Chapter 539

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

After delineating the war zone, Lv Muzhi's primary duty was to eliminate the Japanese troops entrenched in Malaya.

On this matter, the British appeared quite proactive, while Lv Muzhi seemed rather "laid-back."

British General Mountbatten kept urging the Southeast Asia Theater to deliver a fatal blow to the Malay Peninsula.

Mountbatten's thinking was simple: as War Zone Commander, Lv Muzhi enjoyed the highest authority during wartime.

Only by ending Japanese rule on the Malay Peninsula as soon as possible could they move to abolish the Southeast Asia Theater, drive out Lv Muzhi, and the British could then justifiably resume their rule over the colonies.

However, Lv Muzhi was in no rush to launch strikes against the Japanese on the Malay Peninsula.

According to Lv Muzhi, the Malay Peninsula's terrain is long and narrow north-to-south, consisting entirely of coastline.

Once Lv Muzhi ordered an attack on the Malay Peninsula and forces pushed deep in, the Japanese could completely launch landing support from many spots along the coastline, and also provide naval gunfire support.

Japan had a powerful navy, while the Allies had no naval forces available to deploy in this vicinity.

They could only employ troops against the Japanese on the Malay Peninsula after the US Navy defeated the Japanese Navy's main force.

Therefore, Lv Muzhi withstood the British pressure all along, ordering all units within the theater to conserve their strength and await the opportune moment.

Due to the pacification of Burma, Lend-Lease materials from the US could flow unimpeded from India through Burma, finally reaching Xia Guo and Lv Muzhi's hands.

This was a good thing for Lv Muzhi and the Youth Army, allowing them to continuously strengthen their armed forces.

The British, meanwhile, continuously reinforced Burma from within India, ostensibly to bolster the Southeast Asia Theater's strength, but in reality constantly clashing with the Unity Party's guerrillas.

However, the friction and battles between the British and the Unity Party never escalated, because the Unity Party guerrillas in Burma were too numerous.

The British returned to Burma too late; Unity Party members had already taken root all over Burma.

In reality, the British were tied down in Europe and no longer possessed the strength to retake Burma from the Unity Party.

Therefore, seeing they could not win, the British attempted to "establish facts" and "reason things out," constantly asserting their colonial rights.

For these, Lv Muzhi and the Americans treated them as minor squabbles, generally smoothing things over; after all, the British couldn't stir up any real trouble.

Additionally, Lv Muzhi aided Zhongnan State in building many factories, many of which were branched off and transferred from factories in the Southwest; Zhongnan State's industrial system was filled with large numbers of technical personnel from Xia Guo, this being the Unity Party's reciprocation for accepting Xia Guo refugees.

In Thailand, Lv Muzhi backed Plaek Phibunsongkhram, presided over Thai disarmament, forcing officers opposing Major General Plaek Phibunsongkhram to step down;

Released Unity Party political prisoners within Thailand, allowing Unity Party politicians to legally step onto Thailand's political stage, even letting Unity Party politicians take power to govern Thailand;

Initiated land reform, boosting public favor for Plaek Phibunsongkhram, the Youth Army, and the Unity Party...

During this period, a major change also occurred.

The Old Man, citing unstable domestic conditions, recalled all Central Expeditionary Force units back to the country; Du Yuming, Dai Anlan, and others returned to Xia Guo with the army.

With Du Yuming and the others gone, the usable personnel at Lv Muzhi's disposal correspondingly decreased.

Lv Muzhi was unaccustomed to using British and Unity Party troops, believing his own people were still more reliable to use.

Therefore, to maintain a high proportion of Xia Guo troops in the Southeast Asia Theater, Lv Muzhi transferred Youth Army units from the Central Plains region, keeping the Southeast Asia Youth Army's army, air force, logistics personnel, etc., at around two hundred thousand.

The reason Lv Muzhi transferred troops from the domestic front was because the Japanese were also transferring troops from Manchuria to reinforce the Southeast Asia battlefield.

Because Lv Muzhi had wiped out large numbers of Japanese troops on the Indochina Peninsula, the Japanese faced immense military pressure, and the troops deployed to the Southeast Asia and Pacific battlefields became fewer and weaker.

Terauchi Hisaichi's Southern Army became a leaky mess; he holed up in the Singapore Naval Fortress, relying on the naval fleet to hold the Malacca Strait.

He scraped together over thirty thousand Japanese troops, stuffing them all into the 56th Division, garrisoned on the Malay Peninsula.

As for the Japanese garrisons on the Pacific Islands, they were also deteriorating by the day.

As a result, MacArthur's island-hopping tactics encountered very light Japanese resistance.

The Americans set out from the Solomon Islands, seized New Guinea from the Japanese, and then advanced toward the Philippines.

This Japanese war machine was draining its last potential; in the preceding days, the Japanese Navy had frantically expanded, and finally they decided to engage the Americans in a decisive naval battle at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.

At the Singapore military port, Terauchi Hisaichi watched helplessly as the last destroyer Yukikaze left the harbor.

To activate this naval battle, the Japanese even dispatched the Southern Expeditionary Fleet, originally assigned to Terauchi Hisaichi's Southern Army, to the Leyte Gulf battlefield.

The Japanese side went all out, committing 4 aircraft carriers, 9 battleships, 19 cruisers, 34 destroyers, and approx. 200 aircraft to the naval battle.

The Allied Forces led by the US committed 17 aircraft carriers, 18 escort carriers, 12 battleships, 24 cruisers, 141 destroyers, and 1500 aircraft to meet the challenge.

In this largest naval battle in human history, even with the Japanese going all out, they were at a disadvantage throughout.

In this battle, the desperate Japanese launched the Kamikaze Special Attack Units, initiating suicide attacks against US warships.

However, even with the Japanese exhausting all means, they still could not reverse the war's outcome.

The Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers in the naval battle.

It can be said the Japanese Navy's main force was completely lost, suffering a devastating blow, losing the ability to control the seas near the South Seas.

Following the US victory at Leyte Gulf, Lv Muzhi also began preparing to implement attacks on the Malay Peninsula.

Worth mentioning is that the Xia Guo domestic front also launched a counteroffensive against the Japanese.

Lv Muzhi discussed with the Old Man, deciding that the Central Government and the Youth Army would jointly send troops, launching the Jinling Campaign!

In this Jinling Campaign, Lv Muzhi proposed the Youth Army could deploy one hundred thousand troops, cross the river from Anqing, reach the South Bank of the Yangtze River, and then attack Jinling eastward.

The Central Government also attached great importance, approving the deployment of two hundred thousand Central Army troops, determined to retake Jinling in one vigorous push and wipe out past humiliation.

The Old Man had a few warships left moored at Hankou; for the sake of retaking Jinling, he dispatched all usable vessels to the battlefield.

Lv Muzhi also employed fifty of the latest P51 Mustang Fighters and fifty P-47 Thunderbolts aided by the Americans, simultaneously committing them to the Jinling Campaign.

The Japanese Navy suffered a crushing defeat at Leyte Gulf and faced the US Navy's relentless pressure; stretched thin, they found it difficult to divert sufficient vessels to the Yangtze for support.

The Japanese warships that could be dispatched to fight on the Yangtze were all small-tonnage, weak-firepower vessels, mostly destroyers and light cruisers.

Against these warships, the Youth Army implemented tactics of using aircraft to constrain warships, deploying P51 and P-47 fighters.

Youth Army fighter planes were hung with 500-pound aerial bombs one after another, launching wave after wave of attacks against Japanese Navy warships on the river surface.

The Xia State Central Government's Navy also dispatched surface forces led by the light cruiser "Ninghai", coordinating with torpedo boats and gunboats to attack Japanese Army warships from the river surface.

Ground forces launched a multi-pronged offensive against Jinling, with the Youth Army's armored troops as the fist, Central Government various units reinforcing, feinting, and striking from the flanks, forcibly initiating a decisive battle for Jinling.

Although the Japanese Army was unwilling to give up Jinling, a city of important strategic significance, continuously squeezing the country's young men onto the battlefield, after the Jinling Campaign was fought for over two months, facing the massively mobilized Xia State Army, the Japanese Army's national strength was nearly squeezed dry.

After suffering enormous losses, the Japanese Army finally withdrew from Jinling City!

The Youth Army was the first unit to enter Jinling City; after the various units entered the city, the officers unanimously went to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum on Zijin Mountain to pay respects to the late Prime Minister.

The old man in Hankou was very excited; upon hearing that Jinling had been recovered, he immediately sent a telegram to the frontline troops:

"Blow up that traitor Wang Ni's (Wang Jinwei's) grave for me!"

(Wang's nature is heinous, beyond dispute; there is no need to whitewash him, therefore his ending will not be modified.)

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Southwest of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Plum Blossom Mountain.

"This traitor Wang Ni really has the nerve to even bury himself next to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum; does he really think he has the face to meet Mr. Sun?!"

Before Wang Jinwei's grave, Qiu Qingquan lit a cigar, pointing at the tombstone with the lit cigarette butt and angrily scolded.

Beside Qiu Qingquan was Zhang Fei, also a Youth Army general.

Zhang Fei shook his head with a sigh: "Confused, truly confused."

"Back then this Old Wang was also in the limelight; where could one think he would end up like this today? I cannot understand why he became Xia State's biggest traitor."

"When I first met him, I truly could not tell he was that kind of person!"

Seven or eight engineers carried boxes of explosives past, then surrounded Wang Ni's semi-circular grave and began studying how to set the explosives.

Qiu Qingquan let out a cold snort: "Nothing more than seeing the War of Resistance fought for several years yet we still cannot completely defeat Japan; Wang Ni's already meager confidence was naturally shattered by the Japanese."

Zhang Fei nodded: "After the Wuhan Campaign, Wang Ni was increasingly marginalized in the Central Government; the Youth Army and Central Government fought each other, leaving no room for Wang Ni to interject; perhaps he could not accept the fact of being marginalized?"

Qiu Qingquan threw the cigar he had puffed a few times onto the ground: "Saying these things is useless now; hurry up and blow Wang Ni's grave flat; this kind of person is not worthy of being buried next to Mr. Sun!"

Finished speaking, Qiu Qingquan and Zhang Fei withdrew to a distance, leaving the Youth Army engineers responsible for blasting Wang Ni's grave.

The engineers spent several hours, blasting three times in succession, before blasting open the grave's concrete shell, then successfully removing the coffin.

Qiu Qingquan and Zhang Fei walked up close.

Zhang Fei kicked the concrete fragments on the ground with his foot: "Wang Ni made his grave like an iron turtle; it seems he was worried someone would dig up his grave."

Qiu Qingquan laughed heartily: "What use is that; does he think he is Qin Shi Huang? Open the coffin!"

The engineers quickly pried open the coffin; the first thing seen was Wang Ni's almost intact pale face, still wearing a top hat on his head.

Then, the Blue Sky White Sun Red Earth flag wrapped around Wang Ni's corpse came into everyone's view.

Qiu Qingquan stepped forward, yanked the flag off Wang Ni's body in one pull: "Pah! Bad luck!"

"This is also something you are qualified to cover yourself with?!"

Zhang Fei stepped forward to observe, saying: "Wang Ni's corpse underwent preservation treatment; surprisingly it has not rotted..."

Qiu Qingquan set the flag aside, saying: "Immediately send Wang Ni's corpse to Qingliang Mountain for cremation!"

Watching the soldiers carry away Wang Ni's coffin, Zhang Fei asked thoughtfully:

"Commander Lu sent a letter; from his letter, I can feel this war is about to end; I feel the recent trend is very wrong, as if another war is about to begin..."