Chapter 91: The Battle of the Oilfields (8)
Not only were the efforts of the Japanese army in vain at the Ringanqiang oil field, but their 14th Tank Wing and 215th Infantry Wing suffered heavy casualties.
In order to facilitate transportation and save time to break through quickly, the engineer regiment could only simply push these Japanese corpses and tank wreckage to the side of the road, which made the road full of Japanese corpses and destroyed and burning tanks.
Seeing this scene, the reporters who had been following the British army couldn't help but marvel:
"Oh my God, it turns out that the Japanese are so vulnerable!"
"Is the Chinese too powerful or the Japanese too weak?"
"I'm not sure, what I know for sure is that the British army is too weak!"
……
What this said is indeed that nearly 10,000 British troops were besieged by these Japanese troops in Ringanqiang and could not move, while the Chinese side only sent a team of more than 1,000 people to defeat the Japanese army and successfully break through the siege at a very small cost.
Originally, this battle was nothing, and there were many examples of fighting with less and more with weakness and strong in the world. Moreover, after careful analysis, the engineer regiment still caught the Japanese army by surprise when its equipment was obviously superior to that of the Japanese army, and it is reasonable that it would achieve such a result.
But the problem is that the reporters don't know about this, many of them don't know anything about military affairs, they just know that the Japanese army defeated the British army, and Chinese defeated the Japanese army with only one regiment, and this regiment is still an engineer regiment...... If the main force of the Chinese army comes up, then it will be worth it?!
In such a comparison, the original tall and mighty image of the British army immediately collapsed in the hearts of reporters, and the image of the Chinese army became taller.
More importantly, these journalists come from all over the world, including Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom...... They originally believed in the combat effectiveness of the British army and hoped to follow the British army to grab some news, but they didn't expect to follow the British all the way to escape, it didn't matter if they escaped, they couldn't even escape clearly and let the Japanese army surround them!
This time the Engineer Regiment led them to break through, which was a veritable lifesaver for them, so soon the achievements of the Engineer Regiment spread around the world and caused a strong response from the international community, and the image of the British Army and even the entire British Union suffered a certain degree of damage in this battle.
Of course, that's all for later.
The convoy of the Sino-British coalition forces in front of him passed through the Ren'anqiang oil field smoothly under the protection of the engineer regiment.
After passing through the Japanese defense line, a ridiculous thing happened:
The tank driving in front of it encountered more than 20 Japanese vehicles that were still transporting supplies in the direction of the oil field, and the Japanese army led by them impatiently shouted at the tanks blocking in front of them: "Hey, get out of the way, let's pass first!" ”
He obviously thought that these tanks belonged to the Japanese army, although they were American tanks, but they should have been taken by the Japanese army from the British, so he was not guarded at all. But then again, even if you're on guard...... The car touched a tank on the road, so can it still run?!
Where would the soldiers of the engineer regiment be polite to them, slightly adjusted the muzzle of the gun, and then blew up the Japanese car into the sky with a "boom". Then the tigers who came down the mountain chased after the Japanese soldiers who were scattered and fled for their lives, killing and wounding dozens of Japanese soldiers and capturing seven cars loaded with supplies.
The reason why only seven vehicles were captured was because the soldiers saw that the ammunition on the car was not needed, and directly pushed it to the side of the road to destroy it, after all, the Japanese army's bullets and artillery engineering regiments were not needed.
I was reluctant to throw away food when I saw it, especially since a whole truckload of drugs was seized in it...... This was a scarce item for the Chinese army, and it was especially difficult to take it from the Japanese army.
This is not to say how good the Japanese army's medicine is, but it is very difficult to get things from the Japanese army, which can be said to be an honor.
This is not to blame those Japanese soldiers for being confused, you must know that the Japanese 33rd Division has been chasing the British army all the way down, where has there been such a situation of being beaten to the rear by the enemy's breakthrough defense line, plus the communication is not very good...... In this era, communication mainly relied on radio, and if the radio was not turned on, nothing could be received, so the moving baggage convoy crashed headlong into the Sino-British coalition army that broke through.
After the convoy drove south for half an hour, it drove east along the fork in the road under the guidance of Zhang Wangsheng. At this time, because everyone knew that the convoy was not really out of danger, it was very quiet, and even the British troops, who had always had a negative attitude, were very cooperative at this time, and took the initiative to take on the task of guarding and directing traffic along the way.
It is not surprising that some of the British troops and Scott did not cooperate before, simply because they did not think that they could break through and were destined to be prisoners of the Japanese, so they adopted a negative attitude because they did not want to provoke the Japanese.
But now, even those journalists who don't understand military affairs know that if there are no surprises, they have already made a breakthrough.
If you can return to your country, your relatives, and your comrades-in-arms with dignity, who would want to be a prisoner of the Japanese?!
So naturally, they took the initiative to cooperate with the Chinese soldiers to undertake some tasks.
This made the march very smooth, although this army had more than 800 cars, tanks, armored vehicles, etc., and the line on the road was not visible at a glance, and it was marching without lights in the dark night, but there was still a thrilling and dangerous way forward.
In fact, part of the reason for this was that the Japanese 33rd Division attacked too smoothly and too quickly...... Because the attack was too smooth and the speed of advance was too fast, the 33rd Division simply did not have extra troops to defend the key points in the rear along the way. You must know that they fought all the way to Yangon, hundreds of kilometers before and after, and if they sent troops to garrison the important places along the way, then the entire 33rd Division would not be enough.
On the other hand, if the Japanese were to have troops stationed on a certain bridge or a relatively difficult section of road, they would only need to blow them up, which would slow down the advance of the large convoy to a considerable extent.
If blowing up bridges or roads can stop the Sino-British coalition forces, it is not so.
Because the British army also had their own sappers and facilities, they could erect pontoon bridges or build roads at any time.
However, I am afraid that this is enough to choke, because it is very likely that the Sino-British coalition army will be overtaken by the Japanese army that is catching up behind.
But none of this happened, and when it was dark, the engineer regiment arrived with a convoy to the meeting point agreed with General Slim...... Puling.
Here, for the first time, the British army was very punctual and a little bit there, and the fortifications were arranged there and the work was done...... After all, this is to receive their own troops, and they don't dare to be careless.