Chapter 57: Lashu Overflowed with Supplies

"Which unit is this?" Outside Lashu City, Sun Liren sat in a Jeep and also saw Jiang Anguo's troops.

The camp was established in an orderly fashion.

Moreover, even in Lashu, far from the front, this unit had deployed a guard unit, and their weapons all seemed to be German.

"Commander, I just asked, this unit is a Supplementary Battalion of the th Division," th Division Staff Chief He Junheng said.

"A Supplementary Battalion has that many troops?" Sun Liren, who had led troops for many years, could instantly gauge how many people there were, and knew it very clearly.

Jiang Anguo still sent the troops to Lashu in batches; once they entered the barracks, no one could know the situation.

Jiang Anguo did this out of fear, since he was only a battalion commander; bringing two to three thousand five hundred people over was already beyond the structure of a Supplementary Battalion.

Moreover, the Expeditionary Force's Staff Corps was here, and its organization was at hand; the th Division did not even have a Supplementary Battalion structure.

Sun Liren asked in puzzlement, "The th Division was at Tonggu, how did this Supplementary Battalion end up here?"

He Junheng shook his head and said, "That is unclear; perhaps it was moving together with the th Division Armored Corps."

The th Division's armored troops made Sun Liren envious, because the th Division's armored units were in Lashu and did not dare to go to the front.

Since the commander was absent, they didn't know what to do, and they couldn't be blamed; they simply had too much equipment, and sending anything to the front would require a large number of trains.

But the front was now tight, and every day only infantry were shipped forward; they didn't even know where their main forces were.

The only thing known was that the th Division had won a battle at Tonggu, and the only news Sun Liren had was that the th Division had killed five to six thousand Japanese soldiers at Tonggu.

It shows that the secrecy regarding the th Division's abandonment of Tonggu was well handled.

This also explains why the headquarters urgently dispatched the 66th Army into Myanmar; the 66th Army had originally been a General Reserve and was not prepared for the Myanmar battlefield, and after it entered Myanmar, Western Yunnan was completely depleted of troops.

Sun Liren was a unique figure within the Nationalist Army, yet he belonged to the Song Ziwen Tax Police Corps and was a graduate of the United States Virginia Military Institute.

He was neither a Whampoa Soldier nor of Zhejiang Faction origin.

The only certainty was the relationship between Song Ziwen and Chiang Kai-shek, so Chiang Kai-shek could employ Sun Liren, but because Sun Liren disobeyed orders during the Myanmar retreat, Chiang Kai-shek could not rely on using Sun Liren with peace of mind.

Overall, Chiang Kai-shek was superstitious and distrustful when employing people.

Chaos, it was truly chaotic.

Lashu seemed as if no one cared, with a massive number of transport vehicles clogged on the road.

Various military supplies and fuel were piled together.

At that moment, if Japanese bombers arrived, the scene would be unimaginable.

Jiang Anguo entered Lashu with a few soldiers to inspect the situation.

Chaos, completely disorganized; if it were only this chaotic, it wouldn't be surprising that a single Japanese Army charge could scatter Lashu's defenders.

It only made Jiang Anguo unable to believe that the Japanese Army would ever dare a single division to launch a charge, because its speed was not that fast.

The 56th Division, dubbed the King of the Jungle.

Yet a division, with seventeen to eighteen thousand troops, and moreover the Japanese 56th Division had already fought on the Malay Peninsula; although casualties were not many, there were certainly some.

Therefore the Japanese Vanguard Unit was definitely small, because Japan expected that Chinese forces would definitely station heavy troops in Lashu; the northern Myanmar terrain was rugged, easy to defend and hard to attack.

It was beyond Watanabe Masao's expectation; everything went too smoothly, so smoothly that it was almost unbelievable.

Even the Japanese high command had not anticipated that they would suddenly break into Chinese territory; it was also underprepared, otherwise a rapid thrust into Yunnan would have left no chance for a turnaround.

Until later when the Japanese reinforced, Myanmar forces exceeded two hundred thousand, but by then the Chinese Army had already deployed along the Nu River East Bank, causing Japan to miss the only opportunity.

"Lin Yi, in the next few days make sure to draw the entire map of Lashu, especially the railway station and the airfield; those two locations are key," Jiang Anguo recalled that the Japanese had an Airborne Troops unit; although the deployment was unfavorable, if an airborne operation succeeded in this time and place, it would be a significant variable.

"Yes, Battalion Commander."

Jiang Anguo was accompanied by Lin Yi and Yao Quanyi; Yao Quanyi's company was responsible for the camp's guard duties, and the Engineer Company cooperated with Yao Quanyi to remodel the camp.

They turned the entire camp into a fortification, and because Yao Quanyi specialized in street fighting, the bright and hidden sentries around the camp were arranged meticulously.

Now the whole battalion conducts wartime patrols; even though it is still night, the camp is brightly lit, trenches are being dug, and barracks are being erected.

The Supplementary Battalion's camp was in the north of Lashu City, in a corner of the northwest; it did not attract anyone's attention, and no one noticed Jiang Anguo's unit.

In fact someone had already asked, and of course Jiang Anguo had people answer honestly: they were the th Division Supplementary Battalion; the other side was curious how the th Division Supplementary Battalion had arrived, but since the th Division's armored corps was present in the camp, there were few further questions, after all there were too many matters.

The Supplementary Battalion's supplies did not need to be provided by Lashu, so they saved a lot of trouble and even had some profit to skim.

Managing the China-Myanmar Road was very lucrative; Long Yun's two sons, one in Tengchong and one in Baoshan.

The Dian-Mian Highway was managed by Song Ziliang, Song Ziwen's brother.

After a brief patrol, Jiang Anguo returned to his own camp; the night guard at Lashu suddenly tightened, which was truly odd, as if an important figure had just arrived.

Jiang Anguo had no doubts; he had even more important matters.

After marching rapidly for seven days, his body was very fatigued, and his weight dropped quickly.

However, there was one pleasant thing: after entering Myanmar, the system granted him a reward.

In fact it had already been credited, but Jiang Anguo truly had no time to check; daily marches relied on dry rations, from top to bottom everyone ate military rations and did not fire weapons.

After finishing the dry rations, he fell asleep immediately; Jiang Anguo had no time for further thought, trying to use his mind but it failed, the 250–260 km road had exhausted him.

Riding horses, he grew weary.

Even if soldiers saw the officer riding, they would not complain; if they wanted to, they would hold it in, because it was a normal situation.

"System, you are truly impressive, thank you," Jiang Anguo couldn't help but praise the system.

"You're welcome, Host, hope you can bring out their strength," the system said.

The system gave him one Light Artillery Battalion, one Tank Company, and three hundred thousand rounds of ammunition.