Just when the Australian government was hesitating, the Tang Empire took the lead in launching an attack on the French Loyal Islands.

The Loyal Islands are located between the Tang Fiji Islands and Australia, and are made up of Uwea, Lifu, Mare and nearby islets. It has a land area of 2,000 square kilometers and a population of about 11,000 people, mainly Melanesians, whose main sources of income are fishing and coconuts.

Since the beginning of the Franco-Japanese alliance, the French army has built a large number of fortifications and airfields on the main island of Lifu Island, with about 800 French soldiers stationed on the island, equipped with aircraft, tanks, cannons, machine guns and other heavy weapons, including 24 aircraft, with a variety of models, D513, MB150, Ni161, Roval 252, etc., all of which were temporarily deployed from French Vietnam, French East Africa and other colonies, and the original purpose was only to deter the Tang army. 20 Renault R35 light tanks with cannons up to 120 mm were used as anti-aircraft guns.

Because the Loyal Islands are too close to the Fiji Islands, the mainland of the Tang Dynasty, when the French army built military fortifications on the island, it once caused strong dissatisfaction with the Tang Empire, although France and Japan formed an alliance at that time, France did not want to offend the Tang Dynasty or even start a war, so under the repeated consultations between the Tang and France, the French garrison was reduced to 800 people, and the scale of aircraft and tanks was also greatly suppressed.

Originally, the Tang army did not attach much importance to the French islands in the Central and South Pacific Ocean, and the French navy was far away in Europe, and the Tang army only needed to send a dozen warships to completely blockade these islands. Therefore, the first target of the Tang Army was Australia and New Zealand, which have a large land area and a large population. With a lot of resources and a strong military liliang, it was the first target of the Tang army to uproot.

But. This Lovia Islands is just between the Tang Dynasty and Australia, and if the Tang Army wants to raid Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and other places in Australia's political and military center, it happens to pass through the Loyal Islands, which is easily interfered by French anti-aircraft fire, otherwise it will have to make a detour. Therefore, the Don army had to first uproot the Loyalty Islands.

Fortunately, the Tang Empire's diplomatic efforts against Australia forced the other side into hesitation, which gave the Tang army a chance to suddenly blitzkrieg the Loyal Islands. As long as you quickly take this French island, you can launch an attack on the Australian army before the Australian government makes a decision to quickly pacify Australia. The military airfield built by the French army on the Loyal Islands was just right for the Tang Army, and it was not enough to fly from there to the Australian naval base in less than 40 minutes. It will be less than an hour and a half to Canberra, and the strategic initiative will fall into the hands of the Tang Army.

In the early morning of 25 November, the Tang Army dispatched an additional 400 land-based Hellfire fighter-bombers from Yanjing Air Base, Daxing Air Base, and Jinling Air Base to eight air bases in the Fiji Islands. This increased the number of bombers of the Don Army in the Fiji Islands to 900 units. The 900 bombers flew to the Loyal Islands in three batches in turn, forming a non-stop cycle of bombing.

Although the French army on the Loyal Islands had already received orders from the French government to strengthen their alert, at night, the French planes could not take off, when the Tang bombers flew overhead, the French anti-aircraft artillery counterattacked but with little effect, and the experienced Tang bomber pilots quickly locked on the French airfield, anti-aircraft guns and barracks and other important military facilities, and the first round of bombing destroyed most of the French resistance on the island. The next few rounds of bombardment almost destroyed the corpses of the French soldiers.

By daybreak, the French anti-aircraft fire had been completely extinguished. At this time, the Tang army sent 200 land-based Raptor fighters to participate in the battle, and swept the remnants of the French army on the island in turn, forcing the remaining French soldiers to hide in the air-raid shelters in the woods and did not dare to come out.

Don aircraft took full control of air supremacy over the Loyal Islands, and eight Don destroyers escorted two large amphibious landing ships near the main island of the Loyalty Islands, Lifu Island. The French army laid a large number of mines, anti-landing obstacles, anti-tank obstacles and other facilities on the beaches around the island, but the Tang army was not afraid, and more than a dozen demining armored vehicles shoveled out several safe passages along the way, and then two land battalions of the Tang Army successfully landed on the beach under the cover of more than a dozen amphibious tanks.

The French troops guarding the beachhead were extremely miserable, they thought that those obstacles were enough to prevent the Tang army's armored troops from going ashore, and the machine gun bunkers built by the French army were enough to shoot the landing Tang soldiers, but they found that the Tang army's armor was completely open, and the French army's mines and obstacles were vulnerable in front of those armored vehicles similar to bulldozers, and the French army's machine gun bullets could not penetrate the tank armor of the Tang army.

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Two of the landed tanks of the Don Army were special in that they were armed not with large-caliber tank guns, but with multi-barreled flamethrowers. This was the experience accumulated by the Tang Army in many years of warfare against Japan, and the Tang Army had previously relied on individual flamethrowers to carry out flame attacks on the enemy's bunkers on the beachhead, and although it was very successful, its own flamethrowers also suffered heavy casualties. Subsequently, the Tang army changed a batch of amphibious tanks into multi-barreled flamethrowers, so that the tanks were directly close to the opponent's bunker under the enemy's machine gun fire, and sprayed fire dragons from a hundred meters away, directly burning the enemy troops in the bunker or forcing them to run out and then kill them.

This new tactic of the Tang army in exchange for blood was extremely effective against the Japanese army, and now it is even more effective against the French army, after all, the French army has not fought for many years, and they are all recruits who have never seen blood, how can they withstand the torture of such a cruel war.

Sure enough, the French soldiers crawled out of the bunker one by one screaming, and were beaten into a hornet's nest by the Tang army's machine guns one by one.

When the Tang Marines broke through the French coastal defense line, in the face of the fierce attack of the wolf-like Tang soldiers, the only 20 taels of Renault tanks of the French army were vulnerable under the fierce bombardment of the Tang Army's Tiger tanks, and were destroyed one after another, and the remaining hundreds of French troops immediately raised their hands and surrendered when they saw that they were invincible to the Tang Army.

It is slightly different from the way of treating the Japanese army, the Japanese army rarely surrenders, and the Tang army will directly kill the Japanese prisoners, but when treating the French prisoners, the Tang army did not kill them, but fulfilled the international convention and treated the prisoners well, after all, the French were fighting in their colonies rather than at home, and treating the French prisoners well would break the resistance of the French soldiers in other colonies, which would be helpful to the Tang army's future military operations.

In less than half a day, the Tang army captured the Loyal Islands, and then spent less than three days repairing the French airfield on Lifu Island, making it a relay station for Tang aircraft, and the Tang army would use it as a springboard to attack Australia or New Zealand.

As the news of the Tang Army's capture of the Loyal Islands reached Australia, the Australian government finally panicked, because the Loyal Islands were still a barrier between Australia and the Tang Dynasty, and now they have been captured by the Tang Army, so the Tang Army will obviously launch an attack on Australia next.

The next day, the New Zealand government, at the request of the British, had reached an agreement to formally declare war on the Tang Empire. Australia and New Zealand were at odds with each other, and New Zealand's war against Tang gave the final militant faction within the Australian government the upper hand.

On November 28, 1937, the Australian government declared war on the Tang Dynasty, and on the same day, the Tang Empire declared war on New Zealand and Australia. (To be continued......)