Lao Zhou has been keeping an eye on the enemy's railway. Attacking all the way east from Bangkok, the enemy always sabotaged the railroad in a timely manner, usually two or three days before the appearance of his own forward, the enemy would blow up the railway, sometimes destroying the roadbed. These premature blastings would have caused their own troops to have no time to retreat using the railway, but the temple did not hesitate to do so. He was robbed of a railway bridge in northern Thailand, and he suffered a lot, so it was a bit of overkill.

But the current situation is a little different, this section of Lao Zhou's attack, the enemy's railway remains intact, which shows that either the enemy has given up on himself, or they may not be ready to give up this area. He reported the situation to Chief Chu through the command car.

The Japanese military train on the railway, in broad daylight, dragged the smoke and galloped, almost a kilometer away from Zhou Youfu's troops, and the Japanese army seemed not too afraid of American air raids in this area. It's too deep to the south, almost close to the Jinou Peninsula. It is difficult for fighters taking off from Guangxi or northern Myanmar to complete the entire escort for the bombers. The P38 fighter could certainly fly over and drop bombs, but it would not have done much without the large bombers constantly bombing the railway line with horizontal carpet bombardment.

The drone is still monitoring the surrounding situation from the air, but the 419's drone is too worn, and although it has undergone more and more frequent overhauls, there is a shortage of spare parts, and the ability to stay in the air is also weakened. It is also rare to be able to carry out a seamless reconnaissance mission in which two UAVs take over each other.

However, after a night of tracking, no major enemy information was found. The enemy basically relied on the railroad to transport supplies and troops, and it is possible to calculate how many men and horses can be transported in this way. There were not many troops in Phnom Penh, but there were a lot of material hoards. The news from the southern guerrillas of Le Duan was similar that only a few hospitals of the 72nd Mixed Brigade and the 4th Division were left in the city, and no other enemy was found. At the river port of Phnom Penh, a small number of liaison officers of the 5th Division were found, who set up a command near the port and took over some of the port's communications settings, apparently, in preparation for a mass arrival.

Chu Tingchang could only make a judgment on this information, and he felt that it was necessary to take advantage of the enemy's failure to complete the assembly and occupy more important places. Of course, he also sensed a hint of a strange atmosphere, because Le Duan's intelligence showed that Phnom Penh was calm and the Japanese did not seem to be in a mess.

The enemies on both sides of Huang Tianyang couldn't hold back and began to attack. Since the Chinese army has never taken the bait, it can only take the initiative to outflank. Let's see if we can use a pincer offensive to clamp the enemy in front of you, this attack was launched by Terauchi Shouichi and was not blocked by Yamashita Fengfumi. Of course, Yamashita had already keenly noticed that the enemy tanks were missing.

The enemy had his back to the railway line, and the artillery was quite abundant. A large number of heavy artillery was involved in the attack. Huang Tianyang is not a fool, as soon as he saw that the signs were wrong, he ordered to retreat. He didn't need to take responsibility for the disadvantage of the attack, he was here to make a feint.

His front-line troops quickly retreated to the rear automobile assembly area, and since they had been prepared for a long time, the automobile units were on standby, and each battalion, each company, and the area where the car was mounted and the retreat route were all confirmed by the General Staff to be correct. This rapid push for motorization has demonstrated a high degree of organizational ability of the troops. A day earlier, the General Staff had already allocated roads and bridges, and sent "picket corps" to maintain order at intersections to prevent the troops from taking the wrong road and causing congestion. The entire retreat was in order, and the troops quickly withdrew to reserve positions.

The "picket corps" is a battalion of Tao Mingzhang transferred by Chu Tingchang, and some student soldiers are supplemented, and the newly formed field police force is used to maintain the discipline and military law of the troops, and also shoulders some tasks of protecting the passage and preventing the enemy from sabotage.

The two main wings of the 4th Division, as well as a tank brigade, attacked Huang Tianyang's troops from both sides, expecting to outflank the enemy's rear as quickly as possible and cut off the retreat. It stands to reason that the Japanese army has some tanks that are not slow, but they are still not as fast as Huang Tianyang. Under the alternating resistance of the enemy, the convoy watched from afar to the west. The tank brigade abandoned the infantry and advanced quickly, attacking the predetermined position an hour ahead of schedule, but there were no more enemy troops in the so-called encirclement. In fact, the Japanese army has never been good at this kind of pincer offensive that relies on maneuver, and the same is true in the battles of China itself, although they can always rely on firepower superiority to defeat the Nationalist army and seize the place they want to occupy, but it is rare to rely on a clean outflank to encircle and annihilate the Nationalist army on a large scale.

At this time, Zhou Youfu's column was resisted on a small scale, and he estimated that there was no point in advancing covertly, so he decided to cross the railway line and let the enemy know that he was coming.

A column of Japanese troops rumbled in and unfortunately hit the front of the unit, which consisted entirely of Stewart tanks. The Japanese in the car saw a large number of tanks coming from the mountain beam in front of them, but it was too late to brake.

The tank rushed closer to within a hundred meters before it began firing. The train could only return fire with twin 20-mm anti-aircraft guns in the tail, which was immediately destroyed by the tanks.

Soon the tank fire detonated the ammunition on the car, and the whole train began to explode. Zhou Youfu's tank and half-track car quickly passed the railway and drove towards Benlei. According to the information provided by Ho Chi Minh, only one squadron of the 56th Mixed Brigade was stationed there.

Yamashita received the exact news that the train was being attacked, determined the location where the enemy tank unit had crossed the iron, and now he was sure that the enemy's destination was Benlei.

His 11 wing is still 10 kilometers from there. It's about the same in a straight line from the enemy there. He ordered to garrison troops along the way, holding off the enemy as much as possible. At the same time, the 11th Wing, which had not rested for 10 hours, was ordered to abandon the original forest route, climb over the ridge, and take a shortcut to the Benlei station. He then quickly consulted the list of baggage hoarding points of the Benlei Army, and saw that in addition to a large amount of ammunition, there were more than a dozen new 47-mm anti-aircraft guns and infantry guns, and he added a telegram to the 11th Wing, discarding all the heavy baggage and dismantled heavy weapons, discarding the cannons dragged by the war horses, and rushing to the destination as quickly as possible.

A third telegram was sent to the Benlei defenders, asking them not to waste time in fortifying them, but to immediately move all the anti-aircraft guns, *, and infantry guns from the warehouse to the open area.

When he issued the above orders, he was not very clear about the ridge that the 11th Wing was about to climb, but from the contour map, there was a chance to climb it. He hastily calculated the rate of lag and the loss of weapons, and estimated that 2,500 lightly armed soldiers would arrive in time to set up a blockade. According to what he knows about blitzkrieg. Tanks are actually weapons for attacking the soft underbelly, and when they encounter a fortified area, the best strategy is to get around. Therefore, as long as it is defended and attacked, the enemy will advance and retreat.

For several hours, he had allowed the Marshal of the temple to indulge in his illusion of encirclement, because he could not guess where the enemy would launch an assault, and the number of roads of Chu Tingchang was too strange to be sure that he could fully guess. Therefore, he adopted the strategy of adapting to all changes with the same, and he only needed a strong reserve force to thwart Chu Tingchang's plot at any time.

Zhou Youfu's troops revealed their intentions and were blocked by several Japanese troops. But the enemy came in a hurry and did not have time to organize a defense. Some of them were still digging pits and burying mines, but they were hit by the tanks that arrived quickly and dispersed them directly with fire. Some troops interfered from the flanks, forcing him to spare some roads, throwing off unknown enemies, and indeed wasting some of his time. As a result, the Japanese 11 Wing crossed the ridge and shortened the distance by half, and their two legs outperformed the tank tracks.

What Yamashita is most worried about is not whether his troops can arrive in time, as long as he gives an order, the 11th Wing will not have a task that cannot be completed, but what he is most worried about is whether Benlei's military station troops can play an effective role, such as finding ammunition to match the battle defense artillery. Sometimes, this is not something that can be done by manpower, and it is common for all kinds of weapons and ammunition to be hoarded in different military stations. The Army does not think that the baggage support is biased towards management, but only regards it as a branch of the army, and sets up corresponding subjects in the Army University.

Confusion in management is commonplace, and the caliber of the army's weapons is very numerous. When his troops ran out of ammunition in Australia, they found that the rear was replenished with 6.5mm ammunition, and his troops had been reequipped with 7.7 caliber rifles half a year earlier.

He waited for a call from the Benlei garrison, and sure enough, the worst happened, the troops at the station only found 4 boxes of 16-round 47-mm anti-aircraft artillery shells, and the number of anti-aircraft guns exceeded 16. There were thousands of 37mm* rounds stockpiled there, but there was not a single one, such an old-fashioned anti-aircraft gun.

He informed Shiota Daisa, who was on the march, about these circumstances, and asked him to take the initiative to face the enemy and carry forward the fighting spirit of the 11th Wing.

Although it was the same old spirit of agitation, the Japanese troops were always very useful. The 11th Wing was almost in a mess and ran into the small town of Benlei. The formation of the troops is basically chaotic, the officers cannot find the troops, the troops cannot find the officers, but everyone knows that the enemy will appear from the west, and there will be tanks. So the troops organized and organized themselves, occupied those commanding heights and favorable terrain, and deployed machine-gun positions. This was a tradition of the 5th Division, which was not trained to resemble paratroopers, but who learned these skills when they were often faced with disarray during attacks on the Malay Peninsula.

Even artillerymen, it is possible to pull a couple of heads from the infantry to complete a makeshift artillery squad. They pushed infantry guns and went into the grass on the side of the road for quick concealment.

Zhou Youfu's troops were a kilometer away, temporarily stopped. Lao Zhou looked forward with a telescope from the command car, and found that there were many enemies in Benlei Town, but they were very chaotic, and he could not see the defensive position, as well as his most frightened battle defense artillery.

He did not bring the Sherman tank, because it was too heavy for many bridges and roads here. Stewart's armor, which carried out the task of attacking fortifications, was somewhat weak and could not withstand the enemy even 37 mm *.