In November, the listless sunlight in the northern hemisphere could not penetrate the gunpowder smoke that filled the battlefield, and the low-altitude whistling fighters and the deafening sound of artillery had become accustomed to the Youzhou soldiers on the position.

In the trenches, they were relaxing with cigarettes in their mouths or wiping their guns and weapons.

This was the fourth day of the 27th Army's hold on to Sunflower Ridge on the south side of Highway 25, which was less than 40 kilometers from the main battlefield of the Siege of Lawton.

In the past four days, the 27th Army, which had held back the enemy in the front, had repelled numerous enemy attacks, and in the fierce battles, its own attrition had reached more than three layers. As the main position of the blockade, the 79th Division, which held on the main peak of Sunflower Ridge, suffered more than half of the casualties. Sunflower Ridge, which is only more than 100 meters high, was also cut down by several meters by the heavy artillery fire of the US army.

Before the start of the barrage, the trenches and improvised fortifications built by the Allies had been completely destroyed in the shelling as early as the first day of the battle, and the artillery pits and even the corpses became shelters for the Allies to block the enemy's attack.

The U.S. M4 Sherman tank also rushed to Sunflower Ridge several times, but with the assistance of the Royal Air Force, the 27th Army quickly recaptured its position, without giving the U.S. armored forces a chance to break through and ensure the integrity of the battle line. Together with the 9th Western Regions, which was also struggling to defend on the flanks, the U.S. Army Southward Advance Corps was blocked north of Route 25.

In a telegram sent to the US Army Command by Lieutenant General Rondo, commander of the Southward Advance Corps, he said: "I have even heard Sutton's shouts of killing, but I have not been able to cross Sunflower Ridge to join the 11th Army. The Han army was like a group of damned cockroaches, obviously covered by artillery fire, but after the shelling was over, it was as if they had come out of the ground and continued to fight.

The low Sunflower Ridge blocked the hope of the American army to rescue the 11th Army, and the Allies also used their precious time to quickly complete the assembly, and 300,000 elite Allied troops, with the full support of the air force, squeezed the American 11th Army in a narrow space outside the small town of Lawton.

At the stake, the American GIs did not care about the order not to enter the city to fight, and retreated into the city, mixing with civilians to avoid the heavy artillery fire and precise strikes of the Allied forces.

In this case, forced surrender or annihilation?

Wang Tiehan only hesitated for more than ten minutes, and after receiving a report that the 27th Army and the 9th Army of the Western Regions had suffered heavy casualties, that the Sunflower Ridge position had changed hands many times, and that the blocking position was in danger, he immediately issued an order to launch a general attack on Laotun City.

With 1,200 large-caliber artillery pieces and 102 Weilong attack planes, the Allied air-ground joint bombardment was not only powerful, but also accurate. After the destruction of the U.S. army's city defense position, there were more than 2,000 Siberian Tiger tanks and Cheetah tracked armored personnel carriers, and the roar of the furious engines and the sand and dust raised by the tanks during the cluster impact made the small city in ruins more like a shivering lurker at the feet of demons.

There was no suspense about the outcome of the battle, when more than 60,000 American troops squeezed into Laoton, and when Wang Tiehan gave the order to attack the small city, the wheel of fate had been frozen. Under the powerful ground-air strikes of the Allied forces, the rout of the American army was a foregone conclusion. It's just that at the moment when the 11th Army headquarters in the town hall raised the white flag, more than 20,000 American GIs had already been killed in the battle.

They were joined by more than 30,000 American civilians.

The indiscriminate attacks of the allies turned the small city of Lawton, which originally had a population of just over 50,000, into a hell on earth. More than half of the city's civilians were killed by the fire.

When the armored forces began to assault, when the Allied street fighting troops entered the city, nearly 10,000 civilians were accidentally wounded. The Allied forces were not police, and they did not have the ability to distinguish between bandits and civilians in battle, so to speak, the commander did not give them the task to distinguish between them.

Street fighting is brutal in nature, and there is nothing wrong with using a single means to fight against the enemy who is resisting behind the ruins. If you want to blame, you can only blame the US military for hiding in the city, breaking the tacit understanding between the two armies that they would not fight in the city and not harm civilians.

In the Siege of Lawton, the U.S. 11th Army, originally stationed in Oklahoma City, was completely annihilated, and 60,000 U.S. troops were killed or surrendered. Since the start of the war in North America, when the two sides were often fighting with tens of millions of armies, such a record was not too outstanding.

However, the Battle of Lawton lasted several months, and it was the most crucial part of the Battle of Dallas, the largest of the North American Wars. The annihilation of the 11th Army does not only mean that the US Army Command is missing another serial number of the army. More importantly, the Allied left flank cluster created a force advantage and a favorable strategic situation in the flank and rear of Dallas.

If the Youzhou Corps is allowed to continue to break through in the Route 25 area, then the millions of American troops near Dallas are likely to be cut off. No one dares to think about such a result, and no one can bear it.

Of course, in later military history, there is another aspect of the Battle of Lawton that is often mentioned by the bricks, and that is the casualties of civilians.

This is the first time in the North American war that the two sides have exchanged fire in a city, and it is also the first time that an American city has been destroyed in the fighting, and it is also the first time that the number of civilian casualties in the battle exceeds that of military personnel. Prior to this, the bloody battle of Phoenix had lasted for three months, and the civilians of Phoenix had only a few thousand casualties.

When discussing this number, several countries in North America deliberately avoided the "more than 100,000" in Little Rock and the subsequent increase in the number of people due to nuclear radiation.

Compared with conventional warfare, "nuclear weapons" are the real demons. If Oak Ridge is a strategic target that must be destroyed, then simply because planes cannot carry atomic bombs to land, Little Rock has been transformed from a bustling city into a forbidden place, with tens of thousands of dead and disabled people who survived the nuclear bomb but are worse than dead.

Little Rock is definitely one of the tragedies that people can't let go of in the North American War and even the Second World War, and it has also become one of the great things that people in later generations will talk about whether the Han Emperor Zhongyi is great? When it comes to making a great contribution to humanity, the evidence most often cited by the opposing side.

Perhaps the greatness of the Han Emperor was only for the Han people; Perhaps, destruction and killing are also the reasons for human progress.

But the nuclear bombing of Little Rock was by no means the most tragic event in human history, and even the "Chicago Winter", which would occur a year later and killed hundreds of thousands of people, was nothing compared to the massacre of American Indians.

When the Americans frantically accused the Allies of killing civilians in the war, and when Wang Tiehan's battle summary was transmitted back to Wei Qingge, Zhong Yi read it carefully, the corners of his mouth grinned, and a faint evil smile appeared on his face, "Tiehan fights well!" Those who come out to mix must be returned. The Youzhou Army is paying off the debt for the shame of the year, why aren't the Americans paying off the debt for the history of the Americas? ”

"Yes, the Indians were hunted and killed like wild beasts by them, and now they are squirming about tens of thousands ......of civilians who have died."

Jiang Shuai's words are still sharp.

"It's no wonder that we, it was their army that took the lead in hiding in the city, but ...... The casualty rate is indeed larger. It's time for Uncle Sam to protest to you again! ”

The elegant Marshal Ye Weixun is gradually taking over Ye Zhiqiu's position in the Imperial Army, as for His Majesty's heart, the three words "Ye Zhiqiu" are of course irreplaceable.

"If the protest is useful, ask the police...... Do you want troops to go to war? almost slipped out the sayings of later generations, Zhong Yi urgently changed his words. Fortunately, these people in the office have long been accustomed to His Majesty's occasional strange words, and they can even learn a few sentences.

"Ye Shuai, commend Wang Tiehan and the 27th Army of Youzhou, it was their courage to block the armored troops with infantry in the Sunflower Resistance Battle, which made the Battle of Lawton a great victory! Well, it is also possible to select a few outstanding regimental and battalion-level troops in the 27th Army and award titles. This will have a great effect on uniting the 'soul' of an army. ”

In His Majesty's heart, he remembered the Tashan Resistance Battle, the same unfavorable terrain, the same less resistance, and the same crucial impact on the entire battle and even the entire battle situation.

"Okay, Your Majesty! Several regiments of the 27th Army have already been emptied, and it is necessary to give such a collective reward. ”

In this way, the banners of the "Sunflower Hero Regiment" and "Sunflower Iron Blood Regiment" formed an alternative scenery next to the blood-colored golden dragon flag of the Imperial Army, which was personally named by His Majesty and awarded a unique regimental flag, which became the highest honor in the minds of every commander of the Imperial Regiment. The main thing is that such titles can be "hereditary", and they will always accompany the growth of this unit.

However, General Wang Tiehan did not care too much about the commendation of the Supreme Command, and in the hearts of the "Confucian generals", a larger plan was being formed. With the approval of General Chen Shukang, the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, Wang Tiehan officially became the commander-in-chief of the left cluster. In the area west of Dallas, the Allied forces have already exceeded 600,000, and it is not impossible to complete another encirclement and annihilation battle in the Route 25 area with a resounding victory.

And Sutun, where the allies gathered, was only more than forty kilometers away from Sunflower Ridge. Although after receiving the news that the 11th Army had been completely annihilated, the US Army's southward advance corps would inevitably give up attacking Sunflower Ridge, as long as the US army's retreat along Route 25 to Oklahoma City was cut off, Wang Tiehan was confident that he would pull out his teeth and destroy this temporary patchwork force of the US War Department.

However, Chen Shukang did not think so, although the northward advance corps organized by Bradley, chief of the general staff of the US army, was blocked by the Allied forces at the Brazos River and did not play a substantial role in the Battle of Lawton, but allowing such an elite of the US army to move behind the left group could break the strategic balance between the two sides at any time and pose a huge threat to the Allied forces that wanted to encircle and annihilate the southward advance corps. Moreover, the Southward Advance Corps was a highly motorized and mechanized U.S. Army, and once Rondo, the commander of the Southward Advance Corps, found out that the situation was not good and retreated along the highway, the Allies were very likely to draw water.

Hit the south or capture the north? Reinforcement or encirclement?

The General Command of the Allied Forces in North America, there was no unity of opinion. A telegram requesting a decision was sent back to Chang'an and sent to Wei Qingge.