The Salween River is the lower reaches of the Nu River, with abundant water, and the area around Mawlamyine at the mouth of the river is an important agricultural area and an important rice producing area.

Now it has already been filled with the smoke of fire, and the roaring and circling aircraft in the sky continue to drop bombs, setting off violent explosions and fires, and countless tongues of fire on the ground spray bullets into the sky, and planes crash from time to time.

China's "Thunder Plan" covers the whole of Southeast Asia, including the plan to encircle and annihilate British forces in Burma. For this reason, the task of the Chinese Third Route Army was to quickly advance westward after capturing Siam, interspersed with direct access to Mawlamyine, Rangoon and other places, cut off the retreat of the British army in Burma in one fell swoop, and cooperate with the Second Route Army to form an encirclement of the British army in Burma.

The Chinese Air Force has made a name for itself by destroying the Navy, and at the same time it has alerted the world, especially Britain. For this reason, the million Anglo-Indian regiment units trained by the British in India were equipped with a lot of anti-aircraft weapons, because these units themselves existed to deal with the squadrons.

Although it was impossible for Britain to equip these colonial legions with too good anti-aircraft weapons, they were equipped with a lot of 12 and 7 mm high-level dual-purpose large-caliber machine guns and 20 mm high-level dual-purpose machine guns, which also made the Chinese Air Force, which had always been unscrupulous, finally met with stubborn resistance from the ground.

On the surface of the Salween River, dozens of tanks and a group of fishing boats braved artillery fire to move westward on the river, and shells constantly stirred up splashes on the river, and occasionally a fishing boat was hit, and the entire fishing boat was reduced to pieces under the violent explosion, and the Chinese officers and men on the fishing boat instantly flew with blood and flesh. On the Jiangdong side, a large number of Chinese Wehrmacht mortar groups continued to fire shells at the British defense line on the west bank, and countless bullet rains covered almost the entire west bank to cover the forced crossing of troops, but they were also constantly attacked by the British long-range artillery in the rear and suffered heavy casualties.

At the headquarters on the east bank of the river, Li Dashan, commander of the Ninth Army, Gu Pinzhen, chief of staff, and Li Kangdang, commander of the 091st Division, and Li Zongren, chief of staff, stared at the river with a loud bang, and an amphibious tank on the river was hit by a shell, although it was not completely destroyed, but the tank was damaged, and water continued to pour into the tank, and the tank gradually sank, but no one escaped.

"Bastard!" Gu Pinzhen scolded, he knew that the officers and soldiers on the tank were finished, the tank was not seriously damaged, and the people should not have died on the spot, but the violent shock of the shelling hit was only afraid that the officers and soldiers in the tank would be stunned, and they would not be able to sober up and escape in time when they sank to the bottom of the river, and there was only one way out.

Li Dashan's tone was still calm: "When will our heavy artillery arrive?" ”

Gu Pinzhen said bitterly: "At least three days." The road conditions along the way were not good, and only tanks could barely pass through the mountains and mountains, and the cars could not be used, and the artillery could only be dragged by horse-drawn people. But we're either 105 caliber cannons or 150 caliber heavy guns, and these are big guys. "In fact, this is also a helpless thing, the Chinese artillery manufacturing capacity itself is weak, all 75 mm guns are used to produce tank guns and some naval guns, and the army directly did not use this caliber artillery, but replaced it with mortars. Although the power of large-caliber mortars is not much worse than that of 75-mm field guns, the firing range is incomparable. Originally, I thought that the air attack would take care of the other side, or that the field duel would be suppressed by larger-caliber artillery, but I did not expect that the situation of poor traffic in Southeast Asia was finally encountered, and the large-caliber artillery could not be pulled, and the air attack was blocked by the enemy's dense anti-aircraft fire.

Li Dangdang said: "It's up to this time." If they can't force the crossing, they can only call for increased air strikes. ”

After a while, the tanks finally came ashore, and less than 20 of the more than 30 tanks rushed to the opposite shore, and only more than 30 of the officers and men of more than 50 fishing boats followed ashore. As soon as the troops came ashore, mortar fire suppressed on the east bank quickly fired into the deep column.

A large number of British and Indian officers and soldiers randomly appeared on the British positions on the opposite side, and immediately engaged in a fierce battle with the Chinese officers and soldiers who landed, and the landed tanks were constantly hit by the anti-aircraft artillery, and countless British and Indian officers and soldiers fell under the intensive automatic fire of the Chinese side.

Each tank was pulled with a rope behind it, and with the powerful firepower of the tank armor and the assault rifles of all members of the Chinese Defense Force commandos, the troops forcibly seized a bridgehead on the opposite bank. The tank moved forward, and the rope was pulled, and gradually the rope was visible pulling out a large iron chain.

"Up!" Amid Li Dashan's loud roar, signal flares were issued, and a large number of officers and men on the east bank rushed up the river with countless fishing boats and rafts, frantically rushing to the opposite bank.

The British troops on the other side obviously noticed this, and frantically ordered the troops to constantly charge the bridgehead that the Chinese broke through, although the Chinese firepower was fierce, and the charging troops fell, but the automatic firepower and ferocious firepower meant high consumption, and the ammunition was exhausted after a while, and the commandos could only pick up the British weapons and shoot. A single rifle could not stop the onslaught like a tidal wave, and in an instant the bridgehead position formed a white-knuckle battle.

The commandos continued to suffer casualties, and the tanks that had run out of ammunition were also blown up by the British who rushed forward with grenades. The fishing boats and rafts crossing the river were constantly destroyed by artillery fire, but this could not stop the other boats from rushing against time.

Seeing that the bridgehead had been lost, and that the officers and men of the second wave of the fleet were still nearly 100 meters away from the opposite side, Li Dashan shouted in a deep voice: "Call the air force to carry out carpet bombing of our assault bridgehead. ”

Gu Pinzhen and Li Zongren both looked at Li Dashan incredulously, Gu Pinzhen couldn't help but say, "Junzao, the brothers of the commando team are still resisting." ”

Li Dashan's tone was as cold as if it had not changed for a thousand years: "This is an order!" "There are already a few people left in the assault team, but there are thousands of people on the other side, but the reinforcements are still on the river, and the end is already doomed. The important thing is that the troops only have this one chance, and the Ninth Army only has those 30 or so amphibious tanks, and if it were to do it again, without amphibious tanks as an assault force, the casualties of the troops would definitely be several times or even more than ten times the current ones.

"Compassion does not take charge of the troops" This is the experience of Chinese soldiers for thousands of years, and it is one thing to love and care for officers and soldiers in peacetime, and it is another thing to fight wars. In order to achieve the effect of deception, it is necessary to pay a certain number of casualties for troops, and in order to achieve a certain strategic goal, there are many examples of deliberately sacrificing one or several troops, which is of course unfair to the sacrificed officers and soldiers, and is extremely cruel. However, in the eyes of the generals, for the sake of the overall situation, it is necessary.

Immediately, several bombers roared and swooped down, and countless bombs fell, instantly turning the entire bridgehead occupied by the commandos into a sea of fire, and the remaining commando officers and soldiers and the British and Indian officers and soldiers in front of them were instantly overwhelmed by the fierce bombardment.

After the bombardment, in the smoke of gunfire, the second wave of Chinese defense officers and soldiers crossing the river had already rushed to the beachhead, and the British and Indian troops were defeated and retreated under fierce firepower. Gradually, dozens of iron chains were tightened, batches of rafts were tied to the chains, and a proposed pontoon bridge was quickly formed in less than half an hour, and countless Wehrmacht officers and men braved the blows of British long-range artillery fire to pass through the pontoon bridge and pour into position

There was silence in the conference room of the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing.

The battle report of the forced crossing of the Salween River has been truthfully reported, and Li Dashan's order is naturally truthfully displayed in front of him.

"Hey, this Li Dashan is ruthless enough." Tang Shaoyi knew that Li Dashan was Li Bufan's descendant, and he still let out such a seemingly sigh, but it was actually a dissatisfied voice.

Duan Qirui shook his head and said, "If it were me, I would have given the same order." If this is not done, not only will the assault team be annihilated in the same way, but even the second landing force will be suppressed on the beachhead and annihilated by the British, and even the Salween will be defeated. Under the heavy forces of the other side relying on the danger of the river, if you want to attack again, I am afraid that the losses will be even more difficult to estimate. Most importantly, if the overall strategic plan is not completed, the consequences will be even more severe. ”

Li Bufan nodded and said: "The reason why we want to plan the Third Route Army to encircle the Anglo-Indian legions in Burma in a roundabout way is to annihilate them at one time, and then the First Route Army will crush the Anglo-Indian legions in Assam at the same time." To achieve this strategic goal, it means that Britain has almost no troops available in India, and if they want to keep India, they can only mobilize local white troops at all costs, and the real British army will quickly reinforce and block our army, so as to achieve the goal of inflicting heavy losses on the white people, so that Britain and even the Western world will fear casualties and war, so as to recognize our hegemony in East Asia. ”

Xu Shuzheng said seriously: "The commander-in-chief's plan is very difficult, after all, they only need to block it for a while, and they will soon use a steady stream of colonial legions as cannon fodder to deal with us, and the entire Western world will not compromise easily, because they always think that their strength has an advantage, and in fact, it is also the case." ”

Wu Di smiled dryly: "This is all in the future. There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain, and the Salween River is successfully crossed, and it is believed that the Third Route Army will have no problem taking Yangon, and the British army will soon be encircled in Burma. I think that the pace of the Sixth Route Army's offensive in the Philippines has to be accelerated, and you must know that the US army is almost a real American, completely annihilating the remnants of Pershing, and the United States has lost more than 500,000 troops. ”

Duan Qirui smiled: "It's a good thing to make them hurt." After a pause, he said, "However, will our army's such a leaping advance lead to instability in the rear?" ”

Li Bufan said lightly: "It's not a big problem, those clowns who jump off the beam are not a climate." Without reading the expansion of the army, the second-line troops can quickly sweep through these areas. Now our South China Sea Fleet is cooperating with the Fourth Route Army to capture Singapore, and then the troops will quickly land on the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. The Fifth Route Army will soon land on Borneo with the Pacific Fleet and cooperate in the capture of some Philippine islands. Then it will be seen if the situation can capture the Dutch East Indies as much as possible, and the farther we advance, the more beneficial it will be for us. ”

Duan Qirui frowned and said, "The farther away the better?" But this is also equivalent to stretching our supply lines. ”

Li Bufan and Wu glanced at each other, and at the same time showed a strange smile (to be continued.) )