April 17, 662 in the imperial calendar at 2 p.m.

It was 45 days after the outbreak of Incident 303 and 48 hours after the Empire handed over its tactics to the two forces that made up the Crusaders.

The war has broken out!

The Empire, which had not achieved the purpose of negotiation, resolutely fired the first shot of the war, and more than 100 destructive missiles were fired at 2 o'clock, flying towards the headquarters of the Religious Affairs Corps.

Although the Religious Affairs Corps was ready for war, Lieutenant General Austin, the culprit of the war, did not expect that the revenge from the Eastern Dragon would be so ruthless and crisp.

More than 100 devastating missiles flew by at an ultra-low altitude, and even the radar did not monitor the trajectory of the flight, and when the missile figure could be seen on the radar, it was too late to evacuate!

More than 20,000 people were killed in this deliberate blow, and before they could recover from their fear, surprise attacks by the Imperial missile force and air force began one after another.

The crusaders did not expect that the three Imperial fleets would send out all the bombers when they were still 1,300 kilometers away from the Central Land Bridge, and when the first wave of Imperial Air Force fighters came, the huge formation of naval aircraft was only half an hour away from the scheduled battlefield!

With a nearly 4:1 ratio of air power, coupled with a larger missile attack group, just two hours after the start of the war, the Crusader's airfields, tank clusters, and missile units were devastated—more than a dozen Imperial special forces active on the battlefield did not disappoint the headquarters and successfully guided missile attacks again and again.

All the airfields that were detected became the primary targets, and the 400-kilometer-long confrontation line was full of mushroom clouds of bombs, which was the most violent firepower assault in the history of world warfare, and in two hours, the empire sent a total of 2,300 warplanes and fired more than 10,000 missiles of various types.

After air supremacy changed hands, armored clusters suffered devastating attacks, and missile units and missile bases suffered fatal attacks, the crippled crusaders on the confrontation line hastily launched a defense, but by this time, four Imperial airborne divisions had already parachuted into the front line and launched an attack on the central 50-kilometer front.

Despite the heavy losses of the air force and the near-annihilation of the missile force, the Crusaders had focused on the defensive line for more than fifty years, and countless light and dark bunkers and pillboxes still stood on the battle line, and the Crusaders also intended to rely on these fortifications to contain the first wave of attack by the Empire.

But they were so disappointed!

The Imperial Air Force, which had seized air supremacy, could provide powerful support to the airborne troops at any time, and air-to-ground missiles could fall from the sky in just one minute, destroying the fortifications marked by the airborne troops, and the four airborne divisions, which had almost no heavy weapons and equipment, actually broke through a solid defense line three kilometers thick in just three hours! Although the cost was that the Imperial Air Force and missile units fired more than 4,000 missiles of various types in three hours, the 4 airborne divisions lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the casualty ratio was close to 4:1!

However, the three-kilometer-thick defense line was chiseled through!

At this time, the Imperial heavy forces arrived at a 50-kilometer breakthrough, a chariot army, six heavily armored chariot divisions, 9 chariot brigades and 7 magical armies, and the terrifying huge assault group smashed into the Crusader defense line from a huge gap of 50 kilometers.

Fifteen hours later, after marching 130 kilometers, the assault group halted its advance at a distance of 40 kilometers from the second line of defense of the Crusaders and spread out to the left and right, completely separating the two lines of defense of the Crusaders - nearly two million Crusaders on the confrontation line were divided in the middle and surrounded by 50,000 square kilometers of land.

In order to stabilize the encirclement line formed by the assault group, the Imperial Air Force Transport Force and the Navy fleet continued to transport more than 400,000 troops to the front in the next three days.

This defense line composed of nearly a million troops made the garrison of the second line of defense of the Crusaders who tried to break through the division desperate, and at the same time, it also trapped nearly two million Crusaders on the first line of defense in this 50,000 square kilometers of land.

……

At the headquarters of the 2nd battalion, the staff officers marked the situation announced in the battle report on the map.

After seeing the two million army of the Crusaders and the so-called impregnable first line of defense being divided and surrounded, Rao was Ye Xiao, who had seen a lot in his dreams, and he couldn't help but be impressed by the handwriting of the Central War Zone!

In just 4 days after the start of the war, the situation of the Crusaders was extremely miserable, the confrontation line that had been painstakingly managed was broken through by the central government, and the two million army was divided and now completely cut off the way back, Ye Xiao speculated again and again, and he could only see that the trapped troops of the Crusaders had no hope at all except to defend to the death!

If the trapped crusaders dare to abandon the defense line and choose to break through, the pursuit on the 130-kilometer retreat road will make them see no hope, even if they sacrifice some men and horses to block the attack, the other half of the troops successfully reach the blocking line, but the Imperial army waiting on the blocking line will definitely make them hit their heads and bleed, and then be swallowed by the Imperial army that catches up!

In this way, it is better to hold the ground and wait for rescue!

The same is true of the strategic intent of the empire in the dream realm, but the airborne troops did not break through the position on time, and after the assault cluster reinforcements came, they collided with the Crusader heavy troops, and the two sides launched a tragic chariot battle, although the empire won the battle in the end, but it did not completely penetrate the strategic intent - at that time, Ye Xiao still didn't understand why the battle was like this, but compared to the current situation, it was obvious that the strategic intent was not completed because of the leak.

"Camp, it's a big deal, our imperial army is a big deal this time!" Captain Shi Kai, a high-ranking student from the Imperial Staff Academy, looked at the map excitedly: "Two million crusaders are besieged by the imperial army, and their only way out now is to reoccupy the 50-kilometer dividing line, so that they can form a counter-encirclement of the million troops of our army's blocking line." ”

Ye Xiao looked at the map and couldn't help nodding. That's right, don't look at the current imperial army dividing and encircling the crusaders, but once the dividing line is lost and occupied, it means that the million blocking troops of the assault cluster are caught in the front and back, but for the possibility of losing the 50-kilometer dividing line, Ye Xiao thinks that the possibility is zero.

It is impossible for the theater command to let this passage plus the dividing line be lost.

"Fifty kilometers wide and one hundred and thirty kilometers long, this dividing line will definitely make the trapped crusaders bleed, even if they know that the possibility of reoccupying it is extremely small, but in order to turn the tables or do a battle of trapped beasts, they will definitely try to recapture it at all costs!" Shi Kai looked at Ye Xiao with glowing eyes:

"Battalion, the integration of our battalion's combat effectiveness has not ended, and if we attack, our department will obviously not be able to exert the combat effectiveness of synthetic operations, but what about defense? Defending our army has an absolute advantage, and with the help of fortifications, our 2nd Brigade can block two or three times the enemy and drink cold water! ”

"Camp, suggest to the brigade seat that you go to war! Our Black Flag Army should be tempered by blood first, and we can't stupidly wait for the integration of combat power to set foot on the battlefield! ”

Shi Kai's words made Ye Xiao's heart move, indeed, the elite is fought, no matter how good the training is, it can't withstand the tempering of the battle, the Black Flag Army will inevitably be one of the main forces in the future war, and it is not without harm to step into the battlefield in advance!

"Good! I went to the brigade department to suggest! Ye Xiao recognized Shi Kai's suggestion, and said that he would go straight to the brigade headquarters.