In the early morning, before dawn and the air was still frosty outside, the town where the guerrilla advance team had stayed overnight became lively. Soldiers shoveled snow, carried firewood, and white smoke with the aroma of food wafted from the chimneys of almost every house. For the first time since the beginning of winter, most of the warriors spent the night in a house with a fireplace, and although they slept on the hard floor, it was unparalleled for them. For such a fighting force of the Union Army, which was composed of both Lorrainians and people from all over the Commonwealth, these inhabitants, who had spent more than a year under Norman rule, showed the enthusiasm of family. Knowing that a considerable part of the supplies carried by this team were rue wheat flour and kayam noodles to be processed, they helped bake wheat cakes, steam dough, and take out their few bacon and sausages to process them together, so as to solve the problem of difficulty in properly handling food during the march.

Although the Normans had temporarily withdrawn from the area, Weiss took the group out of the town shortly after dawn and marched south along the woods in order to prevent enemy aerial patrols and reconnaissance. Shortly after they left, a biplane with a sled rotation flew in from the east, circled the town a few times, and then glided and landed in the fields outside the town. Two men in Norman military caps and gray cloaks got out of the cockpit of the plane and walked into the town one after the other, heading straight for the sheriff's office. The role of the sheriff in the town is roughly equivalent to that of the police chief in the city, the difference is that the police chief of the city is appointed through legal procedures and is part of the violent apparatus of the state, with a number of policemen under his command, who are issued weapons by the state and also manage the prison, while the sheriff and the mayor of the town are elected by the residents, and they are either "bare-bones commanders", who maintain law and order on their own, mediate conflicts, or recruit volunteers from the residents to form a security team. After the Norman army occupied Lorraine, it concocted the so-called Autonomous Government of Lorraine, concocted the Autonomy Ordinance, and tried to use autonomy as a bait to induce the people of Lorraine to break away from the Free Federation spiritually, but except for a few power-hungry officials and politicians, most of the residents of Lorraine were indifferent to this temptation, and so far, the local administration has maintained the original framework and rules, and the daily life of the people is still based on the federal constitution and various laws.

Under pressure from two Norman soldiers, the sheriff had to release the two local men who had been held overnight from the next cell. The Normans had always taken harsh measures against the inhabitants of Lorraine, who supported the partisans and the Resistance, but to the great surprise of the sheriff, the Normans, after talking to the two men, did not take any action against themselves, nor did they investigate the other inhabitants' stay with the guerrillas. The two Norman servicemen got back on the plane and left, while the two men who were released returned home as if nothing had happened.

Weiss did not witness the Norman plane landing, lingering, and taking off near the town, but as it flew from the direction of the town and lingered over the nearby woods for a long time, he immediately realized that the enemy had probably picked up on the movement of the guerrilla advance party. With the secret agreement between him and Baras, and the scorching situation on the front line, the Norman army may not be able to mobilize heavy troops to encircle and suppress them, but they will certainly be on guard against important targets behind the battle line, and it will be difficult to get close to Srien without knowing it.

The team marched through the woods, deliberately leaving conspicuous traces in the open area, when the "unidentified" plane appeared, they stopped moving and hid in place, and the plane did not hover in the vicinity for a long time, and did not make any unusual moves, the full mood of the soldiers was not affected by anything, except Weiss fell into a melancholy: if there was no secret agreement with Baras, this trip could have been analyzed and dealt with with with with the thinking of regular guerrilla warfare, but this sharp double-edged sword brought great uncertainties. The slightest negligence will fall into the abyss from which there will be no return. You must know that this disciplined and high-spirited team in front of you has been fighting in the south and north of Lorraine for several months, and they have not only withstood the arduous environmental examination, but also fought from the edge of desperation several times and won almost impossible battles to win. Last time, Weiss's painstaking efforts to create the "Lorraine guerrilla warriors" also sharpened the edge in the darkness to make the enemy fear, when this sharp sword was besieged by the enemy and sunk into the sand, the tenacious belief to hold on collapsed, such a painful experience, left a scar in his heart that is difficult to heal. When he decided to accept the assignment and lead the guerrilla advance team back to Lorraine, he secretly vowed that he would never let the tragedy of the past repeat!

Deep in the mountains and dense forests, the bitter cold of winter, the fighters of the guerrilla advance detachment have an iron will, but they cannot withstand the bad weather. Weiss had planned to spend the night in several villages and towns along the way, collecting clothes and equipment for the soldiers, but with the first lesson, he went out to investigate the situation himself, and if there was an enemy in the villages and towns, he would rather bypass it than linger. As a result, the pace of the march and the efficiency of the preparation were slower than expected, and some frostbite attrition was inevitable in the ranks. It wasn't until the sixth day of the "Exit Mountain" that they finally arrived at Ola, a small town about 100 miles away from Slien. This small town born out of mines was the new stronghold of the Slien Underground Resistance after the evacuation of Slien, and it was also the location of an important intelligence station of the Union Army in Lorraine. During the last raid on Slane, the guerrilla advance team had a short rest here to gather enemy information, observe the weather, and wait for the right moment. There were 1,000 inhabitants and less than 200 houses, but there were enough cellars, tunnels, and repaired abandoned pits to garrison troops, and a considerable amount of ammunition and supplies—and Weiss had little to worry about except to guard against the enemy's eyes.

Before the guerrilla advance party entered the town, the underground resistance sent a small detachment to meet them, and at Weiss's strong suggestion, the intelligence officer, Lieutenant Odlow, also joined the personnel of the intelligence station. The three parties exchanged views on the situation of the Normans coercing and luring the residents of Lorraine to act as eyeliners, and then fed back a very optimistic piece of information to Weiss: the Normans did bury a few eyeliners in the town of Aura, but these people had already been dug up by the underground resistance and intelligence services, and carried out a "rebellion", allowing them to continue to work for the Normans on the surface, and secretly cooperate with the federal army and the resistance. It is because of this relationship that the resistance, intelligence station, and combat reserves in the town of Aura have been preserved for a long time.

Although his brothers behind enemy lines said that everything was under control, Weiss did not dare to take it lightly. As the team marched into Ola, he put Lieutenant Colonel Lear in command, and he took Ensign Odlow and the intelligence officers stationed there to spy on the "Two-Faces" they had identified. Intelligence officers have their own set of skills to distinguish between people and colors, and Weiss's method is much simpler, crude, and more effective than that. He squinted his eyes and saw what kind of position this person was: green, which meant that he was in the enemy camp, single-minded to the Federation, and his own people lurking among the enemies; White means that the position has changed, but it has not yet reached the point of frenzied persecution of compatriots, which can be called the leading party that has taken refuge in the enemy; Red means complete hostility, the position has been on the side of the enemy, and the Federation Army is regarded as an opponent, and it is a traitor in the true sense of the word.

As the comrades on the intelligence front said, the "two-faced men" who were plotted back by the enemy and then won back by them correspond to the green imaginary frame in Weiss's special vision, but this does not mean that the work of the resistance and the intelligence services is flawless. As he looked around the town, he spotted a man with a white frame. Upon inquiry, it was learned that this person was still a member of the Resistance Group, and because he had shown courage in previous resistance operations and had not done anything unusual in normal times, the Resistance and intelligence services did not include him as a key target for observation during the screening, and after winning back the "two-faced people", the resistance groups and intelligence networks here did not suffer unexplained losses, and they did not become suspicious of other personnel.

Weiss was unable to explain to everyone how the "human radar" worked, so he had to ask the resistance and intelligence services to strictly monitor this person from now on, using the pretext that he seemed to have seen this person during his captivity.

After the team was settled, Weiss and his officers sat down with the key members of the resistance and intelligence services to discuss the topic: the Union army has been on the offensive on all fronts for more than half a month, and it is still in a period of stalemate, if they can't break through the strongholds held by the Normans as soon as possible, win a few important battles of annihilation, and make the front fully advance in depth with the enemy, then they will be dragged into a war of attrition by the Normans in a short period of time. Before the outbreak of the war, the Ulster Free Federation was No. 1 in terms of population, industrial capacity, and comprehensive resources, and its war potential was far stronger than that of the Norman Empire and the Kingdom of Wessex. Over time, the Normans occupied most of the territory of Wessex in the north and the "half" of the Ulster Free Federation, and even though the resource conversion rate of the occupied areas was low, the Norman Empire's war ability reached a very terrifying level. Nowadays, the Ulster Free Federation can be regarded as a united army, and after full war mobilization, almost all available forces have been invested in the military field, coupled with some leading technologies in military science and technology, which has mastered a certain initiative on the battlefield. Although the Union army was not afraid of the attrition of manpower and material resources with the Normans, the war of attrition meant that the Normans had plenty of time to catch up in some military technology, and once they made practical breakthroughs in key areas, it would inevitably further prolong the war, not to mention the final victory, and the casualties and losses of the belligerents would also rise......

The big truth is there, and everyone understands it. The guerrilla advance team had come here with great difficulty in order to actively coordinate the operations of the Union army in Lorraine, which was not an easy task to accomplish. In this war, there should not be many cities like Slien that have been repeatedly attacked and destroyed, and whether it is a Norman attack, a surprise attack by the Resistance at night, or a surprise attack by the Federation Army on the ground and then in the air, it is enough to become a classic battle that is included in the military lesson plan. The Normans paid more and more attention and investment to such a battleground, and the garrison alone amounted to more than 20,000 people, which was seven or eight times the total combat strength of the guerrilla advance force, as well as a complete vigilance and defense system and an unknown number of aviation forces. Of course, the Federation Army did not order them to do the impossible task of destroying or capturing Slane, but asked them to destroy the enemy's combat supply system with Slien as the fulcrum, as long as they were well deployed, acted smartly, and decisively advanced and retreated, there was still a chance to complete it at a relatively small cost - if there was negligence or the enemy's intention was discovered, it would be a completely cool loss-making deal.