Soon three B17 bombers took off from Mandalay Airport. Most of the pilots were retired soldiers hired from the Allied Forces and Southeast Asia. In addition to daily combat, they could also serve as instructors and trained a lot for Liao Mingyu.

Crew.

Eight F4U fighter jets followed closely to escort them. With the roar of the propellers, this aerial team loaded with ammunition rushed toward the battlefield.

In order to improve combat efficiency, Liao Mingyu split the Nankan Flying Group into two aviation groups some time ago. One is located in the Heihe base and is responsible for supporting the Honorable 30th Division, the New 50th Division and the 200th Division on the Yangon battlefield.

Wait for the troops.

Another former Japanese military airport located in Mandalay was directly responsible for handling all support requests from the New Army on the battlefield in Inrawady Province.

The original Nankan Flight Base was reduced to a logistics airport, used for supplies and pilot training grounds.

General tactical support instructions for fighter planes to dive bomb and cover the ground troops' attack do not need to go through the Heihe headquarters. The frontline regiment-level command units can contact the flying groups at the rear of their respective battlefields on their own. As long as the request is reasonable, it must be implemented immediately and there must be no

Excuses and excuses.

A mission like this to dispatch a bomber formation would require a direct order from the military headquarters.

The advantage of gaining air supremacy is this. You can fly over the enemy's head and bombard them wildly at any time and anywhere, as if entering an uninhabited land, but the opponent has nothing to do.

With the firepower configuration on the B17 bomber and the six escorting pirate fighter planes, as long as the Japanese army did not dispatch a flying group, they could basically come and go freely.

It's just that with the current situation of the Japanese army, even if they know the whereabouts of this bomber squad, they can't send decent fighters to intercept them. The only thing to pay attention to is their anti-aircraft weapons on the ground.

…

At this time, the Japanese army had no idea that a disaster was about to come. Due to the sudden incident, they had just packed up their gear and started marching to the northwest. They did not notice that there was a team of dozens of people following behind them.

The order given by the wing headquarters was very simple: rush to the appropriate position as soon as possible to launch artillery bombardment of the Chinese troops in front of the frontline positions. Now that the enemy has fully mobilized, this may be the signal for a general attack, so there must be no delay.

Tadayama Noboru was still worrying about where to set up artillery positions. The Chinese detachment that landed on the east bank of the Pasen River was stuck in his throat like a sharp thorn, making him restless all the time.

.Now I am worried that the other party will launch a sudden attack, or set up an ambush waiting for them to step in.

Forget it, I can't control that much anymore. After listening to the report from that Shaozuo, I guess that the number of the Chinese team was not large, and they also suffered some losses in the battle.

After all, he still has two full squadrons here, plus the people of the artillery brigade. As long as the defense work is done well, he is not afraid of a sneak attack by the other party. Tadayama Homo thought...

Those Type 99 mountain cannons were dismantled, and the heavy parts were carried by mules and horses, while the lighter parts were carried on the shoulders of soldiers. Due to the large amount of ammunition, the infantry under Tadayama Hobo also needed to help the artillerymen carry some ammunition.

The roads in the mountains and forests are not easy to walk, not to mention that with so much artillery equipment, the Japanese army did not dare to take the main road in order to conceal their whereabouts, but chose to walk through the woods. The difficulty can be imagined.

However, for the Japanese who have been "hardworking and hardworking" for a long time, this trivial matter is not worth mentioning. They have been living like this for the past month.

It is not wrong to describe the Japs as opportunists. This group of people is just running around on the battlefield with artillery barrels, going wherever artillery support is needed, and immediately dodging after a round.

Although they were a bit tired, it was due to their thieves' fighting style that they caused very heavy casualties to the attacking troops of the 201st Division of the New Army.

Every time the New Army massed artillery and air power to retaliate, the opponent hid in the woods again, and rough bombing had no effect at all.

Tadayama Hoso looked back behind him again, his uneasiness still disturbing his thoughts...

Except for the Chinese team hiding in the dark, which is a variable, there seems to be no other threat to their existence, and it is hard to say whether that team has discovered them.

But this vague sense of crisis really made him uneasy.

The location selection of the Japanese artillery positions was also very particular. Not only did they have to pay attention to the range of the artillery, but they also had to consider whether it was suitable for artillery placement and whether it was convenient to retreat and transfer after the first round of firing. Therefore, they did not find a suitable place so quickly.

.

More than half an hour passed quickly. At this time, the Japanese army had only moved a little more than two kilometers north.

However, judging from the location, it was only less than 6 kilometers away from the troops defending Gankidang on the front line. It seemed that the faint sounds of gunfire could be heard. It was still barely possible to fire from this gun.

Since the order from the wing headquarters was urgent, Tadayama Hoso knew that the current situation must be very critical, so he did not bother to choose a better position, so he asked the artillery to choose a relatively flat dry riverbed as a position.

Then he asked the infantry teams to spread out and establish a defensive line, ready to guard against possible enemy raids at any time.

The soldiers of the reconnaissance company who were hanging far behind and following closely did not dare to get too close at this time to avoid being discovered.

Chen Xinmin secretly thought that it was a pity. The Japanese commander on the opposite side was too careful. In a short time, he deployed all the defensive forces to the south, and there were firepower points at high places nearby. It was difficult to get close.

"It's time to come, right?" Chen Xinmin murmured to himself, looking through the branches at the blue sky above his head.

I seemed to vaguely hear the roar of the aircraft engine, but there was nothing visible in the cloudless sky except the dazzling sunlight.

In fact, the bomber formation arrived over this area a few minutes ago, but due to terrain problems, it is difficult to find the specific location of the enemy artillery from the sky.

Looking down, most of it is lush shrubs, and there are no signs of enemy fire, nor any signs such as smoke bombs or signal flares.

In order not to alert others, they did not lower their altitude for low-altitude reconnaissance. The pilots of the bombing formation were not sure of the situation, and they could not just bomb and leave. They could only hover here at high altitude and continue to wait for signals from below.

…

Time passed by, and about half an hour later, the Japanese artillery had assembled more than a dozen Type 99 mountain cannons.

The riverbed they were on had dried up for a long time due to the dry season, and instead of dripping water, it was filled with various shrubs and vines.

The Type 99 Mountain Cannon is low in size, has a short barrel, and has a large amount of hay as camouflage. As long as it does not fire, there is no need to worry too much about being discovered by aerial reconnaissance even after the combat body is deployed.

Although the engine sound of the B17 bomber is loud, there will be reconnaissance planes circling overhead at almost every time in the past two days. The Japanese army is used to this kind of sound and just thinks it is the enemy reconnaissance again.

As long as you seize the time and shoot two rounds, you can quickly move into the mountains even if you are discovered by the opponent, so you don't take it too seriously.

The artillerymen were adjusting their elevation according to the shooting elements, while Tadayama Hoso, who was standing on a nearby high ground, was still nervously watching everything on the battlefield.

"Inform the artillery to not fire for the time being and wait for my order." Zhongshan raised his hand to cover the sun and looked at the sky. The roars from the sky made him feel more and more uneasy.

"However, the Chinese have already begun to attack. The captain ordered us to fire immediately, if..." The liaison officer was puzzled as to why the captain, who had always followed the rules, suddenly issued such an order.

Moreover, now that the enemy has launched an attack on the frontline positions, if the artillery support is slow, the combat disadvantage will be small. If the position is lost, everyone will have to go to court martial.

"Baga! Don't I know? Execute the order and I will bear all the consequences!"
Chapter completed!