Wavell, commander-in-chief of the British forces in India, was a little anxious, and he was driven all the way to Persia by the Austrians from North Africa to the Middle East. However, the Pahlavi king, who was supported by the British, secretly communicated with the Germans to expel the British from Persia, but fortunately, the Persian rebellion was finally quelled. But the Pahlavi kings fled to Iraq, which was occupied by German-Austrian forces, and called on the Persians to rise up against British rule. For a time, many large and small resistance groups sprung up in Persia, which made the British army exhausted.

Now that Ceylon has fallen, and seeing that the German-Austrian forces are about to find their home, and have lost their superiority at sea, the British army will basically not fight, and their morale is even lower.

Wavell's biggest fear was that the Entente would land in India, and then he would have nowhere to run. As for Burma, forget it, rather than allowing the German-Austrian forces to cut off the retreat of the two divisions stationed in Burma, it is better to withdraw them to India. Saying that it is not prepared to make some contribution to India's defense.

As a result, Wavell decided to abandon Burma, and since the sea route had been cut off, he sent General Alexander to Burma to direct the troops to retreat, while urgently contacting the Japanese troops fighting in Vietnam and asking them to help them defend Burma. Japan had certain ambitions for controlling Burma, but it turned out that it was only for the sake of the British and did not take action against Burma.

Now the situation was critical, but the British asked them to send troops. So half-pushed, half-pushed, the Japanese promised to send reinforcements to Burma.

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As a result, Iida Shojiro commanded the 16th Army to withdraw from the Vietnam battlefield and prepare to transfer to the Burma battlefield via Thailand.

On 26 March, Yankel commanded the Austro-Hungarian fleet to begin a tentative offensive against Burma, primarily aimed at depleting British air power in Burma. At the same time, the German fleet also began to attack the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Austro-Hungarian fleet reached the waters off Rangoon on the 28th, but reconnaissance planes sent from the aircraft carrier found black smoke billowing from the entire port of Rangoon. The airport was empty. The British had already retreated from Rangoon and, before retreating, blew up the facilities and oil depots in the port. Black smoke from the oil depot obscured half of Yangon.

Seeing this, Yankel immediately sent a destroyer fleet to occupy Rangoon first, and then informed General Liszt, who was still in Colombo, to immediately send an army to take over the defense of Burma.

At the same time that the Allied forces were moving to Yangon, the 21st Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Force had begun to enter northern Burma. Follow the road towards Mandalay.

"You don't see, the end of the Han army, the weak crown is the captive, please be long.

You don't see it, Ban Dingyuan, the absolute light cavalry urges the battle clouds!

The boy should be in serious danger, how can he let the Confucian crown miss this life?

The situation is that the country is in danger, and the feather plucking competition does not stop!

Abandon my old pen, and call out more than 100,000 comrades in my wartime. Sing war songs and join the army.

Qi joined the army, cleaned the dust, and swore to sweep away the slaves without regard for themselves! ”

On the Yunnan-Burma Highway, military flags were unfurled and singing was exciting. Groups of soldiers dressed in khaki uniforms and carrying guns on their shoulders rushed like a river along the winding mountain road towards the south. The motor roared, and the head was full of ammunition and baggage. A procession of trucks with artillery in tow behind them rushed along the mountain road. On both sides of the mountain road were infantry marching on foot, and the hundreds of thousands of troops of the 21st Army were like a crowd. Divided into three routes, pouring into the territory of Myanmar.

Many parts of northern Myanmar were originally Chinese territory, and unlike the Burmese people in southern Myanmar who have a certain rejection of ancient Chinese culture, most of the ethnic groups in northern Myanmar have a certain favorable opinion of the Chinese, and although they have lived under British rule for more than 50 years, many still consider themselves Chinese.

This time the troops were dispatched. The Beiyang government basically spent a lot of energy, and the various units of the expeditionary force carried out reorganization training in Kunming several months in advance, and the main equipment of the infantry was also replaced by the Hanyang-made 6.5 mm ZB-32 semi-automatic rifle with the same standard as the Austro-Hungarian army. Naturally, it can't look too shabby.

In addition, each infantry corps was modeled after the Austro-Hungarian Army, equipped with a separate tank battalion, with a total of more than 650 Austro-Hungarian PKT35 light tanks and more than 720 tracked armored vehicles copied by the Hanyang Machine-Building Company. At the same time, about 6,000 transport trucks and more than 1,600 small and medium-sized off-road vehicles were also attached to the expeditionary force.

Myanmar is now in shambles. The British abandoned Rangoon and retreated to Mandalay. Axis forces began to land in Rangoon, and the Austro-Hungarian Marines captured Mawlamyine.

Shojiro Iida's command of the Japanese 15th Army arrived at the Thai-Burmese border, preparing to cross the Tayanita Mountains, which stretch for hundreds of kilometers, in a vain attempt to seize ports along the Burmese coast. Unfortunately, the speed of the army's actions could not be compared to that of the sea, and before the Japanese were ready to venture over the primeval jungle of the Thaniantaong Mountains, the German-Austrian forces had already preemptively captured Mawlamyine in Rangoon.

The Japanese stopped.

William? General Liszt set up the headquarters of the expeditionary force in Rangoon, and due to the destruction of the port facilities, nearly 200,000 troops were basically ashore, but most of the equipment remained on board. Liszt ordered the German 78th Division and the Austro-Hungarian 56th Division, which had completed unloading, to attack north along the Yangon-Mandalay railway to pursue the British, while the rest of the troops had no choice but to stay in Rangoon and Mawlamyine, unable to fight for the time being, and to devote themselves to the restoration of the ports and airports in these two places.

The situation in Southeast Asia changed rapidly, and the Japanese army stopped its offensive to the north of Vietnam, and had to turn its attention to the Malayan and Thai lines, making every effort to prevent the German-Austrian forces from landing in Malaya.

Terauchi Shouichi had the headquarters of the Southern Army in Singapore, and the total strength of the Japanese army in Thailand, Annam, the Dutch East Indies, and Malaya had reached 450,000 at this time: three divisions of the 14th Army under the command of Masaharu Honma and troops directly under the Southern Army in Malaya, three divisions of the 15th Army under the command of Shojiro Iida in Thailand, two divisions of the 16th Army under the command of Nakamura in Java, and four divisions of the 25th Army under the command of Yamashita Fumimi in Annam.

In addition, the Japanese Navy also deployed the 3rd and 5th Flying Groups in Southeast Asia, with a total of more than 1,600 combat aircraft, and the First Air Fleet under the command of Nagumo Tadaichi of the Japanese Navy was based in Jakarta and Singapore, while the Southern Fleet under the command of Jizaburo Ozawa was based in Saigon and controlled the waters of the South China Sea and the Java Sea.

The German-Austrian forces were not in a hurry to attack Malaya, firstly because of the lack of troops, and secondly, the reason for the landing in Burma was the eagerness to open up maritime links with China, and then to use the large number of Chinese land forces to strengthen their forces, and then to attack the whole of Southeast Asia.

In order to mine the Baldwin iron ore ore, the British extended the Rangoon-Mandalay railway to Lashio before the war, and the Chinese army along the Yunnan-Burma road had already occupied Lashio, and the German-Austrian forces were also moving north along the railway. The British in Burma had only two infantry divisions and began to retreat largely before engaging the German-Austrian forces.

Seeing that he was in danger of being caught between two sides, Alexander was decisive and immediately abandoned Mandalay and led the LinkedIn army all the way to Paran.

Due to the voluntary retreat of the British army, there was basically no fighting in the entire Burma campaign, and the German-Austrian army joined forces with the Chinese army in Mandalay, basically occupying most of Burma. The course of the campaign was somewhat surprising.

On the contrary, the aviation units have been engaged in an aerial battle with the Japanese army, and the battle is fierce, and both sides have suffered considerable losses.

After a year and a half of isolation, land and sea links between China and Europe have finally been restored, although due to the limited capacity of the Yunnan-Burma road, the immediate priority is to build a railway from Baoshan to Lashio in China.

This is not an easy task. (To be continued......) R1292