Chapter 056: Yamashita Fengwen escapes
The Japanese base camp discussed for several days, but there was no result in relieving the crisis, and finally had to order Yamashita Fengfumi's camera, which means that Yamashita Fengwen can choose to do anything by himself, and the base camp is not to blame.
Yamashita Fengwen's prestige in the Japanese army is very high, there are a large number of classmates serving in the military department, and they are very well connected.
However, many people who have a good relationship with Yamashita Fengwen believe that Yamashita Fengwen is a member of the Japanese army, and the defeat of the war is not his fault, the strength is there, and there are still tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers there, since the battlefield is destined to be unsaved, it is better to draw out the troops and defend Thailand and other places, as long as the troops are there, they can counterattack at any time and fight back to Burma. If it is difficult to recruit tens of thousands of soldiers, not to mention the elite soldiers, now the Burmese front lacks ammunition and materials, and there can be no benefit except for dead and wounded, and the Chinese are much smarter now, and now a large number of people fighting against the Japanese army are Burmese, not the elite of the expeditionary force, and the Chinese now just want the Burmese to expose the Japanese army, and then use aircraft artillery to solve the Japanese army, so the idea of using one Japanese army to kill more Chinese expeditionary forces is extremely wrong.
So let these soldiers die in the lack of materials, it is better to let them come back to make meritorious deeds, Southeast Asia and other places are very much in need of troops to defend, moreover, more enemies killed under the rich materials and minerals, let the soldiers who lack ammunition fight bayonets with the Chinese, now the Chinese do not fight with you at all, you want to fight there is no way.
In the end, the two sides argued for a few days, but Hirohito was still in charge, thinking that it was better to let Yamashita Fengwen decide for himself, so that no one else would say that he was shielding Yamashita Fengfumi, which would cause a bad impact.
When Yamashita Fengwen received a call from the base camp, he felt a lot more relaxed, it would be good to let him make his own decisions, what he was most afraid of was the random command from above.
With full autonomy, Yamashita Fengfu immediately began to prepare for the future, he first ordered the Japanese troops on the west bank of the main road of the Irrawaddy River to withdraw to the east bank, Yamashita Fengfu is indeed going to escape, now he intends to concentrate his forces first, and the place between the Irrawaddy River and the Xidang River is the best choice, first of all, the fortifications here are stronger, and there are more ports near the sea, although the bet was destroyed, but the air power of the expeditionary force is aided after all,, If the Japanese wanted to escape, they only had to get on a fishing boat and flee to the open sea, and they could leave on an ocean-going ship.
Yamashita Fengwen knew very well about the disadvantages of the expeditionary force, there was no navy and related landing equipment, so as long as troops were stationed on the east and west, the expeditionary force could be blocked from crossing the river.
These ships had long been under the control of Yamashita Fumi, and now they finally came in handy, and Yamashita ordered the Japanese troops and supplies on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River to evacuate, and destroy all the houses that could be destroyed, and even the mountains to be set on fire.
The Japanese soldiers who received the order also breathed a sigh of relief, although they were armed with the spirit of bushido, but who would not want to live when they were full! It was very difficult for 50,000 Japanese troops to defend such a large place, and the more than 40,000 Thai troops were completely ignored by them.
The Japanese army took only three days to transport the soldiers and supplies of the Irrawaddy River, including the Thai army also transported away, the Japanese army at first ordered the Japanese troops south of the defense line to evacuate, and destroyed everything that could be destroyed before leaving, and the soldiers on the front line of the Japanese army quietly evacuated on the night of the third day, and the next day after the artillery bombardment of the Western Route Army of the expeditionary force, they charged, and they didn't even see a single hair of the devil, and later sent a reconnaissance force to investigate in-depth only to find that all the devils had withdrawn.
After the completion of the first plan, the Japanese army is now all concentrated between the Irrawaddy River and the Siddang River, and the expeditionary force can now only attack from between the two places, there is no way to cross this river and one river, there are no ships to cross the river, and what was needed before is to collect fishing boats and the like, and now they find that not to mention the boat, even a large plank can not be found.
The trees on the mountain are few and black, and I can't find good wood to make a boat, but it's too late, it's too slow to make a boat.
After the concentration of the Japanese army, Yamashita Fengwen began the second plan, concentrating the Thai army and 20,000 Japanese troops on the first line, Yamashita Fengwen readjusted the defense, and now the Japanese drama directly retreated to the line of Boyaki, Bago, and Daizhi, which is also the last line of defense of the Japanese army, this line of defense is to cover the retreat of the troops when the battle is unfavorable, and now it also comes in handy.
The original ships stranded in India, although they were stranded for a few days, but the British did not have planes to sink them, and there were no naval ships to destroy them, so the Japanese crew started the ship again, and now the ship is full of fuel in India, and it is almost to Rangoon, and the safety of the sea is handed over to the submarine force and a few navies.
However, there does not seem to be any danger, the submarine reported that the British navy did not increase its activities in the eastern Indian Ocean after the successful landing of the Japanese army, but all ran back to Mumbai, it seems that they are worried about the comfort of the fleet, afraid of being killed by the Japanese army, Yamashita Fengwen once again despised the British in his heart, he knew that the British were so unbearable, he should have sent troops over earlier, so that India was occupied by the Japanese army, and the deterrent effect on the squadron would be different, and the squadron might not have the heart to attack southern Burma with all its might.
But now that it has passed, if the British fleet is active in the eastern Indian Ocean, Yamashita Fengwen will return to Thailand, but the British army is so timid, so that Yamashita Fengwen sees an opportunity for himself to make a name for himself and make meritorious contributions, Yamashita Fengwen decided to go directly to India, although it is very risky, but once landed, then there will be nearly 90,000 Japanese troops in India, and 20,000 Thai troops, and Indians are everywhere, if the Indians are on the side of the Japanese army, even if the Sino-British coalition forces have an advantage in weapons and equipment, The Japanese army had so many people and was not afraid of the Sino-British coalition.
At the same time, even if he returned to Thailand, he didn't have the face to see other colleagues, Yamashita Fengwen didn't want to be laughed at, and he didn't want to commit suicide with regret, and it was impossible for the Japanese army in India to give up, the situation was so good, if he gave up, it would be a pity, if he finally sent reinforcements from Juding, it was estimated that he would still be his own troops, so it would be better to go directly by himself.
On December 10, Yamashita Fengfu arranged the Thai army at the forefront and there were many Japanese squadrons to supervise the battle, although the Thai army was dissatisfied, but there was no way.
It was 8 o'clock in the evening, and it was completely dark, and the Japanese transport ships had long been stuck in the open sea, and now they were as close to the port as possible, and the Japanese army, according to the prior plan, started all the fishing boats hidden in various places to transport the Japanese troops on board.
There were also Japanese gunboats and destroyers, as long as they could drive into Hanoi, they did their best to transport the Japanese troops away. The Thai army is completely unaware, the Japanese supervision is very strict, the Thai army can only stay in the trenches, or in the camp, the squadron is also unaware, after more than a month of fighting, the soldiers are very tired, and the Japanese army is well defended, although there has been a Japanese retreat before, but it is only to the east coast, and leaving Burma is not a concept at all.
No one, including Wang Hanzhang, thought that the Japanese army could quietly leave Burma overnight without a port.
After a night's hard work, the Japanese army used all its strength to transport away 44,000 Japanese troops, leaving only a few troops and wounded soldiers who remained to supervise the Thai army, only about 6,000 people.
The next day, Fo Xiao was already at the foot of the mountain heading to India in the open sea and looked at Myanmar, his mood was very complicated, he was happy that he could lead tens of thousands of soldiers to leave safely, and at the same time he felt sad that he had lost Burma, but he thought that Wei Lihuang and others finally pounced in the air, and the cooked duck flew, and the look of annoyance and anger was somewhat comforted.
The expeditionary force launched another attack on the 11th, without the Japanese army as the backbone, the remaining Japanese troops saw that the large army had withdrawn, the task was completed, and the will to resist was extremely declining, from 7 o'clock to 12 o'clock, the expeditionary force finally captured Bago and Yongsheng, and there was no resistance above the scale of the squad.
When the assault force of the expeditionary force penetrated into Yangon, and still did not encounter the Japanese army, they reacted, it should not be the Japanese army escaped, in addition to sending an assault team to attack Yangon, which was already in ruins, and at the same time wanted to report the situation from above.
And the assault force did not encounter effective resistance in the city, and soon the troops took control of Yangon, and it was confirmed that the Japanese army had indeed fled, and the officers at all levels of the expeditionary force had to admire Yamashita Fengwen, and so many troops were withdrawn in one night, and later saw a large number of close friends at sea who had time to be destroyed fishing boats, everyone understood what was going on, a large number of rivers in southern Burma, and those small fishing boats were very convenient to transport after being loaded with engines, and it seemed that the Japanese army had already prepared.
The news of the expeditionary force's recovery of Rangoon was immediately reported to Chongqing, and of course, the escape of half of the Japanese army was also reported, after all, this kind of thing is very important, if there are suddenly tens of thousands of Japanese troops in that battlefield, it will definitely be taken by surprise.
Stilwell also wanted the British and Americans to report that the expeditionary force had captured Rangoon, and there were no Japanese troops west of the Salween River. The British didn't expect this to be done, they had been waiting for the expeditionary force to come and sell their lives to them, as for the escape of a Japanese army of more than 40,000 people behind Stilwell, they completely ignored it, they didn't bother to care about this, and now the squadron has no excuse not to support India.