With morning dew in their hair and mud on their clothes, the rearguard led by Weiss finally returned to the secret camp of the guerrilla advance force in northern Lorraine after a long journey. The main force had arrived smoothly before, and when the rearguard troops returned, they counted the total number of people, and this time they went out to fight 2,263 people, and 1,891 returned, and nearly 400 people were "lost" on this road of conquest. Judging from the proportion of losses, this was a costly combat operation, but looking at the overall situation, at the cost of more than 300 officers and men, they killed and wounded one of the enemy's transport ships and two frigates, killed and wounded more than 1,000 enemy ground troops, and captured a batch of food supplies that are most urgently needed at present. It was a very remarkable victory, both from a strategic and tactical point of view.

Weiss did not organize a celebration party, nor did he let the soldiers lie down and rest for a day or two, because he was soberly aware that the enemy army had suffered heavy losses and would certainly not rest on his laurels. Their rearguard was scattered in the ensuing battle, and presumably someone was captured by the enemy. If the enemy uses harsh interrogation methods, there is no guarantee that no one will leak information about the secret camp - perhaps the enemy is already regrouping his forces and preparing to give the guerrilla advance party a pot to the lair.

By noon, the fog had cleared in the mountains and forests, and several Norman planes appeared in the nearby sky. Seeing them, Weiss knew that things were going just as he had predicted. The biggest advantage of this secret camp is that it is hidden, and if the enemy is targeted, its advantage is lost. At the beginning, Weiss thought about urgently implementing a strategic shift, avoiding the enemy's edge like the last time he jumped out of the enemy's encirclement, which was not impossible in operation, and the newly captured trophies were enough to support them to carry out a large-scale maneuver, but this strategy lost the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot, and it lacked a positive effect on opening up the situation of guerrilla warfare in Lorraine, so he racked his brains to think of a second feasible plan: fight the enemy on the spot!

The reason why Weiss is confident in dealing with the enemy's ground-to-air three-dimensional combat mode is largely due to the combat experience in the past few days. During the period when he was leading the guerrilla warfare in Lorraine alone, the Normans would dispatch a detachment of three or five combat ships at every turn, even if they did not send a powerful capital ship, so that the guerrilla forces could not find an opportunity to dominate the air with the ground. Now, the Normans' military power in Lorraine was no longer what it used to be, and when the transport ships were attacked, they used the tactics of adding fuel to the army, sending warships one by one, and sending troops one by one, only to be broken one by one by Weiss's regular guerrilla forces. Will this be the case next? He did not dare to pack the ticket, but he believed that in the situation of overstretched troops and considerable pressure on the front, it was unlikely that the enemy's high-ranking commanders would devote their valuable combat strength to the combat operations of suppressing the guerrillas, so as long as the tactics were appropriate, the chances of victory were still very high.

Adhering to the old adage of "listening to the enemy is clear, and believing is dark", Weiss asked the soldiers to organize their weapons and ammunition, replenish their supplies, and prepare to leave the camp, and on the other hand, invited Lieutenant Colonel Lear and several other officers to be honest with them about their considerations and plans. Somewhat unexpectedly, this time Lieutenant Colonel Lear did not throw out a bunch of questions and assumptions, but told Weiss that whether they were returning from the battle or the soldiers who stayed in the camp, everyone's morale was high at this time, and the ammunition and supplies of the troops were now unrestrained, and all conditions were suitable for fighting the enemy. The advantage of organizing guerrilla operations on the spot is that the fighters are familiar with the terrain and do not need to travel long distances, and they can give full play to the combat effectiveness of the troops. On the balance of the two, most officers, including Lieutenant Colonel Lear, preferred to stay and fight the enemy.

With the support of everyone, Weiss has more confidence to fight this battle. He asked Lieutenant Colonel Lear to group the existing troops, arrange for the equipment to be carried out, and transfer the wounded, while he himself drew up the battle plan—including the concealed standby positions of each group, the corresponding communication signals for different tactics, the emergency assembly location, and so on.

A few hours later, Weiss and Lieutenant Colonel Lear's separate duties were ready, and the huge secret camp was empty, just when four Norman ships flew in from the southeast. This rare enemy air formation, consisting of one cruiser and three transports, landed in a ravine not far from the secret camp, unloading thousands of Norman soldiers and a considerable amount of equipment and baggage. In a short time, the three transports took off and left, leaving only the cruiser to cruise over the forest at a slower pace.

As expected, the Norman troops, brought in by transport ships, quickly organized their forces to advance to the secret camp of the guerrilla advance party. By the afternoon, they had found and broken into the secret camp, and searched it inside and out. They seemed very disappointed with the evacuation of the guerrilla advance team, but they did not know which direction to pursue—Weiss deliberately let the soldiers set up a "maze array", and there were traces of evacuation everywhere, and it was difficult to distinguish the real from the false.

It was still early in the morning, so the Normans placed the main force in a relatively open valley, used the mechanical tools they brought with them to cut down trees, widen the defense area, build fortifications, and use several detachments to search around the secret camp abandoned by the guerrilla advance team. This time, instead of laying numerous traps in the woods, Weiss withdrew his troops far away to the lush valleys or the makeshift shelters that the Lorraine guerrillas had built on the terrain earlier, so that for the next half day the Normans did not lose a single soldier, but they did not find a single guerrilla advance soldier.

Towards evening, the Norman search party began to retreat towards the valley, and surprisingly, the Norman cruiser also landed in the valley, and it crossed the stream domineeringly, merging with the camp built by the Norman army, as if it were in a posture of fighting a protracted battle with the opponent. Peeking at the enemy's movements, Weiss couldn't help but wonder: if he chose to shift his strategy, how long would the enemy spend here in vain? Three days, a week, or more? Counting the crew of the Norman cruiser, the Normans invested nearly 5,000 troops in one go this time, which is equivalent to half a division, and the numerical advantage is not particularly large, and the biggest reliance is undoubtedly this cutting-edge cruiser. Ze came to command in person as the military governor of Lorraine of the Norman Empire, and the Norman high-level - to be precise, it should be the faction he worked for, would definitely try to provide him with the conditions to redeem his merits, stabilize the situation in the rear of Lorraine by the way, and strive to win the crucial Norman war, but this "as much as possible" must have a time limit and scope, so these Normans seem to be step-by-step and stable, and it is essentially impossible to compete with Weiss and them for patience.

Through the "fog of war" that opened, Weiss discovered that shortly after the Norman cruiser landed, the upper limit of power output was cut in half, which meant that half of its boilers were turned off. Although he did not serve in the fleet, at the Bathton Military Academy and the Delefig Senior Staff College, Weiss taught himself a lot about ship mechanics and fleet operations, and used his spare time to consult with those knowledgeable instructors, coupled with some reliable or unreliable knowledge accumulated as a military enthusiast in his early years, he roughly judged that this Norman battleship had adopted the method of reducing consumption and temporary repairs, after all, since the day before yesterday, it had been flying non-stop for more than two days, on the one hand, it consumed a lot of fuel, On the other hand, some general minor failures may also occur during the continuous operation of the machinery.

As far as the guerrilla advance force is concerned, it is undoubtedly in the best state to get rid of this number one threat. However, in the previous battle, they lost more than half of their mortars, now there are only 14 left, and there are only more than 300 shells left, it is unlikely to rely on mortars to damage or even destroy a cruiser.

With this in mind, Weiss decided to have a good deal with his opponent. After nightfall, he sent a herald to inform the men and horses to strengthen their concealment, and pay attention to the "food and clothing" of the soldiers—in the absence of enemy ship activity, they could use a kerosene stove with less smoke to cook food at night, and at the same time, make good use of existing resources such as tents and vegetation, and take sheltered places to sleep overnight. The troops did not carry out offensive actions that night, nor did they conduct a large-scale vigilance or reconnaissance, in short, they conserved their physical strength and energy to the greatest extent and rested and prepared for battle.

That night, the guerrilla advance party disappeared, and the Normans camped in the valley did not live well. Weiss observed through a special vision that the enemy still maintained a tight defensive formation at night, which meant that many soldiers spent the night in the fortifications rather than sleeping in tents or ship cabins, which made it difficult for them to relax mentally and was not conducive to full physical recovery. In addition, the chimneys of the Norman cruisers were constantly emitting smoke and the power output was maintained at one-half to one-third of the normal upper limit. Everyone was on guard, or rather waiting for the attack of their opponents, but from nightfall to sunrise, the mountains and forests were quiet, and even wild beasts did not come to the stream.

The Normans seemed to smell their opponents from this unusually unusually calm, and after daybreak, they dispatched more than half of their ground forces to launch a dragnet search of the surrounding mountains and forests, and the air units in the rear also sent planes to help, but their cruisers did not make a sortie, silently playing the role of a ground fortress. In the face of the Norman advance, Weiss led a command of more than a dozen people, moving around the enemy's valley camp and his own secret camp like a ghost, spying on the enemy's platoon and arrangement, calmly dispatching the overall situation. The guerrilla detachments that were far enough away and good enough to stay still, and the detachments in the front packed up their equipment to carry out maneuver evasion, and after a complete day, the detachments always kept a safe enough distance from the enemy, and the Normans seemed hesitant and cowering in their actions on this day, they wanted to find the traces of their opponents, but they were also worried that the opponent would leave with one blow, so that on the one hand, they were ready to move, and on the other hand, they were worried about acting, and they looked forward and backward, and if they continued like this, it would take another day or two, and it was estimated that there would be no need for the guerrilla advance team to attack. They will withdraw on their own.

But this time, Weiss didn't plan to get the enemy out of trouble, but waited for them to lose their sharpness and lost their patience, and then give them a fatal blow!