The muddy and gravel pavement was dug by the Japanese in potholes and used to bury their*. In fact, there is no concealment at all, especially since there are many dead elephants and bison carcasses around the road, which clearly shows the approximate location of the minefield. The aim of the Japanese was also to slow down the expeditionary force with minefields, but they did not care about the depth of the burial. The mechanized infantry, who arrived first, dismounted and attacked the Japanese line along both sides of the road, while the middle infantry advanced with their prostrates, digging out the enemy from bayonets and shovels*. The front defense was a brigade of the Kawaguchi Wing, which was previously subordinate to the 18th Division and had strong combat effectiveness. The biggest problem for the Japanese army was that the defending forces no longer had air support, because the 5th Flying Division, based in Bangkok, did not dare to take off fighters for mountain operations. This virtually gave Chu Tingchang's last five tanks freedom of movement on the road.

The Synthetic Regiment did not want to break through the enemy's lines at any cost, but waited for the rear fire, as well as the most valuable tanks, to arrive. Occasionally, there were P40 fighters of the Flying Tigers who rushed to strafe the Japanese troops, but the effect was not great.

The first two Grants to arrive advanced along the side of the road, serving as fire support behind the infantry, and continued to advance as the infantry in front of them advanced as they advanced in mine detection. They did not immediately engage in a roundabout operation, but only served as mobile batteries to fire at the Japanese in front of them. This is a clumsy but secure infantry tank tactic, which was actually designed by Grant along this line of thought.

The entire advance operation was carried out with two heavily armored tanks as the core, and the forward fire reconnaissance induced the enemy's fire to be exposed, and then Grant fired at it. The attack was steady, there was no mobile combat part, and the Japanese defense line deployed new 47-mm anti-tank guns, but this anti-tank gun had little effect on the Grant frontal at a distance of 1 km. Once Grant made a long-distance breakthrough, he was likely to fall into the preset trap of the Japanese army, exposing his weaker flanks and being beaten badly, because reconnaissance of this area was inadequate. Lin Xiuxuan planned to attract the enemy's anti-tank fire, and then the other three tanks would conduct mobile operations.

Ma Qiang led people to ambush, they set up on the enemy's path*, because from the depths of the forest, there is only one muddy road to walk, which is confirmed by drone aerial reconnaissance, I believe that the Japanese army will send these tanks out to support, but they will be very careful if they are attacked at night.

Xu Chong used the drone to observe that the enemy's 5 tanks were on the road, each Churchill tank carried 6 infantrymen, which seemed to be very guarded, followed by 5 Type 95 tanks, and on both sides of the entire tank force, there was also a bicycle unit to follow, the scale was very large, although a whole squadron looked shabby on the surface, but it may be the largest armored force in the whole of Myanmar. He found that the speed of the bicycle could keep up with these slow tanks, and even formed a manpower motorized march without dragging down the tank, and he must admire the imagination of the Japanese staff in terms of simplicity.

Ma Qiang told the soldiers to bury * cleanly, so as not to let the enemy see the flaws. He also asked for the machine gun position to be deployed more concealedly, but he didn't have much confidence, because the people here have no experience in anti-tank, especially the enemy has a lot of infantry, and the original plan was to use the enemy's tank vision blind spot to close and destroy it, but in the current situation, it will become very difficult to rely on * alone.

The birds in the forest in the distance were startled, and then there was a rumbling sound, and it was estimated that the enemy tanks were about to arrive, and the soldiers hid in the forest not far away, waiting for * to work, and annihilated all the tanks in one go.

The Japanese tanks slowly approached the minefield, but suddenly stopped at a distance of 1 km, I don't know what nerves to make, they seem to be instigated?

A minute later, the Japanese tanks began to adjust their formation, moving an ugly 95 to the front, and the uglier Churchill tank hid behind it, Xu Chong reported the situation to Ma Qiang, and the entire Japanese army was dragging and dragging its feet, a mile long, and it seemed impossible to annihilate them all. Xu Chong reported his above judgment to Lin Xiuxuan, and he suggested that 3 Grants should be immediately mobilized to carry out a sound attack.

The Japanese 95 tank roared over, and the driver opened the window and moved the joystick vigorously to control the tank on the dirt road. I don't know why they suddenly adjusted their formation, but seeing this 95 coming over happily, it seems that there is really no embankment.

The composite regiment did not have a serious anti-tank*, but with several infantry radars in tandem, a kind of super-large * was improvised to deal with the 40-ton Churchill, of course, in the hope of blowing up the tracks and killing half of the crew inside, and not against a small tank of more than 7 tons.

Eight Japanese bicycles were overtaking tanks from both sides of the dirt road, presumably hoping to alert tanks with poor visibility. The tank tracks pressed on that one*.

The huge explosion instantly knocked 8 bicycles and people around the tank into the sky. The tank was not thrown up. However, it can be seen that the commander who was standing in the turret before was shocked to his spine and hung on the turret, which shows the great power. The machine guns hiding on both sides of the woods began to fire at the Japanese bicycle soldiers, and for a time they formed a crossfire, sweeping the overwhelmed Japanese soldiers to the ground.

Those Churchills who stopped on the highway only stopped in order after receiving the attack, and there were no countermeasures for 2 minutes, which shows how poor his vision is, making it impossible for internal members to judge the shape of the battlefield. However, Ma Qiang's firepower could not pose a threat to such a behemoth, and before it was too late to kill the infantry, he ordered the infantry to move close to throwing gasoline bottles.

The Japanese infantry abandoned their bicycles and hid in the ravines on the dirt road to counterattack, and some brave infantry climbed onto the tanks and banged on the turrets to show the general direction to the people inside, and the turrets of the Churchill began to turn, and finally came back to life from their sluggish state.

The side-by-side machine guns then began to fire, and the Composite Regiment soldiers touched the side and threw a *, but it was too far away and only ignited a thorn in front of the tank. This aroused the alarm of the enemy, and the Japanese infantry began to pay attention to covering the tanks and not allowing the soldiers of the expeditionary force to approach. A soldier was hit by a Japanese soldier while charging, and then the * that he did not throw was set on fire at his feet.

Ma Qiang observed the battlefield and found that this team lacked anti-tank experience and could not form a coordination, while the enemy's infantry cover was quickly formed, seeing that the enemy's firepower gained an overwhelming advantage, and the strong attack only increased casualties, he ordered to blow the whistle and collect the troops, and set fire to the woods with * to cover the retreat. The enemy did not pursue, and was still able to stalemate on the road and fight indiscriminately.

He withdrew to 1 kilometer away, counted the number of people, and turned out to be more than 20, some of them may have escaped in the forest, in short, the fight did not go well, and he may have annihilated more than one squad of Japanese troops, but only one tank was killed. He reported to Lin Xiuxuan through the radio that the attack was unfavorable, hoping to use his own tanks to mobilize the enemy and solve the problem on favorable terrain according to the second plan.

Lin Xiuxuan immediately let the three tanks that arrived later get off the road, and follow a British abandoned branch railway detected by drones into the forest, these tracks that were submerged in the grass, leading to the enemy base, which is the former site of the British Timber Company, for a long time, the Royal Navy relied on Burma's tropical hardwood to make warships, but as the demand for teak decreased, it was accepted by the colonial army as a rear repair warehouse.

The three Grants hoped to quickly break through to the enemy base along these roads, then hunt for enemy tanks, and after completing the above battles, complete another breakthrough through the enemy's defenses.

The expeditionary force had completed the main build-up of troops in Indo, and the wounded soldiers in the trucks had already set out, hoping to resist India as soon as possible. The exhausted new 38th Division also began to launch a diversionary attack on the Japanese troops trailing behind. In the entire battlefield in northern Burma, the intentions of the Chinese army were already very obvious, although the 58th Division in Songshan also launched a feint attack on Lashio, but the Japanese command, at this time, did not fail to see that the expeditionary force was going to India. In order to save the situation, the Japanese army frantically mobilized troops to try to encircle and annihilate the main force of the expeditionary force, although most of the Japanese army was left behind, but if the forward of the composite regiment could not open the way in time, the enemy could still complete the rapid pounce and bite hard.

Three Grants traveled along the railroad through the forest, and a few hours later, they appeared near the hidden base in the jungle, where the Japanese repair unit was rushing to repair the remaining British equipment, including several seventeen-pounder guns and the tank that had been blown up by Ma Qiang yesterday. They heard the sound of the tank, thinking that their tank had dropped its chain and had come back to repair it, and the three Grants rushed out of the forest in a zigzag pattern, followed by a group of expeditionary soldiers. The tanks fired at the Japanese troops who stayed behind, but the Japanese defenders were not strong in combat and were soon driven to several warehouses to defend.

Grant pushed all the way through the barbed wire fence and knocked down the watchtower, which was still resisting, and the Japanese troops on it fell down and rolled on the ground, before being run over by tanks and falling into the mud. The infantry followed a big disjoint, the three tanks were not willing to wait longer, covered each other and drove to the enemy's warehouse, directly used * to shoot a few shots at the warehouse wall, and then pushed straight over, opened a few holes in the wall, broke into the warehouse, the Japanese army * carried out a suicide counterattack, one person broke through the fire net, drilled under the tank and blew himself up, blowing up the tracks of the first Grant, but the Grant was still under fire, and the rest of the Japanese army was eliminated. At this time, the infantry caught up and fought for about 30 minutes to clear the remnants of the enemy.

Xu Chong saw through the drone that the Japanese tanks blocking the road and demining began to turn around, apparently receiving the news that the rear was being attacked. He quickly recovered the drone, went down the hill, pedaled the bicycle and rushed back, constantly stopping, and conducted a short reconnaissance to inform the position of the Japanese tank. Here, the anti-tank company of the synthetic regiment began to rush to repair the Grant tank and replace the spare track shoes.

Hard resistance to Churchill with Grant seems to have a slight advantage, but it is not enough to offset the number of opponents, Churchill has insufficient firepower, but the frontal armor is thicker. However, Ma Qiang observed just now that this kind of tank reacts very slowly, and if the enemy commander is forced into the turret with firepower, its blind spot seems to be very large, especially for the gunner. Therefore, he felt that he could use this newly occupied base as a basis to fight the enemy at ease, and of course the first problem was how to cut off the enemy's tanks and infantry. He climbed into the tank and tank, and had a brief exchange with the tank platoon commander about his ideas and the deployment of infantry.