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Benghazi and Tobruk were both coastal towns at this time, although the history can be pushed back to the time of the Phoenicians and the ancient Greeks, but there was no hinterland, and the scale was not large thousands of years ago, and it was still small thousands of years later, so Jerome concluded that the staff was worrying about it, and it was impossible for China to land from here.

He guessed correctly, the Chinese did not land here, but they chose Tripoli, where there is a huge oasis, where there are many ports, where it is more convenient to land.

But where is the large rear of the expeditionary force, Tripoli is his logistics base, he is not a military idiot, he is stationed in such an area. This is why he felt that the Chinese did not take him seriously, and went directly to attack his key logistics bases, instead of landing on undefended beaches in his rear, which obviously proved that the Chinese did not care about fighting Jerome's troops at all.

Feeling underestimated, Jerome was certainly a little angry.

But soon he was not angry, and the Chinese succeeded in seizing the beach of Misrata, and then combined forces to capture the regular port of Zlitan, three days later to Humus, and a week later approached the port of Tripoli, judging by the speed of the advance, the Chinese basically did not stop.

This made Jerome a little surprised, Jerome had a total of 300,000 troops, Tripoli as a material transit point from Tunisia to Egypt, he attached great importance to the defense here, he left 50,000 people to stay here, all of them were veterans who followed him all the way from the Americas to France, and he knew the combat effectiveness. Tripoli is very close to Tunisia and Malta, and in this position, it is impossible for the Chinese not to consider the threat of the British Navy, and absolutely cannot support a large-scale military landing operation. If they only sent a small number of troops to break the defense of their own remaining army, he could not imagine.

Jerome did not believe that the Chinese army was so strong in combat, and besides, it was not a regular Chinese army, but a colonial army formed by their overseas company. Could it be that those Indians are so strong in combat? If this is the case, they will not be ruled by so many foreign races one after another, after the Age of Discovery, almost all European countries have established military bases in India, seized territory, no matter how you look at India, it does not look like a fighting nation.

Or did China land too many troops, transporting a large number of convoys to land at any moment when the British Navy would cut off their supplies at sea? But now with the landing of China, the railway is cut off, and the telegraph is also broken, he does not know the situation on the front at all, how many troops the Chinese have sent to land, what the equipment is, what the battle situation is, he does not know.

The connection is still between Sirte and Egypt, Sirte is also a Phoenician ancient city, but under the invasion of thousands of years of wind and sand, only a ruin remains, and later because the railway built by the Chinese passed here, it was restored to a small town, with a small port, and the railway intermodal.

But Sirte is 600 kilometres from Tripoli, and it will take weeks for the news detected from here to reach Jerome.

For war, this is almost the same as being blocked from the news, and the news received is not only a few weeks later, but even a delay of a day or two, which is also fatal, because the situation of the war can change dramatically at any time.

The situation in the rear is unclear, and the front is Egypt, the target of conquest, and it is a difficult choice to advance or retreat.

He still had 200,000 troops in his hands, and Jerome had absolute confidence in conquering Egypt, provided that the Chinese army did not enter Egypt. But after the news was cut off, he didn't even know whether the Chinese army had entered Egypt from Syria, so he continued to march towards Egypt, and it was completely impossible to judge who the opponent on the opposite side was.

If it retreats, due to the unclear situation in Tripoli, it will be conquered by the Chinese army. However, the French army in Tunisia could not cross the desert between Tunisia and Tripoli, and if they regained Tripoli, a city on the edge of the desert and on the coast of the sea, Jerome's retreating troops would be starved of supplies.

In the desert of North Africa, with no source of supplies, Jerome could not imagine how his army of 200,000 would survive, let alone fight.

It is difficult to advance or retreat.

Jerome believed that he should not hesitate to attack when he hesitated, so he launched a fierce attack on Egypt with a black cloth over his eyes, and after a short but fierce two-day attack, the Egyptian army in Port Matrouh fled, as before.

Although the port of Matruh is a small port, it is a commercial hub in the central and western regions of Egypt due to the surrounding plains and roads leading to the inland desert oasis, with merchant ships connecting with other regions. So the information here is relatively smooth, and Jerome got some news from the captives that the Chinese Navy and the British Navy are at war in Sicily.

According to the time analysis, the Chinese attacked Sicily at about the same time as they landed in Misrata, which made Jerome very puzzled, could it be that the Chinese launched a naval battle against Sicily at the same time as landing in North Africa. He was silent for a moment, believing that it was possible. He knew that China's naval strength in the Mediterranean was much stronger than that of the British army, and the main reason why it had been unable to gain sea supremacy was that Britain had a geographical advantage. It is as if the reason why Napoleon was able to use the naval fleet to send more than 30,000 French troops to Egypt was based on Napoleon's occupation of Italy.

The Chinese Navy has the ability to attack Sicily while sending warships to protect the landing of the army in North Africa, but they do not have the ability to capture Sicily, why do they attack even though they know that they can't take Sicily, probably because of tactics, dragging the British Navy in Sicily, so that they are powerless to interfere with China's landing operations in North Africa.

But in Port Matrul, Jerome still did not find the situation in Tripoli, which he was most concerned about, as if there was no war anywhere.

Another gain from the capture of the port was the acquisition of a batch of supplies, albeit in small quantities, just some grain and dried fruits, which was better than nothing.

After a few days of rest in the port of Matruh and the sending of cavalry to carry out armed reconnaissance, Jerome planned to capture the Egyptian city of Alexandria, another ancient city named after Alexander the Great of ancient Greece, which was the largest port and city in Egypt for hundreds of years when Alexander the Great's generals, the Ptolemaic family, ruled Egypt.

Egyptian Sultan Ismail modernized the city, built a large number of municipal works and port facilities, and now it has once again regained its ancient status as the second largest city in Egypt after Cairo and the second largest port after the canal port of Port Said.

It is also the most cosmopolitan city in Egypt, long before the Suez Canal was built, it was the land starting point from Europe to India, a large number of European merchants settled here, not only French, but also many Greeks, Jews and Syrians, after the Suez Canal was built, its status has declined, but it is still an important international city, Egypt's largest export port to Europe.

Jerome believed that after the capture of Alexandria, the situation in Tripoli would be determined. Unless the Chinese carry out military operations, without even informing their allies, this is impossible, and the Chinese landing in North Africa must be to flank their own troops with Egypt, and how can they not communicate with the Egyptians, otherwise they will not send how to write military.

Between Alexandria and Matroux is the only small town of El Alamein, which was very important because it was a symbol of the modernization of the Sultan of Ismail, and as a barrier to Alexandria, the Egyptian army was heavily fortified at El Alamein.

However, Jerome did not think it was difficult, the Egyptians had fortified cities before, and they had not been captured by him again and again.

He believed that he could easily capture El Alamein, and then capture Alexandria, and if he could not get the information he wanted in Alexandria, Alexander would have a direct railway to Cairo, and he could capture Cairo in one fell swoop.

The most worrying thing is that I don't know when the Chinese army will appear, according to the intelligence collected during this time, Jerome strangely found that the Chinese army has not entered Egypt so far.

Just when Jerome was well prepared and prepared to march on El Alamein with a main force of 100,000, he finally received news from Tripoli.

It was an order from the French General Staff Headquarters to immediately retreat and retake Tripoli from the Chinese army. The French North African Army will attack from the direction of Tunisia and join forces with Jerome to flank the Chinese landing force.

The North African Corps did everything possible to deliver the news, bypassing the desert southwest of Tripoli and making a detour of thousands of kilometers before sending the news to Sirte and then by telegram to Jerome.

Fortunately, Jerome controlled the telegraph line parallel to the railway along the way, and he had technicians in his army to manage the telegraph, otherwise the orders of the French General Staff Headquarters would have to travel more than a thousand kilometers to reach him.

But Jerome did not intend to accept this order, not because he wanted to argue with the French General Staff Headquarters, but because he found out that this order had been issued more than ten days ago, probably when the Chinese army had just landed and marched towards Tripoli. Now more than ten days have passed, and the battlefield is changing rapidly, even if he responds to this order to go back to the rescue, it will be too late. Although there is no accurate information, Jerome believes that there are two results at most, one is that the Chinese army won, and then captured Tripoli, and the other is that the North African Army won, driving the Chinese out of the sea. Either way, he didn't have time to rush back.

Jerome thought it might be more important to conquer Egypt before the Chinese could solve the transportation problem and send troops to Egypt on a large scale.

So Jerome ignored the orders of the staff headquarters and launched an attack on El Alamein on his own.

What he didn't know was that, although the order had been issued more than ten days earlier, Tripoli had not decided the winner as he had thought, but was still in a state of anxiety, and the Chinese landing force was temporarily unable to break the line established by the battle-hardened Napoleonic volunteers.

Around the port of Tripoli, the two sides engaged in a large-scale amphibious battle on land and sea, far more intense and large-scale than Jerome's attack on Egypt.

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