to the American continent, and besides, the American dispatch army still has an advantage, and the Japanese cabinet and the emperor naturally cannot let this hard-won advantage come to naught. As a result, after learning that the umbrella had devoted its main energies to cooperation with the British, the Japanese cabinet immediately carried out a new round of personnel transfers. The Japanese thought they were secretive, but they didn't know that their plan of action had already been explored by the military commander, and after receiving the latest information from the military commander, Zhuo Fei immediately summoned his commanders to discuss.
"The latest intelligence shows that the Japanese have finally begun to move, and this time they are not only preparing to send another six elite divisions to the Americas, but also preparing to send more than 150,000 heavy industry technicians of all kinds to the American continent in an attempt to use the local industrial facilities that have been controlled by the Japanese army to produce heavy weapons and equipment on the spot. Therefore, from now on, the heavy bomber formation and the airborne division will secretly move to Jeju Island, and everything will have to wait for MacArthur's reaction before making plans. ”
"The Kuala Lumpur shipyard should speed up, and the ships that have completed the refit and left the factory will immediately carry supplies and ammunition north to Jiaozhou Bay to stand by, and our other fighters must also be ready to transfer at any time. The expeditionary force must also set off immediately, and the Nationalist Government has agreed to help coordinate the roads and railways, and I don't care what method you use, I only demand that the operation must remain hidden, and that the Japanese must not detect the expeditionary force's northward movement. ”
Zhuo Fei's orders were one after another, and all the areas controlled by the umbrella began to become busy, and the Japanese still thought that this was a precursor to the umbrella's large-scale war in North Africa. The plan for the war against Japan had been formulated as early as half a year ago, and after countless sand table deductions and deliberations and revisions in the later stage, the commanders who were summoned by Zhuo Fei had already memorized it, and naturally there were not too many doubts about Zhuo Fei's deployment.