Theoretically, Stilwell's plan for the Battle of Mandalay was likely to succeed.

Because at this time, the total strength of the Anglo-Burmese army, the Chinese expeditionary force, and the U.S. army was close to 200,000, but the troops used by the army to attack Burma were only the 18th, 33rd, 55th, and 56th divisions, of which the 55th and 56th divisions were still three-unit divisions, and the total strength of the army was less than 100,000, and the allies had an absolute advantage in terms of strength.

In terms of troops, the Allies had the upper hand, and the combat effectiveness of the Allied forces seemed to be theoretically stronger than that of the Japanese army.

In terms of [***] alone, the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Force is a mechanized corps in the true sense, and the Sixth Army and the Sixty-sixth Army are also elite divisions that were killed in the flames of war.

Although the Anglo-Burmese army has been frightened by the army, it still has three divisions plus several reading brigades, and nearly 100,000 horses, and one of the three main divisions of the Anglo-Burmese army is a tank armored division.

In terms of hard power, the only thing that the Allies do not have an advantage in may be the army cabin air force, which has been flying and fighting in the Chinese battlefield for four full years, and its flight experience and actual combat ability are far from being comparable to those of the United States and the British air force.

However, in terms of soft power, the Allies are at an absolute disadvantage compared to the Yue Army!

The vast majority of their officers and soldiers have been fighting against the Chinese army on the battlefield for four years, and both the command ability of senior officers and the tactical quality of grassroots officers and soldiers have reached the highest level in history, and it can be said that the front of the army is in full bloom.

However, the Anglo-Burmese troops in the Allied forces have completely lost the confidence and courage to fight a decisive battle with the Yue army.

The worst thing is that the Allied command system is scattered and overlapping powers, Stilwell is clearly the chief of staff of the China-Burma-India theater and the supreme commander of the Burma side, but in fact he can not command Du Yuming's Chinese expeditionary force, let alone mobilize Alexander's Anglo-Burmese army, and the command of the Allied forces is completely scattered.

Stilwell's ambition to inflict a heavy defeat on the Japanese army in Mandalay shattered his dreams.

As soon as the advance of the army appeared near Mandalay, the Anglo-Burmese troops on the Western Front fled without a fight, and did not say any greetings to Stilwell, the nominal supreme commander, before retreating, and the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which was supporting alone on the Eastern Front, was even more caught off guard by the British, and the situation in Mandalay suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse.

At this time, the 18th and 55th Divisions of the Chinese Army attacked Mandalay from the eastern front, the 33rd Division made a detour from Ringanqiang to the western front, and the 56th Division, with the help of the Burmese people, completed a thousand-mile detour within a few days, and the surprise attack on Lashio was successful, cutting off the retreat of the Chinese expeditionary force to return home through the Yunnan-Burma Highway.

What is even more terrifying is that a large amount of supplies from the United States to aid China have been piled up at the Lashio railway station, and they have not had time to rush back to China.

Lieutenant General Masao Watanabe, commander of the 56th Division of the Chinese Army, could not help but be overjoyed when he saw the mountain of materials piled up in the Lashio railway station, and immediately sent a telegram to the headquarters of the Southern Army and the base camp of the Japanese Army: Our division has started in Lashio, the transportation of the Yunnan-Burma Highway has been cut off, and a large amount of materials and equipment from the United States have been seized to aid China.

After the loss of Lashio, seeing that the three-way army was about to form an encirclement of the Chinese expeditionary force, Chairman Chiang immediately panicked and urgently ordered Du Yuming to lead his troops to retreat to Myitkyina, an important town in northern Burma.

However, the Chinese expeditionary force's plan to retreat to Myitkyina was soon aborted.

At the end of September of the thirtieth year of the Republic of China (1941), the 56th Wing of the 56th Combat Vehicle of the 56th Division of the Yue Army, after receiving the massive amount of fuel and thousands of trucks accumulated at the Lashio Railway Station, immediately followed the example of the German army in the jungle of northern Burma and used blitzkrieg tactics.

After the loss of Myitkyina, the main road for the Chinese expeditionary force to return home was blocked by the Chinese army.

At this time, General Du Yuming, who was known as the "Tiger General of Whampoa", was already in chaos, and in his opinion, there were only two ways left in front of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, either to withdraw to India, or to throw away heavy equipment and return to China over the mountains of cross-country people, but Chairman Chiang's telegram to General Du was to bring the expeditionary force back to China no matter what!

………… Jingcheng County, Headquarters of the 39th Group Army.

After the start of Ben's plan to go south, the battlefield in North China fell silent.

The new commander of the North China Front, Shunroku Hatata, did not launch the Battle of Luliangshan in the end, because a large number of elite veterans of the North China Battlefield had been transferred to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Theater.

In view of this situation, the strategy of the Chinese army in North China has shifted from offensive to defensive.

The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army quickly dispatched a large number of armed work teams to carry out work in the occupied areas, and with the arduous efforts of the vast number of commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army, several base areas were finally reopened, and the Eighth Route Army finally gained a firm foothold in the battlefield behind enemy lines.

However, Yue Weihan's 39th Group Army did not have a plan to dig out the gate east.

The 39th Group Army was more than enough to hold on to the Taihang Mountains, but it was wishful thinking to defeat the main force of the North China Front with the help of field heavy artillery brigades and aviation regiments in the Jizhong Plain.

But now, Yue Weihan couldn't sit still.

It is said that the army went south earlier than in history, and the Chinese expeditionary force also entered Burma to participate in the war earlier than in history, but the final result did not change much, and even the process was much the same, the Chinese, American and British allies were finally defeated, and the Chinese expeditionary force still seemed to inevitably embark on the road of no return to the Savage Mountain.

Such an outcome was by no means what Yue Weihan was willing to see.

The expeditionary force is the elite of [***], and Du Yuming's Fifth Army is even more crude among the elite.

The Fifth Army has more than 80 Soviet-style T-26 tanks, more than 100 German-made armored vehicles, more than 400 American-made Ford trucks, each division is equipped with mountain artillery or field artillery battalions, and the artillery regiment directly under the army is equipped with 24 150mm caliber field heavy howitzers!

The armored strength and artillery firepower of the Fifth Army were beyond the reach of even the 39th Army.

Until the end of September of the 30th year of the Republic of China (1941), the 39th Group Army still had any decent artillery.

In addition to the unconscionable artillery of the artillery regiments of each division, it is 60 mortars, Niu Dagen's artillery brigade still uses field artillery and infantry artillery, and Yue Weihan finally bought more than 200 75mm caliber American howitzers from the United States through Helen, but before he could rush back to China, he asked Yue himself to intercept them at the Lashio railway station.

When the news came, Yue Weihan really wanted to cry without tears, but he spent a full $5 million to buy these more than 200 howitzers from the United States, and now they are so cheap, who should Yue Weihan go to? However, compared with this batch of artillery, Yue Weihan was obviously more concerned about the fate of the 100,000 officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force.

The artillery is gone, and it can be bought from the United States again, and the American political axe will also greatly help.

However, if the 100,000 officers and soldiers of the India-Burma Expeditionary Force died in the Savage Mountain, it would be an absolutely unbearable loss for China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Moreover, no matter how well trained the troops are, they can't compare to the old troops who have seen blood on the battlefield after all!

In any case, the expeditionary force must not go to the Savage Mountain, and must not go to the Savage Mountain!

In the sound of hurried footsteps, Colonel Liu Xin and Zhao Xinyi walked in one after another, and immediately stood up and saluted at the same time.

Yue Weihan waved his hand and said to Liu Xin: "Liu Xin, immediately send a transoceanic telegram to Helen, let her do whatever it takes to create public opinion, force the American political axe to exert pressure on the national political axe through public opinion, and urge Chairman Jiang to immediately remove the commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Force. ”

"Yes!" Liu Xin stood upright and immediately received the order.

To save the commander of the expeditionary force, Yue Weihan really didn't think about others.

In this world, if even Yue Weihan, a traverser, can't save the expeditionary force, then no one really can.

Yue Weihan said to Zhao Xinyi again: "Comrade Zhao Xinyi, immediately send a telegram to Yan'an, to [***], and Mr. Zhu, saying that I intend to lead an expedition to Burma, first, to save the country and the nation from danger, and second, to take the opportunity to expand the influence of our party and our army in the world. ”

Leading an expedition to Burma is such a big thing, Yue Weihan doesn't dare to make his own decisions anymore.

This is no longer a purely military incident, in a sense it is already a political incident.

However, Yue Weihan absolutely believes that [***], with [***] vision, it is impossible for him not to see the great benefits of the 39th Group Army's expedition to Burma to [***], after the 39th Group Army arrives in Burma, it can directly accept US aid and equipment, and it is of great significance to go abroad to resist the war, and it is easy to get the full support of the people in the rear and overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.

More importantly, Yue Weihan will then be able to openly engage with the United States as a [***] person.

Yue Weihan believed that as long as he consciously weakened the ideological differences, or even directly described socialism as "state capitalism", coupled with the fact that the [***] regime was far more incorruptible and efficient than the national political axe at that time, with the consistent realism of the American political axe, he would not abandon the national government, but would definitely vigorously assist the [***] regime.

Historically, the U.S. government has had a proposal to abandon direct aid from the government.

In addition, after Yue Weihan led the main force of the 39th Group Army to leave, Li Qinglong, who stayed in Taihang Mountain, could break away from [***] at the right time, Li Qinglong is now just a major general and brigade commander, even if he breaks away from [***] and joins the Eighth Road, it will not cause too much turmoil politically, so that the Eighth Route Army can smoothly take over the Taihang Mountain base area.

With the backing of the Taihang Mountain Base Area, coupled with the assistance of the United States, the Eighth Route Army will definitely be stronger than in history.

If Yue Weihan's 39th Group Army and the Indo-Burma Expeditionary Force were able to continuously consume the Yue army in the Southeast Asian theater and force the Yue army to continuously draw elite veterans from the battlefields in North China, Central China, and even Northeast China, perhaps it would not have to wait 45 years for the Eighth Route Army, which was more powerful than the same period in history, to launch a full-scale counteroffensive behind enemy lines.

Of course, all this is just a hypothesis, whether Helen can set off a public opinion offensive in the United States, and whether the American political axe will exert pressure on the national political axe because of the pressure of the people, are unknown, even if these two points are realized, Chairman Chiang also gives in, Yue Weihan has no absolute certainty to turn the tide and change the fate of the Indo-Burma Expeditionary Force.

After all, the Indo-Burma Expeditionary Force is not the 39th Group Army, after all, it is not a unit brought out by Yue Weihan!

Even if Chairman Chiang dismissed General Du Yuming against his will and reappointed Yue Weihan as commander-in-chief of the Indo-Burma Expeditionary Force, and then Yue Weihan parachuted into the Burma battlefield by plane in the shortest possible time, it may not be able to immediately turn the tide of the war, because division commanders such as Dai Anlan and Sun Liren may not be able to obey Yue Weihan's command.

Although Yue Weihan has brilliant achievements, his foundation is really shallow.

Looking at the whole [***], almost all the generals above the division commander are Yue Weihan's Huangpu seniors, in terms of age, Yue Weihan is the absolute junior in the [***] star group, these Huangpu seniors and big brothers, will they really accept the command of Yue Weihan, a junior and junior, without any guilt?

Taking a step back, even if Dai Anlan, Sun Liren and others could accept Yue Weihan's command without any guilt, it would not be easy for Yue Weihan to immediately reverse the situation on the battlefield in Burma.

At this time, the army had basically completed the occupation of Burma, and the railways, highways, major cities, and strategic bases in Burma had basically fallen under the control of the army, and the Burmese people were obviously more welcoming to the army in the image of liberators, and the Indo-Burma expeditionary force was already struggling in Burma.

And Yue Weihan's descendant troops, the 39th Group Army, could not rush to Burma in a short time!

If Yue Weihan wants to lead the Indo-Burmese expeditionary force to complete an absolute counterattack in such a desperate situation, the difficulty can be imagined.

However, no matter how difficult it is, Yue Weihan is fearless! Even though he knew that going to Myanmar was dangerous and uncertain about his life and death, Yue Weihan was also unafraid, or that sentence, as a man, some things must be done, as a soldier, some responsibilities must be borne, for the 100,000 elites of the India-Burma Expeditionary Force, why did Yue Weihan regret to die?

(To be continued)