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Chapter 318 Fang Yue severely tricked the Japanese

Sichuan and Kang provinces have also recruited 5 new soldiers, directly reorganized them into the 3rd Army, and sent them to Shanxi Province for further training. They will also assist the 88th Army in preventing the Japanese from taking advantage of the war in Myanmar to attack Shanxi Province!

下辖装甲4师、机步7师、机步8师、摩步104师和炮兵4旅、防空4团。

装甲13团至16团，机步16团至20团，摩步110团至112团，自行炮10团至12团，炮104团。

The army commander is Li Zongsheng, former chief of staff of the 88th Army.

There is a characteristic of Xu’s army: there are no deputy positions in either the army or the division.

However, under Wei Li’s previous guidance, the deputy leaders of each group were sufficient!

Another point is that Xu Le also fulfilled his original promise. The group of people who initially led their men from Sichuan and Kang to join the army have all been promoted.

Fang Ce, Lin Jingyan, Tan Qiuzong, and He Weili all resigned from their positions as regimental commanders in the 1st Army and returned to Shanxi Province to serve as commanders of four divisions in the 3rd Army. Their military ranks were also successfully promoted to major general!

Kang Hankun, commander of the 101st Artillery Regiment, was also promoted to chief of staff of the 1st Army.

Jiang Botao, commander of the 1st Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, was also promoted to Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army.

Just when Xu Le returned to Shanxi Province to prepare weapons and equipment for the 3rd Army, the Japanese took action.

Led by its 2nd Air Fleet, 'Soryu' and 'Hiryu', with the 2nd Fleet as the main force and the 2nd Southern Expeditionary Fleet of the Southwest Fleet as the auxiliary force, with a total of more than 50 large warships and submarines and hundreds of transport ships, they converged in the Strait of Malacca and attacked Ceylon.

The Japanese were aggressive, but the remaining ships of the English Far East Fleet were hiding in North Africa and the few junk warships left in the Indian Ocean were instantly killed.

The Japanese broke through the British-Indian Allied Forces' coastal defense line, and then tens of thousands of main army forces landed on Ceylon.

Just as Ceylon fell, 10 Japanese troops in Imphal took the opportunity to advance westward.

The total strength of the British Indian Army at this time was close to 100 million, in addition to 60 deployed in southern India to prevent the Japanese from landing on the mainland from Ceylon.

Another 40 troops were almost all transferred to the northeast, which did help to stop the Japanese offensive, but it was only a slight effort.

......

Just when the Japanese were happy about occupying Ceylon, Terauchi Hisaichi and high-ranking officials of the Japanese headquarters were angry.

Because they had shipped two-thirds of the agreed supplies to Xu's army, and just when they were preparing to welcome 18 prisoners and give them the title of warriors to facilitate the subsequent mobilization on the mainland.

Wei Li's words made them furious: These supplies are just life-saving money. Our army can only guarantee not to kill them. If you want us to let them all go, you must transport the remaining one-third of the supplies over!

Feeling fooled, Terauchi Hisaichi immediately suspended the offensive against India and mobilized hundreds of artillery pieces from the 34th Division in Meiktila and other units to bombard the defense line of the 1st Army's 176th Armored Division in Mandalay.

The 1st Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment immediately used cluster shells to counterattack, and in less than 5 minutes, it reduced the hundreds of artillery positions that the Japanese had advanced to ruins.

At the same time, rocket-assisted bombs were used to bomb the Japanese rear, and dozens of trucks were turned into scrap metal.

At the same time, the 1st Armored Regiment, led by Zhu Zhaolan, charged nearly kilometers, breaking through several Japanese defense lines until they arrived outside the city of Meiktila. After almost all the shells in the tanks were used up, they returned to Mandalay along the same route.

This is like taking off your pants and shitting in front of the Japanese's door, but the Japanese can do nothing about it.

Because the Type 97 medium tanks they sent out to pursue them couldn't catch up at all!

Afterwards, Terauchi Juichi personally called Wei Li and said that his men had lost their way during a military exercise and accidentally fired artillery shells in the direction of Mandalay.

Wei Li also apologized embarrassedly, saying that he was also conducting an exercise and thought you were attacking, so he was forced to fight back.

Then the exercise was over and it was discovered that a soldier was missing from the army, so the armored regiment had to go out to look for him.

This scene looks so familiar. The Japanese invaders used this excuse to invade the three northeastern provinces.

This was just a superficial respect given by everyone. Terauchi Hisaichi finally understood that the Japanese Army had no chance of winning against Xu's Army.

The Japanese headquarters was also helpless. The news of the return of 18 "warriors" had already been released. If they said at this time that those people would not come back, it would probably cause shock to the whole country.

Therefore, Japan had no choice but to transport the remaining one-third of the supplies as Wei Li wished.

A few days later, when Terauchi Juichi personally took the lead in preparing to welcome the prisoners, Wei Li spoke again.

These prisoners have committed many evil deeds and unforgivable crimes, but our army, with an attitude of mercy and forgiving, is willing to help them cleanse their sins. It will only take one year, and we will return the 18 people to you in one year.

Only then did Japan realize that Xu's army had never intended to release the prisoners.

But they had no choice but to break their teeth and swallow them.

Hideki Tojo called out to the people: 18 brave warriors could not bear to return home without achieving any success, and chose to persist in fighting on the front line and only come back after achieving great military exploits in the future.

The Japanese people have always been under the guidance of the government, and Emperor Showa also came out to comfort the people, so the matter was barely dealt with.

However, the Japanese Ministry of Finance withdrew 30 billion yen out of thin air. In order to make up for the loss, they could only print more money and increase taxes on the private sector.

But a strange phenomenon occurred. Japan was not affected by the disappearance of these 30 billion or a large amount of resources. Production in major arsenals continued as usual, and a large number of Type medium tanks and trucks were shipped to the front line.

Keiko Yamaguchi learned some secrets through her own channels and conveyed them to Xu Le.

The Japanese Army has successfully developed two new types of tanks, which are now in mass production and have better performance than the Type 97 medium tank.

......

Xu Le didn't care much about these two tanks. Just like the Japanese's "Nakajima Type 3 Condor Fighter", no matter how they were made, it would be the same and would have no effect.

Instead, I praised Wei Li's approach. He had originally intended to just cheat the other two-thirds.

Unexpectedly, when he was away, Wei Li actually tricked the Japanese into sending the remaining one third.

At the same time, he was also shocked by his cousin. How brave he was to rush to Meiktila, which was heavily defended by the Japanese without any support, and come back unscathed.

They are worthy of being soldiers led by Liu Quanhua, they are so cruel!

But these are just small matters. He is now annoyed about the equipment of the two newly formed armies.

Including equipment such as radio stations, telescopes, rangefinders, etc., an ordinary armored division requires 350 million military merit points, a mechanized infantry division requires 300 million, a motorized infantry division requires 210 million, an artillery brigade requires 45, plus other expenses such as the directly affiliated air defense regiment, the consumption of an army corps reaches 1210 million.

After replenishing the equipment and ammunition of the two armies, the balance was directly reduced by half to 1665 million.

Not only that, the 2nd Aviation Brigade also needs to replace its fighter jets, 36 J-7s and replenish Thunderbolt missiles and 130 rockets, which will cost about 400 million.

However, when Xu Le contacted the Soviet diplomat stationed in Xu's army, the other party said that they would accept all of them at 8% off the original price, which did make up for it a little!

Since the pilots were classified, the original aviation brigade organization has been affected. There are the fewest fighter pilots, and most of them can only serve as transport pilots and bomber pilots.

Considering the battle situation, two brigades with a total of four bomber squadrons are far from enough. Moreover, the H-4 is a heavy bomber. It would be too troublesome to take off frequently to carry out campaign bombing, which would affect combat efficiency!

So after Xu Le discussed with Jiang Feng and Xu Tian, ​​they began to reform the Air Force!