Chapter 157: Stealth in the Storm

"This rain won't stop; halt the advance."

Jiang Anguo looked at the mud‑soaked, river‑like Small Road ahead, gritted his teeth and gave the order.

This is a kind of helplessness, but also a kind of reason.

Forcing a pursuit in such extreme, harsh weather carries too great a risk.

"All units, halt the advance! Find safe terrain here, establish a temporary defensive perimeter! Rest!"

The order was quickly passed down.

Jiang Anguo had no choice but to find a slightly higher, rock‑free safe spot and let the troops rest.

He dared not camp at the mountain foot, lest a landslide occur.

"Communicator, immediately contact Meng Shan over there, have them stay safe, don't overextend, keep the radio silent at all times, and report only on the hour."

Meng Shan, commander of the Fifth Regiment, trait: defense.

The Fifth Regiment, as the vanguard, moved to the Front.

"Yes!"

The scout, already clad in a raincoat and wielding a Flashlight, went ahead to recon. The downpour turned a stretch of road into a small mudslide, trees fell, the path was blocked. If they pressed on now, encountering a larger mudslide or flash flood would be suicide, not killing the enemy.

Rain kept falling. Jiang Anguo sat on a slick stone; here you could find no dry thing. He leafed through the documents he had stripped from Japanese Army corpses, hoping to find something useful.

"Wait, wait for the rain to stop; even if we chase to Yangon, we'll bite off a piece of the Quinary 56th 448th Regiment!"

After two months in Myanmar, until May was near, Jiang Anguo finally truly felt the suffocating terror of Myanmar's rainy season.

Previously it was hot and humid, but still the dry season. Now, with May approaching, the sky seemed ripped open, endless torrents pouring down.

In such conditions, even an extra weight becomes a burden, unless it's food.

He deeply understood that in this green hell, the most terrifying thing wasn't the enemy brandishing a Bayonet, but the rainforest itself.

This is a no‑go zone for life.

Poisonous mosquitoes never miss a chance to bite, ferocious beasts lurk deep in the jungle, and beneath the damp, dark leaf litter, leeches greedily suck blood everywhere.

Along the way, the Japanese Army corpses were the best proof. The once‑uniformed bodies now were just skeletal white bones, and between the hollow eye sockets and broken ribs lay countless round, black leeches. Those leeches, swollen with Little Japan's blood, looked like blood cells and made one's scalp prickle.

Yet that wasn't the worst.

The rainforest is like the legendary Hundred‑Thousand Mountains; once you stray from the designated Small Road, even a native of Myanmar or a lifelong mountain hunter may not find a way out.

The mountains devour one's sense of direction. No sun guides here; dense canopy blocks the sky, terrain twists like a maze, and the climate is ever‑changing.

Heavy rain impairs vision and hides the sun, thus affecting your sense of direction.

As a Southerner, Jiang Anguo thought northern Myanmar's weather overly extreme; now the northern weather is drizzle, heavy rain, and downpour.

When the rain stops, it becomes even more uncomfortable: humid, hot, with extremely high moisture in the air.

Yet at night, deep in the forest, temperature drops sharply, especially in northern Myanmar's high mountains, perhaps only a dozen degrees. Soldiers without fire‑making means often shiver through the long night.

And the most lethal thing is the miasma.

It is toxic gas produced by rotting plants and animal corpses fermenting in the humid heat, mixed with aerosolized pathogens. Inhaling it easily causes strange, terrifying diseases—malaria, dysentery, dengue fever—severe cases lead to poisoning and deep coma.

In this environment, a collapse essentially means death. Carrying a comatose person out of this primeval forest is a nightmare; the slick ground requires four or five, even more, people to take turns lifting. It drains stamina and can cripple the whole unit.

This explains why, in the original timeline, Du Yuming's twenty‑thousand troops, before entering Wild Man Mountain, had over a thousand immobile seriously wounded and sick soldiers who, in despair, chose self‑immolation. Better to retain a shred of military dignity than be gnawed by beasts or rot in agony.

The ancients said, "Cross the Lu in May, venture into barrenness." Zhuge Liang's southern campaign also ran into river miasma. Especially after May's rains, flash floods burst, rivers swell. Humans are tiny before nature and must revere the mountains and nature.

Jiang Anguo's troops, though the journey was hard, fortunately followed the Japanese Army's route.

Moreover, with Jiang Anguo's mobile depot, his troops never lacked supplies; lacking that could crush a unit.

This was a Small Road forged by the Japanese Army, rough and only fit for infantry and pack Horses, unsuited for mechanized march, but at least it avoided the denser, more dangerous jungle.

Yet even so, on this road, once a person falls in this cursed weather, there is no rescue.

Along the way, abandoned Japanese Army soldiers lay under big trees, long dead, reduced to skeletons.

The downpour gave Four Regiments and Fifth Regiment's pursuit huge trouble; the road was mud‑filled, each step draining massive stamina.

……

Front, the remnants of the Quinary 56th 448th Regiment of the Japanese Army trudged through the downpour.

Jin Gang Zong Si Lang, commander of the 146th Battalion of the 56th 448th Regiment, now rides a gaunt war Horse, his face grim.

Myanmar's weather is truly extreme; the headquarters took this into account, setting the campaign's final objective at Mandalay, aiming to finish the Myanmar Campaign by late April.

And because Watanabe Masao's obstinacy, the Quinary 56th 448th Regiment, cut off from logistics, rashly advanced into Lashu, with supply extremely difficult. Worse, while observing the Zai An Expeditionary Force positions, Watanabe Masao was "named" by Shi Xiaomao's two shells. That strike nearly wiped out the entire high‑command of the Quinary 56th 448th Regiment.

If not for the first shell's impact, the guard's quick reflexes covering Watanabe Masao as a human shield, that old devil would have already met Amaterasu.

At this moment, Jin Gang Zong Si Lang took over command of the Quinary 56th 448th Regiment, but felt deeply uneasy. Watching the endless downpour and the Imperial Japanese Army, drenched like a boiled chicken, he was filled with despair.

Their supply lines faced severe difficulty. Raincoats were a luxury, food long exhausted, dry‑rations bags empty.

Not even a single rice ball was supplied.

Many soldiers, after two days of nonstop rain, exposed to wind and dew, saw their immunity plummet, and widespread tropical diseases erupted—fever, diarrhea, skin ulcers—yet the unit had no medicine at all.

Not even a single aspirin.

He needed to decide, for he knew pursuers were behind. It was an instinct honed as a commander on the battlefield. What puzzled Jin Gang Zong Si Lang was why the Expeditionary Force's pursuit was so slow it made his skin crawl.