It was close to five o'clock in the afternoon, and the setting sun was reflecting the entire western sky, and all those who participated in that battle clearly remembered the beautiful scenery they saw on Cambodia Highway 5 that evening, and the clouds that were as red as blood.

On Saturday, November 9, 1940, at 5:16 p.m. Tokyo (Hanoi) time, a time recorded in the history of the French army, the French and Siamese armies discovered each other's tracks almost simultaneously.

The Siamese army received a French army education, and the infantry tactics were exactly the same as those of the French army, and they arranged reconnaissance detachments on both flanks of the army, of course, because of the conditions, they could only be some foot infantry.

A Siamese infantry squad of about 12 people was equipped with a "Siamese Type 66" light machine gun imitating the Danish "Madison" light machine gun, and in addition to the two machine gunners and the second assistant, there were also three machine gun ammunition men, each carrying an iron carrying box with five 25-round magazines, and theoretically this light machine gun carried 600 rounds of ammunition, which was enough to support a low-intensity battle.

The first to discover the traces of the French army was an infantry squad of the 3rd Company of the 35th Infantry Battalion, led by Private Babu Tent from Chonburi Province.

Originally, the company had already decided that he would be promoted to corporal next month and enter the enviable non-commissioned officer class. The hierarchy within the Siamese army is unimaginable for other countries, and they almost copy the traditional rules of Siamese, but with a layer of Western military skin.

Babu Pong squad leader was born in the lowest peasant family, did not read much, and joined the army purely to improve the social status of his family, because Siam was a military dictatorship at this time, so that the status of soldiers was raised very high in society.

As a squad leader, Babu Tent got a Mauser short rifle of German origin, although it was a good commodity for many years, but the previous owners maintained it very well. He hated the current task and thought that the deputy platoon commander Punpolba was communiquéing his personal vendetta. This time, the promotion quota in the company was limited, and Babu Tent took the position of the deputy platoon commander's cousin, but he didn't look at what kind of character his cousin was, and he had been in the army for two years, but he couldn't even shoot accurately.

With their backs to the setting sun and the light in their favor for the Siamese army, the infantry marched in columns and walked in knee-high thatched wilderness, which had a bit of an American western.

"What sound?" Babu Tent reached out to stop the group behind him, and he crossed his rifle and began to listen. Unlike the cacophony of people and horses on the road in the distance, what is heard is a rhythmic roar.

"Sounds like a tank." Babu Tent identified the source of the sound, it was the roar of a large engine, he had seen the Vickers tanks of the 1st Armored Battalion of the Eastern Army, and from the sound comparison, it was obvious that the ones who were coming now were bigger guys.

While Babu Tent was still hesitating whether to sound the alarm, the enemy made a choice for him. A whole group of behemoths painted in tricolor camouflage, lined up in neat horizontal rows, roared out of the sparse bushes.

"Enemy Army!" The Siamese soldier screamed loudly, and then instinctively crouched down. This action of the squad leader of the bab tent saved his life, and just as he was short, he was facing the French tank of their squad and fired a parallel machine gun at the infantry on the ridge.

The red tracer bullet hit a dazzling fan, and the Siamese soldiers didn't have time to react, they stood there like stakes, one by one the bullets were cut to the ground.

The strafing lasted three seconds, longer than three years for Babu Tent, and he could feel bullets flying past him and overhead, buzzing like bees flapping their wings, and he heard the wails and screams of the soldiers in his squad as bullets hit and tear apart. He could feel the warm liquid pouring over the side of his face, and he knew it was human blood, and even where it came from. It was supposed to be the rifleman who was following him, a seventeen-year-old recruit also from Chonburi Province, with a very delicate and delicate baby face, everyone who didn't know thought it was a girl, what was his name, Babu Pong found that he couldn't remember anything.

"Onward! Charge! Destroy those Siamese! ”

Lieutenant Vaeli shouted excitedly as he stood in the turret of the car. At the lieutenant's side was the tank squadron under his command, a full fifteen AMC35 light tanks.

The top student of the Saint-Cyr Military Academy was extremely excited at the moment, he once thought that he would never have the opportunity to gallop on the battlefield with his beloved tank in his life.

The lieutenant, who had served in the 5th Cuirassier Regiment as a second lieutenant, commanded an armored company of twelve H35 tanks engaged in fierce battles with German tanks on the banks of the Somme, only to see the entire cavalry brigade surrounded and annihilated by the Germans twelve hours later.

He and his crew were lucky enough to survive until the moment of surrender, when only two tanks remained intact in the entire company. The second lieutenant was imprisoned in the prisoner-of-war camp at Compiègne, but he was not subjected to any ill-treatment, and every day he and the other officers in the brigade pondered how to peel the potatoes.

Vaeli thought that his career was over, so he waited for the end of the war to exchange prisoners, and then took off his military uniform. Defeat or victory, the French will no longer need them. He even thought about his future path, maybe he could pull up a few fellow villagers in the prisoner of war camp and open a restaurant together.

He sensed that France might be defeated because the prisoner of war camps were constantly expanding, but he did not expect the defeat to come so quickly, let alone that France would sign an alliance treaty with Germany after the defeat.

This was a fact that was hard for people like Vaeli to accept, and the faces of the officers and men who had died in battle were constantly circling in his mind day and night, and Vaeili felt that they were questioning himself whether their sacrifice was worth it.

Vaeli could only try to convince himself with the words of President Petain, and the death of these people had brought permanent peace to France.

To Vaeli's relief, it was the superiors who were not prepared to abandon them, the prisoners of war, and that they would be reorganized to continue serving the Republic. Not only was Vaeli not ordered to be discharged, but he was even promoted to the rank of first rank and transferred to the newly formed mechanized cavalry regiment, where he continued to serve as the leader of the armored squadron.

This time, however, instead of the familiar H35, he was driving a brand new AMC35. This is a light tank designed by France for Belgium, and there really is a long story to be told about this tank.

The AMC35 had a rough patch, as it was originally designed as a cavalry tank for the Belgian light cavalry units. It is a modification of the French Renault AMC34 tank, and the Belgians originally ordered fifty units, but there were delays in the delivery because the Renault plant was nationalized and reorganized during the delivery period.

At this time, the Belgian government was worried that the armoured weapons deal would cause over-interpretation in Germany, and a group of left-wing politicians tried everything to prepare for the deal. As a result, they really succeeded in mixing up, and they first lowered the order to eighteen vehicles on the grounds that the tank's climbing ability was weak, and then demanded that the order be cancelled directly on the grounds that the French were slow to deliver.

The unit price of such tanks is 360,000 French francs, for which Belgium will pay 4 million francs in liquidated damages to the Renault factory. After Renault's weapons department was nationalized, because Renault had already prepared materials for the Belgian order, and the parts and molds were ready, France suggested that the Belgian government continue to order this ratio and hand it over to the reorganized AMX factory for production, and the number was reduced to 35 vehicles, which was almost equivalent to liquidated damages.

But because the production of this tank was ranked last, the production of this tank was very small each month, and by the time the war broke out, the total number of them was less than twenty-two, so that by the time Belgium surrendered, they had only six in their hands.

At that time, the production of AMX was accelerated, and the army needed all the tanks that could be used, and when the Germans occupied the factory, they found that there were 50 brand-new AMX35 tanks parked in the warehouse.

The German Army did not take a fancy to such a light thing, and simply returned it all to the French. The French side didn't know what to do with it at first, and handed it over to the Belgian Army, which was obviously unlikely, and Petain finally decided to use it himself, no matter how it was a tank.

With a stroke of his pen, President Petain put it on a cargo ship bound for French Indochina, along with the French GIs. This is actually a small tank with quite good performance, equipped with a 47 mm tank gun, capable of destroying all known light tanks, with slightly weaker armor, but also 25 mm enough to carry most light anti-tank weapons.

The most prominent thing is its mobility, this armored vehicle, originally designed as a cavalry tank, has a road speed of an astonishing forty-two kilometers per hour, enough for veteran drivers to use it for drag racing. (To be continued.) )