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Chapter 1725 Let's move together

The news of the naval annihilation of the British Navy's Eastern Fleet in the naval battle of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean greatly stimulated the great powers. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

U.S. Secretary of State Hull announced at a press conference on March 9 that the trade door to China will be completely closed, an embargo will be imposed on all strategic goods, and all assets in the United States will be automatically frozen, unless China can withdraw its troops from India, Burma, Malaya and British Borneo and return to the situation before the war. At the same time, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced in the White House that in order to cope with the military expansion, the United States will use two to three years to increase its aircraft manufacturing capacity to 50,000 aircraft per year to ensure the security and stability of the eastern and southern Pacific.

The governments of Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union have successively issued congratulatory messages congratulating the Navy on its "great victory" in the Indian Ocean, which fully shows that "colonialism" is unpopular, and the final countdown has begun on the collapse of the British and French colonial empires represented by the old order.

On the British side, the Navy's warship losses were so great that Admiral Churchill was disgraced. However, this fat man was a man of tenacity, and while he ordered the shipyard to speed up the production of warships, he was preparing to actively visit the United States to acquire the existing warships of the United States to enrich the Royal Navy and strike at German submarines to ensure the safety of sea transportation routes.

The French Ministry was originally going to actively launch the Caucasus operation, sending a partial division to attack from the south of the Soviet Union, and then attacking Moscow together with the planned Anglo-French forces landing from Norway, and finally the north and south flanks met under the city of Moscow. But with the unprecedented defeat of the British navy, the Persian Gulf has been seriously threatened by the *** navy, and the fanciful French finally had to hang down their noble heads and ponder a more realistic battle plan, such as what excuse to occupy Norway, control Finland, cut off Germany's iron ore supply, and at the same time contain the German *** team south.

Sensing that the situation was completely out of control, An Yi immediately issued an operational order, and the military operation that was originally planned to start in Afghanistan after the arrival of spring at the end of March was a full twenty days ahead of schedule.

Thanks to the continuous construction of three engineer divisions and six infantry divisions, as well as the widespread use of airships to lift railroad tracks and construction materials, the railway between the Turkmen border city of Kushka and the most important city in western Afghanistan, Hetra, was completed in early March, and a steady stream of strategic materials was transported from Central Asia to western Afghanistan.

At present, the railway is continuing to the west and south, from Hetrasian to the city of Kotsun on the border with Poland, and the 100-kilometre-long railway, along which is a flat valley plain, will be built with little difficulty, and will be fully open to traffic by June at most.

The Southern Line will depart from Hertra and travel along the towns of Adraskan, Fararaud, Diraramu, Grishke to Kandahar.

The railway will be difficult to construct because it will have to cross the Farah River, the Hash River, the Helmand River, and the Argandab River one after another, and climb over five high mountains and hills, and even if the whole line is launched, it will not be able to run until at least the middle of next year. Since Kandahar and the surrounding area are still in the hands of the Sheng Shicai army, only the section from Hetra to Adrascan is being repaired.

As early as the time of Wodong, the staff department of the Central Asian Military Region studied the offensive line, and finally believed that it would be better for the troops to launch an attack from the southern front, where the roads were relatively flat.

If you fight directly east along the Hari River valley from the city of Hetra, you will be hit by frequent snow and ice in the central alpine region for three months, March, April and May.

Every spring, the Siberian high over central and northern Afghanistan weakens and subsides, coupled with the rising temperature, the moisture is relatively abundant, although the cloud cover in these three months is less than in winter, but the rainfall is the most in the year, precipitation will account for more than 50-60% of the year, when the central mountainous areas directly attack Kandahar, muddy roads and bad weather will become the enemy's enemy.

On the contrary, it would be much better if you took the southern Kandahar line.

The total annual rainfall in southern Afghanistan is not even 200 millimeters, and in low-lying areas such as river valley basins, there are generally only seasonal grasses, and there are grasslands and trees next to rivers and places with irrigation water sources.

After An Yi's offensive order was issued, Hu Jialin, who served as the commander-in-chief of the Afghan war, immediately carried out a general mobilization of the front-line troops.

After two days of preparations, on 11 March, Li Jinlong's corps was the first to set out, led by the 19th motorized infantry division of Zhou Zhenfang of the Seventh Group Army, which attacked south from a mountain pass 50 kilometers southeast of the city of Sabzawal, and arrived at the Farah River in one day, and then went down the river, capturing Kaniske, Barangak, Farah, and Takht in succession within a week, and advancing to the city of Aliabad on the shore of Lake Helmand on the Polish-Afghan border.

Tang Yuhu's 20th Motorized Infantry Division, which was immediately followed by the 19th Motorized Infantry Division, crossed the river west of Farah City, attacked and advanced to the southeast, and successfully captured the city of Dilaram on 16 March.

Judging from the few Soviet forces defeated along the way and the confessions of the captured Soviet troops, the theater command received a shocking news -- as early as the end of last year, the Anjia Army sent troops to Afghanistan, and Sheng Shicai, who lacked the supply of weapons and ammunition, had a premonition that he might encounter defeat, and after destroying all the armed forces loyal to the Afghan royal family in central and eastern Afghanistan, he immediately sent troops to carry out frenzied looting in Kabul, Jalalabad, Peshawar and other places, and finally in order to achieve the goal of coercing the people, He even set fire to the city of Kabul, burning down the ancient capital, which has a long history and tradition.

In order to facilitate his escape, Sheng Shicai set the capital of the new Afghan government in Kandahar, and then led his troops to encircle the people in the Kabul River Valley area, from Jalalabad out of the Khyber Pass, completely destroyed the prosperous and wealthy city of Peshawar, and turned south, from Kohat, Bennu, and Bostan to Kandahar in western India. Today, Kabul and the surrounding areas are in ruins, with the surrounding farming and irrigation systems completely destroyed, and there are no people for hundreds of miles.

After receiving intelligence feedback, Hu Jialin immediately sent an S3 reconnaissance plane to the Kabul area to reconnoitre, and once the situation was confirmed, he immediately applied to the air force to use a large airship airdrop force to occupy Kabul, first establish effective rule over the area, and then cooperate with the troops on the southern front to eliminate the remnants of the Soviet army.

On 17 March, after circling several times two to three hundred meters above the Kabul River valley area, the Air Force's reconnaissance plane was surprised to find that Afghanistan's largest city on the banks of the Kabul River had become a ruined wall, and although many stone-made houses still stood there in total darkness, most of the buildings had been destroyed, the ground was in shambles, and all kinds of birds had gathered inside and outside the city, looking devastated.

......

"What, Sheng Shicai actually took the initiative to give up Kabul City, and turned the richest Kabul Valley in Afghanistan into a white land......"

After An Yi received Hu Jialin's call, he was very shocked.

No ruler intent on gaining a foothold in Afghanistan could have made such a crazy move. You must know that Afghanistan, which is still a nomadic society, has fertile land and relatively complete irrigation facilities, and the Kabul Valley can be regarded as a rare agricultural civilization area, and the main characteristics of agricultural civilization are that the population is relatively concentrated, and commerce and handicrafts are relatively developed.

The city of Kabul was an important gateway on the "Silk Road", the main trade route between the East and the West, and was the capital of Afghanistan after the unification of Afghanistan by the Durrani Dynasty, and Kabul has a history of more than 3,000 years. Twenty years ago, during the Third War of Resistance Against the British, more than 20,000 British troops were annihilated in Kabul, and Afghanistan became independent.

Kabul has a large number of monuments, tombstones, pagodas, citadels, Islamic mosques and ancient royal palaces, ancient temples can be seen everywhere, the famous Shahid Du Sham Shira Temple, the marble mausoleum of Babur, the Zah Temple in the foothills of the south of the city, etc., among which the Zah Temple is the tomb of Ali, the founder of Islam Shia, every Ali's birthday, Muslims will hold religious ceremonies here.

At the same time, Kabul and its surrounding areas are home to some of Afghanistan's rare industrial facilities such as cotton and wool textile mills, cement factories and food processing plants.

This region, which accounts for more than 30% of Afghanistan's total population, is now experiencing such a situation, and the impact on Afghanistan is simply incalculable.

Before Sheng Shicai wreaked havoc on Afghanistan, the total population of Afghanistan was about 6 million, but after continuous tribal cleansing and fighting by the Soviet army, Sheng Shicai led the army to break through Kabul, and the population plummeted by nearly one million. After the Anjia army entered Afghanistan, the Soviet army insisted on clearing the wilderness and relocated the population in the Hari Valley area and on the offensive route, and if such a drama was made in Kabul, the most prosperous and wealthy area in Afghanistan now, the population loss may reach more than 2 million, so that the entire population of Afghanistan will be about 3 million, and even less than half of the total population of Syria.

Yang Jie was discussing with An Yi the international situation after the Japanese army launched the Indian offensive, and saw An Yi holding the telegram in deep thought, curiously took the telegram, and couldn't help but laugh at An Yi after reading it: "Sometimes I think about it, Sheng Shicai is really a bit of a master who does good deeds and does not leave a name!" Previously, we had been worried that the religious and tribal forces in Afghanistan were too great, and that they would certainly be hindered in all aspects in the future, and that it would be difficult to implement the principles and policies.

"As our troops marched into Afghanistan, we began to worry that the move to improve the ethnic ratio of the population and the formation of a production and construction corps might irritate the Afghans, touch the interests of the existing landowners and the new class, and create unhappiness for us everywhere. As a result, Sheng Shicai played such a play, making the ancient capital of Kabul the year before last into the current miserable state, now we don't have to do anything, we can accept the fertile land around Kabul!

"With the bloody methods of the Soviet army, we only need to adopt a soft policy, and we will surely win the hearts and minds of the Afghans quickly. The Political Department can send reporters to film the tragic situation in the Kabul area with video equipment, and after a few years, Afghanistan has become a society dominated by Chinese. ”

Hearing Yang Jie say this, An Yi couldn't help but say: "Sheng Shicai is indeed a living Lei Feng ......" and then sighed: "I'm a little worried that Diana won't be able to stand it after seeing this miserable scene." After all, she was a sixteen-year-old girl, and the pain of losing her loved ones was still unforgettable, and now she saw the cruelty of the people she governed over, and I was afraid that she would be paranoid that she was the source of all this evil...... No, don't let her go to Kabul for the time being, our film factory has produced a lot of good films in the past two years, let Chen Jianxuan and Geng Gu organize a batch of movie copies and send them to Mazar-i-Sharif, and by the way, "Gone with the Wind", which was a box office hit in the United States last year, was also sent. ”

"The chairman really pities the fragrance and cherishes the jade......"

Yang Jie laughed and teased, and then remembered something: "By the way, who is Lei Feng?" ”

An Yi sweated, only then did he realize that he had lost his words, and hurriedly prevaricated: "Lei Feng means that he is not self-interested and specializes in benefiting others, this is a good man in our hometown, who specializes in doing good deeds all his life...... Geng Guang, don't worry about this, let's talk about your analysis of the situation! ”

"Benefiting others without self-interest? Is there really such a good person in the world? ”

Yang Jie looked up and saw An Yi's expectant eyes, returning to the topic:

"There is no doubt that the Japanese army will be able to break the current stalemate very quickly! On March 12, under the cover of the Malay fleet of the *** Navy, the Japanese 6th and 26th Divisions successfully landed at Sittwe Port and quickly occupied the Galadan estuary plain, and then the 26th Division attacked southward, echoing the four divisions of the Japanese 28th Army that attacked the front.

"Because the navy has established hegemony in the Indian Ocean region, the Japanese warships can shell the coastal areas of the east coast of India at any time, although the British *** team has a large number of batteries deployed along the coast, but in the face of the attack of the Japanese army and naval aviation that occupies an absolute advantage, the final fall of the Ganges estuary is only a matter of time.

"I expect that in the next step, the Japanese task force mobile fleet will cover the land and land on Ceylon, Chittagong, and Kolkata, so that no matter what the final outcome of the Battle of Imphal is, the victory of the Japanese army is almost assured. The only suspense now is whether the British commander is resolute enough to quickly get rid of the pursuit of the Japanese army, pull the main force to the inland areas of the subcontinent, and rely on strategic depth to delay the Japanese offensive.

"Otherwise, with the weak combat effectiveness of the British army and its colonial army in Malaya and Burma, I really don't expect them to be able to repel the Japanese army!"

"That's what I thought, too!"

An Yi nodded and asked, "Is it necessary for us to launch several large-scale battles in northern Burma and central Burma to contain the Japanese army and reduce the pressure on the British army?" ”

"Why?"

Yang Jie asked a little puzzled: "Let *** people go and eat dogs with the British, isn't this the strategy we planned before?" Why wrap ourselves in? Now that the government and the military are maintaining a delicate balance with us, and we are allowing all merchant ships, cargo ships and passenger ships flying the flag of neutral countries, it is time for us to take advantage of this rare opportunity to make a lot of money.

"As far as I know, the British ambassador to South China, Basil. Sir Newton has placed an arms order worth 200 million pounds worth of gold to us, including 1,000 warplanes and 500 tanks, and the French have even purchased from us in exchange for many precious cultural relics looted from China in the Louvre in Paris, as well as raw materials such as steel and nitric acid for making arms, with a total value of up to 300 million pounds!

"The better the *** people fight in India, the more nervous Britain and France are, the more room for us to make profits, and there is no need to get involved in the war at this time!"

"But—I'm afraid the United States will fall to ***!"

An Yi said the question that plagued his heart during this time:

"The Americans have always been unprofitable, and now they have controlled the western part of the Pacific Ocean and almost the entire Indian Ocean, and after the collapse of the British Navy's Eastern Fleet, its power has retreated to the Mediterranean, and there is currently only one French naval fleet stationed in Madagascar, in the western Indian Ocean, to maintain the pitiful dignity of the Allies. The navy could attack the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea at any time, cutting off the British oil supply routes, and the glory of the empire on which the sun never set was already shaky.

"Looking at the European theater again, Germany is currently planning to take Denmark and Norway, and once the north is consolidated and Sweden's iron ore supply is secured, it will launch a thunderous offensive against France. Although France received a large number of warplanes and tanks from us, their deviation in the use of new weapons and their backward tactical literacy made it impossible to believe that it was the nominally number one land power today.

"When Germany attacked Poland in September last year, the Western Front was extremely empty, and France, which had absolute superiority on land and air, insisted on stopping in front of the Siegfried defense line and did not dare to take a step beyond the thunder pool, and the planes were not allowed to drop bombs on German territory. If I had predicted it, France would be defeated soon, and Germany might at any time set its sights on England. If Britain itself also declares the fall, it will form an attack by the United States to challenge Germany, which has integrated European resources, and half of Asia. In this case, it is very likely that the United States will turn around and join the Axis powers, and then we will be in danger! ”

"I don't think so!"

Yang Jie shook his head: "Fortunately, France has obtained a large number of planes and tanks produced by us, even if it fails, it is unlikely that there will be a situation of defeat, how to say that France can also arm five million troops, plus mechanized troops and air strike forces that are not weaker than Germany, they are well-deserved as the world's first army power." "Britain and Germany are separated by the English Channel, and even if Germany defeats France, it will not be so easy to cross this strait. Now Britain lost the Eastern Fleet, but in the Atlantic, its navy still had absolute superiority over the German navy. Although the navy is very strong, it is impossible to let its territory be exposed to the threat of American warships, and run to Europe to help in the war, so it will be very difficult for Germany to land on the British mainland!

"Looking at Germany and the Soviet Union, although the two countries seem to be too good to wear the same pants at the moment, judging from the beliefs of the ruling parties of the two countries, they will inevitably move towards division and even confrontation in the future. In his book "Mein Kampf" and in his speeches after taking office, Hitler more than once mentioned the need to wipe Soviet Russia off the face of the earth, saying that Russian cockroaches do not deserve to have the fertile land of Ukraine, that German industry needs coal from Donbass and oil from the Caucasus, and that there is a very high possibility of war between the two countries!

This is also the reason why the Soviet Union has openly annexed the three Baltic states in defiance of the world and forced Finland to sign the Soviet-Finnish Peace Agreement the day before yesterday, the Allies are still silent, but the Soviet Union has threatened war after the attack on the Baku oil field, sent troops into northern Persia, and now another Soviet army under its control is attacking Tehran, and so far Britain and France have not responded!

"Finally, let's talk about the United States. Historically and realistically, it is unlikely that the United States will turn to the Axis powers, because since the last European war, the United States has been tied to the interests of Britain and France, and has common moral values and universal values, and it is difficult to believe that Americans who advocate democracy and freedom will compromise with the Nazis and militarism of totalitarian rule. In a survey conducted by an authoritative organization last month, more than 90 percent of the population sympathized with and supported the warring allies, and the U.S. government is gradually hardening.

"After the German invasion of Poland last year, the U.S. government revised the Neutrality Act in a targeted manner, and immediately provided huge loans to Britain and France for the purchase of strategic goods produced in the United States. In his public speech, Roosevelt declared that the American people would not support any of his administration's peace initiatives to consolidate and save a violent and aggressive regime, and then he said in his speech to Congress that if Britain and France failed, the United States would have to spend more on armaments, and that American trade would also face vicious trade competition controlled by the government and subsidized by the government, and this competition would come from Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and the colonial system almost all over the world under their control.

Judging from this series of measures, it is very unlikely that the United States will make peace with Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union alone. At the same time, the expansion of the Atlantic Fleet in Southeast Asia and South Asia has seriously threatened the interests of the United States in these regions, which can be seen from the fact that the United States transferred all the battleships and aircraft carriers of the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific Ocean some time ago, and the United States' patience with the United States has reached a critical point!

"So we don't have to worry about the possibility of an agreement between the United States and the Axis powers, because the claims of the two sides are completely incompatible."

An Yi thought about it carefully and felt that Yang Jie's analysis was very reasonable,

Now that history has changed dramatically, France, which has been supplemented by South China fighters and tanks, may not be as easily defeated as it was in history.

It is also funny to say that France formed a powerful military procurement group in October last year to purchase military supplies from the United States, which focused on asking the United States to provide high-quality fighters, but the leaders of the United States opposed the sale of the most advanced aircraft to France on the grounds that their military strength had increased by leaps and bounds after obtaining advanced American aircraft, because this was likely to leak important secrets, so the French people's request to purchase the latest American P40 fighter and DB-7 attack bomber was rejected.

However, the P-37 fighter manufactured by the Longan Aircraft Company of the Chinese consortium based on the A25 fighter and improved engines and armor plates does not belong to the category of secrecy, and the pilots brought by the French were very satisfied with this fighter, and ordered 1,000 in one go, and at the same time had a great interest in the B19 horizontal bomber that was changed from the Mosquito bomber, and placed an order for 500 aircraft, which made the Longan Aircraft Company famous among the American industrial enterprises.

After the end of the war in British Borneo and Malaya last year, India was inevitably under the threat of the army and navy, and the British felt tremendous pressure and immediately organized a powerful purchasing mission to the United States, but unfortunately the United States, which had just come out of the impact of the economic crisis, lacked the material strength to save the Allies from doom. The lack of supply of aircraft, guns and munitions has not made it possible to achieve the volume of cargo to the Allies, which has actually increased countless times over.

By the end of last year, the United States Air Force had only 160 destroyers flown by 260 pilots, in addition to 52 heavy bombers, which is 83 aircraft less than what is believed to be the most basic requirement for US national defense. The US military is also very short of anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns, and even its own army cannot meet them, let alone purchase them. According to estimates at the time, if 100 destroyers were sold to the Allies, this would only be enough for the Allies to consume for three days at the rate of loss, and the training of pilots that the United States urgently needed in the face of the most aggressive threat would have to be postponed for six months. (***: It is not the same as the French ordering fighters, this is also a true historical fact!) ）

Because of this, the British had to turn their attention to South China, from which the total amount of arms purchased so far exceeded that of the United States. To this end, Nanhua built 25 aircraft factories and supporting factories in one go, and the daily output of aircraft has exceeded 40, and the output of aircraft in a month is as high as 1,200 aircraft, and various types of aircraft have filled the arsenals of the Allied forces.

An Yi paced back and forth for a while, and finally turned his head to Yang Jie and said:

"In a short period of time, the domination of the Indian Ocean has become an irreversible reality, and the Soviet army in Persia is stepping up its attack on Tehran, once Persia is controlled by the Soviet Union, we can also justifiably go south along the border between Afghanistan and Persia and obtain an outlet to the sea in southern Persia. Regardless of whether the Japanese and Soviet armies had the intention of controlling the oil fields in southwestern Persia, we must grasp our strategic deployment.

"From this point of view, it would be better for Sheng Shicai to move the capital of Afghanistan from Kabul to Kandahar, and we can completely take Sheng Shicai's ass and directly attack from southern Afghanistan to southwestern India and southeastern Persia, and put a veneer of justice on our actions.

"Now that the British are always worried about entering the Persian Gulf, we must occupy a port that is decisive for the Central Asian region as soon as possible, and Karachi in southwestern India and Bandar Abbas in southeastern Persia are good options. Therefore, the offensive in Afghanistan should not only not be slowed down, but should be appropriately accelerated, and I hope to establish our dominance in the region before the Japanese occupy India and the Soviets occupy Persia. ”

Yang Jie nodded: "From this point of view, it is imperative to implement a large-scale airdrop on Kabul and open up a second front!" By the end of March, we must completely liberate Afghanistan, occupy Karachi or Abbas at the end of April, and then decide our next move, depending on the actions of *** and the Soviet Union! ”

An Yi immediately called Shen Fengdao and dictated the order. As a result, the huge war machine of the An Jiajun accelerated rapidly, and the entire international situation deviated farther and farther from the original track, and finally reached the point of unpredictability.

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: Go home to coincide with the winter solstice, I wish book friends a happy winter solstice festival!

The body is gradually recovering, and I hope to be able to update normally tomorrow! Thank you for your continued support!