~-~ Chapter 1231 Ito has changed his tricks

Inspired by a letter from Emperor Hirohito, General Ito Yanzaburo, who was highly motivated, made new adjustments to Yangon's defensive deployment, and withdrew all the troops previously deployed in the suburbs of Rangoon into the urban area.

Ito's heart is like a mirror, before the arrival of the local supplementary heavy equipment, the troops deployed in the open fields in the suburbs are the fierce artillery fire of the independent division to send live targets, even if the fortifications are strong, they can't withstand such overwhelming artillery bombardment, the battle of Mogok in northern Burma, 150,000 heroic imperial soldiers, is killed under such artillery fire, Ito still remembers it vividly.

The best strategy for defending Yangon is to introduce Tang Qiuli's troops into the city, take advantage of the city's complex buildings and favorable terrain conditions to offset the superior heavy weapons of the independent division's troops, and fight a bloody street battle with the soldiers of the devil in China.

With the strength of the other, the defeat of the enemy, the street fighting in the city, is a contest between light weapons and soldiers' will and combat effectiveness, Ito is confident that with two defensive positions around Yangon on three sides, it will not be a problem to hold Yangon for a few months, the empire will not sit idly by and watch Yangon fall, and will definitely do its best to reinforce the battlefield of Yangon, in this port city of the Indochina Peninsula, and Tang Qiuli's troops, into a stalemate battle, twist him, consume him.

In order to defend Yangon, Ito dug out his mind to ponder new tactics, and every street, every building, and every private house became a firepower point, so that the troops of the independent division would pay a heavy price if they did not take a step forward.

Ito even took out the means of scorched earth to defend the city, planting a large amount of explosives in the houses and buildings on both sides of the main streets, and blowing up a qiē once it could not withstand the attack of the independent division troops; he also selected pro-Japanese elements among the Burmese in Yangon to form a volunteer team to assist the Japanese soldiers in defending the city, and ordered various search units to mix with the Burmese volunteers to form an assassination and sabotage team behind enemy lines.

The target was the senior commander of the independent division, an important ammunition depot and supply center, and Ito said murderously at a military meeting of officers at the rank of squadron commander and above in the Japanese army: "This is a battle that combines urban defense and guerrilla warfare, and we must use a single means to block the enemy outside the city of Yangon, both at the cost of our lives and at the expense of our lives." ”

After a pause, seeing that the attention of the officers was all attracted to it, Ito nodded with satisfaction and continued: "The whole city is a fortress of battle, and what we give to the enemy is our courage and loyalty to the Great Japanese Empire, and there are endless bullets, the samurai of His Majesty the Emperor, we must let the enemy see that they will get nothing except the scorched earth everywhere and our corpses, and the battle horn has been sounded, so fight!" The samurai of His Majesty the Emperor! ”

"Our bayonets are already eager to drink the blood of the soldiers of China, so that the enemy who dares to attack Rangoon trembles before us," At this scene, even Ito himself felt a desire to fight, rising in his heart, and the Japanese officers who were stimulated by Ito's impassioned words shouted and danced wildly, and the crowd was excited, and they all expressed their determination to Ito.

In particular, those middle and lower-ranking officers almost wrote a bloody letter on the spot, Ito was very satisfied with the effect of this military meeting, the feelings of the officers, had been stirred, they were like sparks, in their respective units, igniting the soldiers' will to fight, this fanatical will, invincible, invincible.

After the officers' feelings calmed down, Ito continued: "Our battle today will create a miracle and glory for the Empire, His Majesty the Emperor is watching us, the thousands of subjects of the Great Japanese Empire, watching us, and it is also a shameful moment for our Empire to send troops to Southeast Asia, so that the corpses of the enemy will be covered in the streets and alleys of Yangon. Every inch of scorched earth, the safety of Yangon, please entrust you," After speaking, he bowed deeply to thousands of officers at all levels.

After the meeting, looking at the empty large conference room, Ito was still immersed in the passion just now, he was very satisfied with his agitation today, what is the war for? In addition to weapons, there is also the will to fight of officers and soldiers, the empire does not lack warriors who dare to give their lives, what is lacking is the commander who ignites this spirit, he is this person, this, very fulfilling!

In the northwest of Yangon, in the small town of Yangon, the Yangon Campaign Headquarters of the Independent Division, the division commander Tang Qiuli was also holding a military meeting, and unlike Ito Yanzaburo, who jumped up and down, passionately, and violently incited, the military meeting of the independent division seemed dull and a little dull, and the frequent movements of the Japanese army in Yangon, abandoning the original suburban positions, and shrinking the troops into the urban area, this abnormal situation, the forward troops, immediately reported to the division commander.

Feng Jiwu, who was in charge of the main attack due west of Yangon, and Li Honggang, who was in charge of the main attack due north, were both helpless and hateful; according to the original attack plan, the artillery of the two corps plus the artillery of other corps attached to them reached the artillery firepower of 32 regiments and more than 2,800 artillery pieces of various kinds.

The time of the artillery bombardment was as long as one and a half hours, which was also one of the plans of the division commander Tang Qiuli, in the open suburbs, to kill and injure as many Japanese troops as possible, and reduce the difficulty of the follow-up street fighting, and the shelling should eliminate about one-quarter to one-fifth of the Japanese garrison in Yangon, but the sudden change in the deployment of the Japanese army made this plan come to naught.

This means that the attacking troops of the independent division have entered the stage of street fighting from the very beginning, and according to the requirements of the division commander, Rangoon cannot be reduced to ruins, and all the artillery fire of Feng Jiwu's corps and Li Honggang's corps has become an ornament, and this has caused great difficulties to the attacking troops, and the ferocity and combat effectiveness of the Japanese soldiers are well understood by all present here.

Today's military meeting is to solve this problem, and in the past two days, Tang Qiuli has been annoying enough, and that annoying MacArthur has been clamoring all day long, wanting to see Tang Qiuli, to see the troops of the Independent Division, and launching a fierce attack on the Japanese army in Rangoon.

In the evening, when she returned to the division headquarters to report the situation, Liu Xinlan was as tired as running dozens of kilometers of mountain roads, and told Tang Qiuli about the situation of the Americans stalking and fighting, and the tears of grievance swirled in her eyes, which made Tang Qiuli feel distressed, and after gently persuading her, Liu Xinlan burst into tears and laughed.

Seeing that it was too late, Tang Qiuli personally sent Liu Xinlan back to the bedroom, this time, Liu Xinlan no longer refused Tang Qiuli to hold her little hand, although she was still shy and didn't dare to look up, but she didn't try to pull it out, it is estimated that this girl didn't see it, not far behind, more than 20 special guards, unhurriedly followed to secretly protect, otherwise, even the soft little hands would not be held by Tang Qiuli, and when they arrived at the gate of the officer's dormitory, Liu Xinlan said that he would not let him send it in, and Tang Qiuli had to give up this idea.

On the way back to the division headquarters, Tang Qiuli carefully considered the time to attack Yangon, Yangon, if you don't fight, you can't solve the problem, but when to start fighting, this is a question that must be cautious, the choice of timing, is very particular, the reason why Tang Qiuli did not launch an attack on Yangon for a long time, but put on a posture of a large army pressing the border.

It is to let Ito understand that no matter how stubborn he resists, it will be useless, and the best result is that Ito saw that he was surrounded by three missing one tactics, and under pressure, if he did not want to annihilate the whole army, he continued to retreat south according to the route he had set out, in this way, the problem of Rangoon was much simpler, but the sudden change in the deployment of the Japanese army disappointed his hopes, so there was the current military conference.

After being silent for a while, Feng Jiwu first spoke: "The enemy situation has changed, and the original plan can no longer be implemented, my opinion is to change the way of fighting, take tanks as the guide, cover the infantry, and carry out a tentative attack on the Japanese position. ”

Li Honggang added: "Our exploratory offensive can be carried out at multiple points at the same time, and it is better not to have too many troops in each direction, and it is better to have one regiment at a time, so that we can avoid being hit by the Japanese artillery fire in the city, and if we can break through one point, we can firmly control it and attract the Japanese army to come and fight, and we can also use artillery fire to inflict casualties on the Japanese army and destroy one place, which is much better than destroying the whole city, and does not violate the requirements of the division commander." ”

Tang Qiusheng continued Li Honggang's words and said: "Tanks are not conducive to street fighting, so we will not go deep into the urban area, but fight a tug-of-war with the Japanese army at the junction of the suburbs, consume the Japanese army's defensive strength, and constantly attract reinforcements from the Japanese garrison troops in the urban area, and we can also achieve the goal of destroying the enemy in the suburbs. ”

Everyone finished speaking, only Tang Qiuli did not speak, his mind was no longer in the meeting, Ito's abnormal deployment caused him to be highly vigilant, according to the basic principles of urban defensive warfare, the enemy and us will first fight fiercely in the suburbs, in order to achieve the purpose of attrition and frustration of the attacking side's strength and sharpness.

However, Ito suddenly gave up his suburban positions and shrunk his troops into the city, which is a very bad phenomenon, which shows that Ito has already set his mind to defend Yangon, and fight against our superior forces and weapons with street fighting.

(To be continued)

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