When the dazzling flare fell, the Japanese troops, who were dizzy, could not see the position of the enemy's fire on both sides clearly, and the flares disappeared on the ground, and the enemies hiding in the dark all switched to attacking with *. This was Ma Qiang's strategy, he knew the enemy's numerical superiority, so he couldn't expose his position too early.

However, the number of this squad was too small, and they could only take advantage of the night to block the enemy, and they could not be annihilated by cutting their heads and tails. The rebel jeep convoy, which was at the back of the queue, realized that something was wrong and began to reverse and retreat, gradually moving away from the front combat zone. Ma Qiang was worried that they would abandon the car and scatter into the forest, and he certainly didn't have enough people to defend the lots. But the enemy was more worried than he was, and did not dare to scatter and run. The rebels roughly knew that it was their mother country that was chasing them, but they had just heard the story of the local natives who were killing lone Japanese in the forest with poisoned blowpipes and snatching heads.

The troops of the 2nd Mixed Brigade were coming, and Kinoshita Eichi did not expect the mushy Kimura to give him reinforcements, but he judged that since the enemy was parachuted, there would not be many troops, and he had a rapid reaction force in his hands that would be just in the right place. While dealing with hitmen in the concession and nearby Kuomintang and Communist guerrillas in Shanghai, he gained some experience that some front-line officers did not have. No matter what the ultimate goal of the enemy's special operations is, an important means is to create chaos, so it is necessary to grasp the key points and quickly increase troops at the first opportunity. He was well aware that the mistake that front-line commanders made in confusion was to exaggerate the enemy's situation, which was usually much smaller.

Kinoshita's first emergency response force, consisting of nine 4-ton heavy armored vehicles and 30 trucks, was already on standby to stop Chu Tingchang's assault, so it was now able to quickly extend the road north. Halfway through the march, the troops received specific instructions to open a road to rescue the rebels.

Each squad of Kinoshita's motorized unit was equipped with a Type 97 wireless telephone (a portable radio) to enhance communication capabilities, which he learned from studying Chu Tingchang's operations, Makino was committed to saving Japan with high-tech weapons, and never gave instructions on what radio and weapons should be equipped with the Japanese army at the grassroots level.

Unfortunately, in addition to being equipped with a retractable antenna and a hand-cranked generator, this thing is more bulky, and its performance is worse than that of Motorola's walkie-talkie. The communication distance does not exceed 1.5 km. However, he imagined that the troops that could deal with the guerrillas should have advantages in communication and mobility, so cars and radio stations were necessary. It seemed to Kinoshita that this force could quickly quell the chaos and destroy the enemy conspiracy as a whole.

Maqiang's forces ran out of most of their ammunition, destroyed eight trucks, and killed more than a hundred enemy soldiers and journalists (a small part of which is due to the *) which burned along the road, completely blocking the passage. The enemy, not realizing that his opponent was out of ammunition, began to retreat, not knowing from beginning to end that the enemy was only one platoon in size. Now Ma Qiang's problem is that he doesn't know where the rebels fled. However, it is not very important to him to catch this group of people, and it is most valuable to find an opportunity to end the headquarters of the Second Mixed Brigade. It's a pity that without drones, it is impossible to easily find the enemy's headquarters.

The Japanese convoy heading south saw the fire ahead, and by this time the trucks had burned down to the frames. The armored vehicle rushed straight at the burning barricade, pushing the pile of wreckage out of the way. The Chinese and American armies are still in the dark, but they do not dare to fire at these armored vehicles, they have long run out of ammunition, and the promised tanks have not yet arrived.

Watch as the enemy convoy slowly pushes away all the roadblocks and moves forward. Ma Qiang repeatedly called Xu Chong on the radio, and finally got a reply, and he arrived immediately. He suggested that the tanks seize the high ground and shoot at the target first, disrupting the enemy ranks.

The Cicada tank has excellent off-road ability, and quickly grabbed the hillside about 1,500 meters away on the side of the road. The view here is good, and you can see the traffic rolling on the road. The enemy turned on the headlights and did not shy away.

The tank, which found the firing position first, immediately opened fire, and the rest joined later.

The Japanese soldiers standing in the truck suddenly heard a dull whistling, sometimes near and sometimes far away, and then there was an explosion in the distance, and they had a premonition that something was wrong, and there was an artillery position nearby that was shooting at them. However, the U.S. free fire was launched for a minute and a half, but due to visibility and poor marksmanship, it was unexpectedly missed. Seeing that the enemy was far away, the formation was not out of order, as if he did not know that he was under heavy attack, he separated from Xu Chong and led six tanks to rush down the mountain. His mentor Jiang Weiguo had recently told him that tanks could be invincible as long as they appeared unexpectedly behind enemy lines, and he thought about giving the ignorant opponents a big surprise, but he did not expect the enemy convoy to completely ignore his shelling.

Ma Qiang hid less than 80 meters away from the enemy's convoy and stopped the shells whistling over his head, all of which hit the opposite woods, and he couldn't help but shake his head, this is the level of Fort Knox armored training troops. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this result, the lack of accurate ranging and ballistic calculations in these years, the inability to pass ballistic correction at night, and the fact that there is a certain depression angle and the target is moving.

Lieutenant Carson made the right choice, and his tank group had to be decisively engaged in melee combat at the moment to intercept the enemy.

Six tanks rushed down the hill against all odds. In the distance, the Japanese finally saw the lights on, but they couldn't guess what they were. They still can't imagine (or dare not imagine) what vehicles can move through the forest. The soldiers on the truck began to shoot at the tank. The tank passed through the violent ups and downs, ignoring the painless rifle fire of the enemy. The Japanese watched in amazement as the front lights of the tanks appeared and disappeared in the woods, getting closer and closer, and finally the terrible sound of them crushing the jungle could be heard. Even if it is only 8 tons, they are tanks. The Japanese commander could not continue to turn a blind eye and ordered armored vehicles to meet him. Since the armored vehicles were at the front of the queue, this order was bound to bring the entire convoy to a standstill. Several British-made Wicks armoured vehicles turned to the target and fired with their two machine guns.

Lieutenant Carson's tank did not stop until it was 50 meters away from the armored vehicle, and found that it was stuck in a puddle, not to mention the elevation angle of the gun, and even the gunner's vision was gone. The driver began to restart and rush out of the puddle, but the depression angle was not enough, and the Weeks armored car hit the tank at least 200 times, stopping for a while and replacing the chain, but the tank was still intact, the only problem was that it could not find a suitable high and low fire range.

The tank fell heavily from its upswing and the gunner found the right angle. The Japanese soldiers on the opposite side also saw clearly that this was a tank, and he couldn't believe his eyes. How did the Allies get these things here?

The American gunners aimed at the middle of the opponent's two machine guns at a distance close enough to miss, and destroyed the armored vehicle in one fell swoop. The rest of the tanks arrived from several directions and fired with machine guns and artillery at Kinoshita's mobile units. It should be said that this was a rare encounter between motorized troops and armored units in the Asian theater. The tank quickly established an overwhelming advantage. The 2nd Mixed Brigade was not a valiant main force, but a second-rate security force, so it quickly abandoned its vehicles and fled in all directions

The Japanese commander fled a mile and, in an urgent report to the rear, claimed to have seen 20 tanks and a large number of infantry.

Kinoshita and Suzuki, who were sitting in Sittwe, were all taken aback, they also did not believe that the enemy would have tanks, could it be that they fell from the sky?

Stilwell's plan was seen through from the start, but things went well, and the attacking side of the war always brought more chaos to the opponent. At the moment, he still doesn't know much about the enemy's situation, and he is still carrying out the second part of the plan step by step. In any case, he must carry out this operation that has blocked his fate to the end.

U.S. B17 bombers that took off from an airfield near Chittagong carried out a high-altitude bombing of Sittwe. Wellington bombers, which took off from Calcutta, served as the second round of bombing.

These bombardments gave Kimura, who had just retreated to Magway and commanded by telephone, a great illusion that the enemy would definitely launch a landing on the west coast. The decisive battle would begin in the next few days, but fortunately his sappers repaired the metre-gauge railway from Timinla to Magway, and he immediately moved the 56th Division in the east west to prepare for the rescue. Now that he can't take care of his head, the 58th Division of the 74th Army of the National Army entrenched in the Songshan area can't manage so much.

Even Chief Chu had not yet seen the huge consequences that Roosevelt's wayward actions, which were not quite in line with military principles, aimed at cleaning up the thieves, might be leveraged. The entire Japanese Burma Front had begun to panic, and Kinoshita's mistaken move could lead to a rout of the Japanese army in Burma much earlier.

Before dawn, transport planes from the East India airfields took off in turn, ready to throw several hundred paratroopers into two different places. At dawn, the plane flew to the designated area and was intercepted by six Hayabusa fighters on patrol. More than 20 escorted P38s and Hurricane fighters launched an attack on the enemy group, quickly driving the enemy aircraft away. However, the Japanese pilots saw the paratroopers dropped by the transport plane. His report was corroborated by reports from ground forces, leading Kimura to believe that at least 5,000 enemy troops had landed in northern Burma in the morning. A patrol of the 2nd Brigade finally found the wreckage of a glider and the wreckage of two tanks. In fact, it cannot be judged from the number of gliders on the scene that there were only 8 tanks in total, but this point was ignored in the report, which further deepened Kimura's judgment that the enemy's counteroffensive force was very strong. This made the commander think of suicide for a while, but in the end he felt that it was too early. He can also gather troops to fight the enemy somewhere in central Burma.

400 paratroopers landed on the ground and immediately converged on the central strip. They quickly captured the former rebel garrison, but searched but found no one. The reconnaissance units walking around continued to exert their intelligence, and found that the enemy from the south was strengthening again. There may be more than one wing of command in close proximity to this area.