The 201st Division advanced rapidly, and the next target was Tonggu, where the 5th Army had fought but was defeated. However, it is expected that there will be no major resistance, and if we capture Bago further south, the land passage for the entire Burmese Japanese army to escape into Thailand will basically be closed. At this time, the Japanese navy had already suffered heavy losses, and it was estimated that it would not have time to cross Malacca and help the Japanese army retreat from Rangoon.

Before the army drove through Pimmana, he deliberately left a battalion to rescue the local civilians, but the whole small city had been smashed into powder by those heavy artillery, and it was really worrying whether it could still find a living mouth under the broken walls, and it was conservatively estimated that more than 3,000 civilians were killed by this shelling, which was about three times the number of enemy soldiers killed and wounded. In his troops, a large number of Nanyang overseas Chinese were replenished, and they had no interest in saving the locals.

The exciting news immediately reached Chu Tingchang's headquarters, and just when the northern troops could not eat the entire Sakagaki group in one bite, Tao Mingzhang's partial division had already directly attacked the enemy's hinterland. From a political and strategic perspective, of course, both are of great significance. Chu Tingchang's main consideration was that it was clearly feasible to attack Bangkok from the vicinity of Bago. About a year ago, the 55th Division under the 15th Army launched an attack on Mawlamyine in Burma using the port of Bangkok as a supply base, which shows that the road conditions here can support the offensive of at least one division, which happens to be the size of the 201st Division.

419 At sea, Xiong Xianghui, the inner line of the 5th Army installed in Chongqing, immediately intercepted Xiong Xianghui, and in a secret telegram to Chongqing, highly affirmed the victory of Chu Tingchang, believing that among Chu Tingchang's first-line commanders, his tactics and ability to govern the army were all the best, and he was finally the leader of the country.

Seishiro Sakagaki, who had gathered up the remnants of his army and retreated west of Mandalay to the Moneva mining area, gained a foothold a little, but the lack of cooperation of the enemy's three armies allowed him to seize the opportunity to fight his way out of the weakest 71st Army, and withdraw his troops here, and now several of his divisions and brigades are still in strength, but each unit has lost a lot of personnel, 90% of the supplies and nearly 100% of the motor vehicles have been lost. However, he can still slowly retreat from the Magway line back to Yangon, which is still open.

Sakagaki had a few impulses to give himself a shot, but eventually resisted. He thought: There are still more than 10,000 people of the mixed 72nd Brigade in Yangon, and more than 10,000 people of the Second Division in Bago and Tonggu. In addition, there are Burmese independents...... These people are still not counted. In short, even if he loses half of Myanmar, he still has a chance to turn the tables.

The first heavy rain after the beginning of spring in 1943, pouring on the heads of the embarrassed Japanese troops, was not a bad thing for them, and the enemy on motorized march should have been stopped by the heavy rain. Sakagaki could finally stop and think about what to do next, of course, the bad news still came one by one, first of all, Binmana did not hold on, the commander of the Sekigahara division was included in the missing list, and people saw that his car was destroyed, which meant that he lost another general.

In the bitter wind and rain, Sakagaki sat in the tent, thinking about the future.

The adjutant reported: "General Ishihara has arrived?" ”

"What?" Sakagaki was taken aback, "Is it General Ishihara of the reserves?" ”

"Exactly."

"Please, please."

He perked up all of a sudden, Ishihara was his partner when he launched 918, and was known as Japan's No. 1 soldier, although Sakagaki didn't buy this title, but at this moment he needed his strange thinking to save the emergency.

Ishihara, who was wearing a raincoat, came in from outside and immediately shook Sakagaki's hand: "Sakagaki-kun, I'm late." ”

The two exchanged pleasantries and sighed, and walked to the map.

"Why didn't you give us any notice?"

"In this situation, where do I dare to use the radio to report the trip?"

"I'm ashamed, I still remember that before leaving the mainland, Your Excellency reminded you, beware of Pavilion Chief Chu, beware of Pavilion Chief Chu. Ay...... Or ......"

"Victory and defeat are a common thing in soldiers, not to mention that this Chu Pavilion Chief is still ......" Ishihara stopped and waited for the soldiers pouring tea to go out, "Not to mention that he is still from the future." There is no shame. ”

"Are you sure he's a traverser?"

"That's for sure. Makino-kun said that his tactics were certainly not of this era. ”

"I'm still underestimated......"

"In short, there is no need to doubt it, you don't want to be defeated by a Chinese of this era, right?"

"Hmm." Sakagaki swallowed his breath. "This time you come, we can defeat him together."

"The current situation, Burma is already a dead chess, you look here," he pointed to Pin Van Na, "this place has just been lost, and soon Tonggu will also be lost, and our next land supply line will be cut off, what we need to think about is how to exit Burma." ”

"We can rely on Yangon Port for resupply."

"The navy has suffered a lot of losses in Australia, and I am afraid it will be difficult to send another fleet sufficient to deter the British to cross Malacca."

"That ......"

"Shrinking the front is the only task this year." Ishihara said, taking out a larger volume of maps including the real Indochina Peninsula and Malaysia from a pile of maps on the side, and unfolded it.

"The enemy will definitely attack Thailand next," he drew a line in the middle of Thailand, "Makino's first batch of weapons will be ready for use soon, and as for nuclear weapons, the blueprints have already come out." The construction of centrifuges and gas separation equipment is currently underway at the same time. ”

"Have you caught up with the Americans?"

"It's not optimistic, but after the spring, the salvage of that ship can be carried out, and there is high-purity enriched uranium. So we have to buy time for Makino-kun, in fact, it's not just you who suffered a setback here, Yamashita also won a disastrous victory in Australia, so from a military point of view, Japan has already failed in Southeast Asia. Soon the Chinese new force here will return to Guangxi from Vietnam, and at that time...... Now the only way to turn the tide is to rely on Makino's new weapons. We have to buy time for young people. ”

"Defend Thailand?"

"Yes, the islands of Southeast Asia are geographically fragmented, there are too many islands, easy to attack and difficult to defend, and the convenience of our attack will become difficult when the enemy counterattacks...... So, "he drew another line in Malacca."

"West of Malacca, I can't ask for it all. The first line of defence is in Thailand, but the absolute line of defence can be retreated to Phnom Penh. Use the terrain there to resist enemy attacks and delay the time. ”

"Phnom Penh? I remember you said that you would fight them far from the coast, so that you would not have the support of that submarine. Sakagaki said, and he seemed to be a little enlightened.

"No, the tasks at this stage have changed, we have to fight by the sea."

"Why?"

"Because the project to separate the nuclear material may not catch up, the salvage must be accelerated from next month, and if the submarine is still wandering around, it will obviously not succeed." Your Excellency Sakagaki, please remember what I just said, the Southern Army is close to military defeat, and the next thing our Army can do is to buy time for young people. ”

Sakagaki looked at Ishihara in amazement, and finally seemed to reluctantly swallow a breath and nodded.

At the same time, in the Mandalay Palace, the military meeting of the Allied forces was also held in a delicate atmosphere. The agenda of the meeting, of course, was the next phase, the military operation to control the entire territory of Burma, as well as the next stage of the plan to attack Thailand.

Stilwell excitedly introduced his ideas, most of which came from a month ago, Chu Tingchang's plan, when Stilwell was taken aback by Chu Tingchang's long-term idea, attacking Thailand is not in the president and Marshall's plan, most of the generals here, think that this year's capture of Upper Burma has been Amitabha. But a month later, they were not just going to talk about the offensive, but implicitly about Vietnam.

"Gentlemen, I am glad that the situation has opened up and that it has come so quickly. At present, we must deal with the Japanese forces in Burma as quickly as possible, and the British navy will deal with the Japanese fleet west of Malacca as soon as possible. Then the situation became clear, and the enemy was forced to shrink to the eastern part of the Indochina Peninsula. Stilwell said.

"If we can't beat Malacca, our supply line will be longer?" Sun Liren said.

"We will transfer a few divisions from North Africa to land in Yangon and shorten the supply line." General Slim said. It was clear that the British were encouraging the Chinese to attack Thailand or the countries of the French Indochina so that they could take over Burma. He seems to be very afraid that the Chinese army will follow Sakagaki south, so that in addition to cleaning up the Japanese, he will also take advantage of the situation to capture a lot of Lower Burma.

"I think General Slim's view is too unrealistic." Chu Tingchang straightened his clothes, stood up and said, he had just arrived by plane and was an hour late, and the rest of the people were forced to wait for him.

Slim grimaced, waiting for him to continue.

"Africa is too far away from here, and the focus of the British Empire is in Europe, so it's better to leave it to the Asians to solve it quickly."

Stilwell on the side nodded subconsciously, he also knew that the British could not actually come to this meeting, and there were 5 Chinese generals sitting here, with more than 200,000 people under their command.

"The morale of my troops is very high, and if they get the main supplies to shore at Sittwe Port, they can take Rangoon in a month or two." Sun Liren was encouraged by Chu Tingchang, and he was a little nervous about moving, he didn't want to go to Thailand and eat the fart of the 5th Army, he wanted to fight his own world in the direction away from Chu Tingchang and Chongqing, and get the equipment of the Americans.

"I think that Sakagaki will definitely retreat to Yangon, and General Sun is afraid that he will not be able to completely annihilate it. So I suggested that General Zhang's 74th Army and General Song's 71st Army could move south along the east and west sides of the Bago Mountains to clear out the remnants of the enemy, and then form an encirclement with General Sun in Yangon. ”

Chu Tingchang completely detached himself from his authority and began to talk about his grand strategy, commanding several national armies in northern Burma, this to the south, this to the west. However, according to the situation of the Japanese defeated, it is probably feasible.

Liao Yaoxiang, Song Xilian, and Zhang Lingfu's faces were pale. Listening to the fingers of this guy who was still copying maps under Du Yuming a year ago, the three of them are all in the first phase of Huangpu, but they currently do not have the strength to grab the main direction with Sun Liren, the head of Chu Ting.

"Brother Chu, I think your plan is feasible. Maybe you and I can meet in Vietnam in half a year? Sun Liren immediately applauded and agreed.

"It won't take half a year, three months later, I'll lay a landing ground for you in the Gulf of Siam, and then I'll see who annihilates more Japanese troops."

"Brother Chu, I think, we can compare, whose troops will take Hong Kong first?"

"Okay, a word?"

While the two were talking and laughing, they gave each other a private lecture and took the others outside. This time Slim tilted his nose, they were talking about the more distant imperial colonies, apparently not taking the British Empire very seriously, but the hated Americans seemed to encourage them to be so arrogant.