Marseille is an ancient port, and at first, in the eyes of the Romans, it was not much better than other small ports in Provence. However, in the 18th and 19th centuries, when colonization flourished, it gradually became a bridgehead for the French conquest of Africa. This city of more than 600,000 people, because of the expansion of the city, was divided into a new port and an old port - before 1830, there was only the old port on the Rhône channel, the quay area was 800 meters long, 250 meters wide, and the water depth was 6 meters; The new port, which began construction later, has a 26-kilometre-long wharf and 230 hectares of water with a depth of 8 to 20 metres.

The pier is connected by two railways that lead directly to Dijon, 500 kilometres to the north. It is north of Chalon, the terminus of the Rhône, two hundred and thirteen kilometres from Nancy. From here, one of the two railways turns right to Belfort on the southern side of the Vosges Mountains, while the other leads to Epinale, 72 kilometres from Nancy. While the railways from the south to the north changed from two to one, the one from Nahuel in the west turned north to the south of Dijon, terminating at Epinale. Therefore, from Marseille more than 700 kilometers north to the far right flank of the coalition army, there have always been two railway lines.

Considering that France uses 30-ton carriages and excellent railway facilities, if the number of trains is sufficient, its daily capacity is 60,000 tons, based on 60 pairs of trains per day. With the consumption of 300 tons of materials per division per day, this can support the operation of 20 divisions. However, the expeditionary force had more than 500,000 men and 40 divisions, and although it was not fighting every day, it was still a great risk that logistics would rely only on two railways. The only solution was to build a 280-kilometre single-track railway from the canal's terminus, Chalon, to Nancy. The support of three railways, plus the use of container transportation. Logistics can barely be maintained.

The port of Marseille was a sunny day, after a brief attendance at the welcoming ceremony of the city government. Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian, commander of the expeditionary force to Europe, held a map and kept an eye on every railway, river, and road from Marseille to the right flank of the coalition forces. Unlike China, France has 50,000 kilometers of railways and more than 600,000 kilometers of simple roads. It is a well-developed country, although the roads here are mostly gravel roads.

Marseille to the right flank of the front line is worry-free, and the route from Asia to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal is very dangerous. According to intelligence, although there are fewer Allied submarines in the Mediterranean than there are submarines in the Atlantic, there are no less than 30, and these 30 or so have sunk 1.5 million tons of merchant ships and more than 20 Allied warships last year. This attack capability is sufficient to disrupt the logistics of the Baath Army. This time the fleet to Europe went secretly. Basically does not stop at the ports along the line, and the escort is also effective, so it can arrive safely, but the next time it will definitely not be so easy.

In the judgment of the General Staff, if the German-Austrian submarines based in the Austro-Hungarian military port of Bora in the Adriatic Sea are not contained, then the logistics and transport lines will inevitably be interrupted by submarine attacks. And Italy, an ally on the near side of the Adri-Dry Sea, was unable to build an effective blockade line in the Otranto Strait, which was only 100 kilometers wide, so that German-Austrian submarines in the Mediterranean Sea were so rampant.

Contain the German-Austrian submarine in the Bora military port. The Strait of Gibraltar is tightly sealed, and only by doing these two things can logistics be truly worry-free. To this end, the Navy's submarine forces will also be stationed in the Toulon military port in the Mediterranean. to carry out encirclement and suppression missions.

Thinking of this, Lin Wenqian wrote frantically on his notebook -- he was recording and sorting out the main points of the current war in France, so that he could assign tasks according to these points at future meetings. Just when he was writing into obsessiveness. A report from outside woke him up.

"Report!" The adjutant hurried in after answering the phone, looking a little nervous. "The 2nd Army Division clashed with the French workers at the docks. Said it was also shot! ”

"What!" Lin Wenqian was stunned when he heard this, but Xu Dachun, the political commissar transferred from the Second Army next to him, bounced off his chair. The military discipline of the Baxing Army has always been strict. How to shoot at the French.

"It was reported that the French workers had somehow made a commotion and then rushed into the docks and started grabbing things." The adjutant was also confused, how could he be so 'vicious' now when the French of the city had come to the docks to welcome him when he first arrived this morning.

"You go and take a look." Lin Wenqian said to Xu Dachun. Hearing that it was the French who were in a commotion and robbing things, Lin Wenqian's slight uneasiness in his heart was put down. The army is not a patrol police, and it is not too much to storm the army, loot supplies, and kill all of them.

"Okay, I'll take a look!" Xu Dachun put down the teacup in his hand and stood up with some seriousness,

"I'm a newcomer, and Erhu is also an old member, so it won't be so muddy." Lin Wen knew Li Erhu, the commander of the Second Marine Division of the Marine Corps, when he was in Liaodong, and it was precisely because he felt that he was at ease that he entrusted him with the task of garrisoning the port of Marseille, so he did not believe that the Second Division was wrong. Besides, they came all the way here to rescue the French, so why not kill a few of them, why can't you shoot your own people as soon as you go ashore?

"I understand." are all old comrades, Lin Wenqian thinks about Xu Dachun clearly.

At this time, in the new port of Marseille, Major General Li Erhu, who had already arrived at the scene, looked at a cracked container, bags of rice, canned food, munitions boxes, grenades, and several French corpses and blood, and was listening to the logistics lieutenant colonel in charge of the place explain what happened.

“…… Those big noses are probably hungry and crazy! The logistics lieutenant colonel with a northeastern accent said this as soon as he opened his mouth. He pointed to the stacked containers on the merchant ships and docks. "As soon as the ship docked, the workers surrounded and prepared to unload the ship, but all we brought were containers. They were all persuaded by us to quit. These people left and left, and after noon, they gathered around again and shouted, shouting, ......"

What had just happened made the lieutenant colonel also confused, and he forgot what the Frenchmen had just shouted, so he had to quickly turn around and ask the general next to him, but before he could speak, his mind came up again, and he continued: "Yes! I remembered that these people were shouting 'work, work.'" Probably saying that we robbed them of their jobs. Originally, it was okay for these people to be stopped outside, but who would have thought that the crane was hanging and hanging. The wire rope broke and fell to the ground, and a box fell down. It just so happened that the box was filled with rice, and the rice fell to the ground. Those big noses went crazy, and they rushed in without caring about anything, not only gra......bbing rice, but also robbing the contents of other boxes, and the country is really, why is there not a lock on this box? ”

"Is that really the case?" Li Erhu listened to the narrative of the logistics lieutenant colonel, and then glanced at Lin Fuan, the regiment commander in charge of this place, with an expressionless face, and asked quietly.

"That's what happened." Lin Fuan is a native of Fujian. His regiment was ordered to protect the docks. "Actually, even if you grab food, those people even carry grenades, and I warned the sky before shooting, but I just didn't listen. I think these people can't read Chinese characters, and they think of grenades as canned sausages or something......"

"What canned sausages!" Li Erhu squinted at Lin Fuan, "Arms are arms." If the gun is not fired, there is nothing to say about the killing. Someone from the headquarters will come, you just say that, see if the commander can kill us, damn it! ”

"Yo. Collusion so quickly. A voice sounded in the distance, but it was Xu Dachun, the political commissar of the headquarters, who arrived.

"Sir!" As soon as Xu Dachun came, the officers present immediately stood up and saluted, and Li Erhu's face was rarely red when he criticized him.

"Alright. Take a break. Xu Dachun said, standing next to him was Lieutenant General Blassiner, Deputy Minister of the French Army, and Major Shawsley, a representative sent by the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, Xia Fei. While the scene has not been destroyed. Hurry up and find someone to take pictures, and the person involved in the incident will be suspended immediately. Write a detailed incident report to thoroughly investigate the cause and responsibility of the incident. Deal with it again. ”

Xu Dachun ordered here, but after listening to the handling opinions told by the translator, Lieutenant General Bai Sner of the French War Department next to him said: "Your Excellency, there is no need to be so troublesome. We are sorry that this was just a sabotage operation instigated by German spies, and we will intensify our surveillance of German spies in the future. ”

After listening to the translation of the general matter, Xu Dachun was surprised that the French handled it like this. However, after thinking about it for a long time, he still insisted: "General, I think we should still summon the local police and local reporters to find out the truth of the matter, although we are not responsible for this matter, but there are also negligence." If you don't want this to happen again, you should gain the trust of the locals. ”

"Your Excellency," Bai Shi Na thought that the Chinese would deal with it according to his own way, but he insisted on his own solution. In normal times, he would approve of this approach, but now it's not a good idea. "What the Maasai people need is not the truth of the matter, what they need is food. Your army's supplies were all shipped in these large iron boxes, and the unloading of ships was carried out by cranes and those powerful cars, which cost the dock workers their jobs and, eventually, food. Therefore, even if they know the truth of the matter, they will not solve their hunger, and they will still look for opportunities to steal supplies. ”

Speaking of hunger, a sadness appeared on Blashner's face, and he said: "Last year the whole winter was too cold, the grain production was greatly reduced, and the shipping was almost cut off because of the submarines, so people could do anything to be fed." Your Excellency, this matter should be dealt with in the same way as a German espionage case. If you want to avoid a similar incident next time, I suggest that the local police be mobilized outside the dock to protect it, but ......" Bai Shina glanced at Xu Dachun, "......, I hope your army can provide food for these people." ”

"There's no problem with that." Xu Dachun nodded and said, as a foreign army, in order to avoid conflicts between the army and the locals, it is necessary to hire some locals to maintain order. He nodded here, and said to Li Erhu and the others over there: "People deal with the difficulties of some people's families like this, but the handling in the army is still the same." It's right to loot the army's supplies and shoot without heeding the warnings, but don't you use your brains and send more people to stop those people farther away? ”

"Yes, sir!" Hearing the advice of the French general who translated the matter, Li Erhu and Lin Fuan were all relieved, since the bitter master said so, then the matter should pass like this, but I don't want Xu Dachun to stick to the previous handling opinion: the party concerned should be suspended for reflection and write a report.

Regardless of what the Chinese themselves do, Bai Shi Na is now curious when he looks at these containers, and he asks: "Is all the material transported through this kind of box?" ”

"Yes." Xu Dachun sent Li Erhu a few, and when he saw the Frenchman asking, he nodded and replied. "Our merchant ships are very, very nervous. For a 6,000-ton merchant ship, the combined time for manual loading and unloading takes more than 10 days. The sailing time from Shanghai to Marseille is only thirty-five days. Available if a container is used. The loading and unloading of the 300 boxes on the 6,000-ton merchant ship would not have taken more than 12 hours, saving nine days, and this saving has increased the efficiency of shipping by 20%. ”

The efficiency problem mentioned by Xu Dachun can also be felt by the French; And the advantage of using containers is not only to improve the efficiency of shipping, because the boxes can be placed on top of each other, and the efficiency of the use of the terminal can also be improved, and if the railway wagon cars can load these iron boxes, then the railway can also use these boxes. It's just that these boxes get off the train, and when they arrive at Epinale, they can only be unpacked and transported to Nancy by car.

The French thought that the container would complete its mission by transporting it to the railway terminal, but in fact, the general plan was to build a more than 70-kilometer RCC road from the railway terminus to Epinal, only to Nancy, and then transport the containers directly to the front-line military station by high-horsepower diesel transport vehicles, where they were unpacked and transferred to various units by medium-duty trucks.

Although war burns money, for a country with a certain industrial base, the cost of war will greatly stimulate its own industrial development. The Japanese went to war every ten years from Koshu to Russo-Japanese. Eventually, the country's industry began to take shape; As for China, since the founding of the country, the continuous needs of war have caused the heavy industry to inflate like a balloon, but fortunately, many high school students, college students and international students have been trained before the founding of the country. Otherwise, the rapidly growing industry will be in trouble because it is not supported by talent.

"Your Excellency, is it possible to sell the technology for the production of this kind of box to our country?" Blasner looked at the stacks of containers that were frequently lifted under the crane, and felt if the French Army used it as well. That would greatly improve logistical efficiency; In addition, he heard that the Americans were also experimenting with this kind of iron box transportation on the railway. "I think if the Army also uses this mode of transport. That ......"

"If your army also uses this method, not only will all your merchant ships and railway cars be re-produced. Roads throughout the country will also be renovated. As far as I know, even the roads of Paris cannot withstand the long-term crushing of container trucks. Xu Dachun said with a smile: "For a country like yours with developed transportation, it will take several years to change all this, and when everything is ready, the war has been won." ”

Container transportation not only involves the container itself, but also involves various transportation facilities such as merchant ships, railways, railways, docks, tunnels, and most importantly, hydraulic forklifts. Although the Americans had used hydraulic transmissions on the turret of the battleship Virginia more than a decade earlier, some hydraulic components, such as nitrile, an oil-resistant sealing material, a by-product of the failure of synthetic rubber, and radial piston pumps and relief valves that had been researched at great expense for forklifts under Yang Rui's strict orders. These are technical secrets, and the products are only for military use and will not be sold to the outside world until they are allowed to enter the market.

"Yes." Blasner only saw the benefits of container transportation and did not think about the time it would take to change the entire transportation system to accommodate such transportation. Under Xu Dachun's reminder, especially when he heard him say, 'The war has been won', Ben's sad face showed rare joy, and he repeated: "By that time, the war has been won!" ”

In a few words on the wharf, the high-level Chinese and French armies downplayed the tragedy that had just occurred. Xu Dachun, who returned to the headquarters, reported the matter to Lin Wenqian, thinking that the matter was over, but in less than three hours, there was a bigger riot in Marseille, and more French people surrounded the new port to protest to the Baath Army in the port. This time it was no longer 'work' that people were shouting, but 'murderers' and 'quitting the war'. Fortunately, the cordoned off area of the pier was enlarged and arranged on the perimeter, and the French police, who had just had enough energy to eat a meal, barely stopped the demonstrators.

Everyone in the headquarters looked at each other, and Lin Wenqian, the commander of the expeditionary force, who hadn't spoken much for a day, looked through the glass window at the city full of monasteries and churches, and said helplessly: "It seems that France has also run out of oil." ”

"The situation in Britain is even worse." Xu Dachun said. According to the itinerary, tomorrow he and Lin Wenqian will go to Paris to meet with Chief of Staff Zhou Sixu and Prime Minister's Special Envoy Yang Du, and then cross the sea to London. "The United States feared the dead, the expeditionary force was held back in the Atlantic by German submarines, and now we were the only hope for the Entente victory."

"So the submarines in the Mediterranean must be cleared, and the Strait of Gibraltar must be closed." Lin Wenqian said extremely firmly. "You immediately sort out the battle plan submitted by the navy, and when you get to Paris, I want to focus on these two issues with the Entente."

"Understood!" Xu Dachun: "But I heard that Italy has a bombing plan for the port of Bora in the near future......"

"Are they with torpedo machines or horizontal bombers?" Lin Wenqian asked. Except for China, no other country has dive bombers, so the bombing can only be these two aircraft.

"Probably a horizontal bomber." Xu Dachun said. "Italy would have liked to have no aviation torpedoes."

"Then send a telegram to Kote, and ask him to discuss with the French at once to stop the Italian bombardment, so as not to startle the snakes." Lin Wenqian turned around and said, compared to the port of Bora, the civil unrest in Marseille is just a trivial matter, and when the harassing crowd is hungry and tired, these people will automatically disperse.

Lin Wenqian thought that the matter at the port would soon be resolved, but the Maasai people, who had had had enough of the war and hunger, fought with the police until late at night, before they were dispersed again by the sound of gunfire.

When the harassment occurred in Marseille, the French, who were extremely concerned about the safety of the Chinese army, immediately reported the news to the French army headquarters. When the chief of the general staff, Foch, listened to the whole incident, and briefly introduced it to Zhou Sixu, and then said: "The reason for the matter is actually very simple, there is a shortage of food in various cities, even on the seaside, the threat of submarines makes fishermen dare not go to the sea to fish." Even small ships would have sunk the Germans with the deck guns of submarines. In order to break the blockade and for the safety of your merchant fleet, we will launch a bombardment of the German-Austrian submarine base in the port of Bola next week, and if we are lucky enough to blow up the oil depot of the port, the submarine threat will be mitigated. ”

"But according to the normal situation, the oil depots are in the safest places in the military port, and there will be thick cement and concrete on them." Zhou Sixu was also thinking about the troubles of the German-Austrian submarine in the Mediterranean. Ironically, what was once designed to strengthen the fighting power of German submarines has now become a mortal threat to disrupt the long-distance routes of the Baath Army.

"That's what I thought, too, but we always have to do something." Foch said helplessly. "If you don't do anything and don't bring some news to the population, especially the news of victory, then the situation will get even worse."

"Yes, I think so too." Deputy Chief of the General Staff Destika aptly added. "And I strongly recommend that your country recruit a number of escorts along the entire railway line and on both sides of the canal, whose duty is to protect the railways, and especially the military supplies on the trains and ships, from theft." Speaking of this, Destika glanced at Foch with a weak heart, and seeing that he did not react, he explained to himself: "No matter what country it is, there will always be some bad people who are good at stealing and destroying, and only by hiring locals can this loss be reduced. ”

Destica's explanation made Lieutenant General Zhu Lu and Lieutenant General on the side sigh in his heart, in the past, he had always thought that the West was extremely rich, and he didn't want to be so embarrassed this time because of the war. I heard that if it had not been for President Poincaré, who was the main war, had invited Clemenceau, who was the main war, to form a cabinet and concurrently serve as Minister of War, France would have already submitted a request to Germany for peace talks. The war had come to this point, and for France, which had shed its blood, there was no difference between peace talks without reparations and defeat.

It is precisely for this reason that after China declared war on the Central Powers, France sold all its investments in China to the Chinese government, returned all concessions and abolished extraterritoriality, and evacuated all soldiers stationed in Tianjin. Instead of returning these rights and interests to China step by step, as the British did, in accordance with the Entente. For the French government, everything else could be discarded, and victory, a complete victory, a victory that trampled the Germans under their feet forever, was the only pursuit.

"Yes, I will definitely take your advice to heart and hire more locals along the railways and canals. It is up to them to secure the logistics line. Zhou Sixu fully understood what Destica meant. The country was already on the verge of collapse because of hunger, and only hoped that the situation would get better and worse after the Ba'ath Army entered the war. (To be continued......)