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Chapter 1729 The Flames of War April

Throughout April, Eurasia was filled with war. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

After nearly a month of fighting, in Scandinavia, Northern Europe, the Anglo-French offensive in Norway was crushed by the Germans who joined the battle halfway.

The defeat of the Anglo-French army is very easy to say, after all, it was an invader, and it was resisted by the unity of Norway, King Haakon VII of Norway repeatedly called on the people to resist the invaders, and under the blow of the Wehrmacht air and ground, coupled with the paratroopers blocking the retreat, nearly 50,000 British and French troops were annihilated in the interior of Norway.

What was unacceptable to the British side was that on 27 April, the Royal Navy fleet, which consisted of two aircraft carriers, two light cruisers, and 16 destroyers, was on its way to withdraw from Norway on its way to withdraw from Norway, and the aircraft carrier "Glorious," which had broken away from the main formation due to ship failure, encountered the German battle cruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenor," the heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper," and four destroyers, and was sunk in Norwegian waters The destroyer was sunk at the same time, killing 1,519 officers and men of the Navy and 41 officers and men of the Air Force, another disaster for the Royal Navy this year.

After such losses, the ratio of ships of the British Navy to the German Navy had fallen to a very terrible number, and the British had to send a distress signal to the United States, hoping to get the more than 100 destroyers produced by the United States in the First World War, because only in this way could the safety of British sea transportation be ensured, otherwise Britain would not have the confidence to deal with the next German offensive.

However, due to the defeat of the Anglo-French forces in Norway, and the excessive weakening of the naval power caused by the successive defeats of the British Navy after entering the thirty-nine years, the Americans feared that after Germany's victory over France and Britain, they might use these ships to attack the United States.

......

In the eastern part of India, the right wing corps of the Burmese-Indian Front Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida, commander of the 15th Army, connected the cities of Kedi Mapur, Lummuddin and Khojay and occupied Guwahati, the capital of Assam. Iida Shojiro mobilized troops to deploy defenses while seizing various towns and towns in the mountain pass plain area of the Brahmaputra River, patiently waiting for the arrival of logistical supplies.

However, the progress of the Japanese troops on the left flank, which wanted to open up the supply route by sea as soon as possible, was not as fast as expected, and the fierce offensive of the Japanese army was contained by the British in the area around Chittagong.

Chittagong is located on the northeast bank of the Bay of Bengal, on the hilly ridge of the Hida Gonda on the right bank of the lower reaches of the Gornopuri River, 16 kilometers away from the mouth of the river, is a natural harbor, the Bengal region in eastern India became a British colony after the city gradually emerged, to 39 years, the city in the Bengal region is second only to Kolkata and Dhaka City, with cotton spinning, hemp spinning, tea processing, oil refining, steel, papermaking, man-made fiber, glass, fertilizer and other factories and hydropower stations, is a strategic place that the Japanese army must occupy.

On 4 April, the Japanese army launched a forced crossing of the Gornopuri River in the Chandragena area, which was defeated. The British, Anglo-Indian and Bengal armies had built a strong defensive line along the Gornopuri River, and the large number of batteries and forts built in two months became a nightmare for the Japanese army who were arrogantly clamoring to enter Calcutta in a month.

Although the Japanese army used a large number of bombers to participate in the battle, the reinforced concrete batteries were densely packed everywhere, and in addition to a large number of antiaircraft guns and antiaircraft machine gun air defense, the Japanese army, navy, and air forces suffered great losses, and the 54th and 55th divisions that initiated the forced crossing lost two wings in one day.

For the next half a month, the two sides carried out fierce attacks and defenses around the Gornopuri River, but the Anglo-Indian coalition army, which had sufficient ammunition and material replenishment, united as one, and new troops were constantly transported from the rear to the front line by rail, and the battle continued from day to night, and from night to the next day, and the cycle continued, making Lieutenant General Kawabe Shozo, the commander of the Left Wing Army who commanded the battle, depressed.

During this period, after seizing Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and setting it as a supply port for the Navy's Indian Ocean Fleet, the Navy successively occupied Angutia Island, Hadia Island, South Hadia Island, Boer Island, Robnabad Islands and Sagar Island in the Ganges estuary area, completely eliminating the external shipping routes of the Bengal region.

However, as early as the fall of Sin Chau, the British colonial government expected that there might be such a day, from the end of last year to build a large-scale coastal fortress, a large number of fortress guns were built from the rear military factories and transported to the East Indies, the entire Bengal coast built a tight barrier, *** Navy repeatedly tried to rush into the mouth of the Meghna River, the Busur River, and the Hooghly River, but was fiercely attacked by the fortress artillery, and the Japanese army paid the price of three destroyers successively and retreated unwillingly.

On 23 April, the Navy forced its landing on the island of Ceylon from the ports of Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Galle with a huge formation of aircraft carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers, and destroyers, covering the transport fleet carrying four wings of the 45th Division.

Ceylon Island is located at the southern tip of the South Asian subcontinent, close to the equator, all year round, across the Pauk Strait in the northwest and the Indian Peninsula, with a population of only more than 2 million in the thirties. Due to the defeat of the British Navy's Eastern Fleet, Ceylon was exposed to Japanese attacks, and because it was far from the mainland, it was impossible to transport a large number of fortress guns in time to strengthen the defense, so the Japanese landing operation did not take much effort.

Hao Dejie is called the commander-in-chief, but the only troops he can control are the garrison of the Colombo base under the command of Admiral Leighton of more than 3,000 people, and about 100,000 indigenous troops who have been urgently armed. In the face of the Japanese attack, Sir Haudjie ordered the abandonment of the coastal area and confronted the enemy by relying on the dense jungles of the island and the mountains to the south.

Ceylon is about two Hainan Islands in size, and the British army has been mentally prepared for the fall of the coastal ports, and is ready for long-term operations, and has set up a large number of material storage points throughout the island to meet the needs of wartime supplies. After that, the contest between the Japanese army and the British army began on this island of more than 65,000 square kilometers, and the two sides frequently poisoned, set fire, assassinated, and attacked at night, and it was not until 41 that the Japanese army sent a special attack division to adopt the three-light policy of killing, burning, and robbing all the people, and carried out an exterminating massacre of the natives who were the eyes and ears of the British army, and the resistance forces on the island were gradually and completely wiped out.

During these two years, Ceylon's population had plummeted to more than 200,000, and the rest had either died of famine or had been drawn into the war as innocent victims.

On 24 April, Kawabe Shozo abandoned his plan to force a frontal crossing of the Gornopuri River and decided to start from the upper reaches of the river, sending the 2nd and 12th Divisions to attack the city of Gobudoi in the Kilaggiori Mountains. The British army stationed two Bengal divisions in this mountainous city.

The battle between the two sides was extremely fierce, and after four consecutive days and four nights of frantic attacks from the 26th, the Japanese army captured the city of Gobdoi on the afternoon of the 30th, and the two Bengali divisions were completely annihilated.

......

In the direction of West India and Persia, Sheng Shicai entered India on the 25th of last month and immediately began a series of large-scale operations.

On March 26, the Third Army and the Fourth Army of the *** Army, under the leadership of Sheng Shicai's fourth brother Sheng Shiwu and sixth brother Sheng Shiji, took a train to the Polish-Indian border and conquered Zahedan, an important town on the Persian border, on the 30th. On 3 April, the Sheng brothers led their troops to occupy Shulgaz and joined forces with the Fourth Army of the Chuikov Front, which had marched south from Mashhad, Zhuymande, Dahuk, Kerman, and Bam.

The purpose of the Soviet army's southward march from the Caspian coast was to occupy the important cities of Yazd and Isfahan in central Persia and block the Persian royal family's southward escape. In the face of the French bombing of the Baku oil fields, Stalin decided to retaliate and take the opportunity to take the oil fields in southwest Persia, but he was afraid of being blamed by the international community, so he could only pretend that it was the rebels of Sheng Shicai.

After the division, the Soviet army and the *** army continued to advance westward, and a week later occupied the important town of Nau, on the longitudinal line of the Persian Railway.

At this time, the contradiction between the *** army and the Soviet army began to appear, and the Sheng brothers insisted on going south along the railway and occupying Bandar Abbas, the most important port city in Persia in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving a way back for the Sheng Shicai Department, but the commander of the Fourth Army of the Soviet Army, General Valentin, asked to concentrate his forces and first defeat the Persian army of Yazd and Isfahan before dividing the troops.

The two sides argued, and then each sent a telegram to his superiors, and finally reached a compromise: Sheng Shiwu went south to Abbas, and Sheng Shiji followed Valentin to attack Yazd.

Sheng Shiwu's journey to the south went very smoothly, capturing Bayaz on 13 April, entering Sirkjan on 17 April, Aliabad on 20 April, and capturing Tarrom on 25 April after three days and three nights of hard fighting. However, by this time, the Shengshi Martial Forces had become a tired army, and there was a serious shortage of ammunition, so they had to stay in Talom and wait for supplies.

The combined forces of Sheng Shiji and Valentin attacked Yazd, but there were big problems.

Yazd is an important city in central Persia, the capital of Yazd Province, and the northeast foot of Mount Hill, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

In the face of the strong fortresses built by the Persian army, they attacked continuously for more than half a month, and there was no progress except for adding attrition, and then they were seriously short of ammunition, so they had to retreat to the city of Bafge and wait for the front army to provide logistical support.

At this time, Chuikov had been appointed by Stalin as the commander of the Front Army and promoted to the rank of general, and the political commissar was still Mehris, the former political commissar of the Central Asian Military District. The 220,000 troops under the command of Chuikov were organized into four corps with a total of 16 divisions, each with four divisions, and the original commander of the group army or corps commander served as the commander.

In the face of the strong fortifications built by the Persian army on the front line of the Alborz Mountains, Chuikov was helpless. This mountain range is located between the Persian plateau and the lowlands along the Caspian Sea, from the southwest Turkmen border of the Caspian Sea through the south of the Caspian Sea to the southeast of the Caspian Sea to the Persian Khorasan Province in the southeast, stretching for more than 900 kilometers, in an arc-shaped direction, is a natural barrier to protect Tehran and the surrounding areas, with an average altitude of nearly 4,000 meters, the mountain is majestic, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Persia was afraid of the red power in the north, and built countless defensive barriers on the pass, although due to the opening of the Caspian Sea passage, Chuikov did not lack heavy weapons in his hands, but the Persian army, which had obtained a large number of advanced German weapons and cannons from Germany very closely, was condescending, and the range of the cannon was much farther than that of the Soviet army, so Chuikov's continuous attacks were repulsed, and in the end he had to give up attacking Tehran from the Alborz Mountains, turned back to Mashhad, and obediently attacked from east to west.

By the end of April, Chuikov's troops had arrived in Semnan, an important town in eastern Tehran.

......

Looking at Sheng Shicai again, after sending two armies to Persia, he also had the First Army, the Second Army, the Fifth Army and the Cavalry Army in his hands, in addition to a formal mechanized brigade, most of which were equipped with Soviet-made trucks. On March 29, Sheng Shicai, who arrived in Sukkur, sent his third brother Sheng Shixiong to lead the Third Army north to attack Punjab. As a partial division, the main purpose of this unit was to use guerrilla tactics to contain the British, Anglo-Indian and Muslim Pakistani armies, and to facilitate the main force to attack the south and east.

On 1 April, the 1st Army, the 1st Army, the ace army of Sheng Shicai, moved south, and with the assistance of the Indu-Buso Party, occupied Khailpur without bloodshed, and then accelerated the pace of the march, occupying the city of Nawab Shah on 5 April, and entering the city of Dendo Adm on 7 April, threatening Hyderabad, the central city of the Sindh Railway.

At this time, the British army headquarters in Kolkata already knew the news of Sheng Shicai's entry into India, and urgently dispatched a British brigade, a British and Indian division, and four Pakistani divisions in Karachi to go north to block the road for Sheng Shicai's troops to go south, and the two sides fought fiercely in Hyderabad.

Sheng Shicai's department lacked the heavy firepower to attack the fortifications, and the British army lacked training, and the two sides fought back and forth, but after a fierce battle, little progress was made.

By the end of April, when the temperature was getting higher and higher, Sheng Shi saw that it was not a way to go on like this, so he simply used the Fifth Army led by the Soviet Yakov to contain the British army in Hyderabad, and led the First Army and the Cavalry Corps himself, bypassing the city, and attacking eastward along the railway, and in only two days he was under the city of Mirburhas, an important town in the Hyderabar.

After receiving a distress call from the commander of the garrison of Mirburhas, the commander of the Battle of Hyderabad, the Briton Lieutenant General Hatton, knew very well that the defenses in the central and southern regions of India were extremely empty, and if the Shengshicai troops were allowed to drive straight along the railway, it would be tantamount to returning the tiger to the mountains and letting the dragon into the sea, so he hurriedly led his troops to rescue Mirburhas, and as a result, he entered the encirclement carefully laid by the Shengshicai Division, and three Pakistani divisions, one Anglo-Indian division, and one British brigade were completely annihilated, and Sheng Shicai obtained the much-needed supply of field artillery, guns and ammunition, quickly return to the division to attack Hyderabad.

In order to take Karachi as soon as possible, Sheng Shicai issued a reward for three days of plundering after the invasion of Hyderabad, and on April 28, Hyderabad fell, this important industrial city in West India after Karachi, fell into the hands of Sheng Shicai, hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered and plundered, and countless women experienced the most painful scene of their lives.

......

April 30, Nanhua, Xinjing Military Airport.

An Yi stood in front of the terminal building with Yang Jie, Zhao Dongquan, Liu Qing, Shen Ziling, Cheng Shiming and other generals, talking in a low voice.

Today is the day of the return of a military mission to Europe from Germany. During the two-and-a-half-month trip, the delegation paid friendly visits to France, Belgium, Italy, Britain and Germany.

Shen Fengdao approached An Yi's side and told him that when the plane took off from Almaty Airport, it encountered a thunderstorm and was delayed for half an hour.

An Yi raised his wrist and looked at his watch, and found that it was still early, so he had nothing to say: "Tell me, when will Germany choose to attack France?" ”

Liu Qing thought for a while and said, "Based on the information we have, it should be in early May. May is the most suitable season for the climate and land conditions in Belgium, Luxembourg and other lowland countries and regions, which is very conducive to the operation of the mechanized corps, and now that Germany has free up its hands in Norway, it can already devote all its energy to defeating France. ”

"I think so too!"

Shen Ziling echoed: "Judging from the information seized by the intelligence department, the battle will start in the next half month. Intelligence shows that from November last year to January this year, the center of gravity of Germany's forces shifted from north to south, and the German squadron on the border between Belgium and Luxembourg increased from 25 divisions to 57 divisions, and by March, 10 of the 15 armored divisions deployed on the front line had moved their positions westward and set up south of Liège.

"In early March, the German engineers were very eager to erect eight pontoon bridges in the middle of the Rhine between Bonn and Bingen, and in mid-April the Germans erected six more pontoon bridges over the Moselle and Oher rivers on the Luxembourg border. During this time, the German delivery of materials to the front line has accelerated, and now it has stockpiled enough materials to support the war for half a year. This series of circumstances proves that war is imminent! ”

An Yi nodded, thought for a while and asked Liu Qing: "Has the Allied side changed the possible offensive line of the German army?" ”

"As a result of his slow performance in aid to Finland, on March 20 Daladier lost a vote in parliament, and French President Lebrun appointed Finance Minister Paul Murphy. Renault formed a cabinet, and Renault became France's wartime prime minister. Although Renault has a reputation for being energetic, decisive and innovative, until now, it is not clear that he has helped in the strange war that is being waged at the moment, his war strategy is still to take a defensive position on land, to take an offensive on the coastline of *** Germany, and in order to completely cut off the German oil supply, Renault is even inclined to carry out a second bombing of the Baku oil fields again!

"The French government's problems were complicated, and Renault was unable to obtain a majority in parliament, so he had to appoint Daladier as Minister of Defence, but in order to show his resolute opposition to peace with Germany, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Georges Brown. Bonet swept the floor, but appointed a man who advocated peace with Germany and Italy. Baudouin served as cabinet secretary. On the whole, the French continued the strategy of the Daladier period, strongly defending Belgium, keeping the Germans far away from the northern industrial and mining areas, and on the long line of defense from Switzerland to the seashore, only eight French officers and one British regiment were deployed, and not a single corps reserve was retained anywhere.

"Up to this point, the French military hierarchy still believed that the forested precipitous mountains and narrow winding mountain roads in the Ardennes forest area north of Sedan and east of the Meuse River would be a formidable obstacle to the passage of any large army, especially any large armored force, and therefore did not specify any special defense plan, and even insisted on the Ninth Army, the weakest of the French corps, at the northern junction of the Sedan Regiments."

Liu Qing is very familiar with this information and has it at his fingertips.

An Yi didn't say anything, and asked the others: "What do you think of the deployment of the French team?" ”

Yang Jie smiled but did not answer, he had carefully discussed this question with An Yi, thinking that the probability of Germany attacking from Sedang was as high as 90%, since ancient times, the real is false, and the virtual is real, and the entire defense line built by the French is the weakest here, and it is impossible for the Germans not to see it. If they did attack Belgium, they would be smashed headlong into the iron wall built by the French, repeating the scene of the last confrontation in Europe, which the resource-poor Germany would not allow.

"The Germans will inevitably choose to attack from Sedan!"

Zhao Dongquan analyzed: "Judging from various circumstances, the increase in the deployment of troops in the middle line of the German team is not a strategic feint to disturb people's attention, of course, the French may think so." Since ancient times, there has been no insurmountable mountain, and no matter how high the mountains in the Ardennes are, can they be as high as the mountains of Afghanistan? No matter how dense the forests are, can they compare to the dense forests of the Salaire Mountains in Western Siberia? In both places, we have carried out mechanized warfare, and the results have been very good. In particular, Xiao Wubing's joint efforts with Hu Jiyang to break through the Sarail Mountains led to the failure of the Eighth Army of Matsui Ishine, which was unprepared to blast the Kemirovo mining area, and achieved a major result of annihilating four divisions and four independent brigades of the Japanese army. If the French do not pay enough attention, the scene experienced by the Japanese army will surely be staged! ”

"I agree with Chief Zhao's opinion! Now all the intelligence has pointed to Sedang, only the French are still ignorant, perhaps this will be the most critical breakthrough point to determine the fate of the two countries! Cheng Shiming said without hesitation.

The roar of airplanes was heard in the sky, and large AN7 airliners had already appeared in the sky.

An Yi glanced at the air and said with a smile: "Actually, Geng Guang and I also hold this point of view, and then we will see if we can guess accurately!" After we go back, we should make good preparations, carry out targeted discussions on the German offensive, and hold a tactical seminar at the General Staff and the National Defense University another day, so that we can find out our shortcomings when the war starts in the future!

"Only by constantly summarizing and improving, and making targeted changes according to the actual situation, is this a qualified military general! We can't learn from the French, holding on to the same set of the First World War, and our brains are already ossified! ”

The generals laughed when they heard this, and as the AN7 passenger plane stopped on the runway, they walked behind An Yi together, and soon, Yang Fei, Deng Bin and others appeared in front of the cabin door, and after seeing An Yi, they were all excited and raised their hands excitedly.

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