On the 20th of July, Qi Rui returned to the 24th Division. During the meeting, he took out the battle plan from his briefcase and distributed it to everyone. Qi Rui didn't sit down but started talking about the basic battle concept of the headquarters while looking at the map. "Attacking reinforcements from the encirclement is also based on the enemy inside the city being weakened to the point where they can't break through. Our army's main goal is to occupy and destroy Chicago."
Looking at the map was one of the basic skills of a soldier. A soldier who only knew how to look at the map naturally couldn't be a good soldier, but a soldier who couldn't even understand the map was an unqualified soldier. The soldiers in the room didn't even look at the map or just glanced at it before looking at the battle plan. Most of the contents of the map were already imprinted in their minds. Commander Zheng Minglun took the opportunity when Qi Rui paused to ask, "When does the headquarters want us to leave?"
Qi Rui immediately replied, "The headquarters will send the 55th Division to follow behind us and wait for them to arrive."
On the 22nd of July, the 55th Division arrived in Madison with the help of the trucks. Commander Chen was in the vanguard. According to the agreement between both parties, the 24th Division's reinforcement would bring the 55th Division's vanguard into Madison. Other than a few camp guides and relevant camp layout documents, the 24th Division would completely retreat from Madison.
This method was in line with the rules. From a purely military point of view, there weren't any threatening Merika strongholds around Madison. The 24th Division's arrangement ensured that they wouldn't be ambushed and used their combat power to the greatest extent.
All of this was good. The only problem was that Commander Chen of the 55th Division had the feeling that the 24th Division was so arrogant. Didn't the commander even have time to welcome them?
The 24th Division didn't have time to care about Commander Chen's thoughts. The troops' consideration was very simple: run. The troops hoped to get close to Chicago as soon as possible and surround the city center before the enemy could carry out an effective counterattack.
On the afternoon of the 25th of July, the 24th Division entered Chicago and started their operation. The 50,000 troops didn't have the ability to suppress a city with a million people. Under the scorching sun and hot air, the troops started their operation.
Some American farms and pastures were outside of the encirclement. These scattered heads were taken care of by the accompanying Japanese. As everyone cooperated more and more, the Japanese began to split up. Qi Rui knew that some of the Japanese had volunteered to form a group to face more dangerous battles. These people would get more rewards and participate in the distribution of the spoils than those who simply did the clearing work.
What the Liberation Army really needed was the land in North America. That little bit of money was not a problem for the army at all. Qi Rui was even very opposed to the army getting involved in this kind of operation. Killings in war could still be covered up with the justice of the country, but there was no room for private plunder. What's more, under China's system of state ownership of land, China, which had annexed the vast North American land, could create huge wealth in a short period of time.
In the military headquarters, Qi Rui unbuttoned the collar of his military uniform. The hot summer days were too hot, and the air at night was filled with heat that was difficult to dissipate. The morning sun shone on the ground like a sharp blade, and the 24th Division had about three times the number of mechanical failures on this day. It was normal for the water tank to boil, and many cars even stopped by the side of the road immediately. The drivers who repaired the cars couldn't find the problem at all.
A considerable number of trucks that could still persist were used to pull the barbed wire. The 24th Division realized that these seemingly inconspicuous things were really more effective than a hundred thousand troops in a battle. Near the position where the 24th Division had started to set up, the sound of long rods colliding with the barbed wire could be heard. There were many gunshots, explosions, and a small number of screams.
"It's too hot!" Qi Rui touched his military cap and felt that it was warm. He took off his cap and put it back on in less than a minute. The temperature of the air was so high that the military cap on his head could actually insulate him from the heat.
The weather was so hot that it was easy to imagine the situation of the troops fighting in the heat. The simple medical station was overcrowded, and most of them were carried over after suffering from heat stroke. The rest were mostly other illnesses caused by heat stroke. Compared to the number of illnesses caused by the weather, the casualties caused by the battle were negligible.
The sky finally darkened under the sincere expectation of the recovery army, although fighting in the rain was too disadvantageous. Although fighting in the rain was disadvantageous, the torment of the hot summer made many, or even most of the soldiers, yearn for rain. Even if they had to fight on muddy ground, it was still better than fighting in the scorching heat.
The Liberation Army enjoyed the darkness that they had waited so long for, and they didn't plan to leave the defensive position built by the barbed wire. At around 8: 30 at night, when the sky had just turned completely dark, Chicago in the distance lit up.
Be it soldiers or officers, everyone looked at the bright Chicago in a daze. It was an orange-red light, the light emitted when a flame burned wantonly.
According to later research, there were many people who studied the Chicago Fire, both from the Min dynasty and outside of the Min dynasty. The general opinion was that this wasn't a problem of the Liberation Army, and the Liberation Army didn't have a particularly big influence on it.
The first to burn was a farm in the southwest. Then the fire took advantage of the southwest wind to lift the livestock shed, and the fire spread rapidly. A nearby warehouse and a paint shop immediately caught fire, forming a huge wall of fire that rushed toward the northeast.
Strangely, under such a fire, about four or five blocks north and east of the fire also suddenly began to catch fire. Some people also said that the Liberation Army carried out heavy shelling of those areas, but from the battle orders or the memories of the locals, there was no large-scale shelling.
However, there were even more bizarre accounts that appeared in many people's memories. Some witnesses said that the marble had caught fire during that terrible night; others said that when one house had caught fire, another, a little way off, suddenly burst into flames, as if some invisible man had set fire to them in succession. It wasn't just one person or a few people who made this statement. Nearly half of the people near the fire gave testimony that touched on one or two of these points. This puzzled the people who studied the cause of the fire in later generations.
Of course, after the fire was fully ignited, it was completely different. With the help of the Great Heat Fen from the southwest, the fire approached the most densely populated central area with astonishing speed. Sparks fell from the sky, and the tall roof of the Pacific Hotel was the first to catch fire. From a distance, the building looked like a huge torch.
These tall buildings that were gradually burning up became new flame dispersers. The scorching hot Martian flames flew in all directions along with the airflow that could almost directly ignite wood. Then, more houses were set ablaze.
The Chicago fire department, regardless of the terrible Chinese troops stationed close at hand, tried to save their city, tried to save their homes.
But there was no other way. The commercial building and the Chicago Chamber of Commerce building were also burning. Under the burning buildings, people ran wildly, jostled, and gathered into a stream of people under the fire. Then the Chicago Opera House and the First National Bank also burned. The Chicago General Post Office building also became a huge torch. On the courthouse tower in downtown, a fireman saw the fire, but misjudged the center of the fire. He shouted to the night radio operator, "The fire is coming from Canal Harbor and Helsted Street!" The operator notified the fire headquarters. The headquarters immediately sent all the firemen to a corner a mile away from the fire. By the time the firemen saw the whole fire, there was no center of the fire. Chicago was already in a sea of fire.
Just 40 minutes later, the distant Chicago water plant also began to burn. The city's water system was cut off, and the water supply stopped. At this time, many people were jumping into the huge pool of the water plant to escape the fate of being burned to death. When the fire reached the water plant, the people who stayed in the water began to panic. Some people began to jump out of the pool and ran toward the Illinois River in the distance. The fire advanced, and many of the firemen in Chicago had to give up fighting the fire because they had no water to fight the fire.
The Chinese did not take this opportunity to kill the people of Chicago. In fact, the entire army of 40,000 to 50,000 people stared at the burning Chicago in shock. When a large number of Americans who had to flee the burning city, crying, arrived in front of the barbed wire, the Liberation Army quickly removed the barricades and accepted these people.
The soldiers with photographic equipment spontaneously began to take pictures and record a large amount of information. Through written records and photographic records, people were able to determine that after the merciless fire engulfed the two main central blocks, the heat wave quickly turned into a hurricane with winds of 70 miles per hour.
There was no need for any open fire to ignite it. The temperature of the hurricane itself exceeded the temperature of spontaneous combustion of wood. Chicago, like other American cities, was built of wood. Wherever the hurricane went, cotton curtains and flammable items outside the houses first burned, then the wooden houses began to smoke, and soon there was a raging fire.
Chicago was in chaos and panic. As the fire spread north in two directions, it formed a sea of fire. At 11: 30, the fire had spread across the river and engulfed the newly completed Parmelee public carriage barn. Under the billowing smoke, sparks from countless wooden shavings flew in the air, sowing new fire wherever they went. Men and children from miles away ignored the war and rushed to help, but the effect was getting smaller and smaller.
People completely underestimated the destructive power of the fire. The fierce flames had already deformed the carriages and wheels of the trains, collapsing like the wreckage of a giant dragon. It was extremely ugly. A large pile of pig iron nearby had melted into a pool of red molten iron. In the middle of the night, the Chicago gas station exploded, followed by a series of explosions of methane gas from the nearby ammunition depots and sewers. The tower of court burned, and the large bell above was also shaken and collapsed.
Before ten o 'clock in the evening, the scorching hurricane still maintained the same direction as the southwest wind at this time. After ten o 'clock, the hurricane suddenly blew from all directions, and at the same time, it blew in all directions. The hurricane turned into a shocking tornado. The sky in the middle of the fire should have been empty, but the flames burned in the air. Hundreds of photos recorded this terrible scene. A pillar of fire went straight to the sky, as if the giant blade of God had descended from the sky before the end of the world. Compared to this giant blade that reached the sky, the buildings in the fire and the people trying to put out the fire were so small that they were insignificant.
And many Americans in the distance saw this scene, they simply trembled and knelt on the ground. In the books of the believers, there were too many "gospel texts" about this terrible divine punishment. Everything in front of them was undoubtedly highly consistent with those "gospel texts."
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