The sparse firepower of the 203rd Division moved slowly over the Japanese position, and it seemed that it was heading towards the artillery position.

The Japanese mountain artillery unit under the mountain began to return fire, but due to the opponent's high position and unfavorable wind direction, the shells could not reach Huang Tianyang's artillery. Huang Tianyang's artillery commander could stand on the top of the hill and clearly see his artillery landing point moving on the enemy's position. The enemy's artillery position was well concealed, but when they fired at Zhou Youfu, too much smoke was entrenched above the position, and even if Huang Tianyang's artillery had little experience, they recognized that it was the main target.

The Japanese army finally realized that only the firing range of the 105 field guns directly under the division could pick up the opponent, but when these cannons were deployed, the firing range of 25 degrees on the left and right was completely facing Zhou Youfu, and it was not an overnight thing to move such a bulky cannon. And the enemy's fire is approaching.

The Japanese decided to try their luck, and the soldiers roared and began to push the 2.5-ton cannon. Of course, this is not so easy, you must first dismantle the sandbag bunker in front of the cannon, and then dig out the hoe and push it out of a large circle with a radius of more than ten meters on the position before you can turn around 180 degrees. Of course, turning four guns at the same time will inevitably cause great confusion in the position.

Just when the Japanese positions were jumping, the shells of the Chinese army arrived first. In the first round of coverage, the * barrels on the position were ignited, triggering a chain explosion. All four heavy guns were eliminated at once.

Huang Tianyang used his eight-fold telescope to see what target he had hit, he only saw a spectacular explosion there, which did not seem to be the power of his own 75-millimeter mountain cannon. He felt that the heat was almost over, and ordered the two battalions that arrived first to attack the enemy, which was only his preparatory attack, just to open an offensive channel for the general attack at night. In his opinion, even if there is no Zhou Youfu, the enemy is almost finished.

Zhou Youfu's tank group immediately found that the pressure had been reduced, and the enemy's artillery fire had weakened to negligible. Lao Zhou didn't dare to attack immediately, after all, he was a very experienced old devil in front of him. He had to wait for the results of the reconnaissance.

A U.S. P40 fighter heard the ground liaison officer's request for low-altitude reconnaissance, and the pilot, using the smoke and dodging the anti-aircraft guns, conducted a reconnaissance that suddenly dived/pulled. For veterans of the 14th Air Force, reconnaissance does not necessarily need to slowly circle the enemy's dense network of fire at low altitudes to count how many barrels are firing at themselves.

As the plane threw off all its firepower, the pilot reported on the radio that the enemy's main artillery positions had been destroyed.

Zhou Youfu got this message in an M3 command car with a reinforced radio station, and then got another message from the same plane, seeing that the Japanese artillery in the rest of the positions had turned to the north.

It seems that without further ado, the time has come to cut off the retreat of the 4th Division. He ordered the tanks to immediately penetrate the enemy's rear along the original route and cut off the railway to Mandalay. He had already sensed that Huang Tianyang had the intention of competing with him, and the boss seemed to want to buy him. He knew that Chu Tingchang's idea was very wrong, and the first time he saw Huang Tianyang, he knew that it was a white-eyed wolf who didn't know the height of the sky. So he didn't plan to release the water. In particular, the 4th Division was one of the six feudal towns that were the first to be established by the Japanese army. At present, the division is actually in a state of retreat, and its troops are very scattered, and it is the time for it to make meritorious contributions.

The commander of the 6th Division of Guanyuan in Taunggyi finally realized that the horror of Chu Tingchang, compared with any division of the 5th Army, his troops were as sluggish as a dinosaur. The enemy began to gnaw at his positions, and the maneuvers could not keep up with the rapidly changing situation. The rapid movement of the enemy relied on a large number of trucks and gasoline, which the Japanese did not have.

In fact, the battle in Myanmar has already wiped out a year's worth of Japan's truck production, and has become a bottomless pit in the eyes of the base camp. So they need a god of war like Sakagaki to solve the problem through a decisive battle.

Sekihara knew that the main reason why Commander Kimura did not dare to take the initiative was because he was afraid of attrition. According to information gathered by the military department, the United States produces four hundred times as many trucks as Japan. Sekigahara didn't know if this figure was exaggerated, but judging from the situation on the battlefield, the enemy was not short of vehicles and fuel at all. Only a year or two ago, he saw that the Chinese army was not even equipped with livestock, and many of the transportation was carried by people on flat poles.

He estimated that Itagaki's plan would fail, and that the distance on the map might give Sakagaki the illusion that the enemy was still far away, but in reality, the enemy was advancing about two to three times faster than the Japanese army. This would be a huge advantage on the battlefield, and Ting Chang Chu was very good at using this advantage, so that he could maintain his superior strength at all times.

He decided to abandon Taunggyi and not move closer to Mandalay, but to the south. Since the enemy blew up the bridge, this is a good reason.

He immediately drew up a telegram to Itagaki informing the troops that they had lost the main bridge to retreat to Mandalay and could only move south, and that he would seek a way to cross the river in shallow places downstream, with heavy weapons, of course. An infantry brigade and division that had already crossed the river were attached to the troops and were temporarily placed under the command of the front.

After arranging everything, Sekigahara ordered his troops to launch a fierce counterattack against the enemy, creating the illusion of moving closer to Mandalay. He was ready to retreat south, to Tongku or Pyinmana, and in the worst case he could run to Thailand, or get on board at Bago, and if Itagaki ate the 74th Army and the situation was reversed, he could go north along the railway and make a form of support.

Zhou Youfu's tank group, in the eastern part of Taunggyi, cut off the enemy's railway to Mandalay, and quickly established several lines of defense to prevent the enemy from breaking through. The enemy desperately charged here, but they were all repulsed. He felt that after nightfall, the enemy would make a decisive counterattack. He learned the principle of concentrating forces from Commander Chu Ting, and usually he would not distribute forces evenly across the defensive line.

Before nightfall, Sekigahara poured all the shells that could not be taken away like the positions of the Chinese army, making a desperate gesture. After nightfall, his advance force suddenly turned to the east, broke through several transport units of Zhou Youfu's troops, and quickly jumped to the outer line. At the same time, the rest of the troops turned to the south together, destroying the roads while withdrawing. In the Shan State Plateau, he still has the terrain to rely on, and he retreats step by step.

Zhou Youfu found that something was wrong, the enemy didn't seem to come to hit his own iron wall, but slipped south? In his experience, it was common for friends and neighbors of the Nationalist army to leave their own people and flee, but this never happened to the Japanese army. Usually they will be very rigid in carrying out the orders of their superiors, even if they hit the south wall, and will not look back. He suffered the loss of empiricism this time. However, Huang Tianyang's sudden attack happened to step on the point where the enemy army retreated, and the troops advanced like a bamboo. The 203rd Division quickly stormed Taunggyi, captured the enemy headquarters, and killed one that was setting fire everywhere. The Japanese rearguard troops, who did not have time to withdraw, killed the mastermind of the 4th Division: Naoki Okabayashi.

The 4th Division just slipped away with a single shot. Sekigahara did not disobey Sakagaki's orders, and the bridge to Mandalay was indeed blown up by the enemy, and Sakagaki agreed to his suggestion to look south for a crossing point. Sakagaki actually didn't think it was a big problem. Since the bridge was blown up, it means that Chu Tingchang's troops can't pass, and conservatively, they won't be able to get to the front in two or three days. By that time, the 4th Division should have crossed the river downstream, and at that time it could use the railway from Yangon to Mandalay, which was still in hand, to move north quickly, probably faster than Commander Chu's troops.

Sekigahara's telegram tactfully mentions that the enemy is coming quickly, but Sakagaki feels that every decisive battle is decided at the last minute, so he refuses to overestimate the enemy's speed and will to fight.

If Sakagaki could objectively see the situation clearly, he should have realized that the combat effectiveness of Chu Tingchang's troops was already above the Japanese army, and the firepower of an infantry battalion of the 5th Army exceeded that of the Japanese brigade with more troops, not to mention the ability to maneuver. Of course, Sakagaki also has his own estimate in his heart, and he thinks that Chu Tingchang's 5th Army may be able to top one and a half main divisions, that is, close to a one-to-one exchange ratio. But he refused to accept the possibility that the Chinese army would surpass the combat effectiveness of the same number of Japanese troops, which was a matter of honor and disgrace.

By daybreak, Zhou's army had cleared an airstrip on the grass near the bridge. A liaison plane bounced down on the uneven ground, bringing Colonel Edward, who had built the bridge in the first place, to Lao Zhou.

In view of Lin Xiuxuan's very stubbornness in blowing up the piled up building materials by the side of the bridge, now Chu Tingchang must try his best to make up for this mistake. He sent the scrawny colonel in the hope that he would instruct the engineering troops to repair the bridge in one day. At the same time, he hoped that the Americans would quickly send him materials for repairing the bridge.

The bridge had been shattered by last night's firefight and bombardment, but the sturdy piers were still erected in the river. After observing the field in the field, the colonel began to develop a plan, he needed iron plates to build a temporary bridge deck, reinforced with steel and timber, which was expected to pass by car first, and then repair the railway.

The C47 of the U.S. Army came from the East Indies and threw half of the materials of the engineer battalion to the head of the 5th Army, and many materials were decomposed and needed to be welded on the ground. Just before the redrawing paper and splicing materials went hand in hand, Zhou Youfu had already led people up the mountain to cut wood. The Edwards had not yet arrived, and had already put forward the specifications of the wood through the radio. Fortunately, Myanmar is the best timber country in the world.

Zhou Youfu personally selected, and commanded the valve to pour a few thirty-meter-high nanmu, he asked someone, these are the golden silk nanmu that is difficult to find in China, and it is the wood that built the Forbidden City in the first place. He realized that he might have another way to make a fortune.

A Japanese reconnaissance plane flew in from Thailand, and the pilot clearly saw the huge gap in the bridge, and there was no sign that Chinese sappers had gathered nearby to repair the bridge. I only saw that the Americans threw down a lot of crates, maybe just weapons and ammunition, but it definitely had nothing to do with building bridges, and I didn't hear that they could airdrop sapper equipment.

When Sakagaki got the information, he alerted his staff members. They will be given a window of about 48 hours to continue the onslaught on the 74th Army.

Not long after the departure of the Japanese reconnaissance plane, all preparations were made, and the sappers shouted the trumpet, carried huge wooden and steel beams, and went up to the bridge.