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

Chapter 665 Are the Japanese afraid of falling rice prices? Then let's help them reduce product

A dozen minutes later, the alarm was lifted.

Sakuma used all his strength to climb out of the well, which was full of dust and ashes.

The sight before him caused the pupil of his only remaining eye to suddenly contract.

Purgatory.

He could find no other words to describe it.

Everywhere you look, there are raging flames and billowing smoke.

The streets that were just moments ago 'full of life and teeming with life' have now been reduced to charred ruins.

The charred wood emitted a pungent odor, and the air was filled with the horrible smell of burnt protein.

Cries, groans, and calls for help came from all directions, more chilling than the sirens.

"Help! Someone help me!"

"Water! Give me water!"

"Hanako...Hanako, where are you...Waaaaah..."

A figure engulfed in flames rushed out of a burning house with a scream. After running a few steps, it collapsed to the ground, rolled a few times, and then lay still, its flesh sizzling in the flames.

Not far away, a squad of Japanese firefighters pushed an old wooden waterwheel, gripped a crude water hose, and tried desperately to extinguish the flames on a building.

"Quick! Spray water!" the fire chief shouted.

The water jets poured onto the blazing flames, hissing and creating plumes of white mist.

However, things did not improve.

The viscous, asphalt-like solidified gasoline is completely resistant to water.

The water splashed up, but instead of extinguishing the flames, it splashed the burning gasoline everywhere.

The flames, as if alive, spread along the direction of the water flow, instantly igniting areas that were not yet on fire, and even splashing onto the firefighters themselves.

"Ah! Fire! I'm on fire!" A young Japanese soldier dropped the fire hose and frantically patted the sticky, unquenchable flames on his body, letting out a shrill scream. He soon became a rolling human torch himself.

“It’s no use…it’s no use…this is the flames of the devil…it can’t be extinguished…” Sakuma looked at the out-of-control scene before him, at the Japanese soldiers screaming and dying in the flames, and collapsed to the ground in despair, muttering to himself.

He stood there, the scorching heat blasting his face, the thick smoke making him cough incessantly.

His wooden prosthetic legs creaked as they stepped on the scorching, ash-covered, and charred ground.

He looked at the human tragedy before him, at the lives that struggled in vain in the sea of ​​fire and were eventually reduced to charcoal, at the survivors who had lost their loved ones, suffered mental breakdowns, and knelt before the ruins, uttering inhuman cries.

He touched the empty eye patch over his left eye and then looked at his crippled leg.

The steel storm of the Nanyang Army failed to kill him completely, allowing him to drag his broken body and eke out a living until now.

Now, on this land where he was born and raised, he has witnessed firsthand a more thorough and cruel destruction ultimately brought about by the madness sown by the empire itself.

It's too awful.

The sight of the city engulfed in flames, the tragic scene of countless compatriots wailing and perishing in the inferno, was ten or even a hundred times more devastating than any battle he had ever experienced in Great Xia or Southeast Asia.

Is this the "immortal China" promised by the Empire and the Emperor?

Is this the "paradise of the kingly way" for which they fought and sacrificed?

A tremendous, indescribable sense of desolation and absurdity, like the surrounding flames, completely engulfed him.

-----

Zhang Chi sat behind his large desk, holding the newly delivered assessment report on the results of the first fire attack against the Japanese.

Outside the window, the intense sunlight typical of Southeast Asia created a strange contrast with the sea of ​​fire described in the report, thousands of kilometers away.

He flipped through the report pages, his eyes quickly scanning the data and analysis charts.

"The damage effect is quite good." He put down the report, his tone calm, revealing little emotional fluctuation, as if he were evaluating the production data of an ordinary industrial product.

"More than 40 percent of the wooden structures in the target area of ​​Fukuoka were completely destroyed by fire, and the expected casualties and material losses have reached expectations."

He then picked up the loss report attached to the side.

"Two B-17s were lost, and seven others were damaged to varying degrees... The attrition rate is about 2.2 percent." He pointed to the number with his finger. "That's acceptable."

He gave the order to the staff officer in front of him:

"Notify Air Force Command to continue the fire attack mission as originally planned. As long as the loss rate per sortie does not exceed three percent, the operation need not be stopped."

A young staff officer standing nearby swallowed subconsciously, as if he wanted to say something.

Zhang Chi glanced at him:

"This is a national war, concerning the nation's living space and its destiny for the next hundred years. There is no room for any mercy or soft-heartedness."

Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to one's own people.

What we need to do is destroy the enemy's war potential and will to resist at the lowest possible cost and as quickly as possible.

He picked up another intelligence summary and added:

"Moreover, our bomber group departed from Okinawa in the evening and arrived over Kyushu close to midnight."

The Japanese had very poor nighttime air defense capabilities, especially in terms of anti-aircraft artillery accuracy and command and coordination.

They had almost no decent night fighters equipped with radar.

As long as our navigation and bombing are accurate enough, the interference they cause will be minimal.

At this moment, Zhang Chi seemed to suddenly remember something and turned to the official in charge of liaising with research institutions.

"Oh right, I remember, Nanhua Chemical reported a while ago that they had developed a special agent, codenamed... 'Golden Bird Flower'?" He tilted his head slightly in recollection.

“Yes, Your Excellency the President,” the official replied immediately.

"'Broom' is a selective plant growth disruptor. Laboratory and preliminary field trials have shown that it has a strong inhibitory and destructive effect on rice and other gramineous crops, leading to severe yield reduction or even crop failure. Its components are..."

Zhang Chi raised his hand to stop him from giving a detailed explanation of the ingredients.

"I don't need to know the details of the principle. I just need to confirm that it's effective for rice, right?"

Zhang Chi's fingers tapped rhythmically on the table:

"It's July now, and there are still two or three months until the Japanese rice harvest season."

He paused for a moment, a cold glint in his eyes.

"I have approved it. I have ordered Nanhua Chemical to immediately begin small-scale trial production of a batch of 'Golden Bird Flower' pesticide."

The next phase of the air raids will continue with the dropping of incendiary bombs, while also targeting rice paddy areas in Kyushu, particularly agricultural prefectures such as Fukuoka, Saga, and Kumamoto, for mixed bombing runs.

His orders were ruthless: "Dosage and range, jointly determined by agricultural experts and operations staff. I want to see the results report."

The office fell silent for a moment.

Everyone understood what this order meant.

This is not just about destroying cities, but about fundamentally cutting off the enemy's food supply.