Autumn in Paris seems to Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian to come earlier than in China, when the departure in China is in summer, and after more than 30 days of turbulence, through the blazing Red Sea, from the shore of Marseille, you can feel the slightest autumn mood every morning and dusk. The sky here is often unpredictable, with sunny and rainy spells, and the leaves turn green and yellow in the autumn rains. After arriving in Paris, except for the autumn rain that came from time to time, there was a strong wind blowing in the city from morning to night, although this wind was mild and mild, not hurried, but it blew the leaves of the street trees everywhere, and every morning when I woke up, the fallen leaves spread all over the ground.

Autumn is here, and winter is not far away. The Entente countries were very skeptical that the Chinese Expeditionary Force would be able to reach 500,000 men as agreed before the onset of winter, but last month's surprise attack by the submarine force of the expeditionary force on the Bora military port in the Adriatic Sea won the praise of Britain, France, and other countries.

According to the enemy intelligence intercepted by the Allied countries afterwards, the submarine caverns in the Bora military port all collapsed in the explosion that day, and thousands of tons of diesel fuel in the oil depot were also ignited in the explosion, and the German submarine detachment in the Mediterranean and the Austro-Hungarian submarine force suffered heavy losses in the explosion, and the submarines were either sunk or damaged; if the Allies did not split and transport the submarines to the Bora military port by rail, then the German-Austrian blockade of the maritime transportation of the Allied countries in the Mediterranean would be completely invalid.

The interception of this information made the Allies feel like a treasure, and the merchant ships in the Atlantic began to look far away. Bypassing the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and arriving in France through the Suez Canal via the Mediterranean, Italy, which had always regretted not being able to destroy the Austro-Hungarian fleet, encouraged the French navy to enter the Adriatic Sea together. The shelling of the Austro-Hungarian coast was accompanied by the expectation of forcing the Austro-Hungarian fleet out of port to fight. However, the submarines in the port of Bora were not all submarines in the Mediterranean, and the three submarines that survived with the UB-68 were not characters to be provoked, because after the Italian and French navies sank a destroyer and a cruiser each, the navies of the two countries, who did not know how many submarines the enemy still had, withdrew from the Adriatic Sea again.

Although the attack failed, the blockade of the Strait of Otranto was thoroughly strengthened, and the anti-submarine nets with the gaps were filled. The navies of various countries also formed formations and patrolled the blockade day and night; As for the Chinese submarine forces, they are responsible for dealing with the Austro-Hungarian cruisers and destroyers that come to sabotage. It was no longer possible to open the cage by night raids as before, and on the side of the Strait of Gibraltar, since the British were unwilling to close the strait completely, they could only strengthen the defense. to prevent German submarines from drilling into the Mediterranean.

Between smart people and smart people. It always resonates quickly. After Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian arrived in Paris, he visited dignitaries everywhere, but many British and French dignitaries did not approve of this Chinese general, after all, compared with Lei Yizhen and Qi Qingyuan, who had been tempered by the Sino-Japanese war, he was just a low-level commander with broken arms in a ravine and circling with the Manchu army, and he might not be able to adapt to large-scale wars, especially mechanized wars. In the minds of these people, the best generals in China should be Qi Qingyuan, followed by Lei Yizhen. As for the fact that these two men were not appointed commanders of the expeditionary force, most of the British and French people were puzzled and confused.

But this time, the first thing Lin Wenqian did when he first arrived in Europe was to kill the German-Austrian submarine in the Bora military port. This immediately made many people who were originally skeptical of him turn to recognize his ability. In the words of Field Marshal Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, 'while we were all looking at the land, Lin's eyes were on the sea, and above all for us all to the benefit of his active, resolute, and swift surprise strikes, which benefited us all......

After the successful attack on Port Bora, although Britain and France did not unconsciously make things difficult for the expeditionary force in some details, the number of dignitaries who came to the temporary headquarters of the expeditionary force, that is, No. 20 Constantine Road, to visit Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian continued unabated, dinners, cocktail parties, balls, these invitations also filled the office of the expeditionary force's external office. When the second expeditionary force arrived in Marseille, the Provisional Command finally withdrew from Paris and headed for Nancy, a major city in northern France.

The direct railway to Nancy was occupied by the Germans, and the people in the headquarters had to go south first and then freeze. However, with the opening of the Mediterranean passage, the number of trains from south to north and east to west gradually increased, and although the expeditionary force took a special train, it still had to make temporary stops at each station, sometimes for more than three hours.

"The French are really not as good as the Germans." At an unknown small station, looking at the train heading west, Lieutenant General Xu Dachun, political commissar of the expeditionary force, could not help but sigh with emotion: France's railway network is very dense, and the railway facilities and station facilities are also very complete, but its efficiency has not been high, and this is not only the complaint of the expeditionary force, but also the people of the US expeditionary force headquarters next door to the temporary headquarters of the expeditionary force in Paris.

"The Germans are no better off at this point in the war." Chief of Staff Zhou Sixu has a much deeper understanding of the French and French armies than Xu Dachun. "That's why I said before that we must establish a logistics system independent of the coalition forces, and the workers and dispatchers along the way must be our people, and the daily supply amount should not be too dead, we must leave room for it, and the supply method should be as simple as possible to avoid accidents."

"It's going to cost a lot of money, sir, do you agree?" Although Xu Dachun was in charge of political work, he knew how important the supply lines were in the Fuxing Army, which paid extreme attention to logistics.

"Agreed. Why not agree? A hundred-ton inland river vessel should not dredge any river channel at all, and even if it does, it is necessary to build enough wharves and docking waters at the end of the canal, which does not cost much; Besides, although the canal is slower, its reliability and cost are better than the railway, which is to save money and spend money. Zhou said strangely.

"Then why is Zhou Miao locked up in the house?" Xu Dachun thought that it was because of the disagreement of the canal that Lin Wenqian was held back in the house and did not come out. Usually he doesn't have a good face, but he doesn't want to, but it's not for logistics.

"That's how little you get along with him, this is the marrow of the continent. is thinking about the specific strategy of the expeditionary force. Zhou Sixu smiled, "Actually, when I was in Yanzhou, I, the chief of staff, basically ate white rice, and many plans were conceived by Zhou Yuan, and then the staff department was arranged to verify the feasibility and fill the loopholes. It's for him. This time, the right flank of the divisional defense line, the staff did the most to collect all kinds of information in the Lorraine area. The overall decision will not be finalized until the continent is reached, and even how many additional troops will need to be sent in the country will not be determined until then......"

"Do you want more troops?" Xu Dachun was very surprised, "Didn't you say 500,000?" ”

"Half a million, that's including the Russians. These people say it's easy to use and easy to use. It's not easy to say it's not easy to use, so ah, the general policy in the country is to sell them to the French, the British, and then exchange them for a batch of artillery and ammunition. 500,000 were the number of people from the country, and only 300,000 were under our command, and the Russians were not under our control because they were given to the British and French armies. Zhou Sixu said, he saw that Xu Dachun's face suddenly turned worried. Then he continued: "Independent command is what was written into the treaty before we came, and the enemy on the right flank. That is, the German-Austrian armies, they only held on and had no intention of attacking - for the now exhausted Germany, the most important thing was to occupy Paris, not the remote northeast. ”

"Paris ......, so the French asked us for these Russian soldiers?" Xu Dachun nodded while thinking, as the so-called capture the thief first captures the king, Paris is the capital of France, although the French government has moved to Bordeaux, but Paris is still its own capital in the hearts of the French, if the city is occupied by the German army, the political significance brought by it is incalculable.

Xu Dachun is the second phase of South Africa, and he was born in the Nanjing Army Academy, and he has been partnering with Lei Yizhen after the Russo-Japanese War, so he has no friendship with Zhou Sixu. Unlike Lin Wenqian, who doesn't like to talk very much, Zhou Sixu has always talked a lot, and his role in the army is more to communicate and coordinate with the outside world, and then to coordinate the affairs of the General Staff, but the real staff work is still done by the staff officers below.

Seeing that Xu Dachun was not familiar with the joints inside, in the boredom of stopping and waiting, Zhou Sixu couldn't help laughing and said: "These Russians were captured by our army, let's not talk about resentment or resentment, just look at the current anti-war and anti-war and rout of the Russian army, do you dare to use this kind of army?" Xu Dachun didn't answer yet, Zhou Sixu asked himself and answered: "This kind of army is not said by others, anyway, we don't dare to use it, once the German army attacks and the front in charge of the Russian soldiers is defeated, then we will have to explain it all."

Didn't Sir say that Russia would eventually withdraw from the war, and once the Russian Provisional Government announced that Russia had withdrawn from the war, what reason would these Russians have for them to fight again? We can't afford to buy and sell with money, and we don't spend money to suppress them by force, and we have 300,000 people to suppress 200,000 of them, isn't this fighting with ourselves? Therefore, while the Russian Provisional Government has not yet withdrawn from the war, it is only right to sell them for a good price earlier. As for what to do with the more than 100 kilometers of defense line after the departure of Russia, then we can only send more troops from the country, and we only pay an extra freight fee, but this money is much cheaper than the heavy artillery and shells in exchange. ”

Unexpectedly, some time ago, Chief of Staff Zhou Sixu held meetings with the French and British every day, and it is no wonder that after the arrival of the first batch of ocean-going fleets, the Provisional Command did not move to Nancy. Xu Dachun thought of this and suddenly asked: "We don't use Russians, do British and French dare to use Russians?" Once the Germans attacked, it ......"

"There are already many British and French troops, and we are one and a half people looking at one Russian soldier, and they are three or five people looking at one Russian soldier, as long as the structure is disrupted and incorporated into the active army on the scale of a company or battalion, it is not a big problem. Besides, even if something happens to the Russians, what does it matter to us? Zhou Sixu said with a smile, "We entered the war for post-war interests, as long as the Entente won and our performance was not bad, then there must be post-war benefits; The longer the war drags on, the more money we have, so the longer the war lasts, the better it will be for us. ”

War was a matter of politics, and when the third ocean-going fleet arrived, China had basically fulfilled its obligation to send half a million troops to France before winter. These 500,000 people agreed last month to hand over 200,000 Russian prisoners to the British and French armies as supplementary soldiers. There were only 300,000 expeditionary troops left on the line east of St. Dizier, although the number of defenders scheduled for this section of the line was 500,000, but when would the next 200,000 arrive. It will depend on the arrangements of the staff of the expeditionary force.

Whether the battle east of Saint-Dizier will be fought or not, and how big it will be, depends entirely on the expeditionary force's own arrangements, and the bottom line of Britain and France is that the expeditionary force must hold the existing defense line and launch a diversion attack when the other defense lines need it, and as for the rest, it will not make any requirements. In their abacus. Whatever the Chinese think, they have at least 500,000 reserve troops, and another 200,000 of them are fresh troops. With this force. If Russia does withdraw from the war as previously expected, the Eastern Front and the Eastern Army will be transferred to the west, and the coalition forces will be able to stabilize the defensive line, and the next will be waiting for the arrival of a million American troops as announced by American Commander Pershing. At that time, 1.5 million Sino-American expeditionary forces. plus the already existing Anglo-French army of more than two million. More than 4 million troops were always able to completely crush the exhausted German-Austrian army in an overall battle.

Using the Chinese Expeditionary Force to stimulate the American Expeditionary Force, and then using China's post-war asking price to suppress US President Wilson's ambition to change the rules of the game, was the trick of Britain's wartime Foreign Secretary Balfour. As far as Britain is concerned, this is only to exchange its allies in the Far East from Japan to China, and to deprive the interests of the conceded interests from Japan, which is not only a deal without capital, but also can provoke Sino-Japanese relations that are getting closer and closer -- allies are not the ultimate guarantee of interests, and the pattern of checks and balances is the premise of colonial stability.

As for the covenant between Britain and China. Since the Anglo-Japanese alliance can gradually shirk responsibility through amendments, the United Kingdom and China can do the same. Even the head of Far Eastern affairs, Victor. Victor Wllesley suggested that a conference should be convened specifically on the Far East after the war, and that the two Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Japanese alliance treaties be expanded into a five-nation alliance between Britain, France, the United States, China, and Japan, so as to reformulate the rules of the game in the Pacific.

Wellis's proposal, while valid, did not make it acceptable to the Imperial Defense Council. For Great Britain, who relied on its navy to dominate the world, whoever developed the navy was the enemy of Great Britain. Before the war in Europe, the enemy was Germany and the United States, but as the situation developed, Japan, which should have been weakened by the defeat, relied on shipping and wartime trade to recover again, and benefited from a large-scale reduction of the army, 70% of its military spending was used for the navy, although the scale of the 88 plan and Britain could not be compared, but from then on the Japanese navy was a real threat to the Royal Navy in the East Asian seas.

On the other hand, China's navy has only one battlecruiser captured to Japan, five aircraft carriers including the paper plan, five 2,000-ton light cruisers Haichou, Haichen, Zhaohe, Yingrui, and Feihong, and a large number of river gunboats. In addition, although there is the world's second-largest submarine force only behind Germany, the problem is that with the range of these submarines, they can only fight in the South China Sea and the western Pacific, which even the British colony of India cannot threaten.

With this naval power, all of Britain's colonies in Asia were safe, and China's seizure of Russia's Far East and Central Asia meant that China and Russia became irresolvable enemies. The British Crown of Great Britain was willing to draw the line of power in Central Asia on the former Arab-Russian border, recognize China's occupation of the Russian Far East in the name of reconquista, and acquiesce in China's occupation of the Kazakh steppe and the seizure of Russia's vested interests in northern Persia (provided that Russia withdrew from the war in Europe), but the original intention of this concession was only to make Sino-Russian hostility deeper and free up the Central Asian field so that China and Russia could not fight to the death.

It can be expected that when China is fighting life and death in the Kazakh steppe and Russia, it will not have the energy to make more small moves in the Nanyang colonies, or more specifically, the Lu Xin theory proposed by Mackinder, president of the Royal Geographical Society in the United Kingdom, will begin to really affect the national decision-making of the Chinese government, hundreds of millions of national resources will be consumed by the Chinese in the vast steppe of Central Asia, the sea will be ignored, and the team challenging Britain's maritime hegemony will not be able to see the Chinese.

According to former Ambassador to China Zhu Erdian, former Ambassador to Japan Corningham Brown. Green and other relevant sources judged China and Japan that between the Yang Rui cabinet, which had always despised the navy, and the Japanese government, which was founded on the navy, that in the twenty years after the war, it was Japan, not China, that would pose a danger to the interests of the imperial Far East; In 20 or 30 years, it will be China that will threaten the Far East. That is, in the first twenty years. The Empire's ally in the Far East should be China, which would not only be able to counterbalance Japan, but also prevent Russia from moving south to India and exclude American power in East Asia. And twenty years later. The empire's allies have become Japan and Russia, and even the United States, and a rising China will have its voice and interests in Asia.

For Britain, all the great and developing powers are their enemies, but these threats have come and gone, and in the last fifty years, the most threatening enemy has begun to be Russia. Later, with the development of the United States and Germany, especially the construction of the navy, the enemy changed to Germany; Wait until after the war. The threat from Europe has been removed, the United States across the Atlantic and Japan from East Asia have become threats again, and in the far future, China will be the greatest threat to the empire in Asia. Britain had no way to destroy all enemies. But Britain has always been able to unite its former enemies. Divide the strongest opponent and defeat it, and Germany in front of you is the best example......

What the Anglo-Saxon elites, who control the state apparatus of Britain, think, from Yang Rui to Xie Jintai to Lin Wenqian, are not clear. For Yang Rui, who was bent on annexing Kazakhstan and connecting Persia, an alliance with Britain could gain access to part of the world market, and at the same time he could get British permission and various support in Central Asia; For Hsieh, an alliance with Britain would be the beginning of a reversal of China's national fortunes, and China's integration into the international mainstream. Not only will it gain respect, but it will also replace Japan as the hegemon of East Asia;

And for the commander of the expeditionary force, Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian. The matter is complicated - at least before leaving the country, Yang Rui's explanation is complicated, his first explanation is to try to obtain the results of the war to enhance the prestige of the country, but he also requires that Germany be weakened as much as possible, so that the longer the war is fought, the better; Second, new weapons and tactics must be fully tested through war, but these weapons and tactics must be kept strictly secret.

Once the war began, it was not known how it would end, so it was impossible to achieve results without trying to weaken the German Army. With the posture of fighting for every inch of land on the Western Front, once the offensive is launched, the casualties will be tens of thousands. The war has been going on so far, the German army is at the end of its strength, and the losses will not only weaken its strength, but also weaken its morale, so the best way to achieve the first requirement is for the expeditionary force to join the German camp and polish the military emblem with the blood of British and French soldiers;

In the same way, because the expeditionary force is not fighting in the country, the British and French observers are everywhere, and the second requirement to fully test new weapons and new tactics but to keep them strictly secret, the best solution is to join the German army, and then use the British and French forces to test new tactics and new weapons.

Ideals and reality are always contradictory, and Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian, who understands that war is a continuation of politics, did not complain, but locked himself in his room and meditated on a solution. On the morning of the train resisting Nancy, an important town in the northeast, he suddenly opened the door and ordered the kitchen to make him a bowl of Dongpo meat. ”

"Well, it's pretty much the same." Although Lin Wenqian was indifferent, there was an indescribable smile on his face.

"Then tell me how to fight this battle?" Zhou Sixu hurriedly dragged him to the chair and asked people to make two cups of tea.

"How else can you fight?" Lin Wenqian lit a cigarette and said with a smile: "Mr.'s request is those two, and you were also present at the time." After thinking about it for more than two months...... "I took a shallow breath, and the tobacco spurted out from Lin Wenqian's nose, and he said: "There is only one way to meet the two requirements of Mr., that is, to formulate a battle plan that looks like a group army, but is actually a division and regiment level......

"This ......" Zhou Si was confused by what he said, and he was surprised, but Lin Wenqian continued: "In fact, the German army is still quite fast in learning new things and new tactics in the war, and the British and French armies are relatively much slower. If we use new weapons and tactics frequently and gradually in skirmishes, the Germans will soon learn to pass on them; On the coalition side, because we only fight on a small scale of divisions and regiments, and because it cannot empathize, it will be easy for them to ignore these abnormal things and explain this abnormal behavior with 'Chinese war laymen'. So the end result was: although we inflicted a lot of losses on the Germans, these losses quickly turned into tactical superiority for the Germans, so they still earned! ”

"Ah......h Zhou Si's jaw dropped in shock, he didn't expect Lin Wen to come up with such a shady plan after holding back for a few months, the best time, it was obvious that the revival army was fighting the German army, but the result was training the German army, this ......, this is simply amazing!

"Nothing good. We are not here to shed blood for foreigners, the purpose of our participation in the war is for the interests of the country and the nation, and every month the war is extended, the shipping income of the household department can increase by several hundred million, and this money is very important for the future construction of the country; Moreover, the weaker Britain and France are, the more they will need us in East Asia after the war, and the more friendly they will be to us, and the less resistance we will have to our development. Lin Wen said.

"Then you're not afraid that Britain and France will see our true intentions?" Zhou Sixu had long understood this truth, but it was not as desperate as Lin Wenqian thought. "Also, will the Germans be able to grasp our intentions?"

"No!" Lin Wenqian said: "The division-level and regiment-level combat plans in the early stage can be interpreted as this is that we are training in battle, training troops to adapt to the German army's fighting style through small-scale operations, which is better than the six-month training of the Americans; When the German army adapts to this style of play, it will naturally no longer be afraid of larger-scale operations under the same tactics, and we will achieve certain results, but the results are extremely limited; And in the end, when the German army completely collapses, we will attack with all our might, just like the British and French troops. Fighting like this, who would dare to say that the expeditionary force is collaborating with the enemy?

It is not a question whether the Germans will be able to grasp our true intentions. Our tactics are the focus of their research, for example, the current commando tactics, which we used in the Russo-Japanese War before, and finally brought to the German army by Lao Lei, now they call this Duke's tactic, but this is an evil way, we have to turn the Germans from the wrong direction, and constantly use small-scale combat will make them understand this. Just ......"

Lin Wenqian said that the cigarette was suddenly extinguished here, shook his head and sighed: "Even if my method is effective, it is those front-line soldiers and officers who don't know anything who are sacrificed for this, although we brought the best medicine and equipped the front-line troops with body armor, but ......"

Sacrifice! These two bloody words suddenly flashed in Zhou Sixu's mind, life is incomparably precious, but it is worth sacrificing for victory, but sacrificing for the sake of teaching the enemy, this kind of sacrifice is disheartening no matter how you look at it.

The two of them were silent, the cook Lao Huang smiled and brought up the freshly made Dongpo meat and a few side dishes with wine, and he was about to ask the commander what kind of wine he was drinking, but Lin Wenqian, who lit the cigarette again, said: "Let's serve it, I'm not hungry ......" (to be continued......