"Ah, I know, you just said, there is a wave of Japanese troops going to Lashio, okay, I know this, what should you do or what to do, you don't have to worry about this matter" Yan Wudao held back a smile and listened to Haig in the walkie-talkie in strange Chinese words to count the crisis that Lashio was about to face. The Japanese army was cut into two ends by laziness, and a group retreated for several miles to rest, so that the group naturally wanted to attack Lashio, otherwise they would have to break through the mercenary defense line for nothing.

Thunder learned that the 18th and 55th Divisions of the Japanese army were transferred to Taunggyi to the north to Lashio, this was all a few days ago, and Thunder's southward trip to Mandalay did not take away all the troops of Lashio, there were supplies, there were airports, and of course there were troops left behind. Before the arrival of 30,000 Jewish troops from Kunming, Thunder's top commander in Lashio was none other than Mo Lun, who had been entrusted by Zhao Zhi with the task of restoring the railway line.

Mo Lun was a logistics supervisor who had never experienced a big scene, but he was not afraid to fight the Japanese army, and in only two days, he instructed the troops left behind in Lashio to turn the area 30 kilometers long and 1 kilometer thick on the south side of Lashio into a veritable place of death. All kinds of trick mines, German-style anti-infantry mines, and French-style anti-tank mines have all been used, and grass, shrubs, stone crevices, under trees, and trees are all hidden explosion points, and all kinds of mines that combine instantaneous, delayed, tripping and triggering have completely closed the open land on the side of Lashio near Taunggyi, even if elite sappers want to pass through here, I am afraid it is not so easy.

Yan Wudao was not worried about the Japanese army that had already crossed the defense line, the main purpose of the mercenaries and Haig's machine gun company to set up a defensive line here was to kill and injure as many Japanese troops as possible before the Japanese army reached the place of death, and reduce some pressure on the land of death that Moren led to complete. The number of Japanese troops who crossed the mercenary line was at most about 10,000, and Yan Wudao fully believed that the place of death was enough for those Japanese soldiers to drink a pot, so that they would have plenty of time to deal with the retreating part of the Japanese army.

Yokota Nakasa, who belongs to the 143rd Wing of the 55th Division, is not in a relaxed mood at the moment, before crossing the mercenary line, the 143rd Wing was sent by the division commander Takeuchi Kuan to provide flank cover for the 55th Wing of the 18th Division, which was only a cover mission, but the shells from the other side could not distinguish between the 55th Wing and the 143rd Wing. It was precisely because of the volley of artillery fire from the other side that a fully manned infantry brigade commanded by Yokota was now reduced to less than 400 men, and the other two-thirds of the soldiers had all been killed.

If it were another Japanese officer, I am afraid that he would have committed suicide by cutting his stomach long ago if he suffered such serious casualties in the troops under his command, but Yokota Keiichi, who was only a farmer and was good at seizing opportunities, was definitely a special case, he always believed that he should not be responsible for the failure of tactics and the loss of troops, and tonight's battle plan was personally formulated by the commanders of the two divisions, and the orders were also issued by the division commanders themselves, so why did the division commanders not be responsible if the operation failed?

Yokota's attitude made the commander of the 55th Division, Takeuchi Kuan, angry to death, because Takeuchi Kuan knew very well how cheeky his subordinates were, so he only reprimanded Yokota a few words on the surface, Yokota Keiichi would never defend the honor of the samurai because of his own words, besides, this guy is not a samurai at all, he is just a farmer who likes to take advantage of small advantages.

After crossing the mercenary defense line in a daze, the 55th Division had no choice but to attack Lashio based on the fact that it had found a way to survive, and based on Yokota's attitude, the 143rd Wing once again walked at the forefront of the entire division, and Takeuchi Kuanmei said that this was an opportunity for the 143rd Wing to regain its strength, and the most worry-free Yokota Keiichi led his brigade of less than 400 people to the front of the 143rd Wing, becoming the arrow unit of the entire division.

Keiichi Yokota didn't dare to refute the division commander's arrangement, but he was resentful of his own brigade with serious shortcomings, especially since he was entrusted with the task of being the vanguard of the entire division, which made him feel even more unhappy. As the first explosion sounded in his ranks, an exhausted Keiichi Yokota was leaning against a large rock and took the opportunity to rest and catch his breath, watching his soldiers be thrown high by the explosion and then fall to the ground like broken sacks.

The "damn guys" were as close as their soldiers to the ground and do tactical concealment, and after a few minutes passed, there were no more explosions, and Keiichi Yokota, who jumped in shock, waved his hand to signal the troops to move on. No one, including Keiichi Yokota, as the captain of the brigade, would have thought that the explosion that had just happened was not accidental, and they were exhausted and thought that it was just an accident, until the second and third explosions occurred next, and they realized that the shortcut they had chosen did not seem to be safe.

In just ten minutes, the Yokota Brigade, which was already short of soldiers, was in trouble again, and at least more than 40 soldiers fell victim to the explosions just now, and Yokota felt that it was necessary for him to inform the division commander of what had happened, that is, the division commander Takeuchi Hiroshi, who also did not want to see him. What can Takeuchi say, he can only draw out an engineer unit to help the Yokota Brigade open a safe route, and demining and continuing to advance is the only thing that the 55th Division can do at present.

With the help of the first rays of sunlight in the morning, the sappers of the 55 th Division carefully carried out reconnaissance operations with the lightning detector rods in their hands, and it did not take much effort for them to investigate nearly 200 meters, and no trace of mine laying was found. The engineers of the 55th Division determined that the mines stepped on by the Yokota Brigade were only isolated and that there should be no large-scale minefields here, so the dedicated engineers in charge sent a signal to inform the Yokota Brigade that it could move on.

Two minutes later, in a series of large explosions, half of the Japanese troops under the Yokota Brigade were blasted into the sky, and Yokota Keiichi stared blankly at the stumps and severed arms flying in the sky, and the flesh and blood that had collapsed seemed to condense a rainbow in the air. The wounded who were affected by the explosion groaned in pain in various positions, but no Japanese soldiers dared to rescue them, and God knows how many mines were still buried here, including the sappers.

Another series of explosions, based on the proof of their own 100 Japanese sappers were engulfed in the explosion, the wounded soldiers of the Yokota Brigade did not know when they cursed the incompetence of the sappers, those sappers had fulfilled their oath to crush His Majesty the Emperor, and the corpses were scattered everywhere. Keiichi Yokota, who was temporarily assigned to his engineer team, Kameda Minami, came to him and gave him two slaps first, Kameda was also very aggrieved, and they had never seen the tricks and methods of the thunderbolt sappers laying them, so it was naturally extremely dangerous to rule them out. ”

The situation was passed on to Takeuchi again by Keiichi Yokota, there was a large minefield in front of him, and Keiichi Yokota, as the forward of the entire division, needed the division commander to make a decision. But Takeuchi Kuan didn't listen to Yokota Keiichi's explanation at all, and directly pointed at Yokota Keiichi's nose and shouted: "From now on, your brigade must always walk in front of the entire division!" Do you understand? I will continue to send sappers to help you, this is an order" Keiichi Yokota, who kept his head down, did not notice a trace of fierceness flashing in Takeuchi's eyes, otherwise he would definitely quarrel with Takeuchi in person.

After the adjutant of Yokota Keiichi was hit by a thunderbolt and lost a leg, his face was distorted and he immediately ordered the troops to stop advancing, and after counting the personnel, Yokota Keiichi was surprised to find that he had lost half of his troops in just half a kilometer, and these casualties did not include the engineer squadron assigned to him.

Keiichi Yokota tried to use mortars and grenadiers to clear mines, but last night when the 55th Division broke through the enemy's defensive line too suddenly, most of the division's long-range firepower and weapons were taken away by the retreating 18th Division, even if he took all the mortar shells and grenade grenades available in the 55th Division, Yokota Keiichi still did not have confidence in passing through the minefield. The orders of the division commander Takeuchi Kan urging the troops to move forward were sent one after another, and Keiichi Yokota, who had nothing to do, used a life-saving trick -- concentrating all the machine-gun fire of the Yokota Brigade to fire on the ground and demine.

"Dada", "Boom", "Boom". Keiichi Yokota's machine gun demining was indeed effective, and some trigger and tripping mines were really detonated by Japanese machine gun fire. Looking at the smoke and continuous explosions in front of him, a smile appeared on Yokota Keiichi's face, according to this speed, it will not take 3 hours for his brigade to successfully cross this open field, the imagination is beautiful, but the reality is cruel, Yokota Keiichi obviously underestimated the courage of the thunder and the strength of the tactics, when the suede shoes of the Japanese soldiers stepped on the bodies of the civilian people who were blown to pieces and moved forward rapidly, across this place of death, More than 20 mercenary snipers in camouflage uniforms and camouflage nets were already ready. The blood-stained soles of the Japanese soldiers left rows of bloody footprints. But they didn't know that there was already a gun pointed at them across the river a few hundred meters away.

There are many rivers around Lashio, some of which still maintain a fixed flow rate, and there are also riverbeds that have long been cut off, and the mercenary snipers are lurking in a section of the riverbed that has long been dry at this time. The bullet shot out a sniper rifle equipped with a silencer, and quickly passed through the minefield and went straight to the Japanese army on the opposite side, and the soldiers of the Yokota brigade who were not on guard were immediately put down more than 20, and the rest of the people immediately lay on the ground looking for the direction of the bullet.