Chapter 417: Letter from Mandalay

Stilwell's speed was great; that night he arrived at Lashu, but this time he was received by a Huaxia Major, Zhuge Mingliang.

Zhuge Mingliang was indeed meeting Stilwell for the first time; previously the one who received Stilwell was Lin Yi, but now Lin Yi has gone to Chongqing.

"Excuse me, General, our senior officer is at the front, not in Lashu," Zhuge Mingliang said, looking at Stilwell.

Zhuge Mingliang spoke in English; he thought Stilwell didn't understand Huaxia language, so he used English.

But he didn't expect Stilwell to reply in Huaxia language: "Pig, get me a vehicle; I need to go to the front."

"General, I'm not called Pig; I'm Zhuge Mingliang," Zhuge Mingliang said helplessly.

Zhuge Mingliang didn't quite understand the American's way of addressing Huaxia names.

"Alright, Pig!" Stilwell still didn't change the address, he said.

Faced with Stilwell's address, Zhuge Mingliang felt somewhat broken.

Late at night, Zhuge Mingliang didn't know where to find a vehicle; most of the vehicles had been taken to the front by Jiang Anguo, so locating a Jeep was very difficult, and he finally found a Transport Vehicle.

Thus, this Lieutenant General of the American forces in the China‑India‑Burma theater boarded a Transport Vehicle, without even a co‑driver's seat, squeezed among the cargo at the rear, and headed west toward the front‑line battlefield.

Mandalay, 55th Regiment.

June 28, 1942, late night.

Rain mixed with ash dripped through a crack in the shelter's roof, splashing onto Left Teng's notebook on his knee, causing the ink to blur.

He curled up in a corner, hands trembling, and by the weak kerosene lamp wrote the final line: "Mother, I think I won't be able to return."

The Chinese have been conducting air raids since June 25, and today is the fourth day... the whole of Mandalay has not known peace for a moment. Explosions roar day and night, the ground seems to tremble, and even the mice have all fled.

"I hide in the shelter, too afraid to go out, yet even here I can hear the sound of bombs tearing the air, like the Grim Reaper sharpening his blade overhead. May Amaterasu protect us!"

Left Teng stopped writing, his Adam's apple bobbing, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva that tasted of iron rust.

"Ye Tian, today in the morning, died. He came from a fishing village by Da Cun Port, always saying that after the war he would return home to open a small noodle shop."

But today, a bomb fell next to the mess hall; he was carrying his lunchbox back... I saw with my own eyes him soar into the sky, his body disintegrating in the air like a torn paper kite. His lunchbox fell at my feet, still containing half a pickled radish, which he had saved for me. So terrifying, Mother... I want to go home! Back to Da Cun! To see the tide of the bright sea!

Tears dripped onto the paper, making the characters "Da Cun" blur.

Japanese Army 55th Regiment, formed at Japan Changqi Da Cun.

"Especially today, the Chinese Air Force's bombers actually bombed Mandalay twice, how terrifying; the power of those aerial bombs, the air filled with the smell of gunpowder and the stench of corpses."

Left Teng recalled his hometown: the fishing boats of Da Cun Bay in Changqi County, the cherry blossoms before the shrine, and his mother's silhouette simmering miso soup at the stove.

On the day they enlisted, the entire village raised the Rising Sun flag to see them board the troop transport, shouting "Loyalty to the Emperor!"

But now, he only feels like an ant trapped in a furnace, unable even to leave a whole

"Bombs could fall on my head at any time. Maybe in the next second, maybe tonight... I'm no longer afraid

to die like Ye Tian, where even the ashes

Left Teng closed the notebook, carefully wrapping it in oilcloth

He hopes to survive this war, but

Left Teng, an ordinary farmer's son from Da Cun, once believed war was glory, fighting for the Imperial Japanese Empire's Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere,

Mandalay, the Japanese Army soldiers inside the city shivered, hiding in the houses of Mandalay civilians and daring not to speak.

They wanted to leave the city, perhaps leaving would be safer, but without orders from superiors they could only curl up like rats inside houses already destroyed by bombing.

Fear had long surpassed mere emotion, becoming a plague that spread across the scorched earth.

55th Regiment, this unit composed mainly of youths from the Da Cun area of Changqi County,

At the same time, the Japanese 18th Division, landing from Hangzhou Bay,

But the continuous five days of indiscriminate bombing have already

Day one, the air raid only brought panic; the Mijie River's three bridges were bombed, the southern retreat route cut off. The soldiers could still encourage each other: "Hold on! Reinforcements will come! The Imperial Japanese Army will not fail."

Day two, incendiary bombs burned an entire street, three hundred people were roasted alive into charcoal. Some began to secretly write farewell letters.

Day three, the Chinese forces' P‑38s conducted low‑altitude strafing, targeting exposed Japanese soldiers. A teenage soldier from Da Cun broke down, shouting, "I don't want to die here! I want to see mother!" and was dragged away by military police.

Day four, P‑38s and B25 bombers attacked Mandalay twice; whether Japanese positions inside the city or Japanese trenches outside, all were bombed twice.

Despair coils around the heart like a poisonous vine.

Fear devours faith.

Some Japanese soldiers even secretly donned Burmese civilian clothes to escape Mandalay; after being caught by military police, they were immediately taken to the rear and shot.

Such incidents are not permitted; even if they happen, Mukoda Koya's ruthlessness, also

As the bombings increased, the number of wounded inside and outside Mandalay also grew

However, the Japanese hospital in Mandalay had already been destroyed in the first wave of bombing, and a large amount of medical supplies were also destroyed.

A large portion of this was left behind by the Expeditionary Force, abandoned in

and became

Now, together with Japanese soldiers, it also

Japanese wounded soldiers begged their comrades: "Give me

Doctors and nurses at the 18th Division field hospital could only watch as soldiers died from

Four days of bombing resulted in at least three thousand Japanese soldiers being killed, and over a thousand wounded were transferred to west of Mandalay, the area where the Chinese Air Force's bombing was weakest.

After all, they were near the Yi Luo Wa Di Jiang, so William and Song Yunfei would not waste aerial bombs behind the front lines.

The Japanese Army corpses—Mukoda Koya had already ordered that, to prevent disease infection, all corpses were thrown into Yi Luo Wa Di Jiang, and even the 33rd Division moving north along Yi Luo Wa Di Jiang to support Mandalay had already seen bodies drifting down from upstream, which they could hardly believe.

This caused the 33rd Division's Sakura Isei San to send multiple telegrams to the 18th Division, inquiring what had happened; upon learning that the casualties were caused by Chinese forces bombing Mandalay, Sakura Isei San also ordered a rapid northward reinforcement of Mandalay.