Of course, Yuan Shikai understood why Feng Guozhang was reluctant to go to Europe, and for this old brother of the Beiyang family, he couldn't force him to leave his territory for a while, so he could only telegraph to his son, "Don't be impatient." Since the Chinese Expeditionary Force had de facto lost its supreme commander, the various units on the battlefield were left in a situation where they were fighting on their own. In order to prevent the squadron from collapsing, the US affairs advisory group, which had been in charge of the training squadron, proposed to General Pershing, the supreme commander of the US military, that Pershing temporarily take charge of the squadron's operations. In order to turn the tide of the war on the Western Front as soon as possible, Pershing adopted this suggestion of his subordinates to expand his command, and at Pershing's behest, the Supreme Military Council of the Entente made a request to the Chinese political axe to transfer the command of the Central [***] Brigade to himself. Yuan Shikai, who was worried that he could not find anyone to replace Chen Eun, readily agreed, so Pershing began to coordinate and command the American army and the Chinese army to fight.

After finally handing over the "hot potato" of the supreme command of the Chinese [***] team, how to return to China safely is the top priority in front of Yuan Keding, and due to the temporary superiority of the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Deland, coupled with the launch of Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, the sea route has become extremely dangerous, and after the fall of Paris, under the fierce attack of the German army, the northern part of France quickly fell, and the French coast near the English Channel side also fell into the hands of the German army. It has become impossible to cross the English Channel to England and then divert back to China. In order to allow the "crown prince of China" to return home safely, Pershing specially arranged a mixed Sino-American force for him to escort him all the way to Nantes, and then to return home from Saint-Nazaire.

But what neither Pershing nor Yuan Keding expected was that the German army launched another large-scale offensive at this time, and on a front of dozens of miles, thousands of German artillery pieces fired at the positions of the Entente [***] team at the same time, and the officers and soldiers of the Entente [***] team were beaten under the fierce artillery fire and poison gas and could not raise their heads at all. In the first few hours after the bombardment began, the US command system at the front of the position was thrown into disarray. The American headquarters, arsenals, communications centers, railway junctions and railway stations in the forward areas were all hit by the first round of German artillery fire.

When the faint morning light shone through the billowing smoke and flames, a large number of German tanks and infantry appeared on the barrage. In less than an hour, they had occupied the front of the position, and the French, in the rear of the American army, did not even have time to blow up the bridge across the Loire, which was already crowded with German soldiers on foot to the south bank. By dayfall, the Germans had invaded more places than at any other time since the beginning of trench warfare.

Unlike the tall and bulky "A7V" tanks used by the Germans, the Germans used a new tank similar to the Chinese tank, weighing about 10 tons, armed with a 20mm gun and a machine gun. At the same time, in the tank units of the German army, a considerable number of tanks captured from the Chinese [***] detachment were equipped.

In the headquarters of the French army, the French generals tried their best to stop the rapid advance of the German army in depth, but the demoralized French army lacked the means and experience to deal with the combined attack of German tanks and infantry armed with submachine guns. Tens of thousands of panicked French soldiers threw away their weapons and uniforms and disappeared into the hordes of civilians fleeing south through the city.

At the same time as the collapse of the French army, the British army and the Sino-American coalition army were also attacked by the German army, and the Sino-American coalition troops stationed on the periphery of Nantes in order to withstand the German attack, resolutely launched a large-scale counterattack with the American-made tank infantry that had just received it in their hands, forming a wedge-shaped protrusion in the German advancing line, and successfully forcing the German army to retreat, and at this time the British army once again staged the previous shameful behavior, leaving the friendly troops to retreat alone, The results of this valuable counterattack of the Chinese and American forces were wasted, and under the fierce attack of the German troops who received reinforcements, the Chinese and American forces were forced to abandon their positions, and Nantes was captured by the Germans.

At this time, Yuan Keding had the opportunity to go from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, but he stopped and stopped all the way to avoid the German artillery fire, and as a result, he missed the best time to escape and met the attacking German army.

Although his subordinates, whether Chinese or Americans, showed due loyalty, although they inflicted great casualties on the Germans with their advanced weapons, they were outnumbered and soon fell under the guns of the Germans one after another.

In order to survive, Yuan Keding also participated in the battle with his subordinates for the first time, and killed two German soldiers with his own hands, but these were not enough to get him out of danger.

Perhaps because he felt that his current performance was not suitable for the identity of the "Crown Prince of the Chinese Empire", Yuan Keding easily stopped his sorrow, and the few military training he had experienced before made him focus on his surroundings again.

He now knows that if he wants to return to China safely, his surname may be very small.

Judging from the battle that had just taken place, this area had become the domain of the German army, and it was almost impossible for him, a man with a somewhat lame foot, to escape on foot.

There were bursts of German shouts in the distance again, which made Yuan Keding's heart tighten again. At this time, Yuan Keding, somehow suddenly remembered his life in Berlin, and his heart couldn't help but move.

In 1912, Yuan Keding accidentally fell and injured himself when riding a horse in his hometown in Henan, because the treatment was not timely and fell into the root of the disease, and he walked a little lame, Yuan Shikai was very heartbroken, so he was sent to Germany for further treatment the following year.

When the German Emperor Wilhelm II saw that the eldest son of the President of the Republic of China had come to seek medical treatment, he attached great importance to it and treated him with hospitality. Wilhelm II often held grand banquets, and every time he would invite Yuan Keding to attend, and told Yuan Keding more than once, "China's current practice of a Ming Cook republican system is not suitable for China's national conditions." If China wants to be prosperous and strong, it should learn from Germany and implement the monarchical monarchy. He also asked Yuan Keding to tell Yuan Shikai after returning to China that if China wanted to restore the imperial system, Germany would do its best to help.

Not only that, when Yuan Keding completed his treatment and set off from Germany to return to China, Wilhelm II also wrote a letter for him to pass on to Yuan Shikai, the gist of the letter was about the goodwill between China and Germany, and advised Yuan Shikai to become emperor as soon as possible.

During his treatment in Germany, Yuan Keding was amazed by the achievements of Germany, and thus convinced of the efficacy of Germany's imperial system. In 1914, 36-year-old Yuan Keding returned to China from Germany with a dream of being an emperor. After returning to Yanjing, Yuan Keding blew a "German whirlwind" at home, and he ordered a set of majestic German princely school uniforms for himself and his younger brothers, and faintly regarded himself as a "prince".

And Wilhelm II's letter also played a big role in Yuan Shikai's final determination to restore the imperial system.

Thinking of the past when he and Wilhelm II got along very happily, Yuan Keding sighed secretly in his heart.

Regarding the "gilded" arrangement for his father to ask him to come to Europe to lead the army against Germany, he was actually not too reluctant.

During his treatment in Germany, he had seen the German army's bravery and good fighting, and the Chinese army had always been a model of the German army, and he, like his father, instinctively had a deep-seated fear of the German army. After arriving in Europe, the actual commander of the Chinese expeditionary force was Chen Huan. Yuan Keding himself has always tried his best to avoid contact with the German army, but what he did not expect was that he would one day fall to such a desperate state.

If he was really captured by the Germans, the Germans might not embarrass themselves for the sake of his "old friendship" with their emperor...... But as the crown prince of the dignified Chinese Empire, if he becomes a prisoner of the Germans, even if he can return to his homeland in the future, with such a great shame, I am afraid it will be difficult to ascend to the throne...... Just as Yuan Keding was thinking about it there, the shouts of the Germans seemed to get closer.

Yuan Keding grabbed the Browning Gold pistol that had fallen to the ground, carefully poked out, and immediately saw a group of German soldiers walking in the direction of the farmhouse where he was hiding.

Yuan Keding instinctively raised the golden pistol in his hand and wanted to aim, but when he saw the "flower machine gun" in the hands of the Germans, his right eyelid couldn't help jumping wildly, he thought about it, and still hung down the golden pistol.

For this weapon in the hands of the Germans, Yuan Keding can now be said to be very familiar with it.

The one that can shoot at the Chinese army's "fifty-shot serial box cannon" on the battlefield is this kind of submachine gun.

After the Chinese Expeditionary Force arrived in Europe to participate in the war, the German army soon learned the power of the "fifty rings" of the equipment of some elite soldiers of the Chinese army, and the German generals realized the great value of lightweight individual rapid-fire weapons on the battlefield. At this time, the German side was looking for a tactic that could break the stalemate of trench warfare, and after many studies and demonstrations, the German generals pioneered the "infantry infiltration" tactic, that is, the specially trained German commandos followed the extended artillery fire to infiltrate inward from the weak part of the enemy's defensive line, avoid fortified fortresses, and quickly penetrate in depth to destroy the enemy's command system and artillery positions. This new tactic required the commandos to have good maneuverability and heavy firepower, and the bulky Mauser rifles that the Germans were equipped with clearly did not meet the requirements. The Chinese army is equipped with a "individual self-defense rapid-fire weapon" (the name given by the Germans to China's "fifty rings") is a very good automatic weapon, the famous German ordnance designer Schmeiser was inspired by this, and successfully developed the MP18 submachine gun (called the "flower machine gun" by Chinese soldiers) under the design idea of pursuing fierce firepower at close range.

The MP18 submachine gun has a total length of 815 mm, a barrel length of 200 mm, a gun weight of 5.2 kg, a charge of 32 rounds, and a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute. MP18 adopts the principle of free bolt type of disemboweling and ready to be fired, because its parts are mainly processed by machine tool stamping and forming, which minimizes the process of spinning, cutting, grinding, etc., and minimizes the precision requirements of the machine tool, so that its production cost and process can be greatly reduced, and it can be easily and quickly produced in large quantities. Since the gun can only fire in bursts, it also has a special safety mechanism and is fed by a snail-style drum.

The MP18 submachine gun can be said to be the world's first submachine gun in the true sense of the word. The gun fired 9 mm pistol rounds, and although it had a short range and low accuracy, it was very suitable for individual use, and due to its heavy firepower and ease of production, it was able to quickly equip the German army. An MP18 submachine gun with several grenades became the standard equipment of the German commandos. When the Germans carried out "infiltration operations", they often had an ammunition man with a cart for every two submachine gunners, plus a grenadier with a grenade on their backs, a melee soldier with a pistol and a sharpened sapper shovel, and a machine gunner with an MG08 machine gun on their backs, to form an assault squad. After such a squad infiltrated from the weak point of the Entente's [***] defense, the firepower in close combat was so fierce that it was often difficult for the Entente [***] team to resist. This is one of the reasons why the Germans were able to achieve such a big victory in such a short time.

At this time, Yuan Keding, the "fifty box cannon" that Yang Shuoming gave him that had never left the left and right, did not know where to throw it after running out of bullets. Now all he had left was this gift gold pistol, and with such a gun he could fight an enemy armed to the teeth, and the final result could be known without thinking about it.

Seeing that the German soldiers began to search the farmhouse, Yuan Keding finally gave up his plan to fight with the German soldiers as the "prince" after struggling in his heart, he slowly straightened up, raised his hands high, and walked out of the door.

Seeing Yuan Keding's figure appear at the door of the farmhouse, the Germans were all taken aback, and immediately turned the "flower machine gun" in their hands to him.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Yuan Keding shouted loudly in German, holding the golden pistol in his hand high and limping forward.

As soon as he finished speaking, a German soldier's "flower machine gun" opened fire on him, and a German soldier next to him seemed to react, pushing him with his hand and turning his muzzle to the ground.

A series of bullets flew past Yuan Keding's side and hit the brick wall of the farmhouse behind him, Yuan Keding's legs couldn't help but weaken, and he collapsed to the ground at once.

The German soldiers rushed up and surrounded him, one German soldier shouted and kicked him, and another reached out and grabbed him by the hair, dragging him up from the ground.

The golden pistol in Yuan Keding's hand was snatched away by the Germans, and before he could say anything, a German soldier smashed his head with the butt of the gun, Yuan Keding felt dizzy and fell to the ground involuntarily.

With a sharp roar, the German soldiers stopped their hands, and Yuan Keding, who was trembling in a daze, was pulled up from the ground by a strong hand, Yuan Keding felt something flowing from the top of his head, hot, sticky, he reached out and touched it, put it in front of his eyes and looked at it, and immediately saw the blood on his hands.

Yuan Keding easily stood up, and only then did he notice that it was a thin young German with a strange mustache who had stopped his companions from beating him.

The young German soldier, a messenger, to be exact, was scrutinizing him with a sharp eye.

Yuan Keding squeezed out an ugly smile at him, and then another German soldier came to the mustachioed messenger, who seemed to have a great reputation among his companions, and showed him the golden pistol.

The mustachioed correspondent took the golden pistol and looked at it, a look of surprise flashed in his eyes, and then he asked Yuan Keding in German.

Yuan Keding, who only spoke three and a half sentences of German, didn't understand what he was asking, and he was about to reveal his identity to the other party, hoping to get the corresponding high-standard prisoner of war treatment, but another German soldier suddenly rushed over, pointing at Yuan Keding and yelling at the mustachioed communicator.

The mustachioed correspondent listened to his words, a trace of anger flashed in his eyes, he glared at the other party, and replied viciously and loudly, and the other party pushed him violently, but was immediately pushed away by his comrades beside him.

The German soldier who was pushed away was obviously enraged, and he stepped forward to argue with the mustachioed correspondent again, although he couldn't understand what they were arguing about, but Yuan Keding was sure that the content of their quarrel was related to himself.

The two sides quarreled more and more, the mustachioed correspondent looked extremely angry, he quickly scolded the other party speechless, the other party angrily turned around and walked away from the circle, the mustachioed correspondent glared at him for a while, turned his head and showed a friendly smile to Yuan Keding, as if to comfort him not to be afraid.

The mustachioed correspondent shook the golden pistol in his hand in front of Yuan Keding's eyes, and kept saying something in his mouth, as if asking him about the origin of the gun.

Yuan Keding's eyes fell on the other party's hand, he saw that the other party was holding an American-made revolver in his hand, he couldn't help but be taken aback, he realized the danger, and just wanted to turn around and run away, the other party raised the revolver and fired three shots at him.

The mustachioed communicator jumped up, trying to stop the other party, but it was too late, and when the other party rushed closer, he fired two more shots at Yuan Keding, who was already lying in a pool of blood.

Yuan Keding, who fell to the ground, looked at the sky with a distracted gaze, he felt that his body was rapidly becoming cold, numb, and then lost consciousness.

Suddenly there was silence, and finally, there was eternal darkness.

(To be continued)