At this time, the governor of the French Indochina Federation was the aforementioned George Governor. Catrous is gone, and his full name is George. Albert. Julian. Catroux, 64 years old, with the rank of first-class general in the French Army, wields military and political power in the French Far East colonies. In times of peace, the Governor's life would have been both comfortable and nourishing.

Speaking of which, the career of this first-class general was quite smooth, he was already a lieutenant colonel battalion commander during World War I, although the battalion he commanded was surrounded and annihilated by the Germans, and he himself was captured and sent to the prisoner of war camp, it is said that he also met de Gaulle, who was only a company commander at that time, in the prisoner of war camp, but think about it, you also know that Lieutenant Colonel Katru obviously did not take that little captain very seriously.

After the war, the French army began to reorganize, because the losses were too heavy, and there was an urgent need for officers with combat experience, and these captured personnel became the first candidates, because they had all been on the battlefield and had tasted human blood, and had experienced the tempering of the meat grinder, and these people must have been strong and wise reliable officers in the eyes of the public.

Colonel Catroux, despite his mediocre military command, proved to be a very good administrative officer in his work, so that in the twenty years after the war, he spent most of his time in the overseas colonies, and it was these overseas service qualifications that allowed him to obtain rapid promotion, because the French officers who served overseas had priority in promotion, and finally at the age of sixty, Catroux became a rare member of the French Army first class general.

The French army top brass knew very well that, if nothing else, this would be the highest rank the general could receive, because only by achieving outstanding military exploits could he go one step further and be promoted to the rank of French field marshal, but with Catroux's military prowess and the world environment at the time, these could only be empty words.

The general was in the overseas colonies. In particular, during his service in the Arab region of North Africa, he showed excellent administrative skills, which was loved by the then chairman of the French Council of Ministers, that is, Prime Minister Daladier, because some of the general's political views were very compatible with Daladier. At this time, there were some territorial and maritime disputes between the French colonies of Indochina and Cambodia, and the French governor at the time, Brevier, was a moderate humanist with a slightly weak attitude, and because of the strategic and command of the colony navy, there were some contradictions with the French navy, and the governor's performance displeased most of the members of Daladier's cabinet, and they demanded that the prime minister be replaced by a more hardened and courageous man for that position. So Catroux became the most suitable person for the prime minister at that time. In July 1939, just before the declaration of war on Germany, the first rank general came to French Indochina to take over the post of governor-general.

The appointment of the admiral was seen by many as a symbol of France's assertive attitude, implying that France, the enemy of Europe, was still incomparably strong and would never bow to any threat. But what Daladier and even Renault, who took over, did not expect that the famous general was not as tough as they imagined, and when the Japanese protest was placed on his desk, he did not hesitate to choose to compromise with the other party. The promise was so refreshing that there was no hint of the French general's reserve.

In fact, even the Japanese did not expect that things would go so smoothly, and if they knew that this would be the case, they should not have had to fight with the French ambassador to Japan at that time.

Speaking of the compromise of the authorities of French Indochina. In addition to some pro-Japanese ideology on the part of Catroux, it was mainly forced by the specific conditions in French Indochina at that time. Although France has an army of 15,000 troops in the region, it is scattered throughout the territory of the colonial federation and is really guarding the Sino-Vietnamese border. There were only five infantry battalions, which were filled with a large number of locally recruited soldiers. The former governor was a romantic liberal who was a strong advocate of humane care for the locals. During his tenure, Governor Brevier built irrigation systems, repaired roads and bridges, built schools and hospitals, recruited large numbers of locals into the government, and granted amnesty to political prisoners, without thinking of building a strong armed force that could effectively protect the fruits of these constructions.

The army of the entire French Indochina colony is not as large as the number of a division of the Japanese army, and most of the weapons and equipment are outdated, there is a serious shortage of important armor and artillery, and there is a serious shortage of technical weapons.

Catroux knew very well that the armed forces in his hands could not prevent the invasion of the Japanese army at all, so it was better to simply agree to the other party's request to avoid the occurrence of armed conflict, Catroux believed that he was doing this to protect the rights and interests of France, because in the event of a conflict, France would definitely lose not only a border, but also the entire French Indochina Federation.

At that time, the situation on both sides of Japan and France was a bit like a wolf beating a wolf, as long as one of them sensed the flaws of the other, it would inevitably launch a series of blows and try its best to knock the other to the ground. However, before the Japanese could detect the flaws in Catroux, the admiral was dismissed on the spot and put into custody, executed by Colonel Briggan, then commander of the French Indochina fleet, who was detained on a river gunboat.

Although Japan paid great attention to the collection of intelligence in Southeast Asia, it was difficult to carry out in French Indochina, one was that the number of Japanese immigrants in Vietnam was too small, and the second was that there was really not much valuable information in this place. In the eyes of the Japanese, the only thing that valued Annam was its important geographical location, and it never occurred to them that they would be able to plunder any resources from it.

If it weren't for China, the French would not have considered occupying this primitive agricultural country at all. At that time, in addition to agricultural products, only some primitive metal mines and coal mines were produced in Vietnam, and most of the resources developed in modern times had not been discovered at all at the beginning of the 20th century. The French had occupied Vietnam for fifty-five years, but they regarded it as a barren and primitive overseas province, an important stronghold of Far Eastern trade. The French believed that Vietnam's resources were scattered and energy scarce, and it did not have the conditions for industrial development. The low purchasing power of the locals also makes it a market for commodity dumping. Although the local agricultural products are produced in high quantities, they do not meet the taste of Europeans, and those fruits and vegetables, after a long sea transportation, have long been rotten in France.

In particular, after the outbreak of the international financial crisis and the war of aggression against China, trade in the Far East shrank rapidly, and the French government's investment in French Indochina has been higher than the local output for several consecutive years. At this time, in the eyes of some domestic politicians in France. This land is like chicken ribs, and it is a pity to abandon it if it is tasteless. But even if it is a chicken rib, it belongs to France, and no one is allowed to reach out to it until France has its own disposal, and this is at stake in the honor of France, although there is not much left.

By this time, Petain had already made a secret deal with the German Führer, and was fully confident in the confrontation with Japan in the Far East, when he learned that Catroux had submitted to the coercion of the Japanese. In a decisive and brazen move, Petain directly ordered in the name of the President of France and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to dismiss Catroux from his post and in order to avoid any extraneous complications. He was arrested.

The Japanese Army was put on a stand by the French, and felt humiliated by tons, when did the dignified Imperial Japanese Army be fooled like a child. The French still have a little credit left for European countries, openly backsliding on their word and tearing up the agreements that have been signed.

The Japanese Army was in a state of madness. Determined to follow the routine they are accustomed to, since the French ghost animals do not pay attention to faith and righteousness, and do not eat toasts, then eat and punish the bar. The Japanese Army General Staff Headquarters began to get busy, this is not a simple ground battle, and the French army is not a simple role, so it is necessary to gather absolutely superior forces and launch a thunderous blow before the other side notices.

Just using troops on the border, the Japanese army felt that it was not very safe, the local geographical environment was too complicated, once it could not quickly break through the mountainous area, then it would be easy to be intercepted by the enemy forces that were quickly assembled, especially in the border line generation, the French army built a strong battery, which was not an obstacle that could be overcome in a short time. Therefore, the staff officers believed that if they wanted to quickly take the northern border of French Indochina, it was necessary to take a two-pronged approach, with a force landing on the enemy's flank coast and then detouring to the flank and rear of the border defenders, and once the enemy's logistical supply was cut off, even if it was as strong as the French Army, it would definitely not be able to withstand such a blow, which had been proven by the German Army more than once in the European theater.

However, in order to complete this tactic, it is necessary to obtain the cooperation of the Japanese Navy, and the air force of the French garrison is not weak, so it is very necessary to seize air supremacy on the battlefield, and the range of the army fighters is limited, and the task of providing battlefield air cover also requires the help of the Japanese naval aviation units.

Since the Japanese Navy was involved, the two sides had to hold consultations, back and forth, and by the time all the negotiations were completed, a week had already passed. The Navy has prepared a convoy, and the Army is gearing up. The Japanese set the date for the attack on 22 August, and Morimoto Nakasa's 3rd Brigade received an order from the wing headquarters that his brigade would be the spearhead of the entire division and be the first to break through the French defense line of Zhennan Pass.

The long-awaited news of Morimoto Nakasa finally arrived, and the captain was almost about to burst into a song on the spot, and the entire brigade began to mobilize, all the weapons were rested, ammunition was distributed to each soldier, and even in order to boost the morale of the soldiers, the soldiers were given a candy and snacks that had been carefully kept in the filing cabinet of the brigade headquarters.

The superiors of the division and regiment also knew that the troops below had suffered enough, and anyway, everything would get better after this battle, and the division and regiment held the strength of the day, and the logistics troops opened the heavily guarded munitions warehouse, and replenished the supplies for each participating unit in accordance with the battlefield standards. As the first mover unit, the Morimoto Brigade not only received a large amount of canned food, but also several boxes of large bottles of Japanese sake.

The night before the start of the battle, the Morimoto brigade lit a bonfire with wormwood, and all of them had a lively dinner, the miserable soldiers were fighting mosquitoes while gulping down the long-lost canned beef and plum rice balls, and each squad was also given a bottle of Japanese sake, and the soldiers talked about how to slaughter those Frenchmen, and the passion of the battle filled the hearts of every soldier.

In the early morning of the next day, the 3rd Brigade hastily finished breakfast and began to march in the direction of Zhennan Pass, and after meeting up with the other two fraternal units in the predetermined assembly area, the 3rd Brigade began to move quietly towards the border line as a spearhead, and finally lurked on the edge of a jungle near the mountain pass, and the soldiers endured mosquito bites in the scorching heat, waiting for the commander's attack order.

But what puzzled everyone was that the time scheduled in the order had passed for a long time, and they had not waited for the order to attack from the division and regimental headquarters. As time went on, the mood of the soldiers lurking in the hot and humid grass began to become impatient, and finally the officers calmed them down in time, and nothing unexpected happened.

At this time, Morimoto Zhai No. 2 Nakasa, there was already some ominous premonition in his heart, and something might happen in this long-awaited attack. Just when he decided to send another herald to the rear to inquire about it, the wing commander of the 21st Wing personally rushed to the front line, and he conveyed the order of the headquarters to Morimoto, and the whole army stopped fighting, and the units returned to their stations to stand by.

I have something to do today, I just finished writing this chapter, and I sent it a little late, I hope you can understand.

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