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Volume 1 On the Songhua River Chapter 1485 Tragic Bait

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    Lieutenant General Chelsea, the commander of the British Army's Eastward March in India, is obviously in a good mood these days. He is very kind to his subordinates and has restored the polite temperament of a British gentleman.

    Adams's telegram was not of no use at all. At the very least, it aroused the alert of Lieutenant General Chelsea. For him, it no longer mattered whether he marched eastward to Xiduo in the Hukang Valley to rescue Alexander's troops who were surrounded.  Whether it was a trap or not, I reminded myself that the war situation in East India has changed. The Chinese are indeed advancing westward as Alexander said. The future battlefield is obviously not in West Dou, but on the Imphal front.

    The speed of troop assembly is obviously quite satisfactory to the Commander. Troops from southern India are gathered at Bokaro, Saifpur and Jinhati. Troops from western India are gathered at Dhaka and Khulna.  Assembling directly to Imphal saves a lot of time, and accordingly reduces the logistical pressure on Imphal. The food, drink and camping of 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers is not a small sum.

    Because Imphal is the headquarters of the Eastward Army, more troops have been assembled. So far, there are two troops, most of which have arrived here. The strength of Imphal has reached more than 28,000  people, but this is obviously not enough to stop the Chinese's attempt to invade East India. This small amount of troops cannot even form a decent line of defense.

    Compared with Imphal's several hundred kilometers of border facing the India-Myanmar border, two divisions that were not fully staffed were far from enough. Therefore, Lieutenant General Chelsea issued an order to defend the border in Simpson, Saudia, and Dinsuji.  As long as the troops assembled in Ya, Ramgarh and other places reach more than two-thirds of the establishment, they will immediately move to Imphal.

    According to Lieutenant General Chelsea's vision, before the ** division troops can eat Alexander's troops, he must gather at least five divisions with more than 60,000 troops on the Imphal front line to form the first line of defense.  The troops that arrived later formed a second line of defense. At this point, Chelsea's strategic direction.  It has completely shifted from rescuing Alexander's troops to defending the Japanese division troops from attacking East India.

    But this is not enough. Even if all the existing troops stationed in India are collected, there will only be about 100,000 troops, which is not a bad quality of soldiers. If you calculate it down.  At best, there are about 60,000 to 70,000 available troops. Chelsea looked at the force allocation table and felt guilty. He was not sure whether the Chinese had the ambition to invade East India.

    But his overall strategic deployment must focus on this possibility becoming a reality. The Imphal Defense Line requires a large number of troops to fill the gap.  But there are only so many troops on hand.

    After weighing the pros and cons, Chelsea Lieutenant General.  In the name of the Commander of the Eastward March Army of the Indian Army, a letter was issued to the Governor-General of India to recruit all reserve soldiers in India, including the semi-military National Guard, into the field force sequence. Before the end of May, a force must be formed.  A second-line army of about 250,000 men marched towards the Imphal defense line.

    As for where so many soldiers came from, this is not a matter for Lieutenant General Chelsea to consider, but a matter for the British Empire Governor in India.  Chelsea now has a dual identity. On the one hand, he is an imperial envoy with a constitutional mandate, and on the other hand, he is a powerful general with military power. Even the Governor of India will look at his face if the Governor does not cooperate.  The Chelsea lieutenant general wouldn't mind changing partners.

    By May 19, the number of British and Indian troops assembled in Imphal had reached more than 39,000. On the same day, Tang Qiuli, who was in the small town of Luhatin, received the intelligence sent by Chu Tian.  "The division pointed out that our special operations detachment has detected that the British and Indian troops assembled in Simpson, Saudia, Dinsukiya and Ramgarh are heading to Imphal without waiting for all the assembly to be completed. The specific reason is,  The investigation is continuing.¡±

    Chief of Staff Zhao Yuhe had his own judgment on this intelligence. He said to Tang Qiuli: "Commander, based on the intelligence of Captain Chu, can we make the following judgments about the British-Indian Army's Eastward March Army?"  Due to the crisis in Alexander's army, after only gathering nearly half of the troops, there is an attempt to go to the Cido battlefield to rescue Alexander before all the troops are assembled? "

    Tang Qiuli shook his head and said: "This is not the case. The troops of the eight brigades directly under the Corps marched with great fanfare for a whole day and night along the left bank of the Hukang River Valley. No matter how lost Alexander was, he would still be able to judge the direction of our action.  He will not fail to send a warning to Chelsea. Regardless of whether Chelsea believes Alexander¡¯s warning, at least he understands that Sido is no longer important.¡±

    "Furthermore, Chelsea should be aware that Sido may be a trap. If his troops rush over in a hurry, there may not be any good results. This is another new change. Looking at Chelsea's deployment, he wants to be on the front line in Imphal.  Build a line of defense to block us, Yuhe, the only place where we have an advantage is the seven brigades that entered the East India region in advance. So far, no targets have been exposed.?¡±

    "The key to the East India Campaign is that the British and Indian troops cannot be dispersed. The most ideal effect is to gather them together and annihilate them. Can the seven brigades of the Sulu Mobile Corps, which have penetrated deep into the central region of the Indian continent, be able to defeat the enemy?  Before Chelsea realized it, encircling Dhaka, Khulna and other places was the key to the East India campaign. If this step was taken well, it would be equivalent to closing the door from East India to the interior of India. Chelsea would have no chance to escape.  "

    Zhao Yuhe said: "Commander, I still don't understand. Could it be that the British just sat back and watched Alexander be wiped out by us? The purpose of forming the Eastward Army was to rescue Alexander, but they gave up like this. How could the British be willing to do so?"

    Tang Qiuli smiled sarcastically and said: "So what if you don't give in? Alexander was besieged in Xiduo and it was a dead end. There was no way to save him. Chelsea was still very smart. He was worried about repeating Alexander's mistakes, so he changed the battle.  The deployment is to change from advancing eastward to rescue us to blocking our westward advance to East India. This is safer. Didn't you see that he is desperately gathering troops to Imphal? He is trying to build a blocking defense line on the Imphal front. "

    By this point, Zhao Yuhe had fully understood that the division commander had already anticipated this by adjusting the battle deployment in a timely manner and ordering the troops to separate and encircle the five British-Indian army assembly areas close to the interior of India.

    Tang Qiuli continued: "I am only worried about one thing. The seven brigades that penetrate deep into the interior of India travel long distances from the direction of Ledo, Sujia, Jamai, and New Taiji. The troops do not carry heavy equipment to fight tough battles.  At that time, I am afraid I will suffer a loss, so I can only let Le Yiqin's aviation force provide aerial fire support. Fortunately, the British and Indian troops are some second-rate troops, not a hard nut to crack. If we fight the Japanese army, I will never  He knows how to make such a dangerous move!"

    Zhao Yuhe said with a smile: "Commander, you don't have to worry about this. Commander Le has sent a telegram that his bombers and fighter units are ready. They are just waiting for the division commander's order to blow several targets into rubble.  Ground troops clear the way!"

    Tang Qiuli also smiled and said: "This Le Yiqin's eyes lit up when he heard about the war. However, in the previous air battle in northern Myanmar, he killed the British and Indian air forces in advance.  For the ground forces, a major threat has been solved. Regarding Yuhe, when will the three brigades of the Sulu Mobile Corps transferred from Xiduo arrive at Luhadin? "

    Zhao Yuhe replied succinctly: "According to their current driving speed, they will arrive here before six o'clock tomorrow evening at the latest."

    Tang Qiuli suddenly smiled and said: "Yuhe, order the troops directly under the corps to march westward to East India to advance with great fanfare, but not too fast, so as to attract Chelsea's attention and cover the Sulu Mobile Corps.  "

    "Also, I ordered Deputy Division Commander Tang, Alexander's unit has lost its role as a decoy, and killed the troops in Xiduo on the spot. As for fighting like this, the Xiduo Battle Headquarters will decide on its own. After the battle, the troops  Head west immediately!"

    By now, both Tang Qiuli and Chelsea have a general understanding of the opponent's deployment. Chelsea turned offense to defense and built a defense line in Imphal. Relying on the British's deep foundation in the Indian continent, Chelsea defeated the enemy.  It was a smart move to keep the troops out of the East India region, but Tang Qiuli's early layout would become a fatal move.

    At noon on May 19th, at Xiduo in the Hukang River Valley, the headquarters of Lieutenant General Tang Qiusheng, deputy commander of the ** Division and commander-in-chief of the Xiduo campaign, and chief of staff Yu Guanghan hurriedly walked in, "Deputy division commander, received the division's instructions.  Emergency call, Alexander's troops have lost their role as bait, order us to annihilate them on the spot, and then the troops will immediately move westward! Make your own decisions on combat deployment!"

    Tang Qiusheng was not surprised. When Tang Qiuli ordered the eight brigades of the directly affiliated corps to march westward blatantly along the left bank of the Hukang River Valley, without fear of exposing his intentions, he already realized that there was nothing to delay the Xiduo battlefield.  It makes sense.

    Alexander and the tens of thousands of British and Indian remnants have completed their mission. From the bottom of their hearts, with six well-equipped field brigades of more than 100,000 troops, they attacked and were besieged for three days, losing all heavy equipment and tanks.  , the morale dropped to the lowest point, and the tens of thousands of British Indian troops were sitting there waiting to be killed. Even a peaceful man like Tang Qiusheng could not cheer up.

    According to Tang Qiusheng's thinking, there is no need to engage in a big fight in this battle. Alexander is already a ripe melon that will fall off at the first touch. It may be better to solve it in another way. His way is to persuade him to surrender.

    Of course, if you want Alexander and tens of thousands of British and Indian soldiers to surrender willingly without any sense of resistance, they must show their due strength and be deterred. What soldiers believe in is strength. In the face of absolute strength, any luck or conspiracy will be ignored.  Power fraud is a meaningless joke.

    What Tang Qiusheng had to do was to make Alexander and his officers and soldiers tremble and urinate when they saw it.A big scene that makes you feel forbidden.

    (To be continued) (To be continued Piaotian) This work is recommended by registered literature members
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