Anti-Japanese War: From Becoming Chu Yunfei to Rising

Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal.

A layer of sultry, humid air lingers over Chittagong year-round.

Thick black smoke from burning coal mingled with the pungent smell of sweat, making it almost impossible to open one's eyes.

Dozens of British Royal Navy transport ships with extremely deep drafts were moored beside the massive breakwater.

Due to the lack of professional American amphibious landing ships, a large number of merchant ships and coal carriers that had undergone simple modifications were also forcibly incorporated into this massive fleet.

The heavy planks creaked under the weight of thousands of pairs of suede shoes.

In the ranks, two local Indian soldiers were carrying heavy Lee-Enfield rifles, struggling to move toward the deck.

"Amir, I heard that the place we're going to this time is called Sumatra?"

The young soldier wiped the sweat from his face, his eyes filled with fear of the unknown: "Are we going to fight the Japanese in the jungle?"

The old soldier with a long beard next to him took a bite of his dry tobacco and let out a bitter laugh: "Sumatra."

The veteran's voice was low: "That's the second largest island in Indonesia, and also the core fortress with the most heavily fortified defenses by the Japanese."

“I overheard the officers talking about it in private.”

"The rainforest there is even denser than that of Myanmar, so dense that sunlight can't even get through."

“I fought the Japanese in Burma before, those monkeys were devils.”

The young soldier's face clearly showed intense fear. He nervously swallowed hard: "The British fleet will protect us during the landing, right?"

The veteran glanced at him with a look as if he were a dead man.

"fleet?"

"I've heard that the British fleet was quite effective in the Mediterranean; they even defeated the powerful Italian Empire."

The veteran looked up at the gloomy sky: "But in the deep sea of ​​the Far East, without absolute air superiority, those warships are sitting ducks."

"Our fleet is too small, and we can only rely on the help of our allies."

"Even after logging in, it's still a hassle."

"Those crazy Japanese monkeys have been operating on the island for two years, and they must have dug up every tree into a bunker."

"We're not going to fight a war; we're cannon fodder sent to our deaths by those gentlemen in London!"

Panic and despair spread through the sweltering hold.

The group looked at each other, unsure of what the future held.

……

Inside a tall mansion left over from the colonial era, not far from the dock.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia, stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of chilled sherry in hand.

He was dressed in a snow-white naval officer's uniform, his chest adorned with dazzling medals.

Mountbatten gazed at the massive army in the distance, which resembled a swarm of black ants boarding the ships.

This was part of the British Empire's efforts to reclaim its Far Eastern colonies.

The last piece of the piecing together – the Fourteenth Army Group

Eight fully equipped infantry divisions, totaling over 150,000 men, the vast majority of whom were British Indian Army soldiers wearing turbans.

"General Slim, look."

Mountbatten swirled his glass, the ice clinking softly: "The prestige of the British Empire in the Far East is about to be reignited by this massive fleet."

General William Slim, commander of the Fourteenth Army standing behind him, showed no optimism whatsoever.

Slim's face, as rough as rock, was etched with the marks of years of battle.

He strode over to Mountbatten and slammed a casualty forecast report heavily onto the windowsill.

"Commander-in-Chief, this is not Sicily in Europe!"

"None of them have a weak garrison like the Italians!"

Slim's voice carried a sense of suppressed tension: "This is the perilous Sumatran jungle!"

"According to our reconnaissance, the Japanese 25th Army stationed in Indonesia is the same group of veterans who captured Malaya and Singapore back then."

Slim looked directly into Mountbatten's eyes: "They are not only experienced in combat, but also adapted to the jungle environment like wild beasts."

"And what about us?"

"Half of our landing fleet consists of slow, old-fashioned merchant ships!"

Slim clenched his fists tightly: "There are not enough aircraft carriers to provide continuous close air support, and there are not enough amphibious landing craft like the US military."

"You're just going to force 150,000 soldiers with no jungle warfare experience into that beachhead teeming with poisonous insects and miasma?"

Mountbatten did not get angry when Slim questioned him.

He turned around, walked slowly to the desk, and put down the wine glass.

"William, you are an excellent tactician."

Mountbatten’s tone revealed an inherent aristocratic arrogance and ruthless strategic consideration: “But you lack a global political vision.”

He picked up a long baton and tapped it on the Asian strategic map on the wall: "Do you think I want the British army to gnaw on this tough nut?"

Mountbatten's baton swept heavily across the Chinese mainland and the vast Pacific Ocean.

"Open your eyes and look at the current situation!"

"The Chinese Expeditionary Force is eyeing Myanmar and other regions with predatory intent."

"The American Pacific Fleet is relentlessly advancing toward the Japanese mainland, stepping over coral reefs one by one."

Mountbatten turned around, his eyes gleaming with fervent political ambition: "If the British Empire had not shed enough blood in Southeast Asia in this feast of defeating the Japanese..."

"If we are still holed up on India's border when the war ends."

He approached Slim step by step, lowering his voice: "Then in postwar Asia, there will be no place for the British Empire!"

"Washington and the mountain city will not hesitate to divide up all our colonial interests in the Far East!"

Slim fell silent. He was a pure soldier, but he could also understand this bloody political declaration.

"For the sake of having a say at the negotiating table after the war, and for the re-establishment of the British Empire's presence in East Asia."

Mountbatten straightened his pristine white cuffs: "Even if all 150,000 of these men die on the beaches of Sumatra, we must launch this landing operation codenamed 'The Musketeers'!"

Slim closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He knew that what's done is done and there was no going back.

"May God bless the lads of the 14th Army."

Slim put on his military cap, turned around, and strode towards the door.

"Ready to set sail!"

The dull blast of the ship's horn echoed throughout Chittagong.

The massive transport fleet slowly sailed away from the breakwater.

Like a flock of blindfolded lambs, heading towards the meat grinder at the center of a tropical storm.

……

At the same time.

Pengcheng, China.

The operations room of the North China Joint Front Command.

In front of the huge Pacific Ocean chart, Chu Yunfei, Fang Ligong, and Lin Wei stood in a semi-circle.

Fang Ligong held a newly received internal Allied report in his hand and pushed up his glasses.

"Your Excellency, Your Excellency."

“General MacArthur’s Far East Command has just shared a new battle report.” Fang Ligong pointed to the huge island marked in dark red in the lower right corner of the map.

"The situation in the fighting in New Guinea has become extremely unusual in the last two weeks."

Lin Wei leaned forward: "Has the Japanese resistance collapsed?"

"The resistance remains frantic, even bordering on hysterical."

Fang Ligong shook his head, his tone sharp: "What's unusual is their logistics."

"Based on observations from the US-Australian coalition forces and our expeditionary advance force."

"The Japanese troops in New Guinea and the Rabaul fortress have not received any surface reinforcements from the Japanese Combined Fleet for three whole months."

Fang Ligong directed his efforts on several once-busy Japanese maritime supply lines.

"Not only will our troops not be replenished."

"Ammunition, food, and even medicine for treating tropical diseases are extremely scarce."

"They even resorted to eating the corpses of their companions to survive."

Upon hearing this, Chu Yunfei crossed his arms and frowned: "For the Japanese, those islands constitute what they call their 'absolute defense perimeter'."

"Under normal circumstances, even at a heavy cost, the Japanese General Staff would never easily give up support for these islands."

"unless."

Chu Yunfei's gaze traveled north along the Pacific Ocean, landing on the Seto Inland Sea off the Japanese mainland.

"The Japanese Navy itself has encountered an extremely fatal problem!"

"They have completely lost their ability to conduct long-range ocean-going operations!"

"That means their fuel is completely depleted."

Lin Wei took a deep breath and then took out a document: "Intelligence that was just delivered an hour ago."

"This intelligence report was just compiled and organized by the Military Intelligence Bureau in conjunction with the latest Japanese military code deciphered by the U.S. Naval Intelligence Agency."

"The Japanese Navy did not refuse to rescue the ships, nor did it completely lose them."

"They are gathering their last strength, preparing for a do-or-die gamble!"

Chu Yunfei raised an eyebrow and sneered, "The so-called naval decisive battle?"

"Yes."

Lin Wei pointed heavily at the Mariana Islands region on the map.

"Since suffering devastating blows in the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942, the Japanese Navy has actually been in a period of extremely covert dormancy for the past two years."

"They didn't even dare to move their fleet during the day. They were constantly working on ship modifications and rushing to build new ships at shipyards in Kure and other domestic locations."

Lin Wei turned to the second page of the intelligence report and pulled out a blurry black-and-white photo that had been secretly taken.

"Just at the end of last month, in response to the increasing pressure from the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Imperial Japanese Navy General Headquarters undertook an unprecedented major reorganization."

Lin Wei raised his head and looked intently at Chu Yunfei: "On March 1st, the Japanese army concentrated all its remaining main warships into a massive task force!"

"They named it—'First Mobile Fleet'!"

Chu Yunfei's eyes flickered slightly, and he immediately grasped the core value of this intelligence: "Mobile fleet, this is different from the combined fleet organization that they have always emphasized, which is mainly based on battleship gun warfare."

"They are indeed different."

Lin Wei picked up the conversation, his tone serious: "Intelligence indicates that the commander of this 'First Mobile Fleet' is Lieutenant General Jisaburo Ozawa."

"This is the first time since its establishment that the Imperial Japanese Navy has completely abandoned the doctrine of big ships and big guns in terms of its organizational structure!"

"They have begun to emulate the current organizational structure of the U.S. military."

Fang Ligong tapped his fingers on the table: "That means we've established a carrier strike group with the aircraft carrier as the absolute core, and super battleships like the Yamato and Musashi, as well as heavy cruisers, as the outer air defense escort!"

A brief silence fell over the meeting room.

Even the most stubborn conservatives in the Japanese army, who regarded battleships as national symbols, were forced to change their naval warfare concepts in a desperate situation.

This means that the next naval battle in the Pacific will no longer be a battle between a few warships across the sea.

Instead, it was a brutal massacre involving thousands of fighter jets.

How could the Japanese army have so many warplanes?

Chu Yunfei remained skeptical, believing that the Japanese army, having suffered heavy losses, no longer had any decent reserve forces.

Fuel supplies were long gone, and many tanks and armored vehicles received almost no replenishment, serving only as fixed artillery positions or machine gun emplacements.

Even if Japan values ​​its navy highly, it shouldn't have much remaining resources.

After all, because of the expeditionary force, the Japanese did not obtain a single barrel of crude oil in Burma!
This occurred a full year earlier than he remembered the Japanese army experiencing fuel shortages.

“I’ve heard of Ozawa Jisaburo.”

Chu Yunfei picked up a red and blue pencil and drew a circle around the location of the Japanese First Mobile Fleet.

"He was one of the few clear-headed individuals in the Japanese Navy and one of the first generals to propose the tactic of concentrated use of aircraft carriers."

"Use large aircraft carriers as the core, and let battleships act as air defense escorts."

"In terms of tactical concepts, this is indeed in line with the pace of modern naval warfare."

Chu Yunfei shook his head, casually tossed the pencil onto the table, and said in a tone like a judge reading a death sentence: "It's just a pity that they woke up too late."

Lin Wei nodded, deeply agreeing: "The Japanese side has indeed theoretically assembled a task force capable of decisive battle."

"According to intelligence, they not only possess newly built heavy armored aircraft carriers like the Taiho, but also repaired older main aircraft carriers such as the Shokaku and Zuikaku."

"Their strength on paper should not be underestimated."

"No matter how strong a company is on paper, it cannot hide the precipitous gap in industrial potential."

Chu Yunfei straightened up, walked to the window beside him, and pushed it open a crack: "In two years, how many aircraft carriers can Japan, an island nation with extremely poor resources, build?"

"But for an ultimate industrial behemoth like the United States, operating at full capacity, two years is enough time to launch an entire invincible fleet!"

Chu Yunfei vividly pictured the Essex-class aircraft carriers, which seemed to be produced like sausages in a factory, constantly being disembarked from American shipyards.

This doesn't even include the converted light aircraft carriers and escort carriers.
"What's more deadly is people."

Chu Yunfei incisively pointed out the Japanese army's fatal weakness.

"The core of the navy is not ships, but pilots and skilled naval officers and men."

"Midway and Guadalcanal have drained the blood of the most elite group of veteran Japanese pilots."

"Even if they could build an airplane now, they could only fit a bunch of rookies who had only flown for a few dozen hours at flight school to fly it."

Chu Yunfei sneered: "An aircraft carrier fleet without experienced pilots is nothing more than a group of mobile iron coffins floating on the sea!"

Fang Ligong closed the intelligence folder and pushed up his glasses: "Your Excellency is absolutely right."

Fang Ligong's eyes were piercing: "The Japanese Navy's desperate 'mobile fleet' is bound to collide with the US Navy in the Mariana Islands."

"Once the last elite of this combined fleet is crushed by the Americans."

Fang Ligong's lever swept across the East China Sea and Yellow Sea on the map: "Control of the entire Western Pacific will fall completely into the hands of the Allied powers."

"The maritime connections between mainland Japan and the Asian continent will be completely severed!"

Chu Yunfei slammed the window shut, turned around, and issued land combat orders that were closely related to the Japanese naval battle.

This is our chance!

Chu Yunfei's gaze, sharp as a knife, shot towards the Yangtze River Delta and the northeast direction on the sand table: "The day the Japanese Navy is destroyed will be the day the Japanese army completely loses its naval gun support along the coast."

"All we need to know is the exact location of the Japanese naval fleet."

"We can even speed up this process!"

"Your Excellency, what do you mean?"

"Of course, we'll use our already developed air force to attack their fleet, which is grounded due to insufficient fuel." (End of Chapter)