Chapter 156: White Bones in the Northern Myanmar Downpour

The combat aircraft vanished in an instant.

A full two days! Jiang Anguo, because he was caring for Dai Anlan and hesitating, completely missed two days! The Japanese Army had already withdrawn for two days—that is forty‑eight hours—enough for them to put a great distance between them.

Among them, only Song Feiyu's air squadron carried out a single bombing mission; the subsequent attempts were impossible to launch combat aircraft due to Myanmar's unique weather—rain, heavy fog, extreme conditions.

Especially that massive downpour: the runway was flooded, visibility was extremely low, forcing a combat aircraft to take off would be suicide.

From high altitude you can't see the ground at all, but to discern ground movements you must lower the aircraft's altitude; then the problem arises—northern Myanmar's terrain is full of hills and high mountains, and a careless aircraft can easily crash into a hill.

To compensate for the lack of ground reconnaissance, and to support two pursuit units, Jiang Anguo deliberately equipped each unit with a large number of hunting dogs.

The number equipped even sank to the Squad level. In jungle pursuit battles, even the best hunter's intuition and experience can't match a hunting dog's nose.

Rain doesn't affect a hunting dog's nose, but the lingering scents in the air are washed away by the downpour.

That's also unavoidable; the system‑provided personnel allocation for the Independent Regiment is already at full strength, almost forming a reinforced division. Apart from logistics and support staff, combat personnel have long been assigned. Otherwise, Jiang Anguo would have to Exchange a few jungle‑war experts from the system to lead the team.

Since there's no room to think about personnel composition, the only place to innovate is the hunting dogs.

A company of 160 men was directly equipped with 20 professionally trained hunting dogs.

Within a brief half‑hour, all pursuit units had already assembled, morale soaring.

This time, Jiang Anguo also set aside all his petty tasks and decided to lead the team himself. He took half of the Guard Company's men and pursued thereafter.

Jiang Anguo's Guard Company numbered as many as 500, all elite of the elite. This time he led half of them in the pursuit, while the other half stayed at the Zai An position to assist Lin Yi in defense.

That effectively handed the remaining half of the Guard Company to Lin Yi's command.

Before departure, Jiang Anguo called Lin Yi over.

"Lin Yi, from now on, Lashu is entirely under your charge. I now formally appoint you as the Deputy Regiment Commander of our Independent Regiment."

Lin Yi was stunned, pointing at his own nose, at a loss: "This! Regiment seat, I… can I do it?"

"You can do it!" Jiang Anguo patted his shoulder, his gaze firm. "During this period, your logistics work has been outstanding, evident to all. Lashu currently has no large‑scale field missions; your tasks are to train the soldiers and fully handle intelligence work. The deciphered Code Book and those Japanese spies are all handed to you for interrogation."

It must be admitted that although Lin Yi had rarely seen front‑line combat before and lacked experience in close‑quarters fighting, he possesses an astonishing talent for logistics, with meticulous thinking—that's his strength. Moreover, his collection and analysis of intelligence show a unique acuity.

Jiang Anguo was also very confident leaving Lin Yi to hold the position at Lashu.

In addition, Song Yu and Wang Fei were also left behind to assist Lin Yi in managing Lashu; both are capable commanders who can handle matters on their own.

Operations staff Yan Xing followed Jiang Anguo on this pursuit mission.

The current force distribution at Lashu is extremely complex.

The entire Lashu defense zone nominally fields over twenty thousand troops. Lin Yi must be responsible for the logistical support of these more than twenty‑thousand men, a very heavy task.

That doesn't even include the garrison forces at Bamo and Myitkyina; Jiang Anguo had previously left supplies there for Du Yuming.

Among them are Jiang Anguo's twelve thousand Independent Regiment troops, Dai Anlan's th Division remnants of six thousand, including the wounded—over two thousand injured. From the bloody battle in Tonggu to the retreat back to Lashu, the th Division has already lost one‑third of its strength, a gruesome cost.

There is also Hu Xianqun's tank regiment. Hu Xianqun's tank regiment was originally at full strength, but after reallocating forces at Lashu, part of the tank soldiers were assigned to the th Division, another part followed Du Yuming's main force toward Wild Man Mountain. Now the number remaining at Lashu is about two thousand; when fully staffed it had three thousand.

Elite units always have far more personnel than second‑ and third‑line forces, and their consumption is also greater.

In addition, there are two thousand rescued prisoners brought back by Long Wen Zhang, as well as various routed soldiers Jiang Anguo gathered along the way, and a portion of patriotic overseas Chinese willing to stay and aid the Expeditionary Force.

Because the fighting is intense, there's no specific time to conduct precise statistics.

Or one could say the troop movements are so frequent that some uncertainty arises. The actual number of forces is approaching twenty‑four thousand.

On the very day Jiang Anguo set out, scattered groups of three to five dozen routed soldiers trudged along the roadbed from the Myanmar highway toward Lashu.

They may have been scattered after a Japanese Army attack, hidden in the mountains, and only dared to emerge after seeing the Japanese withdraw, walking back along the road. They were ragged, like beggars.

Jiang Anguo merely assigned logistics personnel to allocate some food and water to them, then left them be. His primary task now is to pursue the Japanese Army; the main force cannot halt.

……

Soon after leaving the camp, a heavy rain poured down.

【8】 The rain was astonishingly heavy, as if the day had been pierced with a hole, water back‑flowing. With this rain, Lashu turned into a white haze; apart from the whooshing rain, nothing could be heard, visibility was poor.

The rain was astonishingly heavy, as if the sky had been pierced with a hole and the rain poured in back; with this downpour, the whole Lashu turned into a white blur, and apart from the swishing rain, nothing could be heard and visibility was poor.

Myanmar's rainforest is truly terrifying to the extreme.

During this pursuit, traces of Japanese Army activity began to appear along the roadside, but they were not stragglers; they were Japanese corpses.

Yet that sight made Jiang Anguo, accustomed to seeing the dead, feel a chill on his scalp and lingering dread; it was scarier than torturing Little Devils.

Those corpses emitted no odor—no, to be precise, not a single whiff of stink.

What Jiang Anguo saw were only rows of stark white bones, surrounded by countless densely packed, writhing leeches.

Those leeches, swollen with blood, were finger‑thick, hanging on the bones and swaying.

If it weren't for the shredded strips of Japanese uniform fabric and the distinctive steel helmet still clinging to the bones, Jiang Anguo would have suspected the skeleton had been dead for decades.

Obviously, these were wounded or sick Japanese left on the roadside during the retreat. They fell out of formation or were abandoned by comrades; in the hot, humid rainforest, in merely a few days—no, perhaps just one day—their bodies can be completely devoured by nature's decomposers.

This is the cruelty of jungle warfare: death leaves no whole corpse, sometimes not even bones.

"Regiment seat, the rain is too heavy; the road ahead is almost invisible."

A guard beside him shouted loudly, rain streaming down the brim of his steel helmet.

Jiang Anguo wiped the rain from his face, squinting as he looked ahead.

The telegram that Lin Yi finally deciphered, the one sent by the 56th Division, repeatedly contained the name Jin Gang Zong Si Lang, which means Watanabe Masao must have been injured; Jiang Anguo's system had not recorded any death points for the division commander.

The Japanese Army's temporary commander, Jin Gang Zong Si Lang, was still somewhat capable. He also feared the Expeditionary Force would pursue; although the retreat was frantic, it wasn't completely chaotic.

In fact, he had ample time to withdraw. Had Jiang Anguo not hesitated earlier, depriving the 56th Division of a precious two‑day breathing room, the current battle situation might be entirely different.