Hazy illusion, Xia Shu's fingertips finally touched the delicate and handsome face, the elegant and pleasant fragrance still lingered on the tip of the nose, but the sweet smile of the past was far away, how could the stubborn eyes have been so sad? Yiren was haggard and sad, and the beautiful pictures in his memory came to his mind, but the sorrow was even stronger. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info didn't wake up from the dream, and a line of tears quietly slipped through the corners of his eyes......

It was dawn, and Natsuki frowned deeply and opened his eyes. The gray one-man tent, the hard marching bed, the loud sound of the motor, the aroma of brewing coffee, and the occasional rough and hearty voice of speech, such a military career is hard but obsessed with countless people.

While rubbing his temples and combing his thoughts in his mind, Natsuki quickly returned to his role as a soldier. This is Amiens, a place where neither the Germans nor the British, where soldiers from both sides are fighting to the death, and there is nothing more strange about war.

In 1914, France was still a predominantly agricultural country, and Amiens was a relatively representative medium-sized city in this country - the scale of the urban area was small, factories, schools, churches, and houses were concentrated on both sides of the river, the city was only four or five kilometers from east to west and from south to north, and the suburbs were large areas of farmland, and small woods and bushes were like raisins sprinkled on a cake. Before the advent of machine guns, such terrain was easy to attack and difficult to defend, especially suitable for cavalry combat.

When Natsuki walked out of the camp tent, a Hubert-D reconnaissance plane flew just overhead, and on the grass not far away, more than 30 gray-painted fighters were spreading their wings and ready to fly. Originally home to the French army's air force, it was a stadium for football matches before the outbreak of the war, and it was surrounded by no walls, and the spectator seats were wooden stepped seats, and after the demolition only left a large flat grass. It is located some distance from the densely populated civic quarters, with only a few scattered buildings and trees next to it. During the First Battle of Amiens, the retreating French 6th Infantry Division dug trenches nearby and deployed artillery positions in the woods, and these remnants of the battlefield are now being reused by the Germans.

The 20 train guns that Natsuki brought back from the front line of the Oise River were divided into four military trains, and they were all parked on the railroad tracks less than 500 meters from the airport. The main railway line runs south to Paris, north to Lille in the border region and northwest to Calais and Dunkirk via Abbeville, which is why Amiens is considered an important transport hub in northeastern France.

After washing, Natsuki sat down at the table in the open air, and in just a few moments, there were half fewer planes at the airport. Twin wings and two-seaters of reconnaissance and attack aircraft rose off the ground in droves, and their primary targets were still British gunboats on the Somme.

"Your Highness, good morning!"

"Oh, Colonel von Lipseye, good morning!"

Natsuki made a gesture to take a seat. The current naval colonel is the commander of the German naval aviation unit stationed in Amiens, and he is also a senior pilot, who has won the championship in the international air race, and he was born in a Prussian elite family, and often followed his father in and out of the court when he was young, which was appreciated by Wilhelm II, and Natsuki has also known him for many years, and he has joined the German Navy, so he naturally has a sense of intimacy that is better than ordinary people.

"You slept well last night, didn't you?" The colonel greeted with a pleasant expression.

"Good." Natsuki replied with a slight disobedience, and he tucked a white napkin into his neckline, and when the orderly brought the hot omelette and bread to the table, he offered to invite the colonel to breakfast.

"It's a great honor to be invited by Your Highness, but I had already filled my stomach an hour and a half ago...... Please bring me a cup of coffee! Thank you! The colonel said politely to Natsuki's orderly.

Over the years, Natsuki had developed the habit of getting up on time at half past five, and the Colonel had eaten breakfast more than an hour before that, and he must have done a lot of preparation for the next day's air operations.

Natsuki encouraged in his usual way: "These days, we have worked very hard to carry out continuous aircraft missions, and now we are getting closer and closer to victory, and if we hold on for a few more days, the great cause of history will be forged in our hands." If you can successfully repel the British attack, you and your eagles should wear medals. ”

The colonel responded: "In fact, after these days of fighting, the progress and growth of the young men are very rapid, but it is a pity that two of our most skilled pilots are missing on the battlefield, it may be that the plane has malfunctioned, or it may have been hit by the enemy's guns, and life and death are still unknown." ”

"Accidents are inevitable on the battlefield." Natsuki was relieved, "As long as they are alive, when we win this battle, they will still be honored and praised as heroes." ”

The colonel nodded: "May God bless them, and bless all of us." ”

Natsuki quickly swept away the food on his plate, and then picked up his coffee: "How many people are in your flight unit now?" ”

Colonel von Lipseyer gave a series of figures without hesitation: "Not counting the guards deployed by the Marine Division, there are currently 42 pilots, 60 machine gunners and bombardiers, 73 maintenance technicians, and 209 orderlies. ”

Natsuki nodded, compared to the hundreds of thousands of army units at every turn, the number of these aviation personnel on the west coast is insignificant, but counting the carrier-based aircraft force, the current scale of the German naval aviation is the largest in the world. Already far ahead of its rivals at the starting line, it will surely become the core pillar of the German Reich's maritime domination in the future, provided it remains in the right direction and with sufficient investment.

"When the war is over, I invite all of you to my manor as guests." Natsuki said casually.

Colonel von Lipseye half-jokingly said, "Ho, if you can get your Highness's signed photograph, the lads will immediately put all their complaints behind them." ”

Natsuki took it seriously: "No problem, I promise everyone can get one." ”

After all the planes had taken off, a deafening sound of artillery rang out in the direction of the railway line. According to Natsuki's arrangement, the 20 train guns were divided into two groups, 12 150-mm guns of 40 times the diameter of the British army took turns to carry out harassing shelling of the British concentration area northwest of Amiens at firing intervals of five to 10 minutes, and eight 240-mm guns of 40 times the diameter of the British army at an interval of 20 minutes to carry out artillery shelling of the area of British activity northeast of Amiens.

The western outskirts of Amiens were so bustling with warplanes flying and heavy artillery roaring that it was impossible for the British commanders, who were anxious to capture Amiens, to turn a blind eye. Soon after, two Allied planes appeared on the western outskirts of Amiens, but they were immediately blocked and expelled by German fighters, who failed to conduct detailed reconnaissance of German airfields and heavy artillery positions. By 9 o'clock in the morning, scattered British cavalry frequently broke into the German-controlled area on the western outskirts of Amiens, and they were attacked by German riflemen deployed in nearby houses, woods and other hidden positions, and also failed to approach the German airfield and artillery positions, but through aerial and ground reconnaissance, the British were able to determine the orientation of the German artillery positions and airfields.

Near eleven o'clock, during the normal tea time of the British, the German reconnaissance plane spotted the British cavalry unit on the march west of Amiens, and judging by the pilot's visual inspection, this British cavalry force had at least 2,000 men, equivalent to the strength of most of the cavalry brigade.

The cavalry moved so fast that the infantry could not reach it. At about the time of the morning tea, the German guard post arranged north of the train gun position had already seen the traces of a large number of British cavalry, and the defending troops immediately entered a combat state.

In a two-story house near the airport, Natsuki quietly observed the British cavalry in sight through a telescope. These well-armed professional soldiers were full of spirit and majesty, riding tall and vigorous horses, wearing neat and straight military uniforms, holding their heads high, and advancing with swords, giving people the impression at first glance that they were a well-trained and powerful army. However, in Natsuki's view, the battle had been fought for almost two months, and the two sides had already paid a heavy price of hundreds of thousands of people in the process of exploring the mode of war, and this group of British cavalry was still in a compact wall formation, either to blame the commander's sluggishness, or to show that they despised the self-defense of the German heavy artillery units, and felt that they could crush the opponent with a simple attack.

On the battlefield, stupidity is just as deadly as underestimating the enemy. The three battalions of naval infantry brought back by Natsuki from the front line of the Oise River totaled more than 1,900 men, they were well-equipped and high-spirited, and more than half of the officers and soldiers had already been baptized by the fire of war and knew how to use the weapons in their hands. The troops guarding the airfield were originally transferred from the 1st Marine Brigade, and although they were mainly newly replenished reserve troops, the number of light and heavy machine guns was not quite large, and with the leadership of veterans, it was not a problem to fight positional defensive battles.

At first glance, the German defense line for the airfield and the train guns was incomplete, the barbed wire fence only blocked the junctions and low-lying open areas, and the British cavalry easily found gaps in the woods and slightly raised fields - they hastily divided their forces in two ways, trying to force their way through the German interception, enter the airfield and train gun positions and quickly destroy the weapons there, thereby weakening the defenders of Amiens. By the time the British cavalry discovered that the gaps were decoys deliberately left by their opponents, they regretted the rain of bullets. The German infantry weaved a terrible web of crossfire with machine guns skillfully placed in key locations, and in less than a quarter of an hour, half of the 2,000 British cavalry who went on attack became the guns of the Germans, and the battlefield was strewn with corpses and rivers of blood. The rest of the British cavalry did not give up the attack, but adjusted their strategy and attacked from multiple directions, but the German defense was almost leaky, even if a small number of machine gun positions were conquered by the British cavalry, and the German train guns had prepared ship shrapnel shells for the fish that slipped through the net.

The battle ended quickly, and in the end only a few dozen ownerless horses were able to storm the airfield. The expensive professional cavalry was completely defeated by the ugly water-cooled machine gun and the even uglier air-guided light machine gun, cruel, ruthless, and full of regrets, but this is the war, and Shunchang is reversed.

(End of chapter)