The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

As the 212th Division continued to attack, the Japanese troops participating in the three sieges were constantly hit, and a large number of prisoners like Jiro Furui were taken.

This situation brought rich intelligence resources to the newly established intelligence department directly under Zhang Chi.

Among these prisoners, in addition to the military information directly related to this campaign, the Intelligence Department also collected many seemingly insignificant daily details through the "Great Memory Recovery Technique".

For example: How intense is the Fuso unit's daily training? How many rounds of live-fire exercises are conducted each month? How many days do they conduct drills?

What's the situation like on Fuso Island? Is the "rice riot" still going on?

Are there sufficient supplies near the Pegu troop station?

Crucial clues are hidden in these seemingly ordinary and trivial pieces of information.

The two most noteworthy findings are: first, the Japanese soldiers' food was extremely poor and the rice supply was seriously insufficient; second, the proportion of new recruits in the army increased significantly, especially student soldiers.

The information revealed by these two points is very crucial - Fuso's war potential is rapidly declining, and the Japanese will not last long.

Food shortages mean that its natural resources are no longer able to sustain the basic needs of frontline troops, and the large-scale conscription of students into the army is another manifestation of the depletion of human resources.

You have to know that students are the future of a nation. The Japanese's frantic conscription of students into the army means that they have reached the end of their rope, giving up the future and only caring about the present. (Starting in 44 and 45, even liberal arts college students were drafted into the army to fly Kamikaze planes)

The two points that attracted the most attention were: "The food was very poor and the amount of rice was very small" and "There were many new recruits, especially students."

For a time traveler like Zhang Chi, this information only confirmed his judgment of Fuso's domestic difficulties.

But for most commanders and soldiers of the 212th Division, this was a shot in the arm.

Although they were all determined to fight the Japanese to the end, they still had doubts about whether they could achieve final victory.

Now, the fact that the Japanese had to drag even students onto the battlefield not only exposed Fuso's weakness, but also injected new strength into the morale of the entire 212th Division.

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However, in a region like Pegu where rice is the main crop and three harvests can be harvested a year, why did Japanese soldiers like Jiro Furui end up in a situation where they couldn't even have enough rice to eat?

This is because the Fuso headquarters had already formulated a strict resource allocation plan: the Dutch East Indies was responsible for providing oil, the three countries in the Indochina Peninsula were responsible for providing food, Siam was responsible for providing rubber, and Pegu was designated as the main cotton production area.

As the Fuso occupation forces implemented a policy of "militarized agriculture," farmers in Pegu were forced to dig up the rice they had already planted and plant cash crops like cotton to support the Japanese war machine. (The Ming Dynasty's rice-to-mulberry policy?)

It was this policy that directly led to the collapse of local food production.

It was December at the time, and Pegu should have been the rainy season for rice harvest. However, the areas controlled by the Japanese had experienced a large-scale reduction in grain production.

On the other hand, the rice harvest in the area controlled by Zhang Chi was abundant everywhere, which formed a sharp contrast with the Japanese.

Under the dual blow of reduced local grain production and the disruption of sea transport by Allied submarines, the Japanese troops finally suffered a food shortage. The starving Japanese soldiers were forced to eat more tubers such as taro, cassava, sweet potatoes, and potatoes to fill their stomachs. (Surprisingly, many places in Bago also grow tubers in addition to rice.)

Then according to the traditional thinking of the Japanese, if there is a shortage of food, they have to go to the countryside to collect food.

However, once the Japanese took off their hypocritical masks and began to harm the locals, the image of "liberators" they had created to help the people of Pegu drive out the John colonists immediately collapsed.

This caused the relatively stable security situation in the southern part of Pegu to deteriorate sharply, and the conflict between the Pegu farmers and the devils reached its peak.

The people of all ethnic groups in Pegu, including the Qian people, quickly became one with the local devils in a physical sense.

As Zhang Chi continued to take advantage of the opportunity to provide arms and supplies to various resistance organizations, the Japanese grain-collecting teams at the squad level, equipped with light machine guns, began to "disappear".

A dozen or so Japanese soldiers sent to the village to collect grain would disappear without a trace in broad daylight.

It was safe for the Japanese to go to the countryside on a larger scale, but deploying large forces required the distribution of additional "combat points" rations.

Ironically, the Japanese commanders soon discovered that the large-scale grain-collecting teams consumed more food than they harvested.

In the end, the humiliated and angry Terauchi Hisaichi could only blame all the problems on Zhang Chi, hoping to completely eliminate the resistance forces in Pegu by destroying Zhang Chi's troops.

(White Eagle later thought the same thing in the Mesopotamian region, thinking that killing the biggest resistance leader would solve the problem. In the end...)

So the 'three-way siege' plan was hastily launched.

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Back to early December, Terauchi Hisaichi's three-way siege plan gradually took shape with the cooperation of Showa's staff.

Zhang Chi had been cleverly dividing the 212th Division into smaller units, allowing them to launch mobile attacks on the surrounding Japanese forces.

The Japanese were completely unable to penetrate into his controlled area and found it difficult to obtain valuable intelligence.

At the same time, under Zhang Chi's instructions, a large population including local expatriates, refugees fleeing north, and refugees fleeing west from Yunnan Province expanded rapidly from September to December. At present, the entire land of Kejian State is almost occupied by expatriates from Qian State.

This resulted in the Japanese being unable to find a few natives to serve as "guides" even if they wanted to, and plunged the Japanese into extreme intelligence darkness in Kejianbang.

In the end, the entire Kejianbang area was shrouded in the "fog of war" on the Japanese map.

On the contrary, every move within the entire Kejian State will be transmitted to the 212th Division Command, which provides a lot of convenience for Zhang Chi's subsequent operations.

In order to break this dilemma, the Japanese conducted several aerial reconnaissance missions.

However, many Japanese reconnaissance planes were shot down by the P-40s and F4Us of the 212th Division Air Force, and they suffered repeated setbacks.

In this helpless situation, the Showa staff, lacking intelligence support, could only formulate a more conservative battle plan.

They didn't even know where the main force of the 212th Division was stationed, so they could only design a siege plan based on "dispersing at multiple points and compressing space."

They tried to gradually squeeze the movement space of Zhang Chi's troops by dispersing and besieging them from multiple directions, find the trace of their main force, and then launch a decisive battle.

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"The above is the Japanese's battle plan. A very traditional multi-pronged siege, intended to resolve the problem in one fell swoop through a major battle. In fact, their tactics are no different from the previous battles in Qianguo."

The spacious combat conference hall was filled with a solemn atmosphere at this moment. Division Chief of Staff Tan Zhijie stood in front of a podium covered with maps, pointing his pointer at several marked points on the map.

All the officers above the battalion level sat upright without exception, each of them staring at the map and the pointer waving in Tan Zhijie's hand, listening attentively to the chief of staff's explanation.

"According to reliable intelligence, the enemy forces dispatched this time include the 15th, 33rd, and 56th Divisions." Tan Zhijie raised his voice slightly, attracting everyone's attention. "It's important to note that these are three-unit divisions of Fuso, each with only three infantry regiments."

“不过，第 15 和第 56 师团都只出动了一个步兵联队及配属部队。敌人的主力则是从新平洋出发的第 33 师团的2步兵联队和其配属的第 15 军下辖的战车第 14 联队。”

Having said this, Tan Zhijie paused and glanced at the officers in the audience.

The four Japanese infantry regiments and their associated artillery, engineering, logistics, medical, and tank units are undoubtedly a powerful force.

Everyone's expression gradually became tense, some clenched their fists, and some lowered their heads in thought.

Those numbers and troop names gradually formed a picture of the upcoming severe battle in their minds.

"The enemy's total strength is approximately 20,000 (15,000 combat troops, and the rest are support units)," Tan Zhijie continued, a hint of urgency in his voice. "And our newly formed 212th Division currently has a total strength of approximately 15,000, which puts us slightly at a disadvantage in terms of manpower."

A series of low whispers came from the audience, and the officers frowned slightly, obviously worried about the gap in troop strength.

Seeing this, Tan Zhijie drew a line on the map with his pointer, and everyone's attention was immediately focused again.

"However," Tan Zhijie's tone suddenly changed, "the enemy's 2 troops are spread out like pepper in the west, southwest, and southeast, completely uncoordinated. This gives us the opportunity to defeat them one by one."

His tone became firmer, bringing an inexplicable sense of excitement to everyone present.

"Therefore," he paused briefly and glanced around, as if to confirm whether every officer was listening carefully, "we will make the following deployment based on the enemy's attack route..."