Chu Tingchang also specially borrowed a British transport unit of 200 people from Wingate, dismantled it, and distributed it to dozens of grain collection teams.

He couldn't bear to rob the houses of the common people and ask for food, and the British had to come forward and the Kachin people could do it, so that the Burmese would subconsciously judge that the British had instructed the Kachin to do it. Although, in principle, these Burmese are accomplices of the Japanese army and deserve to be punished.

The long-driving Zhou Youfu forces came to a halt for the first time north of Mandalay, and new intelligence suggested. A main Japanese wing armed with 47 mm anti-aircraft guns stood in the way, and he had to reconnoiter and wait for the order of Chu Tingchang, who originally intended to take Mandalay on the march, and if the enemy was prepared, he was not prepared to fight hard.

A platoon of Stewart tanks sent by Zhou Youfu attacked forward at noon under the cover of infantry. The villages on the way forward were already depopulated, and it was clear that the enemy was prepared to implement the strategy of clearing the wilderness with strong walls first. The troops slowly approached, waiting for the encounter to take place.

When the tank commander saw the enemy's well-camouflaged anti-aircraft guns with a telescope and the Japanese commander who was also staring at him with a telescope, the enemy started to shoot, and the platoon commander was destroyed in his car, but each member fled with wounds. Several other tanks were also completely damaged.

The enemy used a new type of chargeless kinetic energy*, which allowed them to easily penetrate the front armor of the Stuart, but the lack of charge also allowed the wounded tank to retreat. The front-line soldiers described that they had not seen such a group of Japanese soldiers with brand new uniforms and good complexions for a long time. It can be described as white and chubby.

It is estimated that they are Japanese troops who have just been transferred from the north and have not yet been starved. If the British intelligence is correct, a main wing arrives.

Chief Chu Ting had already analyzed the possible situation, Mandalay was the army-level headquarters of the enemy's side, and the convenience of relying on the Mandalay Railway, so he felt that the time was not yet ripe to capture Mandalay.

So Chu asked Zhou Youfu to give up attacking Mandalay, turned to the northeast, raided Longling, rescued the 74th Army, and opened the Lashio communication line. Mandalay was left to Tao Mingzhang and himself, and Tao Mingzhang's 201st Division had not had time to come, but it was just enough to let the American planes bomb it for a few days. He also had a bit of a head for the solid goal of attacking fortifications, but it was a pity that Du Yuming gave up here easily and did not use the fortified city to defend it for a while. He now had to wait a few more days for the temporary road in the rear to bring up the heavy artillery, but it seemed difficult.

Inside the Ava Palace in Mandalay, Hyotaro Kimura is determined not to flee but to wait for the enemy to come, and his reinforcements are coming through the newly built Ava Iron Bridge. Terauchi Shouichi sent some second-line troops transferred from Chinese mainland here, and finally did not forget to mobilize a main division to support him. The 4th Division is the best at attacking and defending, and will definitely not let the opponent take advantage, especially strengthening a lot of new anti-tank guns. The commander of the division, Lieutenant General Sekihara, boasted that his new 47-mm anti-aircraft gun had great superiority and could destroy any tank in the world within 200 meters. At present, it is the 8th Wing, the most elite of the division, that guards the northern gate of Mandalay.

At noon, there was a small battle on the front, and the 47-mm guns tried their skills and destroyed one enemy tank. Anticipating that the enemy would storm after nightfall, Sekigahara personally inspected every line of defense in front of him. The Burmese spies kept sending information that the enemy group was stopped in place, as if they were preparing something, which strengthened his previous judgment. A few hours later, he observed smoke rising in the distance, and he expected the offensive to begin, but did not wait for the enemy to attack.

Zhou Youfu's troops received the order and turned around and headed north. Before taking away, he deliberately released smoke to trick the enemy into entering the surface position so that American planes could bomb it. It happened that the 4th Division had lived on the mainland for a long time, and its awareness of dodging bombing was very weak.

Chu Tingchang is well versed in the gist of tank warfare, which faces many dead places, cities, mountainous areas, minefields, and fortified areas...... And so on. For a good commander, the maneuverability of the tank is a more important part than the ability to attack fortifications. He will not throw valuable tanks into the war of attrition in the city.

Lieutenant General Sekigahara did not wait for the tanks to attack the city, but for the American bombing, and during the bombing, his personnel craned their necks to see that the enemy planes were here to drop paratroopers (Kimura has been instilling the nonsense that the enemy will use paratroopers to attack Mandalay with tanks).

40 B17 bombers bombed the splendid Ava Palace as the center, and carried out indiscriminate bombing, leveling the 500-year-old palace and positions outside the city. The 5th Flying Division, attached to the Burmese Front, fought back, and the pilots found it difficult for Ki43 fighters to cope with a heavy bomber formation with fighter escorts. The unit, again at the cost of losing 5 aircraft, looked at the enemy planes in the group, and several planes returned home with injuries.

At Cape York, Australia, two elite Japanese divisions finally landed on the Cape York beachhead under the cover of the fire of several heavy cruisers. Since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Japanese army launched no less than 20 large-scale landing operations, but never seriously developed a ship suitable for landing. The landing capacity also stayed at a low level of boat transshipment.

Before the capture of the port, the Japanese still used sampans as a landing vehicle and could not carry heavier weapons than mortars ashore. Standing in front of them was the 3rd Australian Division. The Australian troops put up stubborn resistance using strong forts. The Japanese air support units again behaved poorly, were thrown in the wrong place, and could not support the beachhead troops from the rear in time. However, the 5th Division, known as the Steel Army, relied on huge casualties to fight its way out, but the port facilities had long been blown up by the Australian army.

Yamashita waited for news from ahead in Moresby, looking very calm, and the rising casualty figures could not shake his resolve. The troops did not report the enemy's panic, and he knew that there would be no more mass surrenders, and that every step forward would come at a huge cost.

Just as he was about to transfer the headquarters as planned, someone suddenly sent an urgent telegram from the base camp, he thought it was an important order, but he didn't understand the content of the telegram after reading it several times.

The telegram asked him to personally supervise the search for a suspicious figure named Kensaku Makino, and if he was caught, he must be transported to Tokyo by army bomber. He felt that Tojo was funny again, and he was going to do these inexplicable things again. Yamashita has fallen out of favor in the center for many years, and he doesn't have a good impression of Tojo. Because Tojo couldn't muster up troops and baggage, the plan to attack Australia was delayed again and again, and 10,000 bicycles were also put together for a week, and he felt that Tojo lacked a wartime prime minister who could fully integrate domestic industry and resources, in short, he was a very mediocre guy.

He asked his subordinates, who had heard of Makino, and they all said that they didn't know him, maybe someone from the navy.

Yamashita had no time to deal with such a thing, he had to immediately board a plane and go to the front-line islands, ready to land in Australia at any time, and he handed over the matter of the base camp to the military police.

419 detected that the speed of the Fuso had slowed down to 9 knots, and it was clear that the water ingress below the waterline had not stopped, and the water ingress had reached the power compartment in a critical manner. Shu Ping assessed that if the Fuso could not continue to stop tilting, it would sink within 6 to 8 hours.

419 turned around and approached the suspicious Great Eagle. This aircraft carrier always kept a distance from the Japanese fleet, and the deck was also arranged strangely, and the several * aircraft on standby were not mounted *, but fuel tanks. The 419's drone was unable to observe the underbelly of the aircraft, but it captured the enemy's deck operations as the fuel tank was replaced.

All kinds of suspicious signs strengthened Lin Xiuxuan's judgment that Makino might be hiding on this ship, but he still had no tangible evidence, because the ship had not sent any telegram so far. The rest of the Japanese fleet should not have known its location. It didn't look like it was part of the fleet at all, but it was following the fleet. Chiyodagami's telegram describing the failed launch was repeated over and over again, apparently to tell someone nearby and not knowing if they were listening. According to the communication, the ship's technicians suspected that water vapor corrosion had caused the failure of key components.

Lin Xiuxuan suddenly came up with an idea, he thought that he could simulate Chiyoda's communication and send some fake messages to the big eagle to see how it reacted.

Cheng Dayang was not afraid of the idea of being a maverick, he felt that this plan was feasible, and the political commissar thought that it might also surprise the snake, and finally passed the plan two to one. Lin Xiuxuan immediately drafted a telegram and sent it to the Great Eagle using the Chiyoda channel.

The cable said that the Chiyoda, which had just been ambushed by an American submarine, was slowly sinking, and was currently evacuating its crew and waiting for the fleet to send a destroyer to rescue the personnel. The telegram deliberately did not mention the parts that might have failed, and he knew that if Makino was nearby, he would be restless.

On the Great Eagle, Makino really couldn't sit still when he received this telegram, because this telegram only mentioned that the crew fled for their lives, and did not mention that they would take away important data, especially the altimetry module of the Sakura bomb, according to the previous description, it is likely that it is the device problem of this thing, which caused * to cross the target and fail to hit, so this thing on the No. 3 and No. 4 bombs that did not shoot out must be removed and brought back for inspection, otherwise the meaning of trial and error for this failure will not exist, and the development cycle of * will be greatly delayed. But these were big, heavy and bulky creatures, and he feared that the crew would forget to take them with them when they escaped.

The ship would soon sink, and Makino couldn't hold it back, and immediately asked the telegraph office to send a message immediately, reminding Chiyoda that no matter what the cost, he must also ensure that the key items are brought back to Port Moresby.

After Makino handed over the drafted telegram to the telegraph room, he suddenly realized that something was wrong. The emergency evacuation plan for Chiyoda and Chitose in the event of an attack was formulated by him, and it is said that everything will be carried out in accordance with the regulations.

The captain of Beppu he had seen a few times, was a particularly calm guy, since the ship was sinking slowly, why did he send a panicked telegram for help? The lifeboats on the Chiyoda are 120 percent staffed and are designed to transfer critical equipment in case of an emergency.

-----

Hello everyone, a few days off for the National Day. Also, according to my outline, the story won't drag on for much longer.