On 12 March, the Japanese 18th Division and the 55th Division advanced towards Kyaukkesi, and the 56th Division also suddenly turned around after capturing Xibao, and the front of the troops was directed towards Mandalay.

It's a game. Du Yuming originally thought that the powerful central offensive of the expeditionary force would weaken the Japanese army's attack on the eastern front, but he did not know that the Japanese army quickly approached Lashio, and after occupying Xibao, he divided his troops to advance along the railway to Mandalay. Du Yuming finally saw the whole situation clearly, and he was forced to abandon the Battle of Mandalay and gave the order to attack Lashio at the last moment.

On 14 March, Du Yuming ordered the 75th Army, the main force of the 66th Army and the 200th Division to attack the Japanese in Lashio.

At dawn on 15 March, the Japanese army dispatched nearly 100 tanks and nearly 100 armored vehicles to launch a fierce attack on Lashio under the cover of aircraft.

After the fall of Lashio, if the expeditionary force did not want to be surrounded and annihilated by the Japanese army, there were only two roads in front of them, one was to retreat west with the British army to India, and the other was to go north from the Hukang River valley to return home.

For a time, the direction in which the expeditionary force should retreat became a topic of endless debate between the expeditionary force headquarters and the national government.

A small town in northern Myanmar, Mon Bridge, the temporary headquarters of the expeditionary force.

Stilwell, chief of the general staff of the expeditionary force, waved his arms and shouted in stiff Chinese: "I am the chief of the general staff of the Chinese theater of operations, and the commander-in-chief of the Indo-Burma theater, and the supreme commander of this army, so you must obey my orders, withdraw the troops to the west to India, and wait for an opportunity to counterattack after recuperation." ”

Du Yuming had a sneer on the corner of his mouth and said, "I'm sorry, the expeditionary force is the army of the Chinese, we only listen to the chairman, as for whether to withdraw to India or climb the mountains of cross-country people, we must wait for the chairman's order." ”

Stilwell was furious, and said bitterly: "Wait, wait, wait for your chairman to make a decision, or we will lose the chance to retreat in the end." ”

Stilwell was by no means alarmist, and immediately after the occupation of Lashio, the Japanese army divided its troops into two routes, one along the Yunnan-Burma Highway to China, and the other to capture Bhamo and Myitkyina, and the strength of the troops was increased from the original 56th Division and the 16th Division to the 55th Division, and the entire eastern front had formed an iron wall. In the south, on the line of Releem, Tangji, and Pingmanna, there are the 2nd, 38th, and 33rd divisions of the Japanese army. If they take advantage of the situation, it is entirely possible that the expeditionary force will be crushed by them after losing Lashio, an important material base.

Chongqing, Headquarters of the Military Commission.

In front of a huge map of Myanmar, Bai Chongxi, deputy chief of staff, was explaining the current situation in Myanmar with a baton in his hand, and the chairman, Chen Chen, and General He on the side, all had solemn expressions, and the chairman even unconsciously touched the cold sweat on his forehead. Originally, it was thought that the expeditionary force would be supplemented with US weapons and equipment, not to mention stabilizing the situation in Burma, and at least it would be able to compete with the Japanese army.

Although the formation of the expeditionary force was hasty, considering that it could accept US assistance, all the elite troops sent were the party-state, especially the Fifth Army, which was the only mechanized unit in the party-state army, with more than 71,000 people in the whole army, which was enough to cover the total number of several miscellaneous armies and half of the strength of the entire expeditionary force. In addition to the three main divisions, there are also artillery, armored troops, engineers and other teams directly under the army. When it comes to equipment, the Fifth Army is second to none, with more than 80 Soviet-made T-26 tanks, 100 German-made "Haosu" armored vehicles, more than 400 American-made Ford trucks, and more than 40 motorcycles. The heavy artillery regiment under the army has 24 150-mm howitzers, and each division also has mountain artillery battalions and field artillery battalions. Even at the time of the crisis at the 331 base, the chairman did not send these tanks to the front line, but stayed in Hengyang, fearing that they would be annihilated by the Japanese army.

After Bai Chongxi explained the situation in Burma, he finally came to the conclusion that if the expeditionary force wanted to preserve its strength, it had no other way but to retreat west to India, and then to the north and climb the mountains of cross-country people.

"Maybe we have a third way, we can still use the Huitong Bridge to put troops into the Burma battlefield, and open the Yunnan-Burma road again with the Japanese troops in Lashio before and after the expeditionary force." The chairman of the committee said without giving up.

Huitong Bridge is located 600 kilometers in the Chinese section of the Yunnan-Burma Highway, is the only passage connecting the two sides of the Nu River, at this time the Japanese army has occupied Tengchong and Longling in western Yunnan, China, and the front has reached the Nu River. Historically, in order to block the advance of the Japanese army, the national army had already blown up the Huitong Bridge at this time, and thus confronted the Japanese army for two years by virtue of the Nu River natural danger.

The reason why the Huitong Bridge was not blown up at this time was entirely because the army guarding the bridge was none other than Jiang Haoran's special operations division, and behind the Huitong Bridge was Baoshan, and the Japanese army crossing the bridge directly threatened the safety of the Baoshan base, so the special operations division had the responsibility to defend the bridge. And guarding the Huitong Bridge, but not blowing it up according to the historical plan, is completely Jiang Haoran's intention. On the premise of predicting that the expeditionary force would usher in a defeat, Jiang Haoran had already made corresponding arrangements for the special operations division, and he was not sure whether other troops could block the Japanese army's troops, but the special operations division would definitely be able to, not to mention their own strong combat effectiveness, with the Baoshan base far ahead of the international level of cutting-edge tanks and aircraft, not to mention defending the bridge, even if the counterattack was not difficult, however, before Jiang Haoran came out, these would not be put into the battlefield, so to speak, this is also part of Jiang Haoran's plan. Becoming the commander of the expeditionary force is the first step, but bringing the expeditionary force out of its current predicament is the second step.

Bai Chongxi said: "This road is not going to go at all, the current troops in western Yunnan, in addition to the remnants of the 66th Army retreating from Lashio, are the special operations division of the 40th Group Army, the special operations division must ensure the safety of the Baoshan base, and will never act rashly, not to mention, without Jiang Haoran's order, I am afraid we will not be able to transfer them, and it will be too late to transfer troops from Yunnan, but these are not the most important, the most important thing is that all the supplies of the United States to aid China are piled up in Lashio, and now the supplies of the expeditionary force are all cheaper than the Japanese army, in other words, The expeditionary force simply did not hold out for that day. ”

"Since it is useless to keep the Huitong Bridge, order the special operations division to blow up the bridge, don't give the Japanese army a chance." The chairman said hatefully that it had become an unchangeable fact that the expeditionary force was in trouble, and he did not want to see the Japanese army immediately enter Yunnan and endanger the rear of the southwest.