Zhou Youfu's tank rushed to Kokang almost unstoppably, echoing Song Xilian's troops on the opposite bank. It is a pity that the division could not be met for the time being across the rolling Nu River, and if it had not been for the indiscriminate bombing of US planes to divert the attention of the Japanese army, the attack would not have gone so smoothly.

The 56th Division urgently repaired a large number of fortifications near Songshan, and buried nearly 10,000 pieces*, all of which should be for Watanabe to judge that the enemy is coming from afar, and it is bound to open up Songshan in one go, which is military common sense, but as a wise general in the Burmese front army, he made a mistake this time, and Chu Tingchang did not like to act according to common sense. His plan was very forward-looking, for example, from the time he left Mandalay, he photographed the reconnaissance force approaching the Burma-Thai border, which was anticipating the possible misfortune of Kimura. Even if he knew that Watanabe blocked the passage with *, it was impossible to collide with his tank, and if he attacked strongly, it was estimated that it would not be a problem to rescue Zhang Lingfu, but he felt that General Zhang was deeply encircled and could contain more enemies, and the battle value was greater; Once rescued, it's useless.

This is the first time Watanabe has fought with Chu Tingchang, before, the two armies were one in the east and the other in the west, and they did not buy each other but were not allowed to fight. After the 31st Division and the 18th Division were defeated one by one, Watanabe was a little unconvinced, feeling that several failures were not surprising enough to send troops, which led to the intention to be seen through by the enemy who had the advantage of aerial reconnaissance. He claimed to have created a military miracle that drove straight from Shan State to cut off the back of the expeditionary force, which was enough to climb into the history of human warfare, and naturally had the confidence to criticize Kimura's command. He often looks at the map and shakes his head and sighs, only hating that he is not in his place.

His conceit reaped its first setback today, as he was completely wrong in his prediction of Commander Chu, and the 202nd Division approached his position, and again, as it had done in Mandalay, suddenly reversed course and slipped away, this time directly into Kokang, cutting off the passage between Longling and Lashio.

Pavilion Chief Chu's performance not only deceived Watanabe, but also Zhang Lingfu in the encirclement. The 58th Division fought bravely and broke through the Japanese defense line in one fell swoop, but at night, it was found that the friendly artillery fire outside was becoming more and more sparse, and it was realized that the friendly troops had rushed thousands of miles to help, and suddenly made a detour, and this basin of cold water was poured on the head from top to bottom. Zhang Lingfu couldn't help but be furious, and sent several telegrams to Shangfeng in one night, angrily reprimanding the friendly troops for not having the courage to engage the enemy, and losing a great opportunity in vain.

The U.S. and British intelligence services had already intercepted many Japanese telegrams, knowing that the focus of their transportation a few days ago was * and war defense artillery, which was the basis for Chief Chu Ting's plan. He knew that the Yangman Railway had been cut off by himself again, and there was no need to rush to a decisive battle immediately, so he found himself a slightly flat place in this area and waited for the enemy to counterattack, so as to avoid the dangerous terrain of Gaoligong Mountain, which was the most unfavorable for tanks. He demanded that the 10th Air Force stationed in India and the United States, as well as the 14th Air Force stationed in Yunnan, send planes to observe the enemy's every move without interruption.

Chu Tingchang did not dare to slack off on Masao Watanabe, knowing that this was a veteran of mountain warfare, and the 56th Division was notoriously unable to run to death. So you have to prevent them from coming out suddenly and cutting off one of their own. Of course, he also knew that what the American planes saw was likely to be the opponent's deception of the battle with a false appearance, but he was confident that he could see through the enemy's feints, and in addition, Watanabe also needed to watch the 58th Division on Matsuyama, even if there were some counterattacks, it could not be very large. He estimated that if he ate two or three brigades of Watanabe, the enemy's strength to maintain the inner and outer defense lines would be stretched, so he was keeping an eye on the opponent now, and he was not in a hurry, waiting for the heavy artillery and ammunition to come up later. Speaking of which, he was really reluctant to rescue the 58th Division, and once the enemy made up his mind to abandon the encirclement of the division, he would find that the problem of insufficient troops was solved.

Chu Tingchang waited for the enemy to respond, and at the same time waited for the British to be informed, what he was most concerned about was the signs of the enemy's use of chemical weapons, but there was no news for the time being. His two scouts were fruitless, and Xu Chong had already reached the Burma-Thai border and could enter Thailand at any time. Zhou Youfu's troops discovered a balloon that was observed by the Japanese from time to time in the vicinity, and the troops shot down one with machine guns, and found that it was the 17th Aerial Survey Team below the 3rd Air Army, and the enemy was intensively measuring the wind direction before the war, which was obviously a bad omen.

However, the enemy was not found to have large-caliber mortar units massing in the vicinity. In fact, in order to carry out chemical warfare, the artillery must be within a few kilometers of Zhou Youfu's position, and now in early winter, the northwest wind is blowing, and it is even more difficult to use poison gas.

Ma Qiang's side still did not find any clues that the enemy used elephants to secretly transport poisons, and after the Yangman railway was cut off, the Japanese relied on the channel for transporting supplies in Chiang Rai Province in Thailand, and it was almost impossible for the enemy to bypass this place to transport a large number of military supplies.

Chu Tingchang still did not dare to take it lightly, and he decided to let Xu Chong enter Thailand to reconnoiter the military airfield on the Thai border. Because the 17th Aerial Survey Team, which is conducting meteorological reconnaissance around Zhou Youfu's troops, is currently at several airfields within the Thai border.

The Japanese army has used aircraft to drop fleas with plague bacillus on the Chinese battlefield, but the use of aviation to drop chemical bombs has never occurred, of course, mainly because of the Japanese army's fear of chemical warfare, but because of their technical capabilities. Especially considering that at present, the Japanese army does not have air supremacy, and there is a high probability that it will drop bombs at night.

Together with Tao Mingzhang, he analyzed the characteristics of the enemy's chemical warfare, believing that once the enemy uses bombers to drop bombs at night, it is difficult to accurately throw bombs on the troops, and its greatest goal may be to pollute water sources and blockade a number of areas with this, which will cause great difficulties for his own mobile operations (of course, it will also cause difficulties for Watanabe's possible intersperse), and that the majority of Chinese in the Kokang area cannot be messed with by the Japanese, and the smallest possibility must be strangled in the cradle.

Ma Qiang moved closer to Zhou Youfu's department and began to search for the telegram of the 17th aerial survey team using balloons, and the software left by Qin Xiaosu was enough to help him complete this work, and soon found the enemy's telegram to report meteorological information.

At the same time, Xu Chong began to search for the airfield in Thailand that echoed with the front-line meteorological reconnaissance unit, and soon found the location of the 17th aerial survey team's callback, Minawang Airport near the border. He and his group quickly approached the airfield, occupied a commanding height a few kilometers away, and conducted reconnaissance of the airfield, and found that the airfield runway was very empty, and there were no bombers, only a few Type 99 high-level trainer planes.

But a suspicious place is that there are a lot of convoys coming and going nearby, all of them are going to nearby warehouses, and the actions seem sneaky, if there is no aviation unit, what are these automatic car units doing here? During the day, US reconnaissance planes flew over the airfield twice, but apparently they found nothing. In order to deter Thailand, Chennault's 14th Air Force flew over from time to time to take a look, but although the United States and Thailand are currently in a state of declaration of war, the two sides have not fired the first shot.

After nightfall, Xu Chong took advantage of the night to approach the warehouse, the door of the warehouse was wide open, and he was able to observe the inside of the warehouse from a kilometer away with the help of a thermal imaging camera. He could see that everyone inside was wearing strict anti-gas clothing and was sorting out aviation*, perhaps like the chemical shells, these* were marked with different colors, but Xu Chong couldn't identify the colors with the thermal imaging camera, but he could see that all of them were members of the chemical army, and they were not wearing ordinary gas masks, but fully enclosed professional protective clothing from head to toe. The evidence that the enemy is preparing chemical warfare here is already quite conclusive.

He immediately sent this information, through a relay, back to the headquarters of the 5th Army near Mandalay through a communications vehicle converted from an M3 half-track vehicle that stayed in Burma.

Chu Tingchang thus determined the location of the enemy's accumulation of chemical weapons on the border, which means that once the enemy's bombers suddenly assemble at the airfield, it means that chemical warfare will be carried out.

He immediately reported the new discovery to Stilwell, who was so frightened that he did not expect that Chief Chu's reconnaissance force had entered Thailand. In fact, the sporadic news sent by the Free Thai Party had made the Allied high-level leaders predict the increased risk of the Japanese army's use of chemical weapons, so they increased the number of aerial reconnaissance, but this kind of sloppy reconnaissance did not have much effect on the old fritters' Japanese camouflaged troops. In order not to panic the attacking Chu Tingchang's headquarters, he never informed the command of the 5th Army of all the information, but he did not expect that Chu Tingchang's own reconnaissance unit had penetrated deep into the enemy's territory, and also sent back first-hand information to determine the location of the enemy's hoarding of chemicals*.

Commander Chu Ting asked the 14th Air Force, which is stationed in Kunming, the closest to Minawang Airport, to reserve bombers and runways at any time, but not to alarm the enemy before the enemy concentrates all chemical *, lest the enemy be frightened and change his strategy. The US military still conducts routine aerial reconnaissance of the airfield once in the morning and once in the afternoon, conducting aerial photography, and has not increased the number of reconnaissance operations.

On the afternoon of the next day, the US P38 reconnaissance plane had just left. Xu Chong discovered the dense communications near the enemy's airfield and the assembly of fuel tankers, which was obviously a precursor to the landing of a large group of aircraft.

The KI45 modified light bombers of the 1st Field Supplementary Flying Group and the 70th Independent Flying Group directly under the 3rd Air Force stationed in Da Nang, Vietnam, landed at Minawang Airport after the departure of the US reconnaissance plane. This is the Japanese Army's newest night bomber, but the range is shorter, and if the bomb takes off from Vietnam, it can barely reach northern Burma, but technically, there is not enough time to find the target area. Therefore, Kimura drew up this plan through the headquarters of the Third Air Force directly under the Southern Army. Since the 5th Flying Division, which was assigned to the Burmese Front, was not used, the secrecy of the operation was comparable to that of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and of course it could not be concealed from Xu Chong and Chu Tingchang.

Xu Chong continued to reconnoiter in hiding and simultaneously reported the enemy's landing and refueling and bombing. It is expected that the preparatory operation may be completed in a few hours, and the bombing mission may be carried out tonight. However, at this time, 18 B25 bombers of the US military were already on the way. Kunming is only 600 kilometers away from here, in fact, you can reach it as soon as you lift your legs.

Xu Chong was still lurking nearby, and his last task was to observe the battlefield and assess the effects of the bombing, and considering the danger of the poison, he hid far away in the northwest mountains to avoid the downwind.

He was in the same position where the American bombers were coming, with his back to the setting sun, watching the Japanese busy and thinking that he had a plan. Listening to the roar of engines in the clouds, seven or eight P40 fighters as escorts and observers swooped down and attacked the tanker trucks parked on the side of the runway.

The P40 aircraft were all veterans of battle, and a lot of tracer rounds were added to the ammunition. In the first round of strafing, all the fuel tankers on the side of the runway were destroyed, and the airport was caught in flames for a while. The fire ran down the oil pipes towards the bombers, and several more bombers were quickly reimbursed.