This time it seems that there was really no ambush, the Japanese search wing occupied several commanding heights with trepidation, and did not encounter a counterattack, many of them participated in the battle the day before yesterday, knowing that the enemy was good at sneak attacks, and the time to counterattack was excellent. In fact, after rolling in muddy water with a gas mask on his head, he could barely see ahead clearly, and he could not fight effectively at all. What the relieved Japanese soldiers did not know was that the real threat came precisely from the muddy water here.

Mustard gas is not so easy to decompose, although it is diluted, it can still penetrate into the body through skin contact, most of the people involved in the action will feel more or less nausea and retching within a day, of course, not to the lethal dose, not to die quickly, and even most people will not lose their combat effectiveness, but in their lifetime, the probability of cancer is hundreds of times higher, and most people will not live to be 35 years old (if they do not die in war) It all depends on Mutaguchi's revenge.

The soldiers quickly searched the remaining tracks for several entrances and vents, but all of them collapsed and were inaccessible.

Judging from the traces, the cave was formed not long ago with a large number of * blasting, and it collapsed a long passage, which could not be dug without large machinery. Why the expeditionary force would blow up these passages in a desperate situation is, of course, very unreasonable and contemporary, for most people, but the Japanese happen to understand it all very easily. The search wing sent back the first reconnaissance report, assuming that the enemy forces had committed mass suicide by blowing up the external passage in desperation.

They felt that this explanation was the most reasonable, and reported it all the way, but no one raised doubts, and the information was slightly modified by the 18th Division Headquarters and forwarded to the 15th Army Headquarters. When it arrived in Iida's hands, the report read:

The enemy's 2,500 men below the battalion, under the attack of our superior forces and special weapons, adopted the clumsy strategy of blowing up the closed passage mouth by themselves in order to escape, and it is now confirmed that most of them have been buried in the abandoned mine, and there is absolutely no possibility of escape. According to the assessment of our department, except for a few enemy battalions that escaped to the north, more than half of them have been annihilated, and the possibility of the headquarters being destroyed is extremely high. In addition, although there were signs that there was a remnant of the enemy who had slipped through the net, the enemy's superior armor and artillery fire had all been buried and abandoned in the mines, and the 86th Flying Team of the 5th Flying Division successively dispatched reconnaissance planes, but did not find a large-scale escape of the enemy, and did not find any vehicles and tanks escaping.

At the end of the report, Mutaguchi deliberately explained that Iida's worst fears of the destruction of the enemy's heavy weapons were destroyed, which greatly relieved Iida.

In the latest sequence of enemy troops fleeing north compiled by the General Staff of the 15th Army, the composite regiment still does not dare to be classified as "annihilated", but the threat level has been reduced to "inferior", which means that it has been defeated, although it is not possible to verify whether the command has been annihilated for the time being.

Of course, in the minds of the commanders on the front, this major problem has been eliminated. Not only because the passage was destroyed, and the air force reconnaissance did not find a large-scale evacuation, but also because of the mud formed by the heavy rain, which destroyed the tracks of the tank when it left, and only the footprints of a few people who left on foot could be found, but in the process of pursuit, we did not see the scene predicted by Fujii that the fleeing enemy with mild symptoms of poisoning would die one after another along the way. Of course, this does not matter, almost all the Japanese troops have chosen to believe in the destruction of a strong enemy. Mutaguchi even pretended to hold a mourning ceremony for the "buried" independent battalion of the Chinese 5th Army near the mining area, handwriting the wooden sign of the Chinese warriors there, in memory of the truly admirable strong enemy, of course, to a certain extent, also to completely get rid of the fear in his heart, since then, there is no such exquisite use of tanks and artillery in Burma, they have not been able to become seeds, carry forward this tactic, and even have no time to sum up the experience in writing, which is really gratifying.

In this battlefield, the United States, Britain and even China have more or less the habit of using code words and passwords, while the Japanese army who chased mad is used to using voice communication to transmit messages, which can save a lot of time for encryption and decryption. He could clearly hear enemy troops on the radio talking about the annihilation of the Synthetic Battalion and its death in the mountains of central Burma. Another piece of news he overheard from Japanese spies was that Stilwell had parted ways with Du Yuming after a surprise attack by the 55th Division, which found many American corpses south of Jessa, but did not confirm Stilwell's life or death.

After Lin Xiuxuan learned the above information, he felt that he could take advantage of the current chaos, and even not only make the Japanese mistakenly think that the synthetic battalion was finished, but also make Du Yuming mistakenly think that this army was finished, so he had some sense of urgency, and quickly made a decision on whether to go west or north. If the synthetic group discarded its heavy weapons and headed north and gathered with Du Yuming, it would not be of any greater value.

He can't control Tao Mingzhang and Brooke yet, but he can control the whereabouts of the troops through the fake orders sent by Qin Xiaosu. The reality is that the new 38th Division has already gone west in half a day, and the last road to India is in a state of undefended, and he must stay near this road, but he cannot attract the main force of the Japanese army, because of the lack of troops, he can only hide first, waiting for the opportunity to appear in a strange posture from a direction unexpected by the Japanese army.

He planned to have his troops go north, through Indo, which had just been abandoned by the command, and hide west of Indo, to ensure that the last ammunition and fuel could be used for a battle.

Thanks to the withdrawal of the synthetic regiment at night and its small size, the Japanese planes never discovered its mechanized marching column, and the focus of the Japanese reconnaissance was always near Du Yuming's headquarters and the mining area, and the synthetic battalion was in the middle and was not covered.

They marched rapidly, receiving supplies and British warehouses abandoned by the main forces of the expeditionary force along the way. The 55th and 56th divisions of the Japanese army attacked from the direction of Longling, and not a single soldier had arrived on the central route, but judging from the state of the expeditionary force's escape, it was already in a state of panic, and many materials were piled up on the side of the road, and they were abandoned after they were hastily ignited, so that the synthetic battalion rushed to find that it had not been burned at all. Fortunately, it was picked up by my own people, and there was no cheapness for the Japanese. Judging from these panicked states, Du Yuming tried to strike a counterattack in Myitkyina, and he was afraid that his morale was no longer enough. From this point of view, Du Yuming is not a qualified commander, and perhaps the most important advantage to Shangfeng is loyalty.

On the contrary, the new 38th Division retreated in a fairly orderly manner, leaving almost nothing useful, the bridges and roads were also destroyed, none of the street signs pointed in the right direction, and the troops did not often fight back when they were guarded, annihilating the armed forces of the Burmese traitors, and all the prisoners were hanged on the side of the road, even if the discarded weapon parts were destroyed enough to be used by the opponent.

Lin Xiuxuan used a fake order to take the troops to the mountains west of Indo, which was the middle ground between the enemy's 31st Division on the west route and the 18th Division on the central route. The Japanese army was insufficient, and it was too late to completely occupy the vast northern Burma area, and the main force pursued Du Yuming, and the partial division chased the British, leaving a large number of blank areas in the middle. The Synthetic Regiment collected supplies from the expeditionary force and the British army along the way, and then hid in the mountains on the north side of the road.

Tao Mingzhang was a little skeptical of the strange orders of his superiors, because it was not like the style of the command headquarters, he was only a company commander, and he could also feel that Du Yuming always tended to gather heavy troops, and rarely relied on idle chess and cold sons as the deployment of surprise troops, but Brooke felt that it was better to hide on the side of the road leading to India than to go to northern Myanmar and find the so-called, the small road left by Zhuge Liang back then, he was not against such a deployment, a day ago, he could not contact Stilwell's headquarters, so he could only act with his own judgment.

The troops did not deliberately hide the traces of passage, and the pursuing Japanese could easily take these traces as left by the British or the new 38th Division when they left.

They carefully broke away from the road and hid in the jungle of a nearby mountain pass, and a few hours later, a Japanese bicycle, pursuing them from the east, occupied Indo, and the Japanese reported that they had blocked the last road to the west.

In the headquarters of the 15th Army, Iida, who was nervous every day and only slept for 2 hours, finally relaxed, and he knew that he had finally locked in the victory, and all the Chinese troops blocked in northern Myanmar, although the structure and equipment were still neat, but the defeat had been decided.

Soon, the 31st Division, which pursued the British army north along the Qindun River on the west road, also received good news, they had reached Xidang, and easily defeated the resistance of the British and Indian 1st Brigade, and it seemed that both ends of the road were blocked, forming a double insurance to lock the victory. From the perspective of a professional soldier, he has always been worried that Du Yuming will struggle desperately before being cut off and retreating, resulting in a situation where the fish is dead and the net is broken, and he is worried that there will be at least more than 20,000 casualties at the end of this battle; But the fact is that, except for a few sections of the counterattack, the expeditionary force went all the way to the north, and there were no fierce battles, what kind of commander would so calmly lead a hundred thousand people to the primeval forest without a rear?

In the commander's room of the battleship Yamato, which docked in Rabaul, Onishi Takijiro and Makino sat opposite Yamamoto, who was smoking, and together they brought a new plan.

"Both, have you studied Solomon's war?" Yamamoto asked with interest.

"Yes, the submarine has confirmed the sinking of the Wasp, the pilot's report says that Yorktown and Lexington each have two *, which can also be confirmed, presumably even if they run away, they will have to repair it for more than half a year, they have no battleships available on the balance ocean, they can only use heavy patrols to fill the number, and now there are not many aircraft carriers left."

"It's a pity that we lost the Canglong, and the Xiangfeng and Feilong were injured again."

"Commander, but we successfully expelled the American troops near Australia, which is equivalent to opening the door for the Army to land in Port Moresby." Onishi said. His words drew a nod from Yamamoto, who did see it that way, and it was obvious that his staff officers had been able to understand the overall advantage from a strategic perspective.

"Yes, what's next? Is it Asano-kun who said that the Americans will be like gamblers and lure us into a decisive battle in the Central Pacific? ”

Yamamoto turned to Makino.

"History has changed, and the divisions are getting bigger, and I don't think the original history has any value." Makino said coldly, he had always disliked Asano's speculation with the ethereal history, he preferred something tangible and reliable, "Commander, I'm here this time because ......" He looked at Onishi.

"Oh, Makino-kun has changed his mind, and now he can help us with the German V1* modified special aircraft. And let this weapon be changed from a simple land-based to a large warship. ”

"Oh, I'm glad that Makino-kun has changed too. You must know that the failure to sink Lexington this time was not because our 99 carrier-based pilots were not skilled, but because the bomb load of the ship's explosion was too small. The bomb load of American aircraft is 900 kg, and ours is only 250 kg. Yamamoto said.

"Commander, in fact, I don't think so, I just think that through this project, the engineering of the autonomous driving and guidance part can be completed as soon as possible, manned driving is only the first stage, and I hope that this stage is as short as possible."