Australia again requested peace talks, and the Tang Empire immediately agreed, but did not stop military operations.

Both sides are clear that military action is necessary to obtain more negotiating terms.

Representatives of Tang and Macao held negotiations in Chang'an, as the landlord, the Daming Palace put forward the request of Australia to join the Tang Empire, and the Australian representatives did not oppose the merger of the Tang Empire, but demanded that the treatment after the merger be equal to or better than the current treatment of Australia in the Commonwealth member states, so the two sides began repeated consultations on this issue.

At the same time, after the Tang Army captured Brisbane, Australia's third largest city, the Seventh Marine Division marched south along the railway in the direction of Sydney, and the Tang Navy also moved south along the coastline, shelling the coastal defense facilities of the Australian army along the way. The Datang Air Force, which had already seized air supremacy, was even more looking for and attacking Australian military garrisons and related military facilities in various places, while strategic bombers were scattering leaflets in various towns and cities over Australia to completely break up the resistance of the Australians psychologically.

The Tang Army's navy, land and air forces advanced simultaneously and approached Sydney on the morning of the 30th.

Sydney is the second largest city in Australia and the economic center of the whole Australia. More than 20,000 men of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Australian Army stationed in Sydney were ordered to resist, and they built a large number of trench fortifications and anti-landing facilities on the beachhead under the orders of the commander, thinking that they could block the offensive of the Tang Army.

The 7th Marine Division of the Datang was a heavy armored force, and the 2nd Australian Division sent their only armored force of 30 Renault 35 tanks in a vain attempt to meet it head-on, only to encounter the two sides head-on less than 30 kilometers from Sydney. A fierce tank battle broke out between the two sides, but the result was a one-sided situation.

The Don Army's Tiger heavy main battle tank raised its 88-mm tank gun, and it only took one shot to hit the Australian Renault 35 tank to destroy it. In turn, the Renault 35 tank of the Australian army had only a pitiful 37-mm tank gun. Even if the Tang Army's Tiger tank is bombarded with more than a dozen guns, it will be difficult to destroy the opponent, and it will even be very difficult to force it to lose its combat effectiveness.

Seeing that their tanks were destroyed one after another, the tank units of the Tang Army quickly advanced forward, and immediately dug trenches with more than 2,000 Australian troops deployed forward, intending to emulate the positional warfare of World War I and fight a war of attrition with the Tang Army.

The Australian army was very smart, and they mobilized a large number of excavators to dig the trenches wide and deep. so that the Tiger tanks of the Don Army could not cross.

However, they were soon disappointed, and it didn't take long to see another batch of armored vehicles coming up from the Tang Army, which did not have any weapons. There was only one tank tracked chassis, on which a section of bridge-like equipment was carried.

That's right, what the Australian army saw was the Tang Army's new engineering equipment -- the bridge erection vehicle. These vehicles are made up of tank tracked chassis lengthened and widened, and then equipped with bridge facilities. A bridge erector carried a section of the bridge structure just enough to fill the width of the trench dug by the Australian army. So that the tank armored units of the Don Army could directly pass through the trench barriers. These bridge-erecting vehicles can also be connected, and a 200-meter-long cross-river bridge can be erected at length, and each bridge-erecting vehicle can wade up to 5 meters, and the general river can be directly driven into it to erect bridges.

This is also the experience summed up by the Tang Army's many years of operations, the original bridge-building troops could not keep up with the speed of the armored troops, when this issue was raised by front-line officers at the post-war work summary meeting, Zhang Meng immediately pointed out that the armored vehicle chassis can be used to carry the bridge facilities, so as to realize the mobile bridge-building troops. You can follow the armored troops, open roads and build bridges in the mountains and rivers anytime and anywhere. The solution of this problem immediately brought a huge guarantee of the speed of attack to the armored forces of the Tang Army. The Datang military quickly formed a bridge-building vehicle unit, and other logistics units were also mechanized accordingly.

Seeing that the Tang army had crossed the trench obstacles, the Australian commander froze, and then ordered a fierce attack to prevent the other side from breaking through easily.

"Damn, why hasn't our artillery unit come up yet?"

The Australian army complained, and they set off to the outskirts of Sydney to block the Tang army, but their artillery units slowly soared and did not keep up.

At this time, the only thing that the Australian army could rely on was artillery, and only the bombardment of artillery could destroy the bridge-building vehicles and armored vehicles of the Tang army and block the advance of the Tang army.

Knock knock!

The sound of artillery in the distance rang out, and the Australian commander suddenly shouted: "Where is the artillery?" Is it our artillery that came up? ”

The next moment, the Australian commander was dumbfounded, and he heard the whistling of shells coming towards their positions.

"Enemy shelling! Look for the hidden! ”

He shouted loudly, but before he could shout twice, a cannonball landed not far away and exploded, and in an instant the earth and rocks splashed, and the air wave swept him away.

The Australian commander scrambled to his feet, his mouth covered in dirt.

"It's the artillery of the Don Army coming up!"

"Damn, how did their artillery come so fast?"

The Australian commander immediately picked up the binoculars and observed, and he was shocked to see hundreds of combat vehicles parked on the hills a few kilometers away, which looked like tanks of the Tang Army, but much larger than the Tiger tanks in front, which were 155 mm heavy howitzer caliber.

"A howitzer of 155 caliber is also capable of being mounted on a tank chassis?"

The Australian commander was dumbfounded, he quickly understood why the artillery of the Tang Army came up so quickly, it turned out that the artillery of other people had been mechanized, and the Tang Army installed a large-caliber howitzer directly on the tracked chassis of the tank, which could be deployed directly and quickly like a tank.

"This battle can't be fought! Fall back! ”

The commander of the Australian army is not a fool, in such a place where there is no natural danger, there is no place to hide in the face of the artillery suppression of the Tang army, if you wait until the opponent's tank troops completely pass through the trench obstacles, then they will be completely finished.

The Australian army immediately retreated, and the Tang army quickly extended its artillery fire for a while, and then the tank troops quickly passed through the trenches and continued to advance towards Sydney.

At the same time, fierce fighting broke out on the beaches east of Sydney, with the Don fleet shelling the Australian positions on the beachhead and another Marine Corps landing on the beach. The obstacles placed by the Australian army on the beachhead were successively cleared, and in the absence of air supremacy, the beachhead was quickly lost, the Tang army opened the way with armored troops, and the place where the Spitfire chariot passed was a sea of fire, and the Australian army's machine-gun bunker suddenly lost its effect in the face of the fire, and the Australian army had to retreat to the city.

The Tang troops that landed from the two beachhead battlefields of A and B quickly advanced towards Sydney Harbor, and the Tang Army wanted to occupy Sydney Harbor first, open the blockaded harbor, and lead the Tang Army fleet in.

In the air, the fighters and bombers of the Tang Army roared, like eagles in the sky looking for chickens on the ground, and as soon as the Australian troops showed their heads, they were strafed by machine guns and bombarded by aerial bombs, killing and wounding countless people.

This is a completely asymmetrical war, and the Australian army, which is stuck in the World War I mentality, is simply unable to fight against the Tang Army, which has entered the quasi-modern combat thinking of the era of armored mechanization.

The Tang Army's leaflets had an effect in the city, and many Sydneysiders, fearing the impact of the war, demanded that the city of Sydney surrender. Previously, the Sydney city government also believed that there were 20,000 Australian troops resisting, and it was not suitable for surrender, and there was still a glimmer of hope, but when the Australian army was completely defeated and retreated, the mayor of Sydney immediately announced surrender in order to keep the city from being destroyed.

The remaining 10,000 Australian troops had no hope of breaking through and surrendered under the leadership of the commander, so the Tang army occupied Sydney.

In less than two days, the Tang army successively captured two of Australia's three major cities, one was a military town, the other was an economic town, and the other was the political center -- Canberra, the capital of Australia.

Sydney fell so quickly, the Australian Prime Minister knew that there was no way back, and the British reinforcements had already set off, but unfortunately it would take two months to arrive in Australia at the earliest. At that time, Australia had already fallen.

"Unconditionally accept the annexation of the Tang Empire!"

The Australian Prime Minister is very smart, he knows that now is not the time to bargain with Datang, if Canberra loses again, Datang may not give Australia any good looks and good conditions. While he is still valuable, the Australian Prime Minister hopes that after the Tang Dynasty annexes Australia, he can still find an official position, he has a crazy official addiction.

Sure enough, the Tang Empire treated Australia with a gentle policy, allowing the Australian Prime Minister to continue to serve as the governor of Australia, the original structure of Australian officials remained unchanged, the only change was that all parts of Australia were replaced with the flag of the Tang Empire, and the Australian treasury was handed over to the Treasury of the Tang Empire for unified allocation and distribution. The laws of Australia remain unchanged for one year, as a transitional period, and the laws of the Tang Empire will be implemented after one year, allowing Australians to decide where they belong, and they can sell their property and leave Australia, and if they do not leave after one year, they will become citizens of the Tang Empire.

For Australians, most of them are native-born, they don't want to leave their hometown, the Tang Empire is strong, the people are rich, and the social welfare is the best and highest in the world, since they do not discriminate against white Australians, then they have no reason not to stay, they are not so loyal to the Commonwealth, and they are mothers if they have milk. Except for a few people who yearn for Britain to leave, 7 million people in Australia are willing to join the Tang Empire.

In this way, the land area of the Tang Empire has expanded by more than 100 times, and its population has increased from the current 15 million to 22 million.

The Tang Empire's annexation of Australia in the blink of an eye has changed too much for the international landscape of the entire Pacific Rim region. In the past, the Tang Empire had a small land area, all islands, and lack of resources, no matter how strong the military was, the countries in the Pacific Rim region did not think it was enough to fear. But now it's different, after the Tang Empire annexed Australia, it gained a hundredfold territorial expansion, no longer lacking resources, no longer lacking population, no longer lacking strategic depth, coupled with economic and military two-way powers, overnight transformed into a big power, and the surrounding countries did not dare to ignore it. (To be continued......)