Jiang Weiguo climbed out of the turret and watched ahead from the bumpy vehicle. He sent the order to change the position to the platoons in advance, hoping that it would not cause confusion, some of the crews got stuck in the mud of the paddy fields, which made the formation he wanted to change a little, and he wanted all the tanks to appear on the side of the road at the same time, use maximum firepower, and quickly resolve the battle, and not stop in place for too long, because the Japanese would quickly organize themselves and carry out an effective counterattack.

If he is asked to score the Japanese on the ability to adapt to the battle, it is about 80 points, the Japanese army's handling of tanks is wrong most of the time, but it rarely retreats, which is rare for other armies, so he must fight and retreat quickly, to prevent infantry from outflanking from both flanks, or to launch a suicide assault from the front. The poor terrain in Burma provided too much cover for the experienced infantry to restrain the tanks.

The Japanese convoy was driving on a temporarily expanded march road using the original country road, and this convoy concentrated all 80 trucks to transport a main force to the front as soon as possible. This was the heaviest trump card in Mutaguchi's plan, and he concentrated almost all the trucks of an autonomous vehicle brigade that Iida had allocated to him, and prepared to use a rapid motorized march to hit the flank of the main Chinese breakthrough force, and then, three hours later, use the returning convoy to transport the second brigade up. The motorization of the Japanese army was so low that every truck was a treasure.

After the artillery bombardment of the Chinese army destroyed the main communications, the enemy's former enemy command received a simple order from the division headquarters brought by the signal corps, demanding that the counter-assault be launched as originally planned. Even though the Japanese had sensed the presence of a tank unit interspersed with the loose positions they had prepared to abandon, no one told Captain Otsuka as they were on the move.

The vanguard squadron saw the green smoke rising ahead, but they were not alarmed, because it was still under the control of the Japanese army, and they thought, maybe it was one of their own troops.

Six Chinese tanks climbed up the ridge from the muddy terrain and took a picture of the Japanese convoy that had arrived at the intersection one kilometer away. When the Chinese tanks began to adjust their positions, the Japanese vehicles were still advancing, and the driver couldn't tell which tank it was. The front of the T26 bears a bit of a resemblance to the Type 95, if you don't notice a more slender barrel.

The Chinese tankers also found that the current position was not ideal, and the high and low firing boundaries were very restrictive, so they did not fire their guns but kept moving and adjusting. The Japanese rushed all the way to 200 meters, and only then did they see that the tanks moving back and forth on the high ground did not seem to be their own. If they had immediately increased the throttle and rushed over, they would have been able to escape from under the maximum depression angle of the tank, but the truck led by them chose to stop, and now a large number of cars were crowded together and fell within the range of the T26, with no U-turn and no space, and they could not go away in reverse.

The tank began to fire, and the first shot hit the car in the lead. The car began to burn, blocking the entire road, and the Japanese soldiers who were not dead behind the car jumped down to find cover and hide.

At the same time, the tank machine guns also began to strafe, blocking the possible charging channel of the Japanese infantry, and tracer bullets fired at the truck's fuel tank, almost a single burst could ignite a truck.

Jiang Weiguo's car turned over from one side, and finally it dawned on him, the undulating terrain of Myanmar had made him suffer enough, if he hadn't been wearing a steel helmet, he would have been full of bags. He had long noticed that this place was very unsuitable for tank warfare, even in the relatively flat south, there was very little flat terrain, and there were only a few roads, and he was very skeptical that the 40-ton Churchill tanks of the British armored brigade, which were operating at the same time 80 kilometers away, could bargain for anything in such a place.

He constantly observed with a telescope, constantly instructed to shoot at important targets and not to strafe people. The total annihilation of the enemy was not what he wanted, what he wanted was to zero out the valuable assets sent by the enemy thousands of miles away, in fact, these vehicles he saw in the telescope were enough to give the Japanese the confidence to take a military adventure, and now they were about to end.

The Japanese began to counterattack with grenadiers, and the tanks were just outside the maximum range of this Japanese weapon, and then they tried to return fire with 92 rifles. But to push this kind of artillery onto a flat ground, dig a pit and put down the stationing hoe, and then carry out line aiming, it takes at least 90 seconds, which is what the most sophisticated Japanese army can do, and this small artillery has always been a thorn in the side of the Chinese soldiers, and it is always the highest priority target.

However, due to the lack of time, interspersed with a detachment to cross the road and form crossfire, the Japanese troops quickly used the roadbed as a support, and removed the artillery wheels, fired from a position that was not easy to observe, and then formed a mortar position in a ditch 50 meters behind the road that could not be reached by direct fire from tanks.

At the same time as these artillery counterattacks, the infantry also began to organize a counterattack, and they chose to break through the fire network blocked by the tanks head-on, using every cover in front of them, and gradually leaping forward. Soon the nearest infantry moved to within 60 meters of the front of the tank. This is a dangerous distance for a stagnant tank, because the field of view of the heading machine gun in front of the hull and the directional firing range are no longer sufficient, this is the distance at which the advantage of a tank and a good infantry is eliminated, and the way to avoid the disadvantage against a tank is to reverse and close the distance before the enemy can use *.

Jiang Weiguo saw that the tank at the front was hit once by a grenadier and was forced to reverse. Two other commanders were hit by the enemy while observing from the probe.

He was also forced to withdraw from the turret, and the armor plates were constantly hit by the enemy, and the firing position was quite sideways, indicating that the enemy had moved to the position of about 10 o'clock. He was patient, counted through his periscope to 40 enemy trucks smoking on the road, and then ordered all of them to retreat. A Japanese soldier* landed near his vehicle. He casually closed the top hatch so that he wouldn't * throw it in.

Now he has overfulfilled his task, constantly harassing the rear, and also interrupting the offensive channel of the second echelon of the 18th Division, if you calculate the cumulative capacity of these trucks, in 10 hours, the Japanese army will reduce 2000 soldiers to the front line, or 100 heavy weapons of various calibers.

Dai Anlan watched the small flags on the map keep moving, a cavalry wing of the Japanese army in front was divided into three parts by the main force of the rapidly attacking armored regiment, and the frontal attack of the infantry regiment was also progressing rapidly, all thanks to the slow movement of the enemy's second line and did not immediately put into the counterattack, and now he was faced with two choices, either to extend the victory, or to take it when he saw it.

According to the latest battle report from the front, the 599th Regiment attacked the headquarters of the enemy's 55th Cavalry Wing in the village east of Ba Lei, and found a captain who had committed suicide, with a burned military flag next to him, judging that he might be the wing commander.

Although there are only more than 900 cavalry wings belonging to the 55th Division, and there is no heavy firepower, the experience is not simple, they are the first to cross the Thai-Burmese border on bicycles, and they are also the main force that attacked Mawlamyine, and the culprits of the massacre in the Xitang River. Relying on its excellent technology, the unit repeatedly played tricks in front of the 200th Division, and in the 200th Division's attack on the fortified positions along the railway, it retreated one after another, and performed well. But today, they played tricks to lure the enemy out of the fire, and most of the troops failed to jump out of the encirclement under the tank assault, and suffered heavy casualties from artillery fire during the build-up.

The above military situation made Dai Anlan hesitate, and he estimated that it would take more than 10 hours to completely eat this wing with two regiments.

But a bad news came, the British counterattack in the west, was met by the Japanese 33rd Division fierce counterattack, the Japanese army implemented the same strategy as here, that is, the front enemy must pass, gradually retreat, leaving a strong mobile force in the rear to fight back, as a result, the British army attacked all morning, and suddenly was counterattacked by the Japanese 33rd Division, the Japanese army has recovered all positions, and is still outflanking Slim's army. The British have been hesitant about the specific amount of losses, and they have not informed China and the United States.

Stilwell believed that at present, the two sides of the battlefield are isolated, and it is completely possible to continue to develop victory regardless of the situation there, throw the 598th Regiment into it, and destroy the enemy's cavalry wing before the arrival of the second-line Japanese army, although in fact, this is only a search force directly under the jurisdiction of the 55th Division, and the scale is much smaller than the serious wing, but it can also add a touch of color to the recent terrible anti-fascist situation. But Dai Anlan couldn't agree with this view, and after he knew the real ambition behind the enemy's smuggling of the main force, he didn't have the luxury of hoping for a quick victory.

"General Stilwell, I can drop 2 more battalions, but the attack must be stopped before nightfall, whether or not most of the enemy is eaten." He said.

"However, the rest of the Fifth Army will be able to arrive from tomorrow. We should not be too conservative in the face of victory. ”

"I'm not so optimistic about the main forces in the rear. The Japanese Air Force and the agents in the rear of the ambush did not bother to destroy the railway, because they were too optimistic about the war situation, you wait and see, today they will suffer, and then they will focus on attacking the railway. ”

"What about Yangon?"

"If the reality shows that the enemy already has three divisions here, I am not very optimistic about Yangon, which has not yet been conquered, and may just be bait for the enemy to lure us south. I hope that General Slim will at least secure the line of communication from Rangoon to Ringanchang, and General Alexander, it would be better to be ready to retreat at any time. ”

Chen Zhiping saw that the time was almost up, and he also came up to pour cold water on Stilwell: "The latest information I have gotten is that the Japanese army will have the 4th division, that is, the 56th division, landing." Moreover, just as Division Commander Dai said, the Japanese army and air forces were about to intensify their attack on our railway, and this was the information obtained at noon. ”

Lin Xiuxuan used the password he provided to Chen Zhiping to simulate a telegram asking the rebels in the rear to provide instructions on the ground fire at night, and deliberately let him intercept it. The Chinese army deployed a large number of anti-aircraft guns near the important bridge nodes of the Yangman railway. Therefore, the Japanese army urgently drew up a plan for a low-altitude raid at night, focusing on the elimination of air defense forces. It can be seen that there is still some hesitation on whether to destroy these bridges. Of course, Chen Zhiping is more worried about Jiang Weiguo's safety, if the second son has three longs and two shorts, the source is in his intelligence. So this kind of thing, of course, should be avoided.

"According to the report, the tank group of the motorized infantry battalion has successively blocked the enemy's main forces behind the enemy, and the results have been quite great. The battalion commander asked for a quick dispatch of vehicle-mounted infantry support, and he might be able to establish a defense on the enemy's main thoroughfare. ”

"You see, Jiang Weiguo blocked the enemy's second-line reinforcements." Stilwell suddenly felt that Jiang Weiguo had probably touched the true meaning of tank warfare, why MacArthur couldn't stop the Japanese army with 50 M3 tanks with better performance in Bataan, he could stop it.