When the time entered August, the Allied Southeast Asia Theater Command finally couldn't bear it anymore, and he urgently needed Gao Jianwu's expeditionary force cluster to open up a new situation and use it to break the stalemate on the northern front.

There, the Anglo-Indian army joined forces with the expeditionary force of the northern front of the national army, and fought bloody battles, but on the northern front, they could not break through the defense line of the 18th Division.

Therefore, Gao Jianwu finally ushered in the second batch of expeditionary forces that he had requested for a long time.

This time, two old acquaintances came, Kong Jie, Kong Erzi and Lu Fan.

More than 20,000 people, based on the new second regiment and the three garrison regiments of Ping'an, were directly airlifted from Jinyang to Mandalay.

According to the organization of the expeditionary force cluster and the weapons and equipment provided, this part of the group was reorganized into 12 main infantry battalions and two heavy artillery regiments (one of which was 24 155-mm howitzers and the other was 36 105-mm howitzers), one battalion of 12 75-mm howitzers, and two armored battalions of 21 tanks.

Among them, Kong Jie formed the fifth attack group of 6 main infantry battalions and 1 75-mm howitzer battalion.

The other six main battalions served as strategic reserves, plus an artillery battalion composed of dozens of captured Little Devil 92 infantry guns and Type 41 mountain guns, and formed the Sixth Attack Group, commanded by Lu Fan, which is now responsible for defending the large rear bases on the first line of Mandalay and Monywa.

At the same time, the Air Force, the Lu Xingguo Flight Squadron, which has completed a new round of pilot training, has also ushered in the first expansion, obtaining 9 new Mustang fighters, expanding the fleet to a complete squadron!

After another batch of pilots were sent from Jinyang, the entire team expanded to 40 people, and they began to take turns to train and fight!

After expansion, the strength of the Second Theater Expeditionary Force cluster has increased dramatically!

Just when Gao Jianwu was reorganizing the new troops, the commander of the 15th Army of the little devil also received the news of the arrival of reinforcements from the expeditionary force, he did not dare to wait any longer, so that the expeditionary force cluster could form a complete combat effectiveness, and launched a brazen campaign to attack Mitiera in advance, with the 33rd Division stationed in Shanmana as the main force and the 2nd Division of the Wengshan Independent Army as the auxiliary, taking the lead in attacking Yangmidin!

"Ding, the 33rd Division and the 2nd Division of the Independence Army are about to attack Yonmidin and Mithila in 6 hours. Distribution of offensive forces: 4 infantry wings, 1 mountain artillery wing, 1 heavy artillery wing, 1 tank wing, 1 flying squadron,......"

Gao Jianwu's intelligence system prompted this information in time, and the strange thing is that this prompt also gave a detailed preparation, obviously I don't know what hidden conditions were triggered to complete the upgrade of the intelligence system, Gao Jianwu couldn't help but gasp after reading it, this time the team of the little devil is really a bit strong!

This is how many special wings have been strengthened, and one division has reached 9 wings!

Gao Jianwu immediately asked Colonel Smith to contact the Allied Southeast Asia Command to obtain relevant information about the 33rd Division.

Although Colonel Smith was a little inexplicable, he still called to ask for information about the 33rd Division.

At the same time, Gao Jianwu of the command headquarters stared at the map, compared it with the actual accurate map in his mind, and quickly concluded that Yang Miding was too close to Shanmana, and it was difficult for Chu Yunfei's 3 main infantry battalions and 1 75mm howitzer battalion to hold on until the main force arrived.

In other words, even if Chu Yunfei's troops ran out, they would not be able to get the main force to rush to Yangmiding to achieve the campaign goal of encircling the 33rd Division.

This is a bloody matter, and it must not be done.

Without waiting for the Allied Command to return the information, Gao Jianwu immediately unexpectedly ordered Chu Yunfei's second attack group to abandon Yang Midin and retreat back to Mitiera!

Chu Yunfei on the front line received the order, which was a little inexplicable.

Call back command to ask for reasons for the retreating troops. Gao Jianwu replied that the 33rd Division was about to attack Yangmidin, and the enemy was too strong for the second attack group to reach.

At this time, Chu Yunfei, who did not know the strength of the 33rd Division, called back to ensure that he could withstand the 33rd Division for 24 hours and hold on until the arrival of the main force, hoping to continue to hold on to Yang Midin.

But Gao Jianwu quickly called back Chu Yunfei and immediately executed the order to retreat from the entire army of Yang Miding! All you need to do is leave a few scouts to hide in the jungle and observe the enemy's movements.

This time the tone of the reply was stern, and Gao Jianwu said that it was the final decision and it would be implemented immediately! Although Chu Yunfei still didn't understand, he didn't ask any more questions this time and began to execute the order.

Because no one expected that in such a rainy season, the little devils would start to launch a large-scale attack.

At the same time, Gao Jianwu ordered Ding Wei's 1st Attack Group and Zhang Dabiao's 4th Attack Group to assemble at Mitiera to stand by.

At this moment, the two main forces were in Mandalay and Taunggyi, and all of them were still more than 100 kilometers away from Myitira, about the same distance as Shanmana and Mithila.

Gao Jianwu took the main force of the heavy artillery regiment and the 1st tank regiment, which had already been drilled and matured, and took advantage of the darkness to rush to the dense forest near Mitiera overnight and hide.

Thinking that the main force of the little devil had already been dispatched, Gao Jianwu no longer left his hands, and ordered Xu Shida's third attack group to start gathering the main force to continue south along the Yinrawaddy River, aiming at Ren'anqiang!

The 5th Attack Group of Kong Jie, who had just arrived in Mandalay, began to take on the task of the general reserve, although the training was not in place after the change, for the experienced soldiers of the Eighth Route who could start the battle with a gun, even if they were still a little unfamiliar with the weapons in their hands.

......

This series of orders made Colonel Smith see that a big battle was coming, but what made him strange was that he was not ready, so why did Gao Jianwu suddenly start the battle.

】

"High, what's going on now? How did you suddenly start preparing for a big battle? Colonel Smith couldn't help but ask, "Does this situation have anything to do with your inquiry about the intelligence of the 33rd Division?" ”

"Yes, John, now that this 33rd Division is on its way to attack us, my intelligence officers have received top-secret information that the enemy is about to make a sortie." Gao Jianwu said calmly.

Colonel Smith looked at Gao Jianwu with an awe-inspiring expression, he didn't expect that Gao Jianwu had not been in the British Territory of Burma for a long time, and he had actually placed intelligence officers in key positions in Xiaori, this kind of top-secret information was definitely not accessible to peripheral intelligence personnel.

You must know that this is information that the Allied intelligence departments have not yet received, and Gao Jianwu actually received it first.

Thinking of Gao Jianwu's frequent contact with the locals, the young man in front of him really did a lot of things in secret!

Colonel Smith retracted his gaze, this matter has little to do with him, the British territory of Burma and even Southeast Asia has little to do with the beautiful country where he is located, on the contrary, the more ruthless Gao Jianwu fights here in Southeast Asia, the more little devils will be contained and attracted, and the less pressure and casualties will be on the beautiful country in the Pacific theater.

Therefore, the greater Gao Jianwu's ability, Colonel Smith is happy to see it, as for the Ying may lose a little in the process, then what is the matter with him Smith, he is not an officer with the British.

......

Eight hours later, at the meeting of the headquarters of the expeditionary force cluster Mitiera, except for Xu Shida, the commanders of the three major attack groups were all gathered together.

"Commander-in-chief, why are we retreating from Yangmidin? Even if the 33rd Division attacks, our second attack group can withstand the attack of the 33rd Division, so as to buy time for the brother troops and annihilate them all in Yangmidin. As soon as they met, Chu Yunfei still had some objections to Gao Jianwu's retreat order.

Regarding Chu Yunfei's dissatisfaction, Gao Jianwu shook his head, and did not say anything in a hurry, but distributed a stack of materials.

"These materials are the latest information from the Allied command, especially the 33rd Division." Gao Jianwu said to Chu Yunfei, Ding Wei, Zhang Dabiao and others who participated in the meeting.

Chu Yunfei took the information and flipped through it, and quickly understood the general situation, and couldn't help but gasp!

The 33rd Division of the little devil, at this moment, the units under his command actually have nine wings! It is an out-and-out reinforcement of the first-class elite division, and it is no longer at the same level as the second-line parallel trade divisions such as the 15th Division and the 22nd Division in Chu Yunfei's impression.

There are 4 infantry wings, including: the 215th Wing (Takasaki), Wing Commander Harada Tsugashi.

The 214th Wing (Utsunomiya), Wing Commander Sakuma Kiyoi Daizuo.

The 213th Wing (Mito), Wing Commander Miyakyo Kosuke Daizo.

The 151st Wing (Tsu), Wing Commander Kumagoro Hashimoto (temporarily strengthened).

Each infantry wing has a mountain artillery squadron (four Type 41 75mm mountain guns), a rapid-fire artillery squadron (four 37mm rapid-fire guns) and an infantry artillery squadron (four Type 92 infantry guns).

There are 3 infantry brigades under the infantry wing, each infantry brigade has a Type 92 infantry artillery squad directly under it, equipped with 2 guns, and the whole wing has 6 Type 92 infantry guns, a total of 18 artillery pieces of various types in each wing, and 4 infantry wings have 72 artillery pieces, with a full complement of nearly 4,000 officers and soldiers.

The 33rd Wing of Mountain Artillery, Wing Commander, Fu Jiazheng is on the left side.

The 33rd Mountain Artillery Wing has 36 75mm41 mountain guns and 12 75mm field guns, and 4 artillery brigades, with a total of 3,699 officers and men and 3,600 horses.

The 3rd Field Heavy Artillery Wing (temporarily reinforced), Kazuo Mitsui Daizuo. It has 2 heavy artillery brigades and 6 heavy artillery squadrons, each squadron is equipped with 4 Type 96 150mm howitzers, with a total of 24 heavy guns.

14th Tank Wing (Temporary Reinforcement), Wing Commander, Nobuo Ueda. A total of 65 tanks and self-propelled guns were equipped, including 36 Type 97 medium tanks, 18 Type 95 light tanks and 11 Type 1 artillery fighting vehicles (Type 1 75 mm self-propelled guns, mainly used for anti-tank operations), with an establishment of 1,070 officers and soldiers.

Independent anti-aircraft artillery brigade, group leader, Yamada Nagamitsu, commanded 3 anti-aircraft artillery squadrons, each squadron equipped with 4 Type 98 20mm machine guns.

4th Independent Engineer Wing, Wing Leader, Taguchi Kanyoshi center left.

The 33rd Wing of the Baggage Army, Wing Commander, Matsuki Kumayoshi center left.

The commander of the division, the third lieutenant general of Sakurai Province, graduated from the 31st saber group of the Army University in November 1919 (Note: The saber group is a saber given by the emperor of the Japanese army to the top six graduates in the same period in order to receive special honors.) ）

It can be said that no matter in terms of establishment and weapon and equipment allocation, the 33rd Division has been strengthened to the peak level of the little devil division!

By no means the 15th Division, these second-line garrison divisions can be compared.

"Commander-in-chief, I..." Chu Yunfei said in a somewhat difficult tone after reading the information. Although his second attack group is now strong in combat and has three main infantry battalions and artillery battalions in hand, relying on the position can really just fight with the second-line division of the little devil, and it is not a big problem to defend for more than ten hours.

But in the face of this kind of little devil armor division that strengthens the artillery and armored troops, whether it is crushed in terms of equipment or troops, if it is really hard steel with the 33rd division in Yangmiding, I am afraid that after a few hours of battle, only God knows how much Chu Yunfei, the main force of the second attack group, has left.

In a sense, Gao Jianwu saved his second attack group, and he, Chu Yunfei, was still a little self-righteous to accuse Gao Jianwu's command, thinking of this, Chu Yunfei's face was hot as if he had been slapped in the face.

"Brother Yunfei, we are all comrades-in-arms and brothers in the trenches, don't say anything superfluous." Gao Jianwu waved his hand and interrupted Chu Yunfei's words.

"The enemy is fierce in this battle, and we must cooperate sincerely in order to annihilate the 33rd Division in Mithila."

"In this battle, we faced more than 150 artillery pieces of various kinds against the opponent, plus more than 50 tanks, if it were not for the fact that our army had just formed two new heavy artillery regiments and two tank battalions, the little devil's weapons and equipment could be said to have formed an advantage over our army.

Obviously, the little devils have carried out intelligence infiltration on us, and they have learned about the equipment of our army in the previous stage, so they have carefully prepared the troops for this attack.

There is no doubt that the 33rd Division is the most powerful enemy since our army entered the British territory of Burma, and even purely from the comparison of strength data on paper, the little devils have surpassed us, they have invested nearly 40,000 main troops in this battle, more than 4,000 puppet troops, and the number of troops has been more than twice the number of troops we have gathered in Mythila! ”

Gao Jianwu's words sounded like thunder in the ears of Chu Yunfei, Ding Wei, Zhang Dabiao and others.

According to everyone's current thinking, during this period of time, it was almost smooth sailing from the Jin land to the Burmese and British territories, and everyone may think that the little devil is just like that.

But today, if Gao Jianwu hadn't gotten the information provided by the allies and let Chu Yunfei retreat back in time, the first heavy loss of the expeditionary force cluster might have been caused!

Everyone has seen the lethality of the 150mm howitzer to the troops, although it is felt from the opponent, and everyone here is very clear about the results of the battles in the positions of the Monywa, Sagaing and Mandalay imps.

What's more, the little devil also has a chariot wing, and with Chu Yunfei's current troop defense ability, he can't deal with the attack of the little devil's chariot wing at all.

If the little devil launches a chariot wing attack after the artillery bombardment, Chu Yunfei can keep 1/3 of the troops from retreating, even if he can.

What's more, the little devil still has 4 infantry wings, and there are enough troops to outflank Chu Yunfei, if Chu Yunfei does not retreat in time, it is very likely that the entire army will be wiped out in Yangmidin.

After a series of victories against the little devils, everyone has become paralyzed by contempt for the little devils, and it has begun to affect the troops, and even Chu Yunfei has begun to drift a little.

Yang Midin's retreat and the intelligence information of the 33rd Division can be regarded as directly pouring cold water on everyone's impetuous and arrogant psychology, so that everyone will come to their senses.

No one questioned Gao Jianwu's adjusted intelligence information, which was not so detailed in the information returned from the Allied intelligence department, and the person in charge, Colonel Smith, knew it very well, but at the meeting, Colonel Smith, as an adjutant, did not interject at all.

Because he has confirmed that Gao Jianwu has set up his own intelligence network in the British territory of Burma and can find out the accurate departure time of the 33rd Division, then it is not a problem to find out more detailed troop and weapon and equipment deployment of the 33rd Division.

......

At the same time, the headquarters of the 33rd Division, which was stationed in Yangmidin, was full of doubts.

He repeatedly checked the map for a long time, and Major General Anto Nobunaga, the chief of staff of the division, also followed Sakurai Seizao's gaze, thinking about why the expeditionary force retreated without a fight.

The degree of secrecy of this battle plan is very high, except for the level of division and regiment commander and the senior staff officer of the 15th Army General Staff, the news of the division's attack is very tightly blocked, and the second division of the independent army in Wengshan let them prepare for departure in advance, and only notified them to follow the 33rd division when they were about to set off, and they only knew their destination when they arrived at Yangmidin!

It can be said that this time, in order to have the effect of a sudden launch, the 15th Army and the 33rd Division have taken all possible secrecy measures to annihilate the Chu Yunfei Division of the Expeditionary Force in Yangmidin.

There may be a possibility that the internal secrets will be leaked, but it is very unlikely.

So in this case, is it a coincidence or an internal leak that the expeditionary force was able to start retreating when the troops were just dispatched from Shanma?

Sakurai and Anten Nobunaga studied for a long time, but they couldn't understand why the enemy retreated so coincidentally, and it was as uncomfortable as turning a heavy punch into the air.

"An Teng-kun, it seems that we can't confirm the reason for the enemy's actions," Sakurai said with a sigh, "According to the air force reconnaissance intelligence, the main force of the 2nd Theater Expeditionary Force is gathering towards Myitira, except for their 3rd Strike Group, which is moving south along the Yinrawaddy River, the main force of the other three attack groups has almost arrived at Mytiera. ”

"Worryingly, our intelligence officers spotted the heavy artillery and tank units of the expeditionary force group heading south from Mandalay, presumably somewhere in Mytiera, but aerial reconnaissance found no trace of them."

"Yes, Sakurai-kun, according to the information obtained by our intelligence officers, the enemy's artillery is quite sharp and plays a decisive role in almost all of Monywa and Mandalay, and we must find them and deal a devastating blow to them in order to win this battle." Antan Nobunaga responded.

"What is worrying is that our air force only has 12 fighters that can fight, and it is a Type 97 fighter, which is completely inferior to the opponent's Mustang fighter, and in this battle, the air force may not only be unable to help us, but also most likely encounter a ground attack by the enemy's Mustang fighter!"

The 33rd Division dared to go north alone, and it had a great relationship with their commander, or Iida Shoji of the 15th Army would not let go, and the destruction of the two divisions of Monywa and Mandalay was not untouched, and the powerful attack power shown by the other party had been confirmed in the intelligence collection afterwards that this was the main force of the Eighth Route that swept through Jindi!

Even with the arrogance of Shoji Iida, he had to bow his head and carefully study the countermeasures, and finally asked for reinforcements from the Southern Army, and strengthened it to the limit of a division!

The commander of the 33rd Division, Sakurai Shozo, was also considered the best of the division commanders, and was once a member of the saber group.

At this moment, Sakurai and Anten Nobunaga did not feel happy in the face of Yang Midin, who was at his fingertips, but had a trace of worry. It shows that a commander should be cautious, and there must be a demon when things go wrong, Sakurai will not be naïve enough to make the opponent stupid.

Facing a strong opponent who can take out 4 integrated divisions, even if Sakurai Shozo has a powerful division with peak configuration at the moment, he does not have the calmness of facing the Anglo-Indian army and the national army.

"An Tengjun, now the plan will be released?" Sakurai asked with some head.

"Sakurai-kun, we can only act according to the predetermined plan and move forward in a dignified manner." "In order to ensure the safety of the locust army, the 1st Regiment of the 2nd Division of the Independent Army can be used as the right army, and the 2nd Regiment can be the vanguard of the left army, and tomorrow they will arrive at Kawagan and Pawabi near Myitira. ”

.....

There were two avenues from Shanmana to Mitiera, the left was through Kawagan and the right was through Yangmidin Pawabi to the north, and Sakurai placed the main force of the 33rd Division on the right.

The Left Route Army, with the 151st Wing Kumagoro Hashimoto as its commander, integrated nearly 7,000 people from the Field Artillery Brigade of the 33rd Mountain Artillery Wing, the First Mountain Artillery Brigade and the First Brigade of the 33rd Engineer Wing, plus more than 1,000 people from the Second Regiment of the Second Division of the Independent Army, and the Left Route Army exceeded the strength of an ordinary brigade.

Lu Xingguo's flying squadron is now based in Mandalay and can already cover the air battlefield from Mandalay to Dagon; before the 33 rd Division attacked, Lu Xingguo and his squadron had actually encountered several times in the air with the flying squadron of the little devils, and they had the result of shooting down three little devil reconnaissance planes.

It has greatly reduced the space for the little devil air force to carry out activities in the airspace north of Shanmana, but now that there is no radar, the little devil air force reconnaissance plane can still sneak into the northern airspace from time to time to conduct reconnaissance activities.

Although Gao Jianwu has now also set up a ground air defense reconnaissance network from Mithra to Mandalay, he has realized the initial human eye recognition air defense system. However, if the enemy's reconnaissance planes touch through the clouds, then the anti-aircraft observation posts at the front will not be able to detect them, and in this case, the entire air defense system will be very porous.

Therefore, the enemy's reconnaissance planes were still able to see a lot of ground conditions in the north.

In particular, the movement of large forces could not hide from the enemy's aerial reconnaissance. Unless all transfers are made by night marches.

It's just that it's still the rainy season here, the roads are slippery, and there are many inconveniences in using night marching, especially the march of the baggage troops is even more difficult, and a large number of mules and horses have to be restrained, which is very stressful for the logistics baggage.

Therefore, Gao Jianwu did not hide the assembly of the main force this time, but only temporarily hid the traces of the heavy artillery and tank units with the highest degree of mechanization through night marching, and waited for the enemy's heavy firepower to be confirmed before launching a deadly attack on them in a preemptive manner.

Don't forget, the current air superiority is in the hands of Gao Jianwu, after having 15 Mustang fighters, Gao Jianwu not only overwhelmed the flight squadron in the hands of the 15th Army in terms of quality, but also surpassed in quantity, that is, in terms of pilot experience level, it is still a little worse, except for Lu Xingguo, their earlier 6 team members have some actual combat experience.

Many of the 40 pilots who have been newly added are here for training, and of course such people cannot let them fly fighter planes to work desperately with little devils; as far as Gao Jianwu is concerned, these pilots are the most valuable fighters, and under the current situation of great superiority, they can undertake reconnaissance, bombing, and other low-intensity combat missions to accumulate experience.

But you can't directly engage in aerial combat with the little devil's fighters.

Now they are undertaking the task of directly fighting the little devil fighters, which are the six fighters mainly of Lu Xingguo and a few of his veteran members.

It's just that the little devil doesn't know this, so the main force of the air force stays in the Dagon airport and doesn't dare to come out for a decisive battle.

It was only when necessary that reconnaissance planes were allowed to secretly infiltrate the airspace to the north to conduct reconnaissance, and then they were relieved when they saw that the situation was wrong.

......

The next day, the 33rd Division poured out, except for a brigade and a regiment of the Independent Army to defend Yangmidin, the main force all advanced northward, even if the weather was not bad today, it was a cloudy day, but the road to Mytiera was full of mud and puddles left by the wheels.

The right route army of the 33rd Division was such a big road, it was a difficult march, and the bad road made the 33rd Division have to pull out a march of more than ten kilometers.

Sakurai Sanwa Antenaga, who was riding a tall horse, was in the middle of the team at the moment, looking at the difficult marching procession, with some worry on his face.

"Sakurai-kun, it seems that we will arrive at our destination late today, we must send more guard posts in advance, carry the radio station deep into the vicinity of Mytiera to observe the vigilance, just those people of the independent army, I don't worry, they may only care about themselves and miss the enemy's whereabouts, otherwise if the enemy attacks while we are not firmly established, the soldiers will be exhausted, and we will suffer a big loss." Aten Nobunaga said.

He was right, a march like this, rushing to Parwabi after dark, the whole army was tired and hungry, and in the face of the expeditionary force that was waiting for work, Anten Nobunaga could not raise the morale of the battle.

Sakurai nodded, which was also an area of concern for him.

"An Tengjun, I'm afraid our battle this time won't be too smooth." Sakurai looked at the little devils with bitter faces on the march and thought it was true.

"Not only that, but the threat from the air, I don't think to be underestimated, our air defense relies on only one anti-aircraft artillery group, but now all of them are deployed on the side of the heavy artillery units.

At present, our large contingent lacks the necessary air protection on the march, and the group of red deer in the air force of the air force has become afraid of the air force of the expeditionary force, and they do not dare to deploy in front and take the initiative to attack.

There were only four fighters to support us at the field airfield of Shanmana, and if we were attacked, it would take ten minutes at the earliest to reinforce us, and from Dagon, there would be at least an hour, which was enough time for the enemy to attack us in one round. ”

As if to confirm Sakurai's words, as soon as he finished speaking, the unique humming sound of fighters sounded in the sky, and in the north, a group of small black dots rushed towards the right army!