Mandalay's 4th Division is known for its ability to build ingenious fortifications, and in the last three weeks, the 74th Army has had enough of this cunning unit. The pontoon bridge, which the army relied on American engineers to build during the day, was attacked by the Japanese army and burned down after nightfall. When counterattacking, they always followed the enemy's path, and it was clear that they followed the route of the Japanese to escape, and chased them into the minefield. And when attacking with tanks, they are always ambushed by the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery, and the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery that relies on people to push horses can block the position of the tank's attack every time. Like most of the Central Army, the 74th Army was more adept at defense and shorter at offensive than offensive. Even if American-style weapons are provided in a limited amount, they are not very good at using them. Infantry and artillery coordination are very clumsy.

Zhang also had to keep an eye on the gendarmerie to find Japanese spies scattered around Mandalay. Here, overseas Chinese are not only the reliable backing of the 74th Army, but also a large number of traitors recruited from South China to collect intelligence for the Japanese.

The most terrifying thing is the entire Allied system (including 419), which is still unknown to this day that Seishiro Itagaki has come to Burma. This will be a strong opponent far beyond Kimura.

Sakahara has always valued two records, one is that the Chinese army has never been defeated, of course, strictly speaking, the 5th Division was once ambushed by the Eighth Route at Pingxingguan and suffered heavy losses. The second is that the troops under his command maintain the record of defeating the largest number of Chinese troops, and the prestige of the 5th Division is also fought in North China, so it can be said that as long as he makes his identity as commander public, the sluggish morale of the Burmese Front is bound to receive a huge boost.

Since the thirteenth year of Showa, Itagaki was ousted from the position of Minister of War and has been idle. The whole world is at war, but he has nothing to do, of course, except for occasionally meeting with his old partner and fellow countryman Ishihara who is also idle to exchange views on the current situation, and his other hobby is to collect battle maps and study battle formations. Unlike Ishihara, who is good at strategy, he is more tactical.

The Burmese battlefield has not been the main object of study with this old devil, on the one hand, Shojiro Iida had a good start, and secondly, his old unit, the 5th Division, did not fight in Burma, but went to New Guinea, so his attention was more focused on New Guinea and Australia. It wasn't until Kimura Hyotaro took over Burma and ushered in a series of defeats that the war in northern Myanmar gradually became the focus of his investigation, and the name Chu Tingchang gradually entered his field of vision.

Chu Tingchang's maneuver tactics fascinated him, and he always believed that the Japanese army's mobility was far stronger than that of the clumsy Chinese army, and even stronger than any army in the world if it was in the mountains. However, the situation counted by Ying Zuo was greatly unexpected, and Chu Tingchang fought with various units of the Burmese Front, and he was able to seize the opportunity every time.

The situation has been reversed, and it is no longer the era of 1937, when he relied on a brigade and closely followed more than 20 Chinese divisions and ran all over Shanxi. Just now he saw the display of firepower of the Chinese army in the north in the air, which was far more powerful than during the Battle of Xinkou. However, he saw in the enemy's attack that he was impatient and blind. He knew that Chiang Kai-shek had given Zhang Lingfu a death order to capture Mandalay before the Spring Festival. Now, with proper guidance, it is easy for the enemy to make the mistake of taking the enemy lightly.

He decided to give the 74th Army a little sweetness first, and ordered the 4th Division to abandon the defense on the north bank of the Irrawaddy River, and all of them were removed from the east of Awa City, so as to defend the direction in which Chu Tingchang might appear. He predicted that Chief Chu Tingchang would need a week of repairs, but he didn't have a bottom in his heart. After all, he occupies most of the railway, and as soon as he raises his legs, he will be in front of him.

The Allies still did not know that the Japanese army had secretly replaced them with their gods of war and butchers. Chongqing is still counting on the 74th Army to capture Mandalay before the Spring Festival, and earn some public opinion support, so as not to let Chu Ting's long army be too eye-catching.

Although northern Myanmar has been controlled, the road from India to Yunnan is still not open. The losses on the Hump route were too great, so the Americans tended to arm the Chinese army on the spot in northern Burma, and initially positioned 36 infantry divisions.

Seeing that Chu Tingchang was about to take away the equipment of 10 divisions alone, and Sun Liren was not so obedient, he was also planning to use the Nanyang Chinese to expand his troops. Therefore, the dual significance of the strategy and politics of seizing Mandalay is particularly prominent.

In order to support this campaign, Chongqing has successively transferred six divisions of the Yunnan Expeditionary Force into Burma, and behind the 74th Army are two armies of Song Xilian.

The Japanese army's voluntary retreat overnight greatly boosted the morale of the Chinese troops attacking along the river, and everyone was calculating that the Japanese army's time in Burma was short, and calculating various unfavorable factors for the Japanese army, such as the absence of a commander, the cutting off of supply lines, low morale, and insufficient troops. In such an atmosphere of optimism, it is easy to ignore a possible counterattack by the enemy. Even reconnaissance of 419 did not detect actions under the table of the Burmese Front.

In order to target 419's reconnaissance capabilities, Akira and Makino worked hard to find a practical way to keep it secret. The main purpose of Kagesa Zhenzhao's visit this time is, of course, to assist Sakahara to defeat Chu Tingchang, of course, he also feels that this goal is a bit hanging, so the purpose of retreating to the second best is to manage the intelligence part, at least not to let the opponent take too much advantage in this regard.

In three days, the 2nd Division, which confronted Sun Liren, and the Japanese troops stationed on the western coast of Burma quietly gathered near Mandalay by using the railway line, forming a local advantage. The retreat of the Japanese army these days has also made the main attack group of the 74th Army form a prominent part of the battle line, and its vanguard reserve 2nd Division has entered the Ava Palace in Mandalay City, and eighty percent of the entire area of Mandalay has been controlled by the 74th Army.

419's drones were the first to notice that something was wrong, and the Japanese seemed to have quickly recovered from the chaos of the lost Chiang Mai, and their actions became organized and eerie.

The drone spotted two Japanese brigades (the 24th and 72nd Brigades) coming from the south and holding the passage of the 5th Army's possible westward advance. Judging from the enemy's communications intercepted by radio, Shangfeng gave them a death order to hold on for a week.

Although the regulations on secrecy have been strengthened, there are always some leaks underneath.

Why was the enemy asked to hold out for a week? Obviously there is a sense behind this deadline.

Lin Xiuxuan judged that the enemy would launch an operation within a week. But he was not convinced that the Burmese Japanese were still capable of fighting back, and they had lost their supply lines, even if the scale of the counterattack was unlikely to exceed 10,000 men.

However, the current location of 419 does not allow it to penetrate deep into Mandalay in central Myanmar for investigation. He suggested that Commander Chu immediately mobilize for battle, and at least mobilize one division to prepare for the attack. He took his own intelligence team across the border and returned to Myanmar to conduct reconnaissance.

On February 2, 1943, two days before the Lunar New Year in the last year of Aoi, the Japanese troops assembled in Mandalay suddenly launched the New Year Offensive, just when everyone judged that the Japanese army was short of supplies and could not have enough to eat.

Zhang Lingfu's old rival, the newly replenished 56th Division, took the lead in launching a counterattack, while the 2nd Division suddenly appeared west of Mandalay. With a fierce offensive, it was inserted between the two divisions of Song Xilian's 71st Army.

The 71st Army's ace is the 87th Division, but since 37 years, a few stubbles have been wiped out, and the equipment has been gone. After entering Burma, he originally wanted to change his clothes, but because Chu Tingchang suddenly expanded his power and snatched away the milk, he has not changed his clothes so far, and he uses various miscellaneous weapons. But Song Xilian saw that the Japanese army was counterattacking in all directions, and he also felt that the Japanese army was probably not going to work. He was a little underestimated in his mind, but he was immediately defeated as soon as the battle began, and quickly lost the Moneva region. As a result, the flank of the 74th Army was broken through by the Japanese army and fell into a desperate situation. The Japanese army advanced rapidly, preparing to quickly encircle and annihilate the 74th Army.

That afternoon, Sakahara, surrounded by war correspondents, walked to the front line to meet with the soldiers who had been kept in the dark. Of course, he really wanted to continue to hide and play dumb riddles with Chu Tingchang, but at this time, it was also very important to boost morale.

Sakahara walked to the head of Ava Castle in high spirits, and the enemy gnawed at the place captured for a month, and he recaptured it in most of the day, and the troops were still in pursuit. He believed that the enemy had not figured out how he had been defeated by this point.

"I'm the Asahi Shimbun war correspondent Hiranuma, and I would like to ask your Excellency the Commander, will this battle be a great encouragement to the people of Myanmar?"

The Asahi reporter with a white reporter's armband was the first to ask questions, and Sakahara thought to himself, what kind of rotten problem this is, he doesn't care what the people of Myanmar think. All he needed was for them to hand over all the hidden food, so that the enemy's intelligence services could misjudge how long the Japanese could hold out.

But at this moment, I have to pretend to squeeze out a smile to answer this question: "It will be of great significance, and the freedom we promised to the people of Myanmar will be protected, and this is also my promise to His Majesty the Emperor." ”

"What is the ultimate goal of the commander's comeback this time?" The reporter from the Yomiuri Shimbun finally asked a decent question, which should have been arranged by Kagezo in order to convey some information to potential opponents, mainly Chu Tingchang.

"The goal of the first step is to recapture Myitkyina, and the second is to capture Kunming and destroy the base camp of the enemy's air force."

"Commander, I heard that the two theaters of operations in Myanmar and Thailand are going to be combined, so do we want to invest in the operation of the Thai side?"

This is another deliberate arrangement to convey the wrong message to the other side.

"I am only in charge of Burma, Thailand naturally has other generals to deal with, and now the Burmese front must concentrate on preparing for a tough battle, this time our target is not India, but Yunnan, and we must completely solve the resistance of Chiang Kai-shek's regime."

There was no mention of Chu Tingchang and his 5th Army in his speech, as if he didn't take Chu Tingchang seriously at all, but in fact, his staff had been studying the route of Chu Tingchang's attack, and he used the entire 4th Division to guard the east, just waiting for Chu Tingchang to come over.