Cai Ye and the others quickly exchanged glances, but no one asked.

"The bombing of the mainland must be intensified." Yang Shuoming looked at the map for a long time and said, "Our navy can also move with a camera, thinking that it will contain and reduce the pressure on the US side." ”

"We can contact the U.S. side to see if we can cooperate with the action." Cai Ye nodded and said, "This is the first time that the United States has been invaded by a foreign enemy since its founding. ”

"It won't be long." Yang Shuoming said, his eyes still wandering on the map.

California, USA.

The huge contingent of the 16th Division of the "Rice Expedition Dispatch Army" advanced with difficulty in the pouring rain.

California originally referred to the region that consisted of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico and the state of California in the United States. The name is thought to come from a 16th-century Spanish knightly legend, Tiran, which depicts a piece of paradise called "Calafia". This one by Martorel? Written by Garba, the book "Calafia" is isolated, full of gold, and full of freedom-loving Amazons and strange beasts that live in caves.

And now, another group of "beasts" has appeared here.

California's coastline is 2,030 kilometers long and relatively straight. It consists of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east, the Central Valley and the Coastal Mountains to the west. Geographical conditions vary widely. The desert in the south lacks rain, and the northern coast is flooded in winter due to rain and snow. Precipitation is as high as 4,420 mm in the northwest and only 50 to 75 mm in the Colorado desert in the southeast. In the summer, the temperature in the Colorado desert in the southeast is high, while in the winter the Nevada mountain peaks are cold like the North Pole.

California was originally inhabited by Native Americans. It was a Spanish colony in 1769. It belonged to Mexico in 1822. It belonged to the United States in 1848. In the same year, gold was discovered, and the seven-year gold rush led to a rapid increase in population and rapid development of the city. In 1850, it joined the Union and became the thirty-first state of the United States. In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad opened, connecting California to other states. At the end of the 19th century, the discovery and exploitation of oil in the Los Angeles area led to the rapid development of industry. California is also the most agriculturally developed state in the United States. Agricultural land accounts for 30% of the state. Mainly irrigated agriculture. There are hundreds of agricultural and animal husbandry products. The output of sugarcane, vegetables and fruits is prominent in the United States, and the output of cotton is the second; second in rice production; It is an important milk, egg and meat producing area in the United States; The Central Valley is the richest agricultural region. It has a well-developed forestry industry and is one of the three major timber producing states in the United States. The value of fishery production is also the largest in the United States. In this attack on the continental United States, the army focused on California, largely out of economic considerations.

The commander of Kimura Hyotaro's division [***] rode on horseback and walked slowly with the ranks of infantry. The sky was low, the clouds were thick, the thunder was rolling in, and the torrential rain in California continued for days. There were no decent roads in the American countryside, and the potholed dirt roads were already unrecognizable when the rain washed them, and they could withstand the heavy crushing of the mechanized army, so the whole plain became swampy muddy and difficult to walk.

General Kimura's luck was not good, and his division had been plagued by bad weather since the landing in the United States, covering only 10 kilometers per trip. Sometimes they are simply trapped in the heavy rain waiting for the weather to clear, so they are still stumbling on the plains until now.

What made the division commander feel even worse was that the poorly equipped American guerrillas (militia units) were broken into pieces everywhere and carried out sneak attacks on rainy nights like cunning loaches. The army crawled in the heavy rain, the terrain was unfamiliar, there was no aircraft reconnaissance and cover, and the mechanized troops could not be used, and they were often beaten passively like the deaf and blind.

For this reason, the division commander sent a special telegram to the base camp, requesting that the advance be suspended and that the combat mission be carried out after the weather cleared. But he was reprimanded by the military department. The military department telegraphed: "...... Full speed ahead without delay! He had no choice but to comply.

Suddenly, several mortar shells fell around the ranks of the army and exploded, one of which was only more than ten meters away from the division commander, and the splash of earth frightened the maroon red oceanhorse. Yanmar stood upright and flipped the division commander into the muddy water. By the time his subordinates helped the general up, he was already covered in mud and water, his hat had fallen off, and his glasses were missing.

The commander of the Kimura division suddenly burst out laughing, and he said to a large group of stunned staff guards: "I look like this, send a picture back, just like the funny samurai in Nara...... Eight Ga Ya Road! You all dismount me, and the troops stop advancing and stand by in place! I want to let those stupid people understand that you can't joke about the Imperial Army! ……”

So the 16th Division was stationed in the same place, drove all the local residents into the rain to repair the road, and when the US [***] team attacked, it shot American civilians in retaliation. Another brigade marched lightly at night and captured a county town two days later.

In the following half a month, the 16th Division struggled against the muddy roads and water network on the California plains with the indomitable and tenacious spirit of the Yamato nation, and drove tens of thousands of American civilians to build roads and carry vehicles every day. The soldiers unloaded their heavy weapons and put them on the shoulders of the migrant workers to advance with the empty vehicles, and miraculously pushed out the cannons and baggage vehicles that were stuck in the quagmire. The army advanced all the way and soon reached the designated position.

Soon the weather began to clear in the California area, and the muddy roads and fields gradually became dry and hard in the cool wind. The artillery and chariots of the army rumbled over the potholed roads, the planes also roared across the sky, and the energetic soldiers held aloft the flaming sun flag, and the steel helmets and spears flashed in the sunlight. Armed to the teeth, the army finally overcame the effects of the harsh weather and rushed towards the looming American towns on the horizon.

A communications soldier sent a special express message from the Tokyo base camp. The commander of the Kimura division read it twice quickly, regretfully took off his white gloves, waved his hand at the American city that was close at hand, and ordered the chief of staff: "The troops stop advancing...... Immediately follow the railroad north and prepare to attack Los Angeles. ”

Major General Taro Nakanaga, commander of the 9th Brigade of the 5th Division, was directing the battle from the position.

This is a typical northern man with a stout body, thick eyebrows and a big face, and rough skin. The shogun's surname is said to be related to an old maritime legend that he was born in a poor fishing village in Hokkaido, where his father, grandfather, and even grandfather's grandfather repeated the life of fishing in small wooden boats in rough seas year after year. But fate came to this fisherman's descendant, and a miracle happened. After the Russo-Russian War, the teenager Nakayong walked out of the fishing village, and he no longer chose to fish but applied for military school. Many years later, Taro Nakanaga, the son of a fisherman who appeared on the battlefield in California, USA, had lost the fishy smell of fishermen and had become an enviable general of the Royal Guard Division who wore the Imperial Command Sword.

The 5th Royal Guards Division was a well-known unit in the country, but unfortunately it was not able to make a disadvantage, and as soon as it stepped into the valley of California, it was severely ambushed by the Americans, losing more than 2,000 men. At that time, the commander of the Nakayong Brigade was on a support mission, and when he heard the news of the starry night, the American troops had already withdrawn, leaving only many burned cars and crumbling corpses.

At the ceremony of incinerating the bodies of the dead in the battlefield, the commander of the Nakayong Brigade led all the officers and men to bow and fire at the sky, vowing to wipe out all the evil [***] teams. The impulsive brigade commander also personally split several captured American civilians in half with knives on the spot to vent his anger.

At the beginning of the offensive campaign, the commander of the Nakayong Brigade advanced along the right bank of the river, and after occupying a county town, he attacked forward with the strength of one wing. The peaks and peaks in this place overlap, the terrain is dangerous, and there is a brigade of the American [***] team to defend. The army first tested with artillery fire, and then frequently launched upward attacks.

Unexpectedly, the American resistance was extremely stubborn, not only did they occupy favorable terrain, built many fortifications, and waited for work from a high position, but they were also supported by mortar fire hidden halfway up the mountain. After a day of fierce fighting, the Japanese army was repulsed after several attacks, and more than 200 corpses of Japanese soldiers were left on the hillside.

The next day, a thin layer of green frost fell on the hillside. The brigade commander raised his binoculars, and he saw that the enemy was eating on the hills, and that a lot of curling water vapor was rising from the cave fortifications in the trenches, wafting in the cold air of the mountains. So the brigade commander decisively ordered the artillery to open fire, and he was determined to bombard all the Americans who got carried away into the sky.

The shelling lasted a whole hour. But when the smoke of the shelling cleared and the brigade commander raised his binoculars again, he was astonished to see that his stubborn enemy did not seem to have been hit at all, and that the shells had fallen on the hard rock bunkers with interlaced teeth as if there had been no trace. An American GI stands at the mouth of a cave and pees outside.

The brigade commander suddenly felt a rare irritability.

The 9th Brigade was a well-equipped rapid mechanized unit with tanks, armored vehicles, personnel carriers and a number of heavy guns of various calibers, but in the absence of roads and complex mountain operations, their mechanized superiority was completely unplayed. Tanks and heavy artillery remained at the bottom of the hill and could do nothing, light fire on rock bunkers had little effect, and even air strikes by aircraft on the mountains had little effect. It's like a buffalo stuck in a quagmire or falling into a dry well, and the mechanized troops of the Japanese army have to squirm slowly like snails in the reckless mountains of California.

The battle lasted about a week. Due to the loss of Oakle County, the flank of the American army was threatened, and the American defenders on the hill retreated voluntarily, and the 9th Brigade captured an empty city at the heavy cost of more than a thousand casualties.

The commander of the Nakanaga Brigade, surrounded by his subordinates, finally landed on the bullet-riddled US position.

As far as the eye can see, the battlefield is surrounded on three sides by overlapping majestic mountains, and those high mountains and ravines rise in the sky. Even the birds are saddened. Only the mountains in the south are getting lower, and the river valley resembles a sloping bottle, and the shadow of a gray plain can be faintly seen outside the bottle. Looking back down the mountain, the steep slopes were littered with the corpses of the war dead, and the valley was littered with weapons like broken toys.

The advantages of modern warfare are, first, speed, and second, strong firepower. However, the mountainous terrain completely neutralized the superiority of the mechanized troops, turning them into a group of slow infantry. When General Saimoto, who was in a heavy mood, walked slowly down the hillside, his heart was filled with hatred for the treacherous barrier in front of him and yearning for fighting on the plains.

As soon as the cavalry flew in, the communications corpsmen presented a copy of the Tokyo emergency telegram to the brigade commander, and the general could not help but be overjoyed when he opened it.

"Ordered the troops to return the way they came, and overnight to Los Angeles...... Soldiers, your invincible chariots are going to the plains to attack the enemy's cities! ”

In view of the danger of a stalemate in the U.S. battlefield, the Tokyo base camp decided to shift the main battlefield of the war to Los Angeles. In addition to the two more Guards Divisions in China, the Rice Dispatch Army also urgently dispatched the 6th and 16th Divisions and the 9th Mechanized Brigade under the 5th Division to participate in the battle.

So far, the army has once again invested 120,000 troops in the American battlefield, and its total strength has exceeded 300,000.

…… The light gradually dimmed, and a fleet of strange planes covered most of the sky silently, and everyone forgot to hide and stood up straight to count the dark clouds with curious eyes. Someone exclaimed: "The enemy has been airdropped!" Look at the paratroopers, the paratroopers ......"

He turned his head, and sure enough, he saw thousands of colorful umbrella flowers blooming in the sky, and under the parachute hung not a yellow-faced devil, but a tall German paratrooper with an automatic submachine gun...... Roosevelt woke up from his sleep and it turned out to be a nightmare.

He looked at his watch, and the hour hand pointed to one o'clock in the morning. Washington is eerily quiet at night, with the occasional whistle or police car passing by, before the city plunges deeper into emptiness and loneliness.

Roosevelt had been suffering from insomnia lately, and the stalemate in the war had made him increasingly uneasy. The nightmare was of course unreal, and the latest and most modern airborne tactics he had seen not long ago in a documentary about the simulated war maneuvers of the German army, which had been shown to him and senior American generals by the intelligence services. The level of warfare and modernization of the Germans shook every American general present, including Roosevelt himself, and he was deeply impressed by the mobile, sudden and concealed surnames of large-scale airborne operations.

Although they are not yet capable of conducting airborne operations, they still possess a powerful ability to maneuver on land and at sea. At present, it is said that their frontal attack has been frustrated, and they are likely to change their tactics to make a breakthrough. Roosevelt hoped that the American [***] team would not be on the defensive but as an offensive side, mobilizing their advantages to break the stalemate and gain the initiative.

Roosevelt couldn't sleep, so he got up and sat up, took the map and looked at it in deep thought.

Recently, intelligence has shown that the Chinese army has once again massed more troops in the direction of the United States, and that the United States and China have amassed more than 1 million troops in the small Los Angeles area, and the scale of such an intensive war is rare in the history of world warfare. The question is what will happen if the Japanese army, which has a strong ability to maneuver, bypasses the frontal defense line and directly hits the weak flank of the US [***] team?

A sense of foreboding weighed on him more and more.

He picked up the phone and called Marshall.

"George, it's me." Roosevelt said, "What's new?" ”

"We have just made contact with the Chinese side, and the Chinese navy will launch a large-scale attack on the local territory in the next few days as a containment against the navy operating on the west coast." Marshall immediately reported him a piece of good news.

“…… Do you think the Navy will come back to the mainland? ”

"I think it's probably a big surname."

"What do you think I'm interested in?"

“…… The coastal line of California can be regarded as an ideal landing place for this ship...... Of course, he is good at attacking the east and the west, and he does not rule out the possibility that they will attack from the front. ”

Roosevelt's gaze quickly moved over the giant defense map.

"You don't have to worry too much, Mr. President." Marshall heard Roosevelt's worries and comforted him, "Everything is planned, I say that I will be in a quagmire in Los Angeles, we have gathered the most powerful forces, and we will achieve a brilliant victory, and we should be worried now that this army has not come enough." ”

"May God bless us." Roosevelt gave some instructions on the deployment and movement of mobile forces in the rear, and then he felt relaxed, so he said goodbye to Marshall, put down the phone, and lay down on the bed in his clothes and fell asleep peacefully.

The drizzle of rain and stray bullets pierced the cold night sky, and the U.S. Telecommunications building at the intersection of Finnan Road and Howard Road in Orange County was heavily guarded, armored vehicles rolled around, and moving searchlights illuminated the ruins of long-burned homes across the road.

An operational meeting of the senior generals of the army, navy, and air force of the "Rice Expedition Dispatch Army" is being held in the basement of the building.

In the basement, tatami mats are laid out according to the custom, and a row of small coffee tables are illuminated by a sizzling gas lamp. The commander-in-chief, Army General Seishiro Itagaki, sat motionless in front of the conference table, and the generals who rushed in held their breath and sat down in order of rank, each with their waists straight.

The indoor air is stuffy and quiet. In the distance, the coughing of heavy machine guns and the heavy bombardment of heavy artillery could be heard from time to time, and the glass doors and windows shivered like malaria.

The commander-in-chief waved his hand, and the staff adjutant withdrew from the door.

It was an extraordinary high-level military meeting. He had recently reinforced four divisions and one brigade in the US theater, plus five and a half divisions that had landed in advance, that is, about half of the division commanders of the Army, and other senior air and navy generals who had entered the city of Los Angeles on warships and were ordered to hold a meeting in the basement of the building, which was less than 1,000 meters away from the enemy's battle line. The commanders of the divisions were mostly young and vigorous, and many were not very familiar with the eccentricities of their immediate boss, the famous senior army general Itagaki, so they were quite unimpressed with the location chosen by the commander-in-chief for the meeting.

(To be continued)