It is clear from the aerial pictures that the Yankees were not idle at the beginning of the war. The U.S. Army built a defensive line centered on Duluth on the western shore of Lake Superior in an effort to hold Minnesota, the "State of Ten Thousand Lakes." Four divisions of the U.S. Army set out from this line to attack the Chinese southbound forces.

Everyone in the military headquarters frowned, and according to reason, the army was not keen on engaging in any amphibious operations. It takes a long time and a lot of meticulous organization to get a vehicle on board, and it takes a long time and a lot of organization to get a vehicle off the ship. Compared with this kind of trouble, the blue sky with the sky above and the ground on the ground, marching steadily and steadily all the way is more in line with the habits of the army. At least that's what the Army thinks about until they see the lakes in aerial photographs of Minnesota, the state of Wansee.

It is difficult to complete several complete campaign plans in a month, and there is no variable in the original plan as a motorized infantry. Even if the battle plan for crossing Lake Superior was temporarily determined, it was necessary to directly storm the rear of the American forces in the area around Sue Saint Mary after the breakthrough, or to continue to attack St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. The troops still have some different opinions on these two directions of battle.

"What our motorized infantry is good at is marching, if we can't give full play to this advantage and completely disrupt the Yankees' established plans, then the mobility of the motorized infantry will not be in vain." Qi Rui's attitude is very clear. In this regard, there was no open opposition in the 24th Army.

The U.S. military, which is the opponent of the Restoration, did not know the exact plan of the Restoration, but they were well aware of what the Great Lakes meant to the United States. China's elite regions each have their own industrial clusters, such as the industrial belt from the Beibu Gulf to the Pearl River Delta, the industrial belt in the Yangtze River Basin, and the rapidly developing Bohai Rim Industrial Belt. Each industrial belt has its own steel industry, its own set of supporting industries and a large number of sales areas. In the United States, heavy industry companies and manufacturing are largely concentrated in the Great Lakes region.

"The Great Lakes coal-iron complex produces more than 80 percent of the steel in the United States, and if it were destroyed by China, the entire United States would be greatly affected." Secretary of the Navy Theodore 61 Roosevelt said loudly. He clenched his fists and pressed them tightly against the conference table. If he hadn't said these words too many times, probably Secretary Theodore 61 Roosevelt would have slammed the table, "In order to drive the Chinese out of American territory, we must open a passage to Lake Superior!" ”

Secretary of War of the United States, that is, Secretary of War Robert 61 Todd 61 Lincoln agreed with Theodore 61 Roosevelt's suggestion. But President Lincoln's eldest son did not immediately respond to the excitement of his colleagues. "Are you going to let the army take Sault Saint-Marie alone?"

Thinking that the Army was fighting bloody battles at this time, Theodore 61 Roosevelt also had to curb his excitement, "Your Excellency, the Army must be the capital of Sault Saint Mary as soon as possible. ”

The River Sue Ste. Marie is the gateway to Lake Superior and other lakes, and after the independence of the United States, it became the boundary river between the United States and Canada. A city of Sault Ste. Marie was built on each side. After the Sino-American war began, China took advantage of the winter to gather a large number of troops to cross the Sault Ste. Mary River, which was frozen in the ice and snow, and took away Sault Ste. Mary on the American side.

The strategic location here is quite important, and if the United States allows China to push hard, the Great Lakes region could easily be wiped out. In the counteroffensive plan that began in the spring, the U.S. military naturally wanted to push China back off the border on the western shore of Lake Superior, and on the eastern shore of Lake Superior, the primary purpose was to recapture St. Mary's Su.

"The effect of naval gunboats does not seem to be as effective as Your Excellency thinks, but I still think it can make up for the lack of many artillery." Robert 61 Todd 61 Lincoln, that is, Lincoln Jr. did not want to dampen the enthusiasm of Roosevelt Sr. After the West Coast fell into Chinese hands, the U.S. Department of the Navy took on a sideline posture in this war. After Mexico has solemnly stated its "neutrality", it no longer matters whether South American countries support the United States or not. The U.S. Navy never again had any possibility of entering the Pacific to operate. The Navy has a chance to compete with China only here with Sault Saint Mary.

Inland warships have gathered on the Great Lakes, but the main attack is now the army under the command of the War Department, and the Admiralty now has to obtain the permission of the War Department if it wants to serve the country.

"The Admiralty will definitely do its best." Roosevelt Sr. heard that Lincoln Jr. had no intention of excluding the Admiralty, and he finally felt a lot more relieved.

While the two high-ranking military officers were trying to work together, the American soldiers, under the command of the officers, carried out the will of the big men above and launched a fierce assault on Sault Saint-Marie.

In just two days, the landscape around Sault Ste. Marie has changed considerably. Under heavy artillery fire, the beautiful woods around the city were beaten to the point that only a broken trunk remained. The current defense commanders of Sault Saint-Marie are the 33rd Army, the 35th Army and the 37th Army, all of which are under the command of Lieutenant General Li Weiren.

The lieutenant general, who had risen to fame in Turkey and received the title of Pasha, did not see anything wrong with his destruction of nature at all, and he even admired the fierce firepower of the Liberation Army. The artillery fire not only scorched large areas of woods, but also turned the American soldiers in those woods into irregularly shaped parts.

Lieutenant General Li Weiren's headquarters was located in the fortress of Sault Saint Mary, the 33rd Army was stationed in the city of Su Saint Mary, which was originally the Yankees, and the 35th and 37th armies were on the Chinese side. It was not of much use to gather too many troops in the fortress, and after crushing an attack by the American army, the troops quickly hid in the bunkers of the fortress without the order of Lieutenant General Li Weiren. The U.S. Army's artillery units were also very cooperative, and after the Liberation Army entered the safe bunker, they began to fire fiercely.

The headquarters is a reinforced concrete building, which can stand still even from a direct hit by American artillery, not to mention that the building is still more than two meters deep underground. The electric light lit brightly inside the house, which reminded Leviren Pasha of his days in Turkey. At that time, the headquarters could only be lit by candles, and in order to avoid the oxygen content in the air being too low, the use of candles had to be very careful. Now there is no such problem, the wires are underground, and the diesel generators are distributed in several places, so there is no need to worry about lighting and power supply.

Even so, the United States, as an industrial country, was able to carry out a fairly good shelling. Even underground, you can feel the vibration of the cannonballs ploughing across the ruined surface of Sault Ste. Marie, and the slight swaying of the hanging electric lights proves the power of the 155-caliber shells.

The lieutenant general quietly examines the map of the fortification, a fortified city supported by a number of underground passages made of reinforced concrete or wood. In addition to a large number of channels, there are also a large number of pipelines. Lieutenant General Li Weiren calmed down and tried to better combine these.

The young soldiers around him were not as well organized as the lieutenant generals, even if they gradually got used to the shells exploding three or four meters above their heads. The movement of those restless fellows disturbed Lieutenant General Li Weiren's work a little, and he raised his head to look at everyone's eyes, and looking at everyone's uneasy expressions, Lieutenant General Li Weiren stood up.

Seeing the defense commander get up, all the comrades in the headquarters focused their eyes on Li Weiren. Everyone listened to Li Weiren laugh and said: "Comrades, when I entered the Pleven Fortress 12 years ago, I never thought that I would stay in the Pleven Fortress for nearly 20 months. I spent almost twenty months in a small fortress. Do you know how I survived? ”

This question has been very effective in arousing the interest of a group of comrades. Everyone knows the legendary experience of Li Weiren at the fortress of Plevin, and everyone felt that the world was falling apart after only two days in Sault Ste. Marie, and the lieutenant general was besieged for twenty months. How did Li Weiren survive?

"The way to survive is very simple, if you feel uneasy, you go to the various tunnels to inspect. First, I learned about the places where I fought, and secondly, I was able to learn more about the situation of these facilities. Do you know yourself and your opponent? Let's not talk about the enemy outside, we have to eat our own positions thoroughly. Li Weiren passed on his experience. Seeing the incomprehensible expressions of the comrades in the headquarters, Li Weiren said: "Today, let's first familiarize ourselves with the environment around the headquarters. ”

Without waiting for the guys in the headquarters to agree or disagree, Li Weiren left the standby personnel and led the remaining headquarters personnel to start patrolling the underground bunkers around the headquarters. All but a few observation posts were back in underground bunkers, where more than 30,000 men were in a single army, and even after months of hard work, the tunnels were still very crowded. The officers didn't want to come out and squeeze with everyone.

However, Li Weiren didn't care at all, and in the light of the electric light, he calmly walked past a group of officers and soldiers standing or sitting against the tunnel. When the comrades saw the commander's kind expression, they all stood up and saluted Li Weiren. Li Weiren also waved to everyone. When he met a comrade who came up and tried to shake hands, he also shook hands with his comrades cordially and said a few words of condolences.

Attention was no longer on the enemy shelling, which God knows when, and again on the commander's calmness. The officers who followed Li Weiren were still nervous at first, and they couldn't help but relax as they walked. Even the gradual thinning of the Yankees' shelling did not notice.

The reduced intensity of the shelling by the American artillerymen was not because they were ready for another wave of attack, nor because they were soft-hearted. Shells from the direction of the Chinese positions rained down on the positions of the American artillery, and some of the shells flew directly into the positions of the American artillery.

The Yankees shelled Chinese positions with 155-caliber artillery, and the Chinese side also used 150-caliber artillery or even 200-caliber artillery. Bombardment of the American side. American artillery positions are the object of special attention of Chinese artillery.

Captain Li Shaokang rode on a two-seater reconnaissance plane and watched the results of the shelling with an observation telescope. After seeing the shooting point, he raised his head, determined the Chinese characters and numbers on the buttons, and then pulled up the three buttons "forward", "left" and "30". After confirming again, he pressed the OK button and finally the button labeled "Send".

Accurate reporting on airplanes is a difficult task, so the technical department has developed this new reporting device. All messages are preset and can be signaled with a simple operation. With such a device, Li Shaokang's attention can be focused on observation rather than reporting. For Li Shaokang, who is actually not proficient in sending reports, this is simply the perfect equipment.

The plane circled for a few more minutes before it saw a platoon of shells accurately hit the US artillery positions, blowing up many US gun positions. "Yay!" Li Shaokang couldn't help but shout excitedly.