Looking at the soldiers in front of him, who had lost their armor and were empty-handed, and the team marching south step by step, Major General Loire could not believe that this was the elite 5th Infantry Division of the French Republic, but the Gallic rooster on the armband made him have to believe that this was the regular army of their own country. The blue-gray military uniforms became dirty, and even many of the wounded were blindfolded. Could it be, poison gas?

Loire guessed correctly, the Germans used poison gas in this counterattack. When it comes to gas warfare, the initiators are the French themselves. In August 1914, the French first used tear gas, but this only temporarily disabled the enemy. In April 1915, the German army was the first to use chlorine gas in the Second Battle of Ypres, and because of the liquefaction technology of chlorine gas introduced from China, it could be used to fill artillery shells. Large amounts of chlorine* can be lethal, but it is easily detected by the eyes and nose. But soldiers exposed to chlorine* gas, even if they do not die, have to suffer permanent damage to their lungs.

Introduced in August 1915, phosgene was another commonly used poison gas in World War I, which was 18 times more toxic than chlorine and was difficult to detect. However, the most threatening poison gas was mustard gas, which was used by the Germans on a large scale. Mustard gas is not as toxic as light gas, but it is difficult to detect and can attach to the surface of the battlefield, so it can be fatal for a long time. The burns caused by mustard gas are severe, and soldiers exposed to mustard gas are at high risk of being horrified. Only 2 per cent of soldiers who were exposed to mustard gas died, mainly due to infection.

The original method of releasing poison gas was to open the cylinder containing the gas when the wind was right (the French did this first). Obviously, this method is useless if the wind direction is wrong. Also, the cylinders were generally located in front of the trenches, so enemy shelling was likely to crush them. Later, the gas was released by artillery or mortars, and this time the Germans simply used aerial bombs to disperse them, which were more effective than artillery shells for a short time. The infantry of the Fifth Division was not prepared to be sprayed with mustard gas, and by the time something was wrong, many of the soldiers had already been poisoned, and the remaining French troops, even if they had gas masks, could not stay in the trenches for a long time.

The Germans' Third Army Corps and a National Militia Brigade, totaling 50,000 men, had already prepared everything, and the commander, General Gen. Von Hausen, gave an order, and without even waiting for artillery fire to be prepared, the German soldiers quickly put on gas masks and rushed through the no-man's land with rifles, killing the French by surprise. The loss of fortifications in several sections quickly caused the entire French line to collapse, and the Germans occupied the fifty square kilometers west of Laon with fewer than 200 casualties. The efficiency of the German engineers was also first-rate, and they quickly changed the fortifications of the French, and the barbed wire, mine arrays, and especially the machine-gun fortifications in the salient remodeled by means of communication trenches just formed a network of crossfire, which caused the Fifth Division, which had planned to fight a quick counterattack, suffered a great loss, and the casualties of tens of thousands of people almost made the Fifth Division withdrawn.

At the beginning of the First World War, despite the rise of machine guns, a large number of soldiers were trained to attack with rifles and bayonets. The attacking soldiers charged, crossed the middle ground between the two trenches, reached the enemy trenches, and eliminated the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. The soldiers in the process of charging seemed to be easily shot by the Maxim machine guns at that time. In fact, if you shoot at the charging soldier from the front, it will have little effect.

For this reason, the Wuyi New Army also conducted an experiment. 300 balloons were used to represent the charging soldiers, the balloons were suspended at different heights, each balloon was 2 meters apart, scattered in a range of more than 100 meters wide and a few meters deep, and a skilled machine gun shooter fired from the front with a heavy machine gun at a distance of 400 meters, firing 250 rounds in short bursts. As a result, only 47 balloons were hit by 250 rounds. A lot of bullets hit the gaps between the balloons. The shooter has to reaim after each balloon hit, wasting valuable time while reaiming, and the enemy will rush up quickly in real combat.

But if you put the machine guns on the flanks of these 250 balloons, the situation is very different. As far as the eye can see, the difference is quite obvious, 250 balloons have a narrow front and a long depth, which greatly increases the density of the target. The same shooter, the result is a massacre, many times a single bullet can hit several balloons. 250 rounds of ammunition, 240 balloons hit.

Shoot at the charging enemy from the flanks with machine guns, and the enemy will not be able to escape. If two machine guns were fired on the left and right flanks, forming crossfire, it would be an impregnable wall. Although it was the Wuyi New Army that discovered this law first, it was suffering from the fact that it had always been an offensive war, and there were few opportunities for defense, but the Germans first applied it to the battlefield.

On July 1, 1915, Britain and the Allies launched the Battle of the Somme, a preemptive artillery bombardment of German positions, but German machine gunners hid in bunkers. When the British infantry charged, the Germans quickly moved into the preset positions, but did not immediately fire. The British infantry opened fire only when they entered the lethal zone, that is, the flank and crossfire range of the machine gunners. The British infantry was completely wiped out by machine-gun crossfire on the flanks.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme resulted in the heaviest casualties in British history. The charging British troops all rushed into the crossfire network, 20,000 officers and men were killed, and the large-scale cluster charge became suicide in the face of machine-gun crossfire. This experience was also quickly learned by the French, or war is the best teacher, or learn to learn well or there is none.

It's a pity that the consistent arrogance of the French made them forget the truth that they can't use the same trick twice against the Saint Seiya, oh, you can't play "one move fresh" against an opponent like the Germans, especially if this one move is still left over from the opponent's play. As a result, the Germans quickly used poison gas and surprise attacks to break the defense line built by the French machine guns and 75 guns, and the French Fifth Infantry Division became the unlucky scapegoat, and they were put down by the Germans with poison gas for less than a week, and then they were beaten by the fast-charging Germans and lost their armor and threw them to their grandmother's house.

"Mr. Major General, I am Captain Renel, the liaison officer assigned by the headquarters to the Chinese Expeditionary Force, and I am now guiding the Juque Battle Group of the Second Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force to report to you."

"Battle group? Eh, do you mean the army of the Chinese? Major General Loire did not understand the battle group, but it did not prevent him from figuring out the composition of the Chinese troops, and when he heard that there was a regular army of more than 3,000 people in his defensive line, Loire felt that he was alive again, God loves France! The impatient Major General ordered the captain to hurry up and let the responsible officer of the Chinese come to him for duty.

"What? Independent command, not directly under the orders of the coalition command? Unless there is a countersignature from the Expeditionary Force Command. Where is the Expeditionary Force Command? They're still in Versailles! Gracious Lord, you're not kidding. "Now Loire is really in a hurry, in Versailles, how can he be in time, even if the telegram is sent to the Allied headquarters and then transferred to Versailles, it will be in the afternoon, the Germans are not so easy to discuss, maybe it will not take two hours to flood over, swallowing the Fifth Infantry Division, which has half a life left, and what is even more terrible is that the holes in the defensive line cannot be filled for a while, if the speed of the Germans is not contained, they may re-advance the front to the Marne? France could not afford to sacrifice 100,000 soldiers for the second time.

"Your Excellency, Brigadier General Zhu Yunjie, commander of the Chinese Juque Battle Group, and his adjutant have come to pay a visit, do you see?"

"Oh, ah, please, no, I'll go see him myself." Loire thought that maybe he could borrow the Chinese to block the canal pontoon bridge for a while, as long as he could save most of the soldiers of the Fifth Division, delaying the speed of the opponent's attack would be the best outcome, as for the German army that lost its speed was not terrible, other allied forces in the Reims and Compiègne areas could threaten their rear road, even if the German Third Army was pressed by the whole army, the German army of 180,000 people could not completely open this section of the front, it was nothing more than the formation of a wide salient. The war will return to the damned state of trench warfare, although Major General Loire did not curse the filth of trench warfare at all, but if it was the Germans who broke through first, he would not hesitate to praise the millstone-like life-consuming nature of trench warfare with sonnets. By the way, what will happen to the Chinese, Major General Loire thinks that if they are all destroyed, maybe he will ask for them to be awarded a Foreign Legion Warrior Medal to commemorate their sacrifice for France.

"General Zhu, it's an honor for you to come to my command post. Please come with me for lunch, time is pressing, and I think we can talk while we eat, if you don't mind. "Dressed neatly, the golden embroidery thread on the red round hat is shining, and even the two mustaches are covered with protective wax, compared to General Zhu, who is dressed in a three-color camouflage combat uniform and a steel helmet, and only has a black five-star logo on the collar, Major General Loire looks more like a high-ranking officer. But look at the dirty, sloppy, tattered, and even insensitive ranks of the French army on the roadside, and the tables in the headquarters tents with snow-white tablecloths and silver candlesticks, bone china dishes, and delicate delicacies, and the attendants with white towels and woolly curly wigs on their arms, meticulously tied with cross garters. The whole scene showed such a strong contrast, which made Zhu Yunjie, who was a pure soldier, feel a little inexplicably angry.

After exchanging military salutes, he waved his hand to stop the noise of the interpreter, and said to the major general in French: "Your Excellency, the situation of your army, our advance reconnaissance detachment has reported to the Far Division, and according to the instructions of the Far Division, our army will immediately launch an attack on the headquarters of the German Third Army Corps, ensure the safety of your retreat, and provide at least 48 hours for the Allied forces to rearrange their defenses. ”

"Oh God! Great, that's the only good news I've heard in a day. If you need anything, please feel free to ask us and I will help you. I also left a battalion of sappers, and they will help your troops lay out minefields, assist you....etc., maybe our French has some, uh, some obstacles, I didn't understand, are you talking about offense and not defense? "The overexcited Major General Loire babbled for a while before he realized that something seemed to be wrong, by the way, this tall Chinese seems to be talking about attack, not defense, did he not fall over the time difference, in the face of the imposing German army is not good to use the canal to defend, but also to attack, do you think you die slowly?

If His Excellency the Major General had known the phrase "no to be nodie" in later generations, he would not have been afraid to express his mood in English at the moment.