"Hans, do you think Elber is crazy" A lieutenant colonel of the German General Staff took a telegram and handed it to the major adjutant who was working at his desk, "He actually believed that the Qing people could make a new rifle that was not inferior to Mauser, and what kind of individual accompanying artillery, my God, did he think that the cannon was something that an infantry could push on a bicycle?" ”

"Ahem" Field Marshal Schlieffen came out of his office, and in his hand was a report on some German ** officers in trench warfare in the Russo-Japanese War, and what worried him was that the French had obviously sent people to observe, and even if they didn't care, the British who were good at learning would not let go of this detail. The Schlieffen plan he presided over had come to an end, but he himself did not have the opportunity to watch this plan come true, and in another month it was time for him to retire, although according to the request of His Majesty the Emperor, he postponed his retirement for eight months, but after all, he had to leave the General Staff for which he had fought for nearly twenty years.

However, the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, and the new mode of trench warfare that emerged in the ground war between the two sides, made the European powers attach great importance to it, in the face of trenches, barbed wire, heavy machine guns and rapid-fire artillery, the advantage of the defender over the attacker was magnified to more than five to one, and more importantly, the delay of trench warfare was very fatal, such as the Battle of Heigoutai, the trenches of the Russians dragged more than twice the strength of the Japanese army in the field for nearly a month, if the Russians had enough reserves and strategic depth in their hands, No amount of flesh and blood of the Japanese will be able to fill the trenches.

The embarrassment that Schlieffen plans are facing now is that there is no way to increase the speed of breaking through the French trench fortifications, if the speed of the attack cannot be guaranteed, then it is very likely that the time to break through a line of defense is not even as good as the time to set up a line of defense, then the German army will encounter this situation, and it will be difficult to break through a trench line, and then it will be found that the enemy has set up a second and third line of defense in the place where there were no fortifications before, and the assault will become entangled, and wait until the main force of the German army is dead in the quagmire of trench warfare, The gray cattle of the Russian hair, which should be the steam roller, should come into play. The hundreds of thousands of German troops on the Eastern Front will face at least two million Russian troops, and if this battle drags into a stalemate, then it means a desperate situation for Germany.

"Hans, any new mail for today?" Schlieffen was about to go to lunch, and before going out, he routinely asked his lieutenant. A traditional Prussian soldier does not eat in his office, even if he is busy, he will go to the dining room to eat, just as a bayonet is used to kill the enemy and not as a can opener, the soldier who can open the can with a bayonet may be an American GI or Italian, but certainly not a qualified Prussian soldier, and the stubbornness of doing everything according to the rules has been deeply imprinted in the spirit of every Prussian soldier.

"Well, the regular mail will be delivered to your office at 3 p.m., but the military attache at the U.S. Embassy, Lieutenant Colonel Elber, has an urgent e-mail to you, saying something rather absurd, I would have reported back to you in the afternoon, since you are here," Major Hans pulled the urgent telegram out of the folder and handed it to the old marshal.

"Let me see, Elber has found anything in the United States, maybe the British are playing tricks in the United States, they are always... Well? Schlieffen, who was looking at the telegram, suddenly stopped talking, "Damn, Hans, you go to the communications office, Elber's telegram will be sent to my office as soon as it comes, you have to deliver it yourself, no one except the translator and you are allowed to touch this telegram, otherwise military law will be engaged." Yes, go now, right away. ”

"Thank God, this is a brilliant idea, a hand-held ultralight mortar. I really don't know how they solved the unit thrust of firing * pill packs? Schlieffen muttered as he turned to look at the office, when suddenly he turned his head, "Lieutenant Colonel Hans, you have done a great job, congratulations." ”

Hans's brain with a confused face has already crashed, what's wrong with the boss today, he didn't eat lunch, and let himself go to guard the telecommunications room, what's the importance of the letter from a colonel's military attache in Elber, and Lieutenant Colonel Hans is a hairy one? Could it be that I want to...

When Marshal Schlieffen assisted Moltke Sr. and Wadsey (that is, the commander of the Eight-Nation Alliance, who Wu Chenxuan had dealt with, and the concubine of Sai Jinhua), he conducted an in-depth study of the two great enemies, France and Russia. France, which had experienced the Napoleonic Wars, was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and lost Alsace and Lorraine, which were rich in iron ore, but the French Army was unabated and in the leading position in Europe, and was the greatest enemy of the unified German Empire on the European continent. On the other hand, although Russia has 6 million conventional troops, its equipment is backward, and its strategic thinking is still stuck in the era of cold weapons. When Germany's Krupp cannons and Mauser guns were already famous all over the world, and the German General Staff Headquarters was focusing on the value of the Maxim machine guns, many Russian soldiers still used wooden sticks tied to sharp knives as their only equipment. At the same time, Russia's vast territory, backward railway network, and aging war mobilization mechanism have greatly reduced the speed of Russia's war response. But in the same way, the backward road was also greatly detrimental to the German conquest of the vast Russian territory, and the strategic depth and long supply lines provided by the wide east-west length, the harsh winter conditions, and the huge number of 'steam rollers' would make the Russian battlefield a protracted war. After carefully studying the balance of power between the two sides, Schlieffen came up with a bold idea: to take advantage of Germany's rapid mobilization of forces, first defeat France, and then turn back to concentrate on Russia. Schlieffen judged that Russia's backward military mobilization system required at least six to eight weeks for Russia to complete its military buildup against Germany. During this time, with the dense railway network and the wisdom of Moltke's time, Germany was well equipped to quickly complete the military build-up and defeat the French. This is the basic strategic idea of the "Schlieffen Plan", which can be summed up in three words, that is, "time difference".

The main goal of the "Schlieffen Plan" was, naturally, France. After the defeat of the Franco-Prussian War, in order to resist the German attack, France started from the Swiss Alps, through Berfort, Erbinar, Turkey and Verdun to build a strong defensive fortress, only leaving a gap between Erbinar and Turkey to pass through the Franco-German border, and deployed dense crossfire on both flanks of the gap, so the center and focus of the "Schlieffen Plan" was how to bypass the long and strong defense system of France and go straight to the interior.

That's why the appearance of the abominable super time-wasting trench warfare brought Schlieffen to the brink of collapse. Fifteen years earlier, in his first year as Chief of Staff of the German Army, Schlieffen had proposed a "memorandum," known as Memorandum No. 1. In this memorandum, Schlieffen adopted the method of "plot rehearsal" rarely seen by military scientists, deduced the basic course of the future European war, and put forward the strategic concept and implementation method of "time difference". Later, in 1892 and 1894, Schlieffen put forward the second and third memorandums, which were the basic prototypes of the "Schlieffen Plan". Since then, during his tenure, Schlieffen has led numerous exercises, sand table exercises and discussions on future warfare, and has repeatedly revised the memorandum. In December 1905, Schlieffen completed the final memorandum, and thus the complete "Schlieffen Plan" finally took shape. But the core of this plan is a matter of time, and Elber coincidentally sent a big gift, the emergence of a new type of individual accompanying artillery (grenadier) gave the Germans the hope of a rapid breakthrough, as long as the enemy's machine guns and large-scale riflemen scattered, then the barbed wire itself is nothing difficult to restrain itself, and the Eighth Route Army will solve the problem with a cotton sleeve will certainly not be difficult for the German Army.

"It's time for them to come, right?" Schlieffen looked at the content of the second telegram: "Every two people are equipped with a new type of individual accompanying artillery (grenadier), using the density of fire to overcome the enemy's trench defenses, and then using long-handled grenades * shells with bayonets and sapper shovels to solve the enemy's remnants, and the rest is to suppress the enemy's heavy artillery and cover the task of the infantry entering the 200-meter charge launch site. But General Sean is a military genius, and perhaps his visit could make the Schlieffen plan even more perfect. ”

Schlieffen had already decided to personally receive the general of the Great Qing Kingdom and the deputy head of the mission in a few days, "I really don't know what kind of surprise this General Sean can bring us?" ”

"Surprise? You call this a surprise. He looked at the big gold-plated key in his hand and handed it to the translator sent from the embassy on the other side. The translator had a bitter smile on his face, as if he had a golden key this year and had exceeded his task. "Forget it, you can't eat it, you can't use it, it's not pure gold, and give it to your embassy as an ornament."

At this time, Wu Chenxuan had just set foot on German soil, and the dock in Hamburg was already full of people. In fact, the mayor and parliament of Hamburg still attach great importance to this Far Eastern delegation in fancy costumes. Although it seems that the chief with bird feathers on his head is older, but the young man in military uniform behind him seems to be more imposing, God knows which one is the leader of this delegation, so the speaker of Hamburg presented a bouquet of flowers to Lord Dai Hongci with an inexplicable face, and the German in his mouth made the translator busy with smoke, knowing the kindness of the other official, Lord Dai Hongci had no choice but to hold a bouquet of flowers and take a photo with a foreign old man, What is good is that in addition to carnations and tulips, there is also a circle of chrysanthemums in this bouquet of flowers. The mayor of Hamburg had a great vision to send the golden key of the city to Wu Chenxuan, who felt that such a big lump of gold was in his hands Wu Chenxuan was deeply honored, knowing that he returned to the hotel and skillfully identified this as a handicraft of gold and silver, which had little practical value. It's too strange for the translator to see that the dignified second-class master actually uses his teeth to identify the purity of gold with his teeth like the old farmers in the countryside, right?

"By the way, why didn't you see Wang Sheng, the envoy?" Saying that, Wu Chenxuan remembered the episode on the ship, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up an angle: "Speaking of surprises, in fact, a few days after the ship can be regarded as the highlight of this round-the-world trip." ”