The 4th Division had never encountered such a rapid response from enemy artillery, not only did it react quickly, but it also hit it accurately. The Japanese military parade in the morning caused a hidden danger to themselves, and the spies were able to judge the approximate direction of the artillery fire from the traces of the wheels of the vehicles. Tao Mingzhang's artillery observers have been waiting for the enemy's artillery to show up, and the communication advantage makes it possible for the artillery to react quickly and give the enemy a fierce attack.

The infantry artillery and mortar positions with a relatively close range were the first to be devastated, and the 75 mountain guns, which were hiding 5 kilometers away, were a little troublesome, but they could still observe the direction of several different areas, carry out cross-positioning operations on the map, determine the approximate position of the enemy's position, and carry out countermeasures. This is Tao Mingzhang's creative discovery, overcoming the problem of inaccurate ranging of the army's meter-level composite rangefinder, he does not like to rely on the US Air Force reconnaissance, because of language problems, often communication is not clear, and deep into Burma, the Americans are not willing to dispatch every time.

He also doesn't rely on equipment, and of course he doesn't know that there will be such a thing as artillery radar in the future. His observers were only Navy 20x binoculars and radio. But he knew that theory combined with practice and his methods convinced them to lose.

Of course, he still has 12 155 heavy guns with overwhelming firepower in his hands, and he doesn't want to play this card yet, he wants to save the shells for the enemy's heavy artillery. He already had a general area of the enemy's fire deployment, so many pairs of eyes on his front line were staring at the area, waiting for the enemy to come out. Of course, it is too difficult to find a target hidden ten kilometers away. Especially during the day.

Tao Mingzhang's conservatism created an illusion for the commander of the Sekihara Division, he felt that the enemy was coming fiercely, but he could block it.

Sekigahara was most worried about the enemy outflanking him with the two flanks of the tank, because he had not yet built enough fortifications, so he was worried that the enemy would use his speed to intersperse. But instead of doing this, the enemy engaged in an artillery battle. This is not his most frightening style of play, the 4th Division is the best at positional artillery warfare.

Lieutenant General Sekihara, who has been studying the tactics of the 5th Army lately, is quite sure that this is not a typical style of play for the 5th Army. He talked to Keiji Suzuki on the phone and determined that the 201st Division was not the strongest force of the 5th Army, but he did not know that Chu Tingchang had strengthened the firepower of the 201st Division, but the opponent did not play this card at the first time. Now it's the turn of the 4th Division to counterattack, and he wants to upgrade his firepower to let the opponent know how powerful he is.

After the Japanese 4 Type 96 150mm cannons opened fire, the infantry of the 201st Division reported being attacked by strong firepower, but neither the hot air balloons nor the front-line observers could see the smoke or flashes rising from the enemy's artillery positions, and it was obvious that the enemy was either far away or hiding behind some cover.

Tao Mingzhang ordered the troops to stop advancing to avoid more casualties. Spies reported that there were about 500 Japanese troops and 4,000 Burmese soldiers in the city, more than 10,000 civilians, and most Burmese people without guns. And most importantly, the spy gives the location of the ammunition depot in the city, and if the ammunition depot is destroyed, it can also make the enemy's heavy fire mute.

The ammunition depot used to be a British-built railway station, so it was easy to tell that it could not withstand the 155 guns. Of course, the Japanese may not think so, they have strengthened the top of the ammunition depot and the surrounding walls, which are piled with sandbags to roughly withstand the light 105 gun attack. When designing fortifications, the Japanese had a tendency to think only about the defense within the supposed range of enemy fire, and were unwilling to waste more resources. The design of this place is mainly intended for protection against small * and artillery shells.

In the morning, the officers of the Burmese army, who were afraid of death, also found the safest roof of this Pimpana, since they escaped and were caught or shot, they first hid in this place to see the situation outside. The Japanese, of course, dragged their big thick pipes. walked around the city, but it was still not enough to eliminate the shadow that Chu Tingchang had bred in their hearts in the past six months.

However, Tao Mingzhang did not make up his mind to modify the original goal and attack the city instead, he was always afraid of civilian casualties, but Chu Tingchang's order to immediately attack the city had arrived, and he also knew that this was only the first small obstacle on his way to attack, and then there were Dongwei and Pego to overcome. Everyone on this battlefield looked at him, and although he didn't want to join the competition mixed with personal fame and fortune, it was an indisputable fact that his division had not gained anything so far. He hesitated. Do you want to put some leaflets in first and let the people leave?

Li Bingkun, a staff officer of Tao Mingzhang, came in from outside, and someone had already told him that Master Tao was still worried about civilian casualties, but fortunately, he knew how to guide the woman's benevolent division commander to make the right choice.

"Division commander, why don't you fire the cannon yet?" He ran over and asked.

"There are still people in the city. About 10,000 ......"

"As far as I know, the Chinese have long been driven out by them, and the people in the city are Burmese."

"But after all, it's also a civilian."

"Have you seen the Americans bombing civilians? Shizao, we can't afford to delay, you think, Binma is just a small city, the enemy is building an offensive in Tonggu, Binwen is used to hold us back, if the enemy strengthens the defense, it will be the life of our brothers at that time. ”

He saw that Tao Mingzhang was a little shaken, and hurriedly went around to the other side.

"The company commander who was sent to the artillery position to pick up the wreckage has returned."

"Oh, how?"

"Not only were the cannons painted with anti-Chinese slogans by those monkeys, but the brothers we buried when we retreated were also dug out by the locals......"

"Is there such a thing?"

"It is true that although I am not a local Chinese, the situation in Malaysia* is the same, and the hatred of these natives towards the Chinese is deep-rooted, and it is easy to be incited by the Japanese. Do you know how many Chinese property was robbed by them after our defeat last year? ”

"But ......"

"Master, these barbarian places have been afraid of power and not virtue since ancient times, and we are here to make a reason, so that they dare not resist, and civilian casualties will be reduced in the future."

Although the chief of staff's reasoning is sophistry, it seems to make sense.

"These cannons were strengthened by the army commander, in fact, they can also be used on other battlefields, and we don't use them, in fact, we are indirectly wasting precious resources, and we can't justify other troops who have suffered heavy casualties because of lack of firepower...... Hit a base, and maybe they will collapse themselves. ”

In the city of Pinmana, Sekihara Roku found that the enemy's attack and artillery bombardment stopped at the same time, he didn't realize that it was actually the civilians in the city who protected him, he thought that the 4 heavy guns he deployed played a deterrent role, and as soon as the first-level fire of these legions fired, the enemy naturally thought that there were heavy troops here and did not dare to attack. In fact, as judged by Chief of Staff Lee, his purpose was to delay time here and let the troops behind deploy to block the attack in Tonggu, so that after two or three blockades, the enemy's momentum would weaken, and Sakagaki's retreat would be largely successful, so that Burma would drag into a stalemate, and the stalemate in Burma would strengthen Thailand's defenses and delay the enemy's entry into the Indochina Peninsula.

On the position of the artillery regiment directly under the 5th Army, the artillery door was already impatient, and it was really a fire to see that the enemy was talking about a few cannons falling at a rate of one shot per minute.

Finally, a new order was issued, to revise the original target and shoot at the calibrated target in the city of Pinmana.

The 12 cannons quickly adjusted their firing range and began to aim at new targets, but because the spies in the city had been evacuated and the observers outside the city did not have a commanding height to observe, they could not carry out precise correction shots, but could only cover the shots. But for the artillerymen, this is the best order, because the maximum rate of fire can be played.

The artillery began to roar, and Tao Mingzhang's 105th Howitzer Battalion also joined the fire display, which may be the first time in the history of the Chinese Army that so many heavy artillery have been concentrated to attack, and the target is only a small town that is difficult to find on the map, and the density of fire is beyond imagination.

Pinmana was immediately devastated. Countless shells whistled down from the sky, blasting dilapidated houses to pieces. The spy did not get the position of Sekigahara Sixth Command, but this round of coverage was evenly distributed among every inch of the small city of several square kilometers. The Japanese command swept off half of it at the first time. At the same time, the ammunition depot was flattened by the devastating firepower, causing an explosion that almost destroyed half of the ammunition depot. The commander of the Sekigahara Division sensed that the situation was not good and hurried to run.

This is not the first time he has experienced such annihilating firepower, the last time he was in Nomenkan, as a brigade commander, he was attacked by Soviet fire, Zhukov deployed about 30 artillery pieces per kilometer, including 75 and 107 mm howitzers and mortars of various calibers, and after that terrible experience, he made it clear in many formal and private talks that he should not be an enemy of the Soviet army.

Today's attack is clearly more terrifying than the last one, not only in terms of the density of the enemy's shells, but also in terms of the power of the shells. He was only blown up and lost his hearing, but just by the shaking of the ground, he could tell that there were many big guys far more powerful than the 105 howitzer firing. Of course, he wondered why the enemy commander did not use such powerful firepower in the first place.

When most of Pimmana was swallowed up by the flames, Sekigahara's command vehicle fled to the south of the city, almost escaping the area covered. However, the 155 artillery position, according to the forecast, made the decision to move the fire to the south, and since there was no direct reconnaissance, the artillery could only judge according to common sense, and the remaining living forces of the enemy could begin to move south after knocking out half of the base.

The division commander's car unfortunately fell into the fire net, and a shell exploded nearby, throwing the whole car into the air, and when it fell, it was already a pile of scrap metal.

The infantry of the 201st Division had only launched an attack on the small city at this time, and the Japanese defenses had already been torn apart by fire, and their heavy artillery outside the city had stopped firing because they had been cut off from supplies.

Outside the city, the Japanese army saw that something was wrong, and without the order of their superiors, they quickly retreated on their own, and finally escaped partially. Sakagaki asked Lieutenant General Sekihara to hold for three days, but he only held it for six hours, and he and the headquarters were also involved.