The morning breeze blew and brought a heavy smell of gunsmoke, and the originally beautiful and rich Belgian wilderness was full of bomb craters, scorched corpses, and a scene of chaos and erosion. The wreckage of the fire burned across the battlefield, igniting farmland, haystacks, and distant woods, and several fighter jets roared through the sky, adding to the atmosphere of slaughter.

Lieutenant General Hopner rode in the command car, his eyes calmly swept over the front-line battlefield that had just finished grinding. After swarming through the Albert Canal the night before, the 16th Panzer Corps under his command had been in the vanguard of Army Group B and had launched a fierce attack on the Belgian interior. On May 11 alone, the German armored spearhead advanced more than 50 kilometers and directed its troops towards Brussels. The Belgian troops stationed on the eastern border who could not retreat were all cut off, and when the German infantry caught up, these tens of thousands of Belgian troops had only one way to annihilate.

However, the German advance was forced to stop today. According to the air reconnaissance report, the Franco-British army of more than one million men has fully entered the heart of Belgium, and a large French tank corps has rumbled through Brussels, and will soon collide head-on with Hoppner's 16th Panzer Army. This unit has about 3 divisions, and the number of tanks is not inferior to that of the 16th Panzer Corps, judging from the types of tanks it is equipped with, they should be the mechanized divisions of the French army in the mid-30s, based on cavalry units.

Hopner was fully anticipated of the French, who were the first to arrive in the west of Belgium and advance 80 kilometres a day in front of him. Because, unlike the Germans, the French entered Belgium as a purely armed parade: not only were all the road checkpoints open to them, but more importantly, there would be no land battles. In addition, in order to allow the Allied forces to enter the encirclement more smoothly, the German Army also stopped air strikes on the Allied convoys in depth from May 11. As a result, the French mechanized corps was left with only one restriction of logistical support, and it was not a problem at all to maneuver nearly 100 kilometers along Belgium's well-established transportation network.

Judging from the current situation facing Hopner, he should have ordered to stop the offensive and move to the defensive. Although the French vanguard was on par with the 16th Panzer Corps, it was behind the main force of the coalition, and even if the Germans defeated the enemy in front of them, the follow-up enemy forces could easily rescue and respond to them, and it was almost impossible to continue to extend the victory. You must know that at present, the German army has only one 6th Army in Belgium, and there are only 22 divisions in reserve, and in the face of the French, Belgian, and British forces with three times the strength of their own, choosing a low-key defense is obviously the most correct response.

It's just that...... Hopner's eyes flickered, but there was a different thought in his heart. He always remembered that the task of his right-wing cluster was to draw the main Allied forces firmly into Belgian territory, and that nothing could be more effective in achieving this than to convince the Allied forces that the main German forces were there. If Germany really gathered all its elite in Belgium, what would it do in the face of this French spearhead? There is no doubt that it must have rushed forward like a lion and tiger, tearing this French army to pieces!

"Sir, a telegram has been sent from the headquarters of the army group, and General Bock has ordered our troops to immediately attack the French mechanized corps in front of them!" While he was thinking about it, an adjutant flew from the communication car next to him, raised his hand in salute, and immediately handed the telegram file to Hopner and said. Hoppner's eyes lit up suddenly, and he quickly finished reading the telegram in his hand, the corners of his mouth hooked, and he soon sat down in the armored command car and laughed loudly.

"That's right, that's what we're supposed to do!" Hopner's heart was agitated, and he almost sang with excitement at the commander's order. As one of the four commanders of the German Panzer Corps, he was so lonely when he saw Guderian, Holt and others leading their troops to advance wildly in Army Group A, while he, Hoppner, could only play the role of an auxiliary decoy and deal with the enemy. This time, Hopner was determined to prove to everyone that he was also an expert in armored warfare not inferior to Guderian, and that the French mechanized forces were the best stepping stone to achieve this!

As Hopner gave orders one after another, the various units under his armored corps began to move quickly. The infantry, which was clearing the remnants of the Belgian army at the front, immediately retreated, swiftly and in good order, while the tanks of the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions quickly assembled and drove directly in front of the troops after completing their supplies. The reconnaissance battalion was lightly armed to detect the enemy situation of the French army from three directions; The artillery regiments are looking for suitable positions on the flanks and rear flanks for deployment, and the antennas of the communication stations are erected high, ready to receive the distance and azimuth signals of the target at any time.

After receiving the enemy's position information from the reconnaissance detachment, the German artillery commanders immediately calculated the relative position of their guns and the target, and then instructed their men to adjust the pitch angle. Without much hesitation, a thunderous roar suddenly resounded through the heavens and the earth. In the dazzling flames of purple and orange, a fiery red cannonball burst through the air, and they cut a graceful arc in the sky, rushing down like a comet fire rain towards the French soldiers.

"Boom! Rumble! The explosion was resounding and deafening, and dozens of unlucky people were immediately hit by the thunder and artillery fire of this day, and in an instant, the stumps flew wildly, and the plasma was sprayed, and the scene was unbearable. A French troop truck was flooded through the roof by shells, and the violent blast swept away seven or eight soldiers, who were on fire, screaming and falling to the ground, and their comrades rushed to the rescue, only to see piles of charred and twisted flesh when they arrived.

Everywhere there were burning flames, everywhere there were explosions of light. Wherever the shells landed, the French soldiers were swallowed by the heat, and their bodies were shattered and scorched; or swept by shrapnel, instantly corpses in pools of blood; Or they were hurt by the loud air waves, and fell to the ground and rolled and howled. More often than not, they panicked and ran like frightened wild horses. The vast majority of French soldiers were on the battlefield for the first time, and it was difficult to adapt immediately to the bloody and brutal real battle, let alone being suppressed by enemy fire at the moment. For a time, despite the best efforts of the judicial officer, the soldiers were still panicking, and the troops fell into chaos, and people and vehicles were rushing in all directions.

"Order all armies to control their troops, and those who dare to rebel will be shot on the spot! At the same time, the German reconnaissance detachments were immediately expelled and enemy artillery positions were searched for in preparation for a counterattack. The French commander Lambert gave the order viciously, and at the same time cursed the vile and shameless Germans ten thousand times in his heart.

In the early morning of the first day of the fighting, the Germans suddenly attacked a number of field airfields in France, with the result that hundreds of French fighters were blown up on the ground before they could take off, and the air power suffered a heavy setback. At first, the French army was unimpressed, thinking that there would be no planes without them, but now, Lambert realized that he had found himself in an extremely uncomfortable situation.

Suppressed by German fighters, the French air force soon became incapable of engaging in a large-scale head-to-head confrontation with the opposing side. The skies of the main battlefield were immediately controlled by the Germans, and the most direct consequence of this was that every move of the French army on the ground was captured by German aircraft. At this time, the artillery bombardment of the French army was caused by the information asymmetry caused by the loss of air supremacy: the German artillery knew the general movement of the French army early on, set up the artillery in advance, and only needed to send a reconnaissance detachment to carry out precise positioning, and then immediately launched a strike. But the French army knew nothing about the enemy's situation, and before they had time to do anything, they were directly washed in blood by the German artillery!

The rain of bullets was dense, constantly whistling and falling from the sky, the explosion on the field was like thunder, and the mountains shook the ground, tormenting the French soldiers like divine punishment. After more than half an hour of shelling, the French mechanized corps was already a corpse: preliminary estimates put 1,000 people dead or wounded, and more than 40 vehicles of various types were completely blown up. Seeing the wounded soldiers being carried to the rear covered in blood, Lambert gritted his teeth with hatred and vowed to make the Germans pay.

The only thing that improved for the French was that the German shelling was gradually stopping. The French counterattack at the front dispersed the fly-like German scouts, making it no longer possible to provide firing guidance for the rear artillery. Just as the commander Lang Bezbe breathed a sigh of relief and was about to straighten out the men and horses and settle the accounts with the Germans, news suddenly came from the front: a large number of German tanks had appeared less than 8 kilometers away and were pressing on his own line.

"Order all mechanized divisions to stabilize the current front and wait for an opportunity to counterattack!" Lambert pondered for a moment, then immediately turned to the communications officer. As the vanguard of the French 1st Army, he needed to provide enough time for the main infantry force to operate the Brussels line, and it was clear that he could not retreat to the west. Not to mention that the enemy in front of him had just offended the abbot, and Lambert was now desperate to tear that group of sluts to shreds!

Lambert raised his head and looked at the empty and clear sky, and his heart was even more determined to fight the German army in front of him. At this time, the German bombers did not appear, and the French army did not need to be distracted to guard against the threat from the air, which was the most familiar rhythm of the battle for their own soldiers. Such a fighter is clearly not to be missed.

"It's just that where did all the German bombers go?" Lambert leaned back in the command car and muttered to himself, a hint of doubt in his eyes. If you can't see your own plane on the battlefield, Lambert doesn't think there will be any problem, because the French Air Force is not strong, and the day before yesterday it was just beaten by the Germans, and now it is normal for the number of attendances to be low. But now I don't even see a few German bombers, which is very strange.

It is reported that in the Polish campaign last autumn, the German army used a large number of aircraft to support ground battles, and finally used a major bombing to raze the city of Warsaw, which refused to surrender. Now, however, the German bomber group that Lambert had envisioned did not appear, but the fighters were fighting for air supremacy with their own side.

"What am I thinking about this nonsense, do I still want German bombers to bomb me?" Lambert suddenly came back to his senses and couldn't help but laugh dumbly. In any case, the best news was that the German bombers did not arrive, and now he had only one thing to do, and that was to fight to defeat the opponent who appeared in front of him.

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