Chapter 682: Bone in the throat

A "Sherman" was destroyed, and all crew members were killed. The infantry who coordinated the battle suffered more than ten casualties, and the enemy did not even leave a corpse...
Than Rui closed the report without saying a word, closed his eyes, frowning, and Ai Suo saw that his fingertips were trembling slightly.
In the years he has fought with the general, the loss this time is so small that it is not worth mentioning. Why should the general behave so badly?
As soon as Esso wanted to comfort the general, he heard Dan Rui say in a very tired voice: "Order all the troops to increase their vigilance and tell them that the road this time may not be so easy."
Ai Suo promised to go down, and under his worried gaze, the lights in General Dan Rui's room remained on until dawn.
Than Shwe’s hunch soon became a reality. In the next few days of marching, various harassing attacks emerged one after another. Sometimes it was a landmine that was not discovered in time by the side of the road, and sometimes it came from nowhere. A 107 rocket, sometimes a gunshot from afar-the last one is the most deadly. The enemy gunners are not only equipped with weapons capable of sniping at long distances, but they also target people in officer uniforms. For this reason, Than Shwe had to order all officers of the whole army to put on the combat uniforms of ordinary soldiers.
At night, this kind of harassing attack will add more tricks. Even though he has lost several trucks with supplies, Dan Rui still has not been able to figure out how the enemy threw the grenade. From our own resident.
In order to cope with this harassment, Than Shwe had to give up his plan to quickly maneuver to Tai Gongdang along Highway 31, and ordered the troops to deploy a formation with Highway 31 as the central axis, forming a frontal width of 3 kilometers. Push forward, and at the same time send a number of small units to keep alert on the two wings-but this way, although the possibility of the enemy's successful harassment tactics is effectively reduced, it also greatly reduces the speed of their own marching, and makes all soldiers Having to maintain a high level of tension at all times makes the soldiers who have to rely on their legs to travel dozens of kilometers every day exhausted.
Four days later, it took twice as long as originally expected. The team led by Than Shwe finally reached the traffic hub of Warfire Town, which is actually only a hundred kilometers away from Mandalay. If it is in the highway network a few decades later The densely-covered Huaxia can be reached within an hour if you drive by yourself, and if you take the high-speed rail, you don’t even need 20 minutes. But for the troops led by Myanmar Yu and Than Shwe in 1983, But already exhausted.
Than Rui decided to let his soldiers rest in Warfire Town for a day before continuing on the road. At the same time, after carefully observing the surrounding terrain, he decided to set up a supply point here to store some food, medicine, oil and other materials-this original It was not in his plan. Although the geographical location of Warfire Town is very important, the 31 km is divided into Highway 311 to the north and Highway 31 to the east, but the distance between Taigongdang and Mandalay is total It is only 200 kilometers. He originally thought that such a distance would not have any impact on his logistics supplies. However, the continuous attacks in the past few days made him clearly realize that even in the plains, the enemy now has Enough means to harass his logistics, and to maintain the normal operation of such a large number of semi-mechanized mixed forces, the daily supplies are massive, and once the supply is cut off by the enemy, the consequences are simply unimaginable.
Of course, since the supply point has been set up in Warforth Town and its strategic position is so important, it is definitely necessary to strengthen the defense here. For this reason, Than Shwe left a company of "Sherman" and two The company's light infantry was stationed here, and an artillery platoon was specially strengthened for them. Although the artillery that Than Shwe carried was only a British 88mm 25-pound towed field gun, he believed that with these firepower, it was enough to suppress the opponent's possible long-range power. After all, the biggest trump card known by the Xie Li department There are a limited number of self-propelled howitzers, and that thing is still far away in Mogok. If you want to attack the town of war, you must first pass the level of Savin Yangbin.
After all this was arranged, two more pieces of news came, which made Than Shwe’s mood even more angry, but at the same time a little unexplainable panic—one piece of news was that the Kokang Army, who had been collaborating with Mogok’s Xie Li Ministry, came out. , Entangled a team of about 5,000 people and went south along the Ruili River. At present, they have captured the small town of Maben as a forward position. The soldiers are directed at Taigongdang, 40 kilometers away. Another news is that they are entrenched in Kachin. The Kachin Independence Army on the plateau also moved after hearing the wind, and captured Benqiang Town a day ago, and looked at Tekya 25 kilometers away.
Maben is only 90 kilometers away from the southwest border of China, and is surrounded on three sides by the Kachin guerrillas and Kokang guerrillas. After the fall of Nankan and Mengwei, Maben has become the northernmost point controlled by government forces. A prominent part of the garrison, where the government army only stationed a platoon of troops here, is not so much to prevent the invasion of the "civilian military", it is more a symbolic garrison, which means that the government is still effective here. Under jurisdiction.
As a small town that has been actually abandoned by government forces, the original location of this small town on the banks of the Ruili River among the mountains does not seem so important, so neither Xie Li nor Peng Jiasheng did not immediately eat The next town was regarded as an important strategic goal to complete. When the Ministry of Xie Li took Mogok and Tan Zhenhua promoted the joint exploration plan for uranium mines with the Burmese jade government, the two armed forces reached a tacit understanding of a temporary ceasefire with the government. It was discovered that the forgotten town of Maben was still occupied by government forces in such a vague way.
But now it is completely different.
With the discovery of the Taigongdang nickel mine, this area has become the focus of the two sides’ wrestling, and the geographical location of Maben, which is only 40 kilometers away from here, immediately becomes important-if it is occupied by the "Mindi Martial" , They have a reliable forward base that can threaten Tai Gongdang at any time, and if government forces occupy here, it can also be used to become an important gateway to resist the attack by civilians.
It is a pity that even Than Shwe, who has always been above the top, has to admit that, under the current circumstances, unless the force he has on hand reaches the Taigongdang area and completely eliminates all the "civilian military" activities in this area. Organize and advance the front to the north, otherwise, it would be impossible to hold Maben.
Therefore, he was psychologically prepared for Maben’s fall, and even formulated a follow-up battle plan for this. However, the fall of Benqiang Town was completely beyond his expectations, and the Kachin Independence Army suddenly The stick inserted made him feel like a bone in his throat.