Xu Chong's forces finally took control of the bridge, at the cost of five casualties. As with all of his actions, the advantage is based on concealment and information asymmetry, not firepower. When his two teams attacked the enemy's bridgehead and anti-aircraft gun positions at the same time, there was no correspondence between the enemy's various positions, and it was difficult for the Japanese troops to react from the attack at night, and before establishing contact, they did not know who was attacking whom, so they did not dare to act rashly, and the commando's practice of destroying the telephone lines between the enemy's positions aggravated the enemy's deafness.

Now their task is not over, Xu Chong led his men on the east bank, using the anti-aircraft artillery positions on the east bank and the machine guns in the bridgehead to quickly form blocking fire to block the enemy's retreating troops from approaching.

The baggage squadron of the 4th Division, which was preparing to pass on the bridge, spotted a shootout at the bridgehead in the distance, so it sent out reconnaissance cavalry, and the cavalry was spotted by searchlights at the bridgehead and was immediately broken to pieces by 20-mm machine guns and men and horses. At the same time, eight soldiers were hoisted off the bridge with safety ropes tied to safety ropes and laid down in the area specified in the drawings*. *Cut by Lin Xiuxuan, it is not a regular square sapper*, and it is quite inconvenient to place, which makes it take extra time to install*. The detonation wire was connected to the West Bank bunker and was controlled by Lin Xiuxuan. He asked Xu Chong to free up his manpower and first blow up the engineering assets and anti-aircraft artillery ammunition near the approach bridge on the east bank, so as to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of them.

The Japanese observed the first explosion from a distance and mistakenly thought that the bridge had already been blown up.

The commander of the Sekigahara Division suddenly received a telegram from the retreating troops that the enemy had blown up the bridge on the road after all. He immediately felt dizzy, and after spending dozens of seconds steady, his damn right eye began to beat again.

The only thing that can be done now is to use the dead horse as a live horse doctor, and before the enemy further destroys the bridge, contact the troops on the west bank and the men and horses on the east bank to capture it and see if there is no time to rush to repair it. He had long heard that Chu Tingchang was good at using assault troops to sabotage in the rear, but he didn't expect to pay attention everywhere, and he still fell in love with him.

He fought against Zhou Youfu's troops on the front line and knew the strength of his opponent. In the fortified city defense zone, he could not hold it, and in the field, the enemy's mechanized march speed far exceeded his own, let alone his own good-looking. He now knew why his previous divisions were always planted in the hands of Commander Chu Ting, that is, his troops took advantage of the whims of mobility, firepower, communications, and rear sabotage. His troops were completely different from the previous Chinese army's sluggish response and poor reconnaissance.

Reports from front-line officers indicate that the enemy often uses a dozen vehicles at the battalion headquarters to penetrate long distances only at the battalion level. And the Japanese brigade level only had cattle and carts. Even livestock are difficult to fully utilize, and most of the time they are used to tow ammunition and two infantry guns. There were as many as 600 non-combatants associated with livestock, such as coachmen and veterinarians, in the entire division, while the enemy's divisional units had no cavalry, except for a cavalry platoon in the communications company.

Chu Tingchang's troops also relied on the mobility of cavalry, but he eliminated these backward troops within half a year. He even had quite a few 105 guns loaded on tank chassis. Comparatively speaking, the time it took for the Japanese artillery to reach the designated position and start firing was not on the same level as the opponent's vehicle-towed artillery, let alone these self-propelled guns.

Sekihara secretly complained in his heart, hoping that the enemy would not blow it up.

Xu Chong's men and horses completed the installation, and the enemy never rushed to him, but the enemy had been organizing his forces behind the darkness, and the enemy's 92-infantry guns began to shoot, and it was obvious that a brigade-level unit had arrived in front of him. Seeing that the time was almost up, Lin Xiuxuan carried * to the bridge deck, and then used a motorola walkie-talkie to remind the troops on the east coast to retreat. He dragged the roller all the way backwards, and although it was only to blast the bridge deck, he didn't dare to get too close.

Xu Chong led his men to fight a 20-minute blockade battle, and the enemy gradually suppressed them. The Japanese dragged a 75 mountain gun from the darkness, which had its wheels removed and was hidden on a high ground in an attempt to destroy the pillbox with direct sight. Two shots were fired in a row, both of which hit the pillbox, causing one dead and one wounded, and dumbing a machine gun. As Xu Chong's men helped the wounded to retreat across the bridge, the enemy charged, but was stopped by a soldier who refused to evacuate the pillbox with a machine gun.

When Xu Chong retreated to the middle of the bridge, the pillbox was again hit directly by mountain artillery, this time the shell penetrated the heavy wall and detonated the interior*.

When a huge fireball was raised, the Japanese soldiers closest to the bridge were pleasantly surprised to find that the bridge was unharmed. Of course, if they don't lack hearts, they also know that the bridge is loaded*. The Japanese officers decided to launch a Banzai charge, bite the Chinese troops and retreat, and rush across the bridge in one fell swoop, perhaps the bridge will still be saved.

Hundreds of Japanese soldiers, under the cover of mortars and grenadiers, rushed out of the darkness with a shout and quickly rushed to the bridge.

Several machine guns in the pillboxes on the west bank blocked the enemy's charge. However, the pillboxes on the west bank were also quickly placed under direct enemy fire.

Lin Xiuxuan saw that Xu Chong's men and horses finally escaped the bridge, and quickly twisted the detonator. More than a dozen * in the center of the bridge exploded together, throwing all the brave rushing Japanese troops into the river. The timing of the detonation was too tight, and the rocks smashed into Xu Chong's steel helmet.

Lin Xiuxuan hurriedly observed with the help of the firelight, and the railway bridge was cut off from the middle of a gap of dozens of meters, which was exactly the same as the British expected. Now the way back of the 4th Division is blocked.

Zhou Youfu's tank forces had assembled on a small scale west of Loikaw, and it was not difficult for him to replenish supplies with his back to the railway line, but the Allied forces would need to airlift supplies from eastern India to northern Burma, then cross a poor road into northern Thailand, and then transfer them by rail to central Burma, which was still too costly. Now he could not muster his large forces, and could only carry out a limited attack.

The 202 tanks of the 202nd Division, under the cover of 3 battalions of infantry and a self-propelled artillery battalion, launched a one-time outflanking to the south of Taunggyi. A frontal attack is only to attract the enemy's attention, and the real intention is to outflank and cut off the enemy's retreat. As soon as the troops reach the enemy's flank, the enemy's command system will be disorganized. Although the grassroots units of the Japanese army have a good tradition of holding on to one place and not caring whether their friendly positions are lost, it is difficult for their command not to be disturbed, especially when Lieutenant General Sekihara No. 6 discovers that the 203rd Division in the north is missing, and he does not know whether he crossed the river to attack Mandalay or rushed at himself.

Between the 203rd Division and its own troops, there are 10,000 Burmese troops, but these rabble do not have a radio station, so it is not known what happened to them for the time being.

Huang Tianyang was leading his troops to attack south along the river, and he originally set up a pontoon bridge over the river, preparing to attack Mandalay first, but he was persuaded by Chu Tingchang, and he didn't know the bottom of his heart. The number of enemy troops in Mandalay is too large, so it is better to pick up a soft persimmon and pinch it first (in his eyes, the 4th Division is a soft persimmon).

His motorized troops almost chased the fleeing Burmese troops and their families on the highway to the south, and if the enemy knew each other to get out of the way, his troops did not bother to strafe them, and as long as they hesitated to dodge, he did not care about the old and weak, women and children. At least a few hundred non-combatants were crushed under the wheels along the way. It was very strange that there was no encounter, the enemy did not block the 203rd Division on such an obvious road of advance, Huang Tianyang felt that the enemy seemed to underestimate himself, and he absolutely couldn't swallow this breath.

By the time the Burmese army had broken out and the news of the Chinese army being in hot pursuit had been conveyed to the headquarters of the 4th Division in Taunggyi, Sekihara had already seen through the window with a telescope the Chinese army trucks waving the blue sky and white sun flag appearing on the northern highlands. For him, everything was a little late, he did not deploy in the northern highlands, after all, there was a regiment of the Burmese army there. Sekihara remembered that he had allocated 10,000 British* to Lieutenant General Gocha of the Burmese Army defending the north, and that his men did not need to bury them if they had hands and feet, but only threw them on the road, and the enemy would not have come so quickly. Sometimes the number of these wastes becomes a burden, because the General Staff always takes into account the Burmese troops of 10,000 men when calculating the speed of the enemy's advance; I always think, even if it is 10,000 pigs, it can always hold off the enemy for a while, right? But in fact, they really don't play as good as pigs.

Huang Tianyang stopped in the north of Taunggyi, waiting for the troops behind him and the 75mm mountain artillery, and at the same time he established contact with Zhou Youfu's troops on the radio, and Zhou Youfu asked him to occupy the position.

Huang Tianyang's burning stick is far worse than Zhou Youfu, but his ambition is not small, thinking that he is closer to the enemy, and the terrain is high, he can attack with artillery first, give the enemy a little color, and also embarrass Zhou Youfu a little, so that he can underestimate himself.

His M1 mountain cannon is a light weapon that is not very popular, and it is not outstanding in all aspects, so the other units of the 5th Army are gradually phasing out this weapon of the mule and horse era after being motorized. But the firing range of this gun is not bad, about half a kilometer farther than the Japanese Type 94.

Huang Tianyang knew how to drive a car since he was a child, but the artilleryman was a layman, he stood on the top of the hill overlooking Taunggyi in the distance, and casually drew a line on the map for his 12 small cannons. From the hill, he could see the smoke billowing outside the city, it was the Japanese 105 field artillery position attacking Zhou Youfu's troops, obviously Guan Yuan was also a clear person, he was more worried about Zhou Youfu's troops.

Huang Tianyang ordered the artillery to open fire on the enemy position, and before the fire was fired, the troops burned a stack of charms drawn on yellow sheet paper with a cinnabar pen as usual. It is said that it can increase the hit rate, and the US military technical officer once took the trouble to make a statistic and found that it did increase the hit rate a little.

Huang Tianyang's artillery were all new recruits, and they did not have geodetic technology or good ranging equipment, because they lacked contour maps, and they did not know the 250-meter elevation advantage they had, and the impact of strong northerly winds on the range. What they have is only the enthusiasm to kill the enemy and serve the country, as well as the most basic calculation of the shooting meter and the indiscriminate ranging of the one-meter-level air defense rangefinder.

From the ranging figures to the elevation calculation and the position of his own position, there were many mistakes, and the only correct one was the line drawn by Huang Tianyang, which happened to stop outside the range of the Japanese 75 mountain guns that Sekihara Roku was preparing to deal with. Of course, Huang Tianyang did not observe the enemy's hidden artillery position, he stared at the enemy's heavy artillery position and headquarters.

The artillery began to shoot, and it could be seen that the shells of the first shot deviated very much and hit the direction of the enemy's field hospital half a kilometer away, and the artillery began to slowly correct the direction according to the error. It's not too difficult, the whole process, like a boring person pouring a toad with a soak of urine, as long as it's within range, sooner or later it will succeed.