Under the command of the spirited General Nevelle, several French infantry divisions were transferred to the south of the German salient to be trained in the "Eyre Canal Tactics". The second-hand goods collected from the Chinese Expeditionary Force were all equipped with these divisions, 105 "watchtower" tanks plus Renault's imitation FT10 tanks, a large number of wheeled armored combat vehicles and transport vehicles, and even the plumber submachine guns, which were unanimously considered by the French officers and soldiers to be "unequipped, otherwise they will die of shame ridiculed by the enemy", were also bought at the price of three magazines and 300 rounds for every five guns, equivalent to one Hatch Chase heavy machine gun. In addition, all kinds of artillery, especially the six-barreled rocket launchers that were dragged around on two-wheeled trailers, were also sold at a good price, but the French had no cash to give, but the understanding Chinese Wehrmacht promised that if France opened up the mineral mining and rubber plantation of the Indochina Peninsula, and allowed Chinese merchants to enjoy the same treatment as French merchants in this area, then China could accept half of the arms in compensation with the booty obtained from Germany after the war, especially the warships below the cruiser.

This can greatly relieve the French government, not only the financial pressure has been reduced, but also China is obviously optimistic about the victory of the Entente, then the possibility of them changing the court will be greatly reduced, as for the commercial interests, especially the commercial interests of the colonies, are not in the core interests of the French government. The French government's finance officials, accompanied by diplomats, shyly asked the Chinese ambassador if they could also use this settlement method for the massive amount of goods purchased from China. Of course, there is no free lunch in the world, and France is not a master who does not understand human feelings, Prime Minister Briand announced the return of a number of Chinese lost cultural relics in the hands of the Louvre and the French government, and announced that all Gengzi indemnities will be waived from the next year (in fact, it was used by France to buy arms and materials in the early stage, and the rest is only about 10 million francs of the final payment), in addition, France also hopes that British allies and other Entente countries can also give up the Gengzi indemnity to China, which is also an ally of the Entente, France still has the upper hand in this regard. The United States has given up all the money and funded the construction of Tsinghua University and the students studying in the United States, anyway, his share is small, and the cowboys with deep pockets don't care about these three melons and two dates, and they don't have to let the Chinese people, who are already actually ranked among the second-class powers, have an opinion of the United States for a small amount of money. After a period of hesitation, Britain also agreed to give up the Geng model, although it did not look down on China's tanks, armored vehicles and artillery weapons, but still had to replace part of the Geng model with Chinese-made aircraft, and the remaining 7 or 8 million pounds, the "Swan" bombers that the Fourth Wing had just equipped were sold to the British, and they went to bomb the German logistics base in Antwerp with red and blue circles.

However, after more than a year of conquest, at least the bigwigs of Britain, France, the United States and Russia have to admit that China is no longer a fish belly to be bullied, if you look at the performance of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, if it is not for China's lack of a large-scale navy, in terms of the army, it is no less than most second-class powers, and his air force can be called terrifying, even if it is a British and French alliance, it may not be an opponent. So the British boss had to woo China. Fortunately, the cards in the hands of Lao and George are still very good, and the Hong Kong issue will be returned to China after the end of the war, and the advance time will no longer be considered, as for the concession or something, of course, after offsetting part of the payment, it will also be revoked, and there is no such power country that still has a concession in its own backyard. But on the naval issue, Britain has always been very tough, Qiu Pang did not agree to use old warships or German warships captured in the future to pay China as payment, but China's sea power claims can not be ignored, in addition to the strength of the Chinese expeditionary force is also needed now, India, the crown jewel of the British Empire, can be within the operational range of the Chinese army, even if China does not directly go into battle shirtless, just to aid some dissatisfied princely states or sects behind the back to give the British some eye medicine, This can be said to be a matter of benefit to the British colonial system, and China's military production capacity is more than enough to supply the entire Anglo-Indian army, and there is no need to worry about the number of munitions. However, China's land and foreign minister is still very disciplined, and in his negotiations with Prime Minister Law and Prime Minister George, he positioned the future status of the Chinese navy as the position of defending China's coastal waters and islands and reefs, and said that after the war, it could sign agreements on naval cooperation with Britain and France and other entente countries, and hinted that China does not intend to build battleships on its own, and may consider ordering from Britain, France, the United States, Italy and other countries if needed, and the number will not exceed the number of fleets of the Royal Navy in the Far East. Then there is nothing to talk about, and as for whether China will break its promises, the British Royal Navy is still very confident in this regard.

Because of the situation in China, the arrival of the fourth batch of the Chinese Expeditionary Force was postponed indefinitely, and the main battle weapons of the third batch of the Expeditionary Force were sold to France and Britain. The Expeditionary Force Command took the opportunity to organize many officers and sergeants to the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr in France, the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich in the United Kingdom, the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst and other places for short-term exchange and study, while the soldiers concentrated on learning French and English and also went on organized trips to Britain and France.

Although there was no Chinese participation, General Neville, who had consciously mastered the essence of the "El Canal Tactics", looked at the heavy equipment he had bought from the Chinese army and the millions of elite troops under his command, and his ambitions swelled infinitely.

Neville intended to replicate the Expeditionary Force's coordinated assault tactics in the mid-section, in which commanders were asked to estimate the speed at which their troops would advance with the barrage of fire. Unfortunately, the optimistic tradition of the French officers led them to substitute expectation for judgment and set an impossible pace. General Manjang boasted that his men could run at more than thirty yards a minute, and that they could continue to do so for at least a few miles. Nivelle sets this pace as the standard. Officers who expressed doubts that their shoulder-heavy troops would be able to maintain such a pace were silenced.

The troops were trained to constantly shift forward in order to attack the enemy, with fresh troops ahead of the tired troops. The Chinese-made Type 01 infantry guns, which can be easily operated by two soldiers, are allocated several thousand, and they want to use them to dumb the machine guns. Units that were counting on penetrating the rear of the German army seven hours after the start of the attack were endlessly indoctrinated with the central slogan of "keep advancing". The logistics are amazing. Mountains of supplies were being transported to the front to build airfields, huge gun emplacements lined up so neatly that there was no end in sight. Under the balance, Nivelle split 300 tanks into companies and allocated more than 10 divisions and part of the second-line troops to the first line, and the armored vehicles did the same, fortunately he did not separate the armored vehicles and tanks, but ordered the armored vehicles to follow the tanks closely, and it was his duty to protect the tanks from being harassed by enemy infantry.

This time, the foreign reinforcements who participated in the campaign were replaced by elite Senegalese troops, who were transferred to spearhead the offensive against the fortified strongholds. Briand's government also recruited about thirty-five battalions from various tribes in French West Africa. Other units joining this multinational coalition, including several Russian brigades, were sent to reinforce the French Army, which was greatly reduced in number, and everyone was infected with revolutionary sentiments. Their French officers wore Russian uniforms, oddly believing that this would encourage obedience. The iron-gray of the Chinese Expeditionary Force was the only one missing from this variety of military uniforms, and the officers and men of the New Zealand and Canadian armies who had fought side by side were a little uneasy, but this obviously did not stop General Neville's grand plan.

At Verdun, it was by quiet but adequate explanations of the offensive plan that the troops were encouraged to give themselves warmly. This time, Nevelle, fearing that his troops would betray if he did not do so, ordered a propaganda campaign comparable to that of a Hollywood newspaper propagandist. Operational plans outlining strategies and objectives are issued to soldiers. The officers made propaganda speeches to the soldiers to guide them to confidence in a decisive victory.

So inevitably, the Germans also got accurate information. During the routine trench raids, two key documents were seized, indicating the exact line of the assault between Reims and Soissons. Crown Prince William made a note of this good fortune:

"The excellent advance carried out by the 51st Reserve Division on 3 March in the defense zone of the Third Army south of Ripon gave us orders from the French Army, in addition to a large amount of booty. ……

This plan was drawn up by Nivelle on December 16, 1916. This memorandum contains very valuable material. It is clear that this time it is not a limited offensive, but a large-scale breakthrough offensive is taken into account. …… The important revelation of the memorandum is, first of all, the special nature of the surprise attack considered for this attack. This surprise attack was based on what was said to be our observation, namely our defensive artillery fire...... Only a weak return fire was made to the artillery preparation that preceded the attack. …… We dare to count on this surprise attack so that it will be able to meet with the most effective resistance, and to pull out the sting of the initial attack, which experience has shown to be the most powerful. ……”

On the Western Front, one hundred and eighty divisions of the Entente were pitted against one hundred and fifty divisions of Germany. The Germans knew that they would not be able to withstand a pincer attack on their uncovered salient and withdrew from the salient without hesitation. Now their front line is in a straight line, avoiding the danger of thrusting from both sides. Moreover, the extra troops can be used to reinforce the straight line. They did not know that on the Eastern Front of World War II, they would have used this tactic of leveling the line from the winter of 1942 onwards to make up for the growing gap in personnel and weapons.

Nivel was so immersed in his scheme that he never imagined that his opponent would automatically abandon the seventy-mile-wide salient. He also ignored the possibility that the enemy would capture his maps, plans, and orders. He did not attempt to gather intelligence on German military operations.

An elaborate surprise attack turned into an armed parade of French-led Allied forces on the sandbox of the German General Staff, which had long been waiting to surprise Nevelle with intelligence and tactical superiority.