The Lashio garrison was directly under the command of the Kimura 15th Army Headquarters in Mandalay. Kimura strictly ordered the ministry not to retreat until the last soldier was killed. Kimura was determined to bite the fishhook, still fantasizing about his Nu River defense line, or that he did not dare to face the consequences of the expeditionary force's second invasion of Burma from the direction of Yunnan.

The weakness of the Japanese soldiers or the entire military department is exposed at this moment, and it is very difficult for them to give up the vested interests they have gained, and it is precisely by relying on this persistence and greed that the Japanese army has gradually expanded the war and forced itself to death. Whether it was the incident in North China or Shanghai, it ended with the Japanese gaining an inch, and China's weakness gradually became accustomed to this kind of fault of the Japanese, which laid the groundwork for the long-term defeat of the military department. It should be said that the rigidity of Japanese diplomacy led to its inability to reach a compromise with the United States and eventually ended in war. Specifically in military affairs, campaign command has also lost flexibility, and giving up some important places is itself a kind of military strategy. But in the political correctness of the Japanese military, it is right to advance without retreating.

Zhang Lingfu's 58th Division had little combat effectiveness, but Chiang Kai-shek temporarily allocated to him the 2nd Division, which had strong combat effectiveness, which was a team that could persist in maneuvering with the Japanese army on the west bank of the Nu River.

Of course, in Zhang Lingfu's eyes, the 2nd Pre-Division was still just a ragtag rabble, and it could not be compared with his regular army. The 14th Group Army on the other side of the river could not pass for a while and a half (Song Xilian blew up the bridge), and Division Commander Zhang was anxious to take Lashio to show his merit to the leader and prove to the world that in the past six months, he had been nesting in the mountains and listening to Chu Ting's chief pretending to be a ghost and winning repeatedly from the radio every day, and he was also aggrieved. Always waiting for when I can break through and show my hand.

Although the 58th Division is a descendant, it has never been the core of the national army, in order to earn face in front of the principal, he has long put his life and death aside, of course, he will not care too much about the lives of his subordinates, as for the 2nd Division of the Preparatory Division, let alone the second division raised by the stepmother.

He urged the tired soldiers to advance towards Lashio, he was defeated from Lashio and retreated to Songshan, originally to return to Yunnan, but under the deception of an engineer company commander surnamed Lin, he went up the mountain, he was very aware of the topographical characteristics of Lashio, because he was also prepared to defend it, he did not believe that the Japanese could build this place into a fortress within half a year.

Division Commander Zhang was still urging the advance in the rear, and he saw from a distance that the flames were raging in front of him, and the US planes had already begun to bomb Lashio.

Most of the Chinese people concentrated by the Japanese army in Lashio have fled, but there are still more than 10,000 prisoners of war concentrated in the city, including more than 8,000 Chinese prisoners of war and another 1,000 prisoners of war of the Indo-Burmese army. This is also the reason why Tao Mingzhang did not attack the city, otherwise the more than 2,000 troops in the city would not be his opponent.

Zhang Lingfu was just wanting to see the power of US air support, so he didn't care about the fate of the common people and prisoners of war, and he asked the US command to attack with heavy bombers, and the Americans had no scruples. At this time, Stilwell was also under great pressure from the country, eager to seize an important town as soon as possible. It had long been revealed that there were no British prisoners of war in the city (if there was, British protests must be considered), and the British did not care about Indian prisoners of war.

Forty B17 bombers took off from two airfields in the East Indies, one after another, and successfully found this small border city along the river to bomb it, 200 tons*, almost destroying the city in half a year.

Zhang Lingfu was watching the bombing on the distant mountain, and he was dumbfounded, he had learned the American airdrop, and he was stunned to maintain more than 7,000 people for half a year, and the food during this period was not bad. Today, when I saw the carpet bombing of the US military, I said in my heart: It is said that Sun Liren, the chief of Chu Ting, can fight, and it is really nothing great, it is nothing more than relying on the firepower of the Americans.

Of course, he knew that the artillery of a group army of the national army would have to fight for a while if it wanted to send hundreds of tons of artillery to eject, but the American planes did it in an instant. He ordered the Reserve 2 Division not to wait and to immediately attack.

The second reserve division is composed of local grass in Yunnan, and its combat effectiveness comes from the experience of mountain warfare, not from attacking fortifications, and this miscellaneous division does not even have a mortar, but Division Commander Zhang decided to let them test the enemy's combat strength first, and then put in their own men and horses once the situation is good.

The 42nd Station of the Japanese Army stationed in Lashio was only a weak brigade in charge of logistics and prisoners of war, and had no actual combat experience, but the fortifications they built in the past six months were quite strong. The Reserve 2nd Division reached the city and immediately encountered stubborn resistance. The battle continued into the night, and both sides entered street fighting, and both suffered heavy losses. Zhang Lingfu had no choice but to withdraw the unit and wait for the second bombing by the US military.

In the morning, the 58th Division captured the headquarters in the city and found the body of the commander of the garrison who had committed suicide, but the west of the city was still resisting. Even so, Stilwell had already sent combat reporters over Lashio with liaison planes, and the reporters filmed the smoke-billowing towns above, which was an important source of war documentary to prove the Allied victory.

At noon, with 2.5 to 1 casualties, General Zhang finally captured Lashio. In addition, about 1,500 prisoners of war died in the bombing of the United States, and half of the houses in the city were blown up.

At about the same time, the Japanese 5th Division captured Cohen, an important town in northern Queensland, and won a great victory.

In this battle, the Australian and American forces invested 120 tanks, while the Japanese only had 10 tanks, and the infantry ratio was 50,000 to 55,000, which was basically equal.

Cohen Town was MacArthur's preset battlefield, very well prepared, he was reluctant to engage the Japanese on the coast, worried about the enemy's battleships and heavy cruisers, so he pinned his hopes on the battle inland, and among his concentrated tanks and commanders, there were many top men who had received the Fort Hood base and received the guidance of Jiang Weiguo. However, the Japanese army put in a kind of low and camouflaged remote-controlled self-detonation trolley, taking advantage of the morning fog to launch an attack, these trolleys were hidden on the ground like ordinary stones, but when the U.S. tanks rumbled closer, the lurking trolleys suddenly started and launched an attack nearby, which was unguardable, posing a huge threat to the U.S. Sherman tanks.

For the first time, the Japanese Army Air Corps also launched suicide planes to attack the Allied fortifications. These batteries had heavy concrete roofs to protect against dive bombers, but Japanese suicide planes could crash into the 2-meter-high and 8-meter-long firing ports in front of the guns in a low-altitude level flight manner, blowing up the fortress from the inside.

This is the method that the army figured out after observing the cherry blossom shell shooting at the Kagoshima shooting range, and they didn't have time to wait for the remote control* to mature, so they let the manned plane do the job first. Sure enough, it worked wonders.

In the preparation period of up to half a year, the Allies built a large number of forts relying on dangerous terrain at various dangerous passes along the Queensland Railway, preparing to consume the Japanese army step by step, but no matter how strong these forts are, there must be a wide opening in the horizontal firing range of artillery, and there must be an appropriate height in the high and low firing boundary, just suitable for a Nakajima Type 97 fighter with 100 kg* to drill into.

The Japanese had little pre-war reconnaissance of the Australian depths, and did not know what was waiting for them, but the Army found that the suicide plane was a versatile weapon that could obviously deal with all the problems that the Allies had to offer. They used the phased-out Nakajima 97 fighter as a suicide aircraft, and the pilot training time, about 150 hours.

Now Roosevelt pinned most of his hopes on the Chinese, except for Chu Tingchang, who had made a name for himself in Burma, he also had to pull down and agree with General Marshall's suggestion to give Chiang Weiguo, who had been serving as an adviser to Fort Hood, to Australia as MacArthur's senior staff officer to the rank of colonel in the US Army, which meant that Chiang Weiguo would probably actually command the US army. At the same time, General Bradley, who had just arrived in North Africa and turned around, was also transferred to Australia.

Marshall feared that MacArthur would be so angry that he would lose the last tank troops in the next battle. He wanted to get a few people who understood to help him.

The 419 continued to track the U.S. and Japanese fleets off the east coast of Australia, awaiting a naval and air battle between the U.S. and Japan, and if possible, of course, helping Nimitz to victory. Yamamoto's heavy cruiser detachment had been attacking along the coast with the aim of luring the American fleet into dispatch, and the sinking of the Great Eagle did not cause too much frustration to Yamamoto, and it was important for him to keep Makino.

Of course, he knew more clearly than ever that there was a ghostly submarine around his fleet, but he believed Makino's analysis, this submarine was running out of ammunition, and it didn't work except for some intrigues.

Three Yorktown-class aircraft carriers and one Raider aircraft carrier of the US military assembled near the island of New Caledonia and headed west.

The key point of Australia is the east coast, if the Japanese army occupies the major cities along the coast, then Australia can basically be declared to fall, this is the strategy that Yamashita has developed for the military department, he is not prepared to go deep into the barren interior. Every time the Japanese Army occupied a seaport city, it meant that they had a new point of supply at sea and a new point of departure for their offensive, and it also meant that the balance of war was much more tilted in their favor.

The U.S. Navy is under unprecedented pressure to stay out of the war, even if the number of carriers is 9 to 4 and the number of carrier-based aircraft is 2 to 1.

419 found that the fleets of both sides were coming head-on, and although they did not know the location of their opponents, it seemed that this decisive battle was inevitable, and the Americans had to choose a very wrong time. The warships they produced at the end of 41 will soon be launched, and they will soon form a numerical superiority, but if they fight a big defeat at this moment and lose a large number of personnel, the future war will inevitably become fuel, and they will always fight Japanese veterans with new recruits, and the course of the war will be difficult to predict.

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Next week is expected to be busy with work and short-term business trips, and there may be a day or two of stops.