It can be said that once the Punjab area was seized by the squadron, India would have a big problem with food supply in 1936, and the southern part of the West Punjab was Sindh, which was the throat of the communication line between India and the Soviet Union. The outcome of this world war is almost decided!

However, the Indian Red Army was also aware of the importance of the Punjab and Sindh areas, so as early as September last year, the Indian Red Army formed a Sindh-Beloch Army Group to defend the coastal areas of Sindh and Belochistan to prevent the enemy from attacking from the sea. At the same time, the Kashmir Army Group was deployed in the Kashmir region to defend the Punjab and Sindh areas from the north and south. Therefore, Zhao Zhen's reminder is not unreasonable, and it is indeed a bit risky to use a mere 200,000 troops to attack the Punjab region, which is related to the 350 million Indian three rice bowls.

Chang Ruiqing smiled and took a sip of coffee: "Youlin, if our 200,000-strong army launches an attack on Kashmir today, then they can at most take down the Kashmir Valley, and it will be extremely difficult to reach the threshold of Punjab." But by October, things were certainly different. India is fighting on the northeastern and northwest fronts of India, sending 800,000 internationalist fighters to the Middle East and the Soviet Union every month, Calcutta and Jamshepur arsenals have been destroyed by our bombing, and in a few days several roads from India to Bōs will be strangled by our German planes, and Delhi, the capital of India's GCD, is also being bombed every day! I don't believe that Lu Yi can still sit still, as long as he wants to break the predicament, he will definitely concentrate his forces on Afghanistan or the battlefield is Bangladesh to fight a decisive battle with us. India, with its large population, is not able to sustain too many troops due to its weak industrial base, and if they were to strengthen their forces in Afghanistan or Bangladesh, Sindh, Kashmir and Punjab would be empty. At that time, we may be able to organize a landing in the Belochistan area, so that not only the troops of Sindh, Kashmir and Punjab will be evacuated, but there may not even be many defenders in Delhi! ”

Chang Ruiqing is actually proposing a proposal to the General Staff. Zhao Zhen thought for a while and nodded slightly, although the Belochistan area has always been heavily defended by Bōs and India, as long as there is the support of the Sino-German air force and the Arab Imperial Navy on Gesham Island, it is still possible to launch a landing operation on the long coastline of the Belochistan region. Since the Belochistan region was the choke point connecting India and the Soviet Union, Delhi would certainly not sit idly by in the event of danger, and even if they had a strong enough force in the Beloch-Sindh army, they would still mobilize reinforcements from central India. The success of such a raid on Punjab may be a little bigger. However, whether it will be implemented or not depends on the situation. In addition, the General Staff is considering the possibility of holding a decisive battle with the defenders of Delhi in the Punjab area, and perhaps take the opportunity to capture the Indian capital!

……

“…… Comrade Blyukhel made another mistake in mid-August 1935, which was to launch the Battle of Imphal. In the previous months of June and July, he had tried to avoid attacking the Imphal area, where the Chinese army was heavily concentrated and the terrain was precarious. In order to force the Chinese army in Imphal to leave the fortress and take the initiative to attack, he also launched a costly Himalayan campaign. However, on August 14, he took the initiative to propose to Comrade Lu Yi to fight the Battle of Imphal. Comrade Ruyi's request was to fight the Bay of Bengal Campaign, and out of trust in Comrade Blyukher, Comrade Ruyi approved the implementation of the Imphal Campaign and abandoned his original demand. The result was another great tragedy, and it can even be said that the root cause of the series of setbacks that India suffered in the war against China was the Battle of Imphal, which began in late August 1935. And Comrade Blyukhel did have an unshirkable responsibility for this, which also caused his resignation. And his departure caused a series of loopholes in the command of the Indian Red Army......" - the above is an excerpt from Comrade Charia's memoirs "Written Before the Second World **" (also known as "The Beginning of World ** Failure").

August 31, 1935.

The fighting has become more and more fierce on all fronts in the northeast of India. In the Bay of Bengal area, the Chinese 1st Armored Cavalry Corps finally completed the landing on August 25, and then the 1st Armored Cavalry Division of the army was reinforced to the west bank of the Hooghly River, and formed an armored assault group with the 1st and 2nd North Korean Divisions to attack Demlugh, which was defended by the 77th Army of the Indian Army; The main force of this army was used on the front line of Furda, and the 76th Army of the Indian Army joined the 1st Marine Division of the Chinese Army to launch an offensive in the area of Fulda and Raipur. The 10 infantry divisions of the Indian Army's 76th Army and 77th Army spread out defensive lines on both sides of the Hooghly River to prevent the Chinese army from moving north and cover the south of Calcutta. The Indian Northeast Front Command also gave unequivocal death orders to the two armies, as well as to their superior command body, the Bengal Army Group Command. The 76th Army and the 77th Army of Army Group Bengal must hold the Fulda-Demlug line with their existing forces and must not abandon their positions for any reason!

For these two Indian armies, such a task is indeed quite difficult. According to the original plan drawn up by Blyukhel, the two armies only needed to delay the attack on the Chinese army with a part of their forces, and then retreat to Calcutta to participate in the defense. There was no plan at all for a decisive battle with the Chinese army on the plains south of Calcutta. As a result, they did not build strong field fortifications in the area of Vrda-Demlug. Moreover, these two group armies are still the second-line troops of the Indian army, which have only been formed for less than a year, and their equipment is much worse than that of the old units established before the founding of the Republic of India. In particular, there are not a few Soviet internationalist fighters in the troops, and the artillery at the army and division level is all Indian officers themselves, and there are not a few qualified artillery observers, so it is difficult to give full play to the already insufficient firepower! The only thing that can be relied on is a steady stream of recruits who are constantly replenished, relying entirely on the flesh and blood of soldiers to persist in resisting.

Their rival squadrons also seem to see that the plains around Fulda-Demlug are a flesh mill that wipes out the living forces of the Indian army. The Chinese army, which had a strong armored assault force and superior ground-to-air firepower, was not in a hurry to break through, but engaged in a tug-of-war with the Indian army, trying to inflict maximum damage on the opponent through repeated attacks.

The roar of artillery and the roar of aircraft motors echoed over the plain. The important positions on both sides of the Hooghly River are full of columns of smoke rising high and low. The self-propelled guns and C-type tanks of the Chinese army drove to the front of the Indian army, which was less than 1,500 meters away from the Indian position, and desperately poured shells on the heads of the Indian army. The J-3E Dragon Eagle fighter and the J-1 Orion attack aircraft circled at low altitude, and tons of bombs, aerial artillery shells, and aviation machine gun bullets rained down, turning the Indian army's artillery positions, reserve troops' assembly positions, or suspected middle and high-level command locations into a sea of fire! However, the attack of the Chinese army and the North Korean infantry was somewhat perfunctory, and instead of attacking together with the overwhelming firepower, they attacked repeatedly with weak strength, and the Indian resistance was a little more stubborn, so they hurriedly retreated. As if to confirm the great leader Lu Yi's evaluation of the squadron - more steel and less gas! Therefore, although the Indian Red Army, which had less steel and more gas, suffered heavy losses, the positions were full of corpses in blue-gray uniforms, and the field fortifications they hastily built were almost razed to the ground, they were still able to rely on the craters and broken trenches to put up the most resolute resistance!

Amid the explosion of shells, the commander of the 138th Division of the Indian Army, Andya . Mittel was lying in a crater, holding a telescope and carefully observing the movements of the Chinese army. The continuous multi-rì jī battle has made this Indian ** from the original black and thin Dali special surname even darker and thinner, and from a distance he looks like a monkey wearing a blue-gray sè military uniform. It's just that the monkey's eyes are still extremely determined, and it is not in the slightest intimidated by the Chinese invaders armed to the teeth. This crater blown up by a 50-kilogram bomb became his temporary division headquarters after some transformation, and at this point in the battle, his 138th Division has long been unable to gather a group of people, and most of the staff officers, guards and service personnel in the division headquarters have also been supplemented into the front-line troops, and even he, the division commander, has also gone to the front line, ready to hold up his rifle and fight with the enemy with bayonets at any time!

In the binoculars, he saw more than a dozen C-type tanks lined up, and behind them there should be quite a few Chinese infantry forming a stormtrooper formation. Less than 1,000 meters away from their own positions, there were still a few C-type tanks whose tracks had been broken by anti-tank guns, and there were some Chinese infantry around these tanks, forming a firepower stronghold and constantly bombarding the Indian positions with mortars, Type 34 general-purpose machine guns and 45mm tank guns, causing great losses to Comrade Mitre's 138th Division. But no matter how the officers and men of the 138th Division used grenades, mortars, or even white-knuckle assaults, they were powerless to use these tank-based fire strongholds.

Moreover, those tanks with broken tracks have radio stations, which can directly contact the artillery in the rear of the Chinese army, and it will become the eyes of their artillery, as long as the officers and men of the 138th Division start to charge, the enemy's shells will be smashed down with their heads and faces!

Mitre picked up the phone, heed and yelled twice, and wanted to get through to the group army headquarters in the rear: "This is the headquarters of the 138th Division, I am the commander of the Mitre Division, and the enemy will soon launch a new round of attack!" There are less than 3,000 people left in our division, and we are asking for reinforcements! Request reinforcements! ”

"Comrade Konev, the 138th Division is dying." Nikolai, who served as the commander of the 77th Army of the Indian Army. Fedorovich. Vadudin put down the receiver and shouted at Konev (in order to facilitate the command of Army Group Bengal, the 76th Army, the 77th Army and the 78th Army Headquarters have been merged): "We can't fight like this anymore, a division will be filled in or it will become a battalion and a company in 48 hours, how many divisions can we consume like this?" What kind of battle are we fighting...... Didn't you say that you were going to let the enemy in and fight? Why did it become that our people were beaten there? Commander, give the order to retreat! ”

Konev was also on fire in his belly, he glared at Vadudin and shouted: "Comrade Vadutin, we are ** soldiers and must obey the orders of the organization!" Now the organization requires us to stick to the Vrda-Demlug line, and we must complete the task at any cost! You sue Comrade Sù Mitre and let him hold on to the end, and the reinforcements will arrive soon! ”

"Reinforcements?" Vaduddin stomped his feet and said, "Do you call those recruits who have only been in the army for a few days with ropes reinforcements?" What is the use of these people who don't know how to fight at all, who can't even use rifles, on the front line? Comrade commander, we are murdering, not fighting! ”

"Comrade Vadudin!" Konev looked at this somewhat unabashed subordinate and sighed bitterly, pointed to the photo of the great Indian leader hanging on the wall of the headquarters and said: "It's not that I want to fight like this now, it's that he has to do this, he doesn't cherish the lives of Indians, what do we care about?" Anyway, as long as there are Indian soldiers to replenish it, they will fill it to the front line! ”

At the same time, an even more brutal offensive and defensive battle was being fought in the western foothills of the Manipur Mountains, near the town of Nongba, the gateway to Imphal. From August 27 rì to the present, the jī battle has lasted for four whole days without stopping. It's just that the attacking side has changed from China to India, and the hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides are fighting desperately around the mountainous and dense forests around Nongba Town. The infantry on both sides repeatedly engaged in brutal and bloody jungle battles.

From a purely military point of view, Blyukhel's choice to attack Imphal is not the worst option, at least it is better than attacking the Bay of Bengal. Although Imphal is surrounded by high mountains and dense forests, and the terrain is extremely dangerous, such terrain is not conducive to the air superiority of the Chinese army and the full display of the power of the armored forces. Moreover, the Indian artillery deployed in the dense forest was not easy to be detected by the Chinese aircraft, so that the Indian infantry could rush to the fortified positions held by the Chinese army in groups under the cover of their not fierce artillery fire. Of course, the cost of such an attack was extremely high, but the heavy casualties were completely ignored by the Soviet and Indian officers who commanded the operation! Indian troops were constantly being mobilized from the rear, and newly recruited recruits from all over India were flowing to the Imphal front like cháo water. It was probably the first time that the defending Chinese National Defense Forces and the North Korean Defense Forces had encountered such crazy opponents. Many of them also fought in the Jī battles in Siberia, Central Asia, and the Korean Peninsula, and fought face-to-face battles against the so-called powerful Soviet Red Army and the Rìben Army, which was known for its fearlessness of death. However, neither the Soviet army nor the Rì army would sacrifice their officers and soldiers in this way, and when the enemy's firepower occupied an overwhelming advantage, they would generally choose to go on the defensive and wait for reinforcements. However, the Indian Red Army in front of him seemed to want to drown the opponent with its own blood, and did not hesitate to maintain the offensive with the heaviest casualties! Beneath the artillery fire, bombs and machine guns of the Chinese army, the corpses of the Indian army were piled up in layers and mountains. Often, the entire infantry battalion and infantry regiment rushed up in the face of the Chinese artillery fire, and were finally killed and wounded, but then new troops continued to pour in!

The 13th Guards Army of the Indian Red Army, which served as the spearhead of the attack, was transferred back from the Middle East theater, and defeated the British and American troops in the Middle East, and was given the glorious Guards number. However, in these four days of bloody battles, they failed to pry open the Nongba defense line held by the Chinese and South Korean armies. They attacked countless times, and were driven down by an equally brave and tenacious opponent with great firepower. In just four days, the five infantry divisions of the 13th Guards Army replenished more than 40,000 reservists, and tens of thousands of people were killed and wounded almost every day!

September 1, 1935 was the 1st anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of India, 350 million in India (I don't know if there are so many?). Both the people and the great leader Ruy craned their necks and waited for the good news of the 13th Guards Army. It seemed that the heavens were also intent on helping the Indians, and it began to rain heavily on the night of August 31, and the Chinese army's strong air superiority could not be brought into play. The red-eyed Indians immediately organized a doubly frantic offensive on the night of August 31, and even threw a full 30,000 infantry into the Chinese army's Nongba defense line at one time, capturing four important hills on the Nongba defense line in one fell swoop!

Sitting on the front line of Nongba is Lieutenant General Tang Keqin, commander of the 20th Army of the Chinese Army, who is the Tang Enbo who "destroys as many troops as you have". In this time and space, he was a graduate of the first phase of the zhōngyāng military academy, and his scores in the entrance and graduation exams were among the best, one was fifth and the other was ninth (not that he had regressed, but that the number of students had doubled after the merger of the Fujian Army Lecture Hall and the Protector Army Military Academy). Later, he was admitted to the Army University with high scores, and he also got a good score of fourth place when he graduated, so his official luck in the Wehrmacht has always been good - this lifelong malaise is also stored in the Wehrmacht built by Chang Ruiqing, but the table on the battlefield is still the most important. Therefore, seeing that the Nongba defense line was in danger, Tang Keqin was also anxious, and urgently assembled eight artillery regiments to bombard fiercely, blowing up the Indian troops who had not had time to consolidate their positions all over the field. Braving the heavy rain, the four infantry regiments of the 60th Division of the Chinese Army and the 8th Division of the North Korean Army swooped down under the personal supervision of Tang Keqin. The troops of both sides engaged in a white-knuckle battle in muddy water and blood, and the bitter battle lasted from the night of August 31 to the afternoon of September 1, when the artillery groups of the 20th Army of the National Defense Army and the 3rd Army of North Korea used up more than 50,000 shells and paid more than 5,000 dead and wounded to recapture three of the four lost hills, but they also exhausted the spirit of the attack, and had to pause to repair the fortifications to continue the defense.