The 24 Mixed Brigade suffered a devastating blow, and its command was wiped out in the third round of attacks.

Cheng Dayang could see that around the bomb crater, which was filled with gunsmoke, it was radial, densely scattered with a large number of corpses, even if it was as far away as 100 meters, there were still a large number of immobile corpses, or writhing wounded. Some of those who barely managed to get up could only walk slowly with their rifles, perhaps with internal organs wounded.

Zhao Xiaoli received an order from Chief Chu to attack again. He commanded two tank battalions and more than 70 medium tanks under the direct jurisdiction of the military headquarters to attack. At the same time, there were 24 155-mm cannons, more than 100 105-mm howitzers, to provide fire cover for his attack.

Since 1937, the entire Chinese battlefield has never concentrated such powerful firepower. And along with the tanks, closely followed by the artillery attack, it was the main force of Chu Tingchang's most elite 200th Division. This unit has rarely participated in combat recently and has become a model unit for providing officers for the newly established units. Today, Chu Tingchang played this card.

In the face of such a devastating attack, the 4th Division could not resist at all, and could only retreat to the second line of defense. According to Yamashita's original plan, the troops would retreat to the rear line of defense one by one, constantly attritioning the opponent, and using reserves to build a defensive line in deeper depth. Wait for the enemy's offensive to be thwarted, and then his main 5th Division will launch a counterattack. The idea is very good, but it is not practical in front of Chu Tingchang.

Tanks can play to their speed advantage even in positional battles. This attack, although decent, still disrupted the enemy's retreat rhythm, and even though some units of the 4th Division were able to withdraw using the communication trenches, the main heavy weapons, such as battle defense artillery and some field artillery infantry guns, were simply too late to retreat. Moreover, the retreating troops were beaten in a mess and could not be immediately regrouped on the second front and thrown into battle.

Originally, there were no permanent fortifications in this area, only ordinary trenches dug temporarily, and simple fortifications covered with trees and earth. It should be said that in the absence of machinery and equipment, it is not easy for the Japanese army to quickly complete such a systematic defense with sappers and shovels. However, such a defense obviously could not stop Chu Tingchang's artillery fire.

After the shelling, 90% of the surface positions of the Japanese troops were destroyed, the machine-gun bunkers were blown to the ground, and the weapons were blown to pieces. The earth thrown up by a large-caliber blast is enough to bury the enemy alive in a nearby trench. So much so that when the tanks attacked, some of the wider trenches, which could have become obstacles, were already filled with mud and corpses. In the afternoon of the same day, the tanks had already broken through two lines of defense in the area fortified by the Japanese army. The troops could find that some of the forts had just been half-built, and it was too late to deploy weapons, and the Japanese concrete mixers were still parked in place and had no time to take them away. Obviously, Yamashita's intention was to use the position to delay time, but apparently Chu Tingchang's schedule was carried out, and Yamashita's schedule was not reached.

At the same time, C47 fighters landed in large numbers, replenishing troops and weapons and ammunition to Zhou Youfu's troops. During this period, the 202nd Division encountered only a few counterattacks, and the 48th Brigade in Phnom Penh, together with the puppet police in the Kampong Cham area under the command of Lon Nol, who used legal weapons, and carried out some small-scale harassment of Zhou Youfu's troops.

When Lon Nol led his troops into Phnom Penh, Zhou Youfu's army had been evacuated for a long time, and he immediately told the king that such a chaotic situation might not be a bad thing, but it should be dealt with carefully. In a tone of instruction to his subordinates, he reminded King Sihanouk that sooner or later these foreign armies—French, Japanese, or Chinese—would have to leave. But the real threat to the country comes from the communist parties active in Southeast Asia, so it is necessary to cooperate with all parties to carry out operations against the Le Duan guerrillas who have invaded Cambodia. According to the information he gathered from his scattered eyes among the people, in addition to the Vietnamese, the local red student organizations are also preparing to move. These men are not armed for the time being, but they have been waiting for the opportunity to seize the arms of the French, and they should be especially careful.

King Sihanouk himself has been secretly committed to national independence, but he does not have much antipathy to the red armed forces in his country, at least on the matter of fighting for national independence, there does not seem to be much disagreement. He also had some jealousy of Lon Nol, and he did not directly oppose it.

Lon Nol believes that in the current situation, Cambodia can turn to France, the United States and Japan, but it must avoid China, and Chu Tingchang's troops are arming the local CPM in southern Thailand and Malays, which is a truly dangerous action. Therefore, he believed that at this stage, it was necessary to help the Japanese resist the Chinese army, and at the same time actively liaise with the United States and Britain to strive for the direct occupation of Cambodia by the American army. This would not only drive out the Japanese but also the French, and contain Chinese and Vietnamese influence, while spying on local left-wing students.

The king was noncommittal about Lon No's whimsy, intuitively speaking, it seemed that many things in one fell swoop were unreliable, of course, he could bring thousands of policemen to "King Qin", or he still had to commend him, although this person had a ghost in his belly, it was difficult to say.

The king had no real power, and Lon Nol's actions did not require his consent. After an exchange of views with the king, he approached the commander of the Japanese army, Major General Yasujiro Akashi, and offered to arm his troops with French barracks weapons, and his men and horses would cooperate with the Japanese in battle, especially some reconnaissance operations.

Taijiro Akashi (commander of the 48th Brigade) was worried about the shortage of soldiers, he had dealt with Lon Nol and knew that he had a lot of money, he was originally a local official promoted by the French, and he was the fastest to serve the Japanese army. For the time being, however, there was a lack of combat troops, and the Cambodians, who were familiar with the local terrain, could take advantage of it, especially since his plan required a large number of reconnaissance troops to indicate targets for air raids.

Major General Akashi immediately promised to arm the Cambodian army with French weapons. Due to the "alliance" between Japan and the Vichy government, the Japanese have never raised their own puppets here and armed the local puppet army. However, the matter was in a hurry, and it was too late to ask Tokyo, so Major General Akashi took the lead and asked Lon Nol to cooperate with his attack. With this effort, the Japanese finally repaired the telephone communication with the Vietnamese airport, and now there are land aviation planes that can be used.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, more than 60 fighters and bombers of the 1st Flying Division took off and rushed to the airfield in an attempt to blow up the runway and airfield facilities. The plan drawn up by the 1st Flying Division was very strange, not to first cut off the enemy's air transport line with fighters, but to go directly to the bombers, apparently in the eyes of the Japanese staff officers, the interception of the route was only a symptom, and the destruction of airfields was the root cause. In the take-off sequence, priority is also given to the bombers to take off.

Even the KI43 fighters, which served as escorts, carried one weighing 250 kg *. Due to the fact that the flight from Vietnam was very close, the Japanese took full advantage of this advantage and replaced the auxiliary fuel tanks with *. The trade-off is that the chances of a Hayabusa on long-range patrols are greatly reduced, and the aircraft has almost no horizontal bomb delivery accuracy. It's hard to say what effect these * will play.

British radar took advantage of the higher terrain in northern Thailand to detect the counterattack in advance. This was enough for the fleet of transport planes already in the air to temporarily change course and land at the newly built airfield in northern Thailand. At the same time, fighter planes taken off from northern Thailand and Yunnan were mobilized to defend the airport.

This is obviously a crucial battle related to the success or failure of this campaign. The American-made P38 combat aircraft that took off from Myanmar was an excellent interceptor, but its combat performance was very poor, while the one that took off from Wujiaba in Yunnan Province was a new fighter that gave priority to equipping the Asia-Pacific region - the P51A.

The finalization of this aircraft has just been completed, and the Japanese know little about the Mustang, which looks somewhat like the P40, but is larger and has a smaller wing load. According to pilots who flew such aircraft, this was the first aircraft in the U.S. military that could engage in dogfights with the Zero or Hayabusa. Moreover, this kind of aircraft has a very long range, and it is just right for this kind of mission, taking off from the far rear to support the Indochina Peninsula.

The Japanese bombers reached the airfield first due to their short range, but were intercepted by ground anti-aircraft fire. The anti-aircraft fire came partly from captured Japanese large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, and partly from the latest small-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

The Japanese tried to blow up some cross-cut craters in the middle of the runway to destroy its transport capacity. However, under the interference of anti-aircraft guns, the volley bombing of the Mitsubishi 99 bombers did not achieve the expected effect, and the landing points were scattered, but destroyed some of the materials that were piled up on the side of the runway and did not have time to pull away, but very few fell on the runway. As a result, the Japanese missed the best opportunity to fight, and in the next few days, they will learn that the combination of Allied radar and new aircraft, after the ground command personnel have been run-in, the ever-increasing power, and the bulky bombers will never have the opportunity to carry out such a big bombing.

The P38 fighters were the first to arrive, just as the Japanese heavy bombers had just left, and the fighters rushed towards a group of light bombers who were preparing to dive and drop bombs. The Japanese staff valued the power of heavy bombers, so they did not line up light bombers with precision bombing capabilities, which were preparing to bomb airfield facilities such as towers. It was intercepted by fighter jets roaring from the sky. Half of them were shot down at one time.

The Japanese KI43 fighters hurriedly threw away *, trying to intercept the P38, but they themselves were also in the bomb throwing stage, even if they threw away *, there was not enough speed and height, the P38 flashed like a lightning speed, and then climbed rapidly, the climbing ability of this aircraft was inferior to the Japanese light fighters on paper, but with the help of a huge dive speed, for a time with a speed of 650 kilometers per hour that exceeded twice the Japanese plane, it was easy to dodge. The Japanese once laughed at the stupidity of the twin-engine aircraft with steering wheels like a pig, but with the support of its tremendous speed, it still has a high ability to maneuver vertically.

The Japanese watched the target disappear into the clouds, and in order to pursue the target, the Hayabusa fighter climbed to a high altitude that was not suitable for these aircraft, and in the large-angle climb, the speed loss was great.

At high altitude, the flight became clumsy and unstable, and in the case of thin air, the aileron effect of the Hayabusa fighter's engine output began to decline, and the rolling became sluggish, and only when the speed slowly recovered could some maneuverability be restored, but the flight captain was not willing to exchange altitude for some speed, because he was worried that the P38 would turn around and come back.