Chapter 139: Britain Will Be

The United Kingdom bowed its head to the Japanese once again.

Singapore had already surrendered once, and in Myanmar, the humiliation played out again.

Yalishanda this time did not lead the British out of the predicament; instead, he himself became a captive of the Japanese, with no chance to escape.

It wasn't only Yalishanda; Myanmar Army commander William Joseph Sili Mu, the British‑Myanmar First Division commander Major General Si Kaote, the British‑India 17th Division commander Major General Shi Mi Si… almost all senior British officers stationed in Myanmar were captured alive by the Japanese.

This is utterly absurd, a joke in world military history.

Sun Liren and Liao Yaoxiang learned from the British liaison that Yalishanda had already surrendered, which strengthened their resolve to forgo rescue and flee quickly.

Moreover, Japanese forces were pressing on their rear, so they could only choose the British side and grit their teeth to head for India. It was unavoidable; otherwise they would rather brave a hail of bullets to head home.

The United Kingdom placed a liaison in every division of the Expeditionary Force, calling them liaisons but actually monitoring every move of the Chinese Army, and stubbornly refused to let the Expeditionary Force enter British defensive zones, causing a huge information gap.

To verify the situation, Sun Liren asked that British liaison to contact the British headquarters at Jialiva every hour. As a result, three whole hours passed with no reply.

At that moment, Sun Liren realized that the British forces at Jialiva were likely doomed.

What they hadn't imagined was how quickly and decisively the British could surrender. They still possessed a weapons advantage, and their withdrawal time was far earlier than the Japanese pursuit! They had every reason to escape the Japanese chase, perhaps even having already reached India.

That was an Anglo‑Myanmar force of over thirty thousand!

Of course, part of it were Myanmar and Indian soldiers, but even if it were thirty thousand pigs, they shouldn't surrender to the Japanese!

Because the Japanese forces pursuing to Jialiva, according to reconnaissance, amounted to only a single regiment!

A regiment of just over three thousand chased thirty thousand, and even captured Yalishanda, the commander‑in‑chief, alive—a disgrace of unprecedented humiliation!

If it were a frontal assault, this British force might have broken through the Japanese line with superior firepower. Instead, they were like a herd of slaughter‑bound pigs, trapped at Jialiva, waiting foolishly. They probably hoped the Expeditionary Force could once again achieve a Ren'ankiang great victory and save them from peril.

But they had no idea that the Expeditionary Force had grown cold‑hearted and no longer wanted any entanglement with them.

"They're literally a bunch of pigs! A bunch of pig, pig, pig!"

Stilwell, upon learning the news, was so angry that he stomped around the shabby Jeep, cursing, even spitting out hometown profanity.

Indeed, even the usually eccentric Stilwell now thought the British were pigs—a truly unbelievable bunch of pigs. He watched the map as the British marker was engulfed by the Japanese encirclement, his eyes full of despair and contempt.

Thousands of miles away in London, the office at 10 Tangning Street was suffocatingly oppressive.

Prime Minister Churchill was holding a glass of brandy, hoping for even the slightest good news from the Southeast Asian front to lift the nation's sagging morale. Yet the urgent telegram on his desk struck like a heavy slap, brutally slapping the aged face of the United Kingdom.

Yalishanda was captured.

The famed commander who once led the Dunkirk evacuation, the highly‑esteemed commander of the Myanmar garrison, failed to mount any decent resistance, and led tens of thousands of troops and senior officers into captivity as Japanese prisoners.

The successive defeats, from Singapore's fall to Myanmar's collapse, gave Churchill an unprecedented sense of frustration. He looked at the Cuban cigar in his hand, once richly aromatic, now tasteless and even a bit bitter.

"War—how exactly should it be fought?" the corpulent British prime minister muttered, a flash of bewilderment in his eyes.

But as the indomitable old fox who weathered political storms, after a brief slump he promptly made a decision. He seized the red direct line and, in a stern voice, ordered the Governor of India, Wei Weier, "Do not surrender! Order the British forces in India to defend India resolutely, give no ground! Do not let the Japanese advance and seize India!"

His reasoning was ample and fearful: once the Japanese army seized India, they would cross the border and link up with Rommel's German forces in the North African desert at the Persian Gulf. That would be the Axis' ultimate triumph, the end of the United Kingdom.

Thus, India was Churchill's final bottom line, the last genuine gem on the United Kingdom's crown.

From start to finish, he never had confidence in the Chinese Army, even despising this poorly equipped force at his core. In his view, the Chinese Army were merely cannon fodder to bleed the Japanese, buying time for the British forces in India to prepare, or merely limp on in India.

One could say that from the outset, the Expeditionary Force's entry into Myanmar doomed it to a tragic end. The reasons were tangled, but the most fatal was the chaotic command structure.

In the early stage of the Myanmar campaign, actual command lay with Du Yuming. However, because Du Yuming and the perpetually errant Stilwell developed an irreconcilable clash, the Chongqing side had to send Luo Zhuoying to coordinate command. Yet Luo Zhuoying was merely a mouthpiece, obeying Stilwell unquestioningly.

Such chaotic command directly led to disastrous consequences.

As the Chinese Expeditionary Force's elite ace, the 200th Division acted like a fire brigade, shuttling between the east and west fronts. One day to rescue the British, the next to execute Stilwell's so‑called 'meeting battle', yet it was never placed at a genuine strategic priority.

The 200th Division, under the Japanese aerial and artillery three‑dimensional onslaught, achieved an astonishing exchange ratio of 'one for two'!

Such an elite unit, used for this meaningless rush, was a dereliction of duty by its commander, even bordering on crime. It caused the Expeditionary Force's sharpest blade to lose its crucial edge, gradually dulling.

Moreover, the hopeless disparity in weapons. The Japanese army was well‑equipped, with hundreds of army aircraft overhead that blocked the sun and held air superiority. Neither the aircraft promised by the Americans nor those pledged by the British were seen by the Expeditionary Force. The American planes had long since flown to India's Yingpar to protect the British.

American‑promised aid supplies? Scant.

It's not that the Americans gave nothing; the artillery they supplied was considered negligible by both British and American eyes. Ironically, a batch of American guns sent to Yangon was partly redirected by the British to the North African front against the Germans, while the rest stayed in Yangon and ultimately became Japanese spoils.

Meanwhile, the Military Commission in Chongqing remained completely unaware of all this, still fantasizing about allied 'friendship'.

If Jiang Anguo had not existed in this world, the Expeditionary Force's fate would have been sealed: retracing history's path, crossing Wild Man Mountain, traversing the northern Myanmar jungle dubbed 'Green Hell', and succumbing to hunger, disease, and insects, bodies strewn everywhere.

But now, everything has changed.

Jiang Anguo was nailed to Lashu, and the moment the first loss at Bamo Myitkyina occurred, he immediately recaptured the key northern Myanmar strongholds, forcibly turning the tide. He opened an absolutely safe main artery for the Expeditionary Force's retreat.

Moreover, Lashu, Bamo, and Myitkyina—the three most vital northern Myanmar strongholds—are now all under Jiang Anguo's control. In other words, the lifeline of northern Myanmar lies within the Expeditionary Force's grasp.