According to Ishihara, he was not optimistic about Mutaguchi's offensive strategy, which was too risky, too aggressive, and completely reckless -- if it had been placed in the Philippines at the beginning of the war, MacArthur might have been captured alive under the fierce blows and rush in one breath, but now the fronts of China, India, and Burma are basically stable, and the forces of all sides are intertwined, and the risks are completely worth the losses, and it is almost a battle that is bound to be lost; At the same time, he also believed that his old friend Seishiro Itagaki was definitely stronger than Mutaguchi Lian, and if he were to take command, the war would most likely be a war of attrition and a stalemate, which would be a complete disaster for Japan, which had a supply line of more than 5,000 kilometers and the main force of the Combined Fleet was not there. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Then change Honma Yaqing to go up, won't he lose before he fights?"

"He won't lose...... Ishihara smiled, "He can't attack him, and if he can't win a defensive battle, he can really go directly to seppuku." ”

King Minoru Higashikurenomiya immediately burst into laughter, and instantly understood Ishihara's intentions: he was actually against attacking, but he couldn't tell the Burmese army directly, that would damage the morale too much, and if Masaharu Honma went up, according to this guy's personality, he would definitely tear his throat and ask for supplies, reinforcements, and equipment, and he wouldn't attack until these were in place, and there would be a lot of room for maneuver in the matter - this is also a Japanese characteristic way of dealing with it. If the Burmese army really wants to attack if the supplies are in place, Ishihara will definitely change people again.

As soon as Horiyoshi's telegram about the adjustment of India's strategy arrived, Honma's appointment and the decision to take a defensive position in the Burmese direction suddenly became very crucial -- the 15th Army contained the entire Indian 14th Army, the Chinese army in India, and the U.S. Army with more than 250,000 troops, and the southern part of India was empty, objectively creating a good opportunity for a surprise attack on Ceylon.

"You've been communicating with the Navy for a long time, haven't you?" Afterwards, everyone praised King Minoru Higashikunomiya for his wise decision and unsuspicious use of people, which made him a little flustered, but he knew that this was completely due to his inertia of completely pressing the treasure on "Ishihara no Zhi", and the next day after issuing the document about agreeing to the Indian dispatch of troops to attack, he couldn't help but ask Ishihara Waner.

"No, no...... Your Highness, this is a mistake. ”

King Minoru of Higashikure Palace didn't believe it, shook his head and said: "I heard about yesterday's incident, it's actually nothing to have a good relationship with the navy, Admiral Yamamoto is quite interesting and generous; Horikichi is even better, quietly bringing in more than 20,000 German soldiers to help fight the war, and we don't have to pay for it, but some people really hate it......"

As for who some people are, everyone knows it, but it is inconvenient for King Minoru Higashikuremiya, who is also a royal family, to directly attack King Hiroko Fushimi Palace, who is also a royal family.

In the early morning of 24 May, the main force of the huge combined fleet, with the exception of Keno Kurita and his escort warships, remained in the Maldives, and the rest of the ships were dispatched to the position where they were ready to attack. At a distance of 300 kilometers, the mobile fleet began to fly fighter planes one after another, and the Zuihe, equipped with Germany's latest catapult, was the fastest, and one after another He-218 dive bomber and Ju-98 attack aircraft took off, and the rest of the aircraft were also being re-ejected in an orderly manner.

After obtaining the Italian Navy's light aircraft carrier Bolzano, the mobile fleet was restored to the establishment of five aircraft carriers, but it changed from the original two large, one medium and two small to two large and three small, and the overall size of the fleet decreased slightly, but the number of pilots was much more than after the Panama Campaign -- the group of Xinnen naval aviation pilots who were trained on Socotra Island finally joined the formation under the devil's training, and nearly 40 percent of the veterans who had participated in the Battle of Pearl Harbor in the formation still fought to this day. Horiyoshi and Tsukahara 243 had made up their minds that this would be the last few battles for this elite group of pilots, and that most of them would be used to train reserve pilots when they returned home.

Due to the tight time and the fact that they did not dare to startle the snakes, the water reconnaissance only carried out a glimpse survey of the key reconnaissance positions, and did not have a clear grasp of the enemy's situation, and vaguely judged that the number of Ceylon defenders was about 30,000 to 40,000, and the focus was on the west coast with Colombo as the core and the east coast with Trincomalee as the core. After studying the photographs for a long time, Lieutenant General Theodore Scher, commander of the Indian battle group of the German Marine Corps, came up with a bold operational idea: to avoid the enemy's relatively well-defended port area and land directly on the beachhead more than 40 kilometers away from the port.

Since the Combined Fleet has absolute sea supremacy, it is not too much of a problem where to land, but it is difficult to do what to do after landing. The advantage of this battle plan is that it avoids to the greatest extent possible the obstruction of enemy defenses along the line, and at the same time does not destroy the port facilities during the suppression of fire, which will be of great use in subsequent operations.

Cao Lu Yi believed that this would certainly reduce the difficulty of landing, but it also gave the enemy a calm time to arrange and assemble troops, and it was easy to fight a hard battle after going ashore.

"Do you see clearly? Is there a fortification or anti-tank obstacle like a dragon's tooth at the intended landing site? ”

Several of the observers shook their heads.

"That's it!"

In order to avoid repeated battles for the beachhead, Scheer eventually adopted a very bold strategy - the troops were divided into two lines, attacked at the same time, landed simultaneously in Colombo and Trincomalee, and carried out a flanking attack after going ashore, so that the British defenders could not echo each other.

Several generals sweated for the Germans: although there were four German Marine Brigades landed, the total strength was only more than 24,000, and each landing ground could only carry one armored battalion and one panzergrenadier battalion in the first wave of landings. Even if the British estimate a conservative figure of 3-40,000, it means that the German marines will have to use 3,000-4,000 men to fight the first round of attack and block the British counterattack ten times their size.

"The troops are enough, my men are definitely elite, if the opposite side is still the British I know, it's no problem at all, twice as many as it is enough to fight!"

For fear of causing misunderstandings, Cole helped explain: "Lieutenant General Theodore Scheer is not bragging, he held out in the encirclement of Holm on the Eastern Front for more than 100 days with weak forces, and repelled 100,000 Soviet troops with more than 5,000 troops, at that time he was far less equipped than he is now, not to mention overwhelming air and sea superiority, so you can trust ......him."

Horikichi nodded: "Since General Scheer is so sure and Special Envoy Cole said so, then we will follow General Scheer's method." ”

Theodore Scheer returned home after the Battle of Holm to recuperate, and Hoffman was so impressed with him that he was promoted to lieutenant general, awarded him the Knight's Cross with two swords and silver oak leaves, and finally had him take his men and other army units into formation into the Marine Corps.

This is not idle, now everyone knows that the Navy is promoted quickly, and there is no one else above Scheer except for Admiral Hughes, the commander of the Marine Corps, and this position is equivalent to the level of deputy army commander, as long as the Indian strategy is successfully completed, a general will not be able to run in the future

For Scheer himself, Holm has experienced such storms and waves, and it is really a bit unsightly to deal with the British in India.

Ceylon was quiet at dawn, and even though the news of the Japanese occupation of the Maldives had been received, it was believed that the Japanese fleet's destination was to return to the mainland as soon as possible, and even though Ceylon had been transferred to a combat readiness system, that trace of luck and inertia had not completely disappeared. The commander of the army, Lieutenant General Hawkins, had just opened his eyes, and before he could wake up, he suddenly heard a low roar from a distance, and before he could figure out what was going on, he saw a strong flash of light outside the window, and then a violent explosion began to sound.

Having had experience in night raids on metropolises like New York, it was no longer a problem to carry out air raids on cities like Trincomalee and Colombo, not to mention that Mitsuo Fuchida had come to Ceylon once last year, and he had a clear understanding of the defensive weaknesses and important facilities of the two cities. I had already gone to the familiar road, and I didn't even need to give more command orders, and the planes found their targets one after another.

"Japanese planes, Japanese planes came to attack ......"

By the time the adjutant stumbled in, Hawkins was angrily yelling into the microphone, scolding the radar station for not reporting the situation earlier. The poor radar station officer was scolded bloodily but did not dare to defend himself at all, because he did not know what the problem was: he did not expect that these Japanese carrier-based aircraft pilots were flying from an ultra-low altitude skimming the sea, and when they suddenly appeared on the screen, the distance was less than 60 kilometers, and the radar soldiers hesitated and did not dare to report -- because Ceylon was humid and warm, and the radar often had inexplicable false alarms, this time he still did not suspect that the enemy planes were coming, but only thought that there was another malfunction, and tried his best to eliminate it. When it finally became clear that it was not a malfunction but an enemy plane approaching, the roar of the plane could be heard very clearly.

The air raid was only the beginning of Hawkins' nightmare, and at about 6 o'clock, just as Hawkins was busy listening to reports of the damage to the airfield, even more startling news came: a Japanese fleet appeared on the sea.

By the time the coastal defense artillery was scrambling to open fire, the Musashi, which was farther away, had taken the lead and directly focused on the 460mm main gun -- after spending several months on Socotra, it was finally its turn to strike again!

There was a loud "boom", which scared everyone away, and before Hawkins could see anything unusual, Captain Raymond next to him muttered to himself while making a cross: "God, this is an 18-inch gun, that super battleship is coming!" ”

Hawkins, who was sweating profusely, hurriedly shouted: "Quick! Fast! Send a telegram to Lord Mountbatten and Admiral Wavell, Ceylon is under a full-scale attack by the Japanese army, and our army is in danger and urgently needs reinforcements! ”

As soon as he finished speaking, dozens of landing ships poured out from behind the capital ships of the Combined Fleet and galloped towards the intended landing site...... (To be continued.) )