A Dream of Jinling Chapter 342 Retreat (19)

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On July 20, Qi Rui returned to the 24th Army. At the meeting to convey the order, he first took out the battle plan issued by the front command from his briefcase and distributed it to everyone, Qi Rui did not do it, but began to tell the basic concept of the command in front of the map. "Encirclement and reinforcement are also based on the enemy inside the city is weakened to the point that it cannot be breached, and the main purpose of our army is still to occupy and destroy Chicago."

Reading maps is one of the basic qualities of soldiers, and soldiers who can only read maps are naturally not good soldiers, but soldiers who can't even read maps are unqualified soldiers. The soldiers in the room didn't even look at the map, or just glanced at it and went to see the battle plan. Most of the map was already imprinted in their minds. Army Commander Zheng Minglun took advantage of the pause in Qi Rui's words and asked, "When will the front command let us go?" ”

Qi Rui immediately replied: "The headquarters sent the 55th Army to follow us and wait for them first." ”

On July 22, the 55th Army arrived in Madison with the help of trucks. Commander Chen was in the vanguard, and according to the agreement between the two sides, the receiving force of the 24th Army brought the vanguard of the 55th Army into Madison, and the 24th Army completely withdrew from Madison except for a few camp guides and related camp layouts.

This was in accordance with the regulations, and from a purely military point of view, there were no threatening American strongholds around Madison, and the 24th Army was arranged to use its combat power to the maximum efficiency while ensuring that it would not be attacked by surprise.

This qiē is very good, the only problem is that Commander Chen of the 55th Army has a feeling in his heart that "the 24th Army is so big". Isn't there time for the commander to come and greet him a little?

The 24th Army did not have time to consider the thoughts of Commander Chen of the 55th Army, and the content of the troops' consideration was very simple, that is, the word "run". The forces wanted to approach Chicago as quickly as possible, deploying an encirclement as close to downtown Chicago as possible before the enemy launched an effective counterattack.

On the afternoon of July 25, the 24th Army broke through to the vicinity of Chicago and launched an operation. The 50,000-strong army was not capable of suppressing a million-strong city, and in the scorching sun and air of the great heat, the troops went into action.

Some American farms and ranches are encircled. These sporadic heads were solved by the accompanying Japanese, and more and more people cooperated, and there was a partial division among the Japanese. Qi Rui knew that some of the Japanese had volunteered to fight for more dangers, and that they had received more rewards and participated in the distribution of more loot than those who simply engaged in the clean-up work.

What the Liberation Army really needs is the land of North America, and that little floating wealth is not a problem for the troops at all, and Qi Rui is even very opposed to the troops getting involved in this kind of operation. Killings in war can be whitewashed by the justice of the state, and there is no room for explanation for private looting. What's more, under China's system of land state ownership, China, which annexed vast North American lands, was able to create huge wealth in a very short period of time.

In the military headquarters, Qi Rui unbuttoned the collar part of the military uniform. It's so hot that the air at night is hard to subside. The early morning sun hit the ground with a sharp edge of heat, and the number of mechanical failures in the 24th Army on this day was about three times that of normal days, and boiling water tanks were just the norm, and many cars stopped on the side of the road at once. The driver who repaired the car simply couldn't find the problem.

A considerable number of the trucks that were able to hold out were used to pull barbed wire, and the 24th Army found that these inconspicuous-looking things really had the effect of outperforming 100,000 troops in battle. In the vicinity of the position that the 24th Army began to arrange, the sound of the collision between the long passage strip and the wire, a lot of gunfire, artillery, and a few screams continued one after another.

"It's too hot!" Qi Rui touched the military hat with his hand, only to feel that the military hat was warm. He took off his hat less than a minute before bringing it back to his head, the temperature of the air was so high that the military hat on his head could act as a shield from the heat.

The weather was so hot that it was natural to imagine the situation of the troops fighting in the scorching heat. Simple medical stations were overcrowded, and the vast majority of them were brought in after heat stroke. Most of the rest are other illnesses caused by heat stroke. Compared to the number of weather-induced illnesses, the casualties of combat guides were minimal.

The sky finally darkened under the sincere expectation of the Liberation Army, although there were too many disadvantages to fighting in the rain. But the torment of the hot day made many, and even it can be said that most of the officers and soldiers had a desire for rain. Even fighting on muddy ground is better than fighting in the heat of a sunburner.

The Liberation Army enjoyed the night that had been waiting for a long time, and had no intention of leaving the defensive position constructed of barbed wire for the time being. At about half past eight in the evening, just as it was just getting completely dark, Chicago lit up in the distance.

Whether it was a soldier or an officer, everyone looked at Chicago in amazement. It was an orange-red glow, the glow of the flames as they burned wildly.

According to the later research on the Chicago fire, there were many people, both in the Republic of China and outside the Republic of China. The general view is that this is not a problem of the Liberation Army, and the substantive influence of the Liberation Army in it is not particularly large.

The first to burn was a farm in the southwest, and then the fire was lifted up by the southwest wind, and the fire quickly expanded. A nearby storeroom and a paint shop immediately caught fire, forming a huge wall of fire that rushed straight to the northeast.

And the strange thing is that under such a fire, about four or five blocks to the north and east of the fire site also suddenly began to catch fire. It is also said that the Liberation Army carried out heavy shelling of those areas, but from the battle orders or the recollections of the locals, there was no large-scale shelling.

However, some of the more bizarre statements appear in the memories of many people. Witnesses say that even the marble caught fire on that terrible night; Others say that when a house catches fire, then a house farther away from it suddenly catches fire, as if an invisible person was setting fire to it. It was not one person or a few people who made this statement, and nearly half of the people in the vicinity of the fire gave testimony that touched on one or two of these points. This made later generations of people who studied the causes of the fire very puzzled.

Of course, when the fire is in full swing, it's completely different. With the help of the great heat of the foehn wind from the southwest, the fire approached the most densely populated central area at an alarming rate. Sparks fell from the sky, and the roof of the tall Pacific Hotel caught fire first. From afar, the building looks like a giant torch.

The flaming towers became new flame spreaders, and the scorching Martian goddesses flew everywhere with a stream of air that almost directly ignited the wood, and then set more houses on fire.

Chicago's fire brigade is already stationed with terrifying squadrons no matter where they are close, trying to save their city, fighting to save their homes.

But at this time, there was no way, and the commercial building and the Chicago Chamber of Commerce building were also burning. Under the burning buildings, people ran frantically, crowded, and merged into a stream of people under the blazing fire. Immediately after, the Chicago Opera House and the First National Bank also burned. With that, the Chicago General Post Office building also became a huge torch. On the courthouse tower in the downtown area, a firefighter saw the fire but misjudged the center of the fire. He shouted to the night operator: "The fire has come from Canal Harbour and Helstead Street!" "The operator notified the fire headquarters. Headquarters immediately dispatched all the firefighters to a corner a mile away from the fire, and by the time the firefighters saw the entire fire, there was no center of the fire, and Chicago was in flames.

Just 40 minutes later, a fire broke out at the Chicago Water Works in the distance, interrupting the city's water supply and halting the water supply. At this time, many people are jumping into the huge pool of the water plant to escape the fate of being burned to death. When the fire reached the water plant, the people who stayed in the water began to panic, and some began to jump out of the pool and run towards the Illinois River in the distance. As the fires progressed, many firefighters in Chicago had to give up fighting fires because they had no water to fight them.

The Chinese ** people did not take this opportunity to kill the people of Chicago, in fact, the whole army of forty or fifty thousand people looked at the burning Chicago in amazement. When a large number of Americans who had to flee the burning city crying out arrived at the barbed wire, the Liberation Army quickly removed the barricades and accepted them.

And those soldiers with photographic equipment spontaneously began to take pictures and recorded a lot of information. Written and photographic records of Guò led to the determination that after the relentless fires engulfed two more central neighborhoods, the heat wave quickly became a 70-mile-per-hour hurricane.

There was no need for an open flame to ignite, and the hurricane itself was more hot than the wood spontaneously combusted. Chicago, like the average American city, is made of wood. Wherever the hurricane went, the cotton curtains and flammable materials outside the house burned, and then the wooden houses began to smoke, and it didn't take long for a raging flame to emerge.

Chicago was in chaos and panic. As the fire spread northward in two streams, a sea of fire was formed. At 11:30 a.m., the fire had spread across the river and engulfed the newly completed Parmeli public carriage stable. Under the billowing smoke, countless wood-cut sparks flying in the sky continued to splash down, sowing new fires everywhere they went. Men and children from miles away have rushed to help in defiance of the war, but the effect is getting smaller and smaller.

The destructive power of this fire was completely underestimated. The ferocious flames had burned the train's trunks and wheels, collapsing like the wreckage of a dragon, and it was ugly. A large pile of pig iron nearby had melted into a puddle of red molten iron. In the middle of the night, the Chicago gas station exploded, causing a series of explosions of methane gas from nearby ammunition depots and sewers. The courthouse tower burned, and the bell above it was shaken and clanged, and it collapsed.

By 10 p.m., the scorching hurricane was still in line with the southwesterly winds at this time. After ten o'clock, the hurricane suddenly blew from all directions, and at the same time blew in all directions. The hurricane turned into a shocking tornado, and the sky in the center of the fire should have been empty, but the flames burned in the air, and hundreds of photographs recorded the horrific scene. A pillar of fire reached into the sky, as if the giant blade of the gods had descended from the sky before the end of the world. Compared to the giant blade, the buildings in the fire and the people trying to put out the fire were insignificant.

And when many Americans in the distance saw this scene, they simply trembled and knelt on the ground, and there were too many "gospels" about this terrible punishment in the books of the faithful. The one in front of me is undoubtedly highly consistent with those "gospels".

So, on the night that the 24th Army of the Liberation Army arrived in Chicago, Chicago was destroyed.