readx;?The early morning of September 20, 1876. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 A huge explosion rises east of St. Louis, on a railroad bridge over the Mississippi River, and the orange fire turns the surrounding plains into a bloody glow. Mushroom clouds tumble up in the sky. The sand, rails, steel bars, cement, and sleepers were all lifted up into the sky. The blast swept across a radius of several hundred meters. The huge oscillation makes the entire river jump upwards. After the explosion, the expensive railway bridge has disappeared.

Lieutenant General Bai Qili, commander of the 11th Group Army, and his staff guards, who were watching the explosion in a reinforced concrete building not far away, were also shaken by the huge explosion and almost fell to the ground. The roar made it impossible for their ears to hear anything for a while. After a while, Lieutenant General Bai Da heard a staff officer beside him shouting at the top of his throat: "Commander, the bridge has been completely blown up, and the American train will definitely not be able to cross the Mississippi River!" ”

Bai Qili shook his head and muttered in an inaudible voice: "What a good bridge, it took a year to build, and all of a sudden, it is gone!" This war really turned North America into ruins! ”

If you look down from the air, you can see that in the dim sky, the whole of St. Louis is almost in ruins. Only a handful of sturdy buildings still stand. The house where Bai Qili is located, which was formerly a railway station building, is one of them.

This is the devastation caused by the Battle of St. Louis a few months ago, hundreds of thousands of Chinese and American troops fought for the city for more than two months, and the good city was beaten into the ghost it is now. And the bridge over the Mississippi River has actually been bombed once by the US military. It's just that there was confusion when the Americans retreated. The sappers who were sent to blow up the bridge were also poorly crafted. It was not possible to detonate all the explosives, and after a roar, the bridge was still strong and upright, and was occupied by the Chinese troops who killed them later. But this time, when the U.S. military began to cross the river in a roundabout way on the north and south sides of St. Louis, Bai Qili, who had just been promoted to the commander of the group army, had to personally supervise his subordinates and completely blow up the bridge!

"Commander, cavalry report. The cavalry units of the Americans have made a detour back to our west. At this moment, a staff officer ran upstairs out of breath and reported loudly.

St. Louis was already the farthest Chinese stronghold to the east, and now the U.S. cavalry detoured to the west, indicating that the city was already surrounded by U.S. troops. The 70,000-strong army stationed in St. Louis (the Eleventh Army, with two less than 70,000 infantry corps), had become a lone army.

"Got it." Bai Qili's face was calm, this had long been expected, according to St. Louis, the purpose of guarding St. Louis was to jam the Missouri River, the main artery of the water, the Pacific Railroad could be destroyed, but it was difficult for the Chinese army engineers to destroy a river. Only two corps could be placed at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to jam the transportation choke point of the American army.

Kansas City is 400 kilometers west of St. Louis. If the Missouri River channel is opened, the US military's logistical baggage will be able to be transported directly by water. The efficiency is not much lower than that of the railway. But if St. Louis can't be defeated, the logistics of more than 2 million troops will be a huge problem, and it can only be solved by temporarily repairing the railroad generals, which is an incomparably huge project.

At this time, at a position on the front line of the Chinese Army in Des Moines, another transportation hub in Iowa, which was firmly controlled by the Chinese Twelfth Army, Captain Sun Mei, who had already been the commander of a company (he won a medal and the rank of captain for his outstanding performance in the defense of Chinatown in St. Louis City) was squatting in the cramped shelter, writing to his younger brother Sun Wen, who had just been admitted to the junior class of the Donghua Army Military Academy, by an oil lamp. Like most Donghua people, after Sun Mei gained a firm foothold in Donghua, he also brought his family from his hometown to settle in Donghua. Historically, the great revolutionary Sun Yat-sen was admitted to the cadet class of the military academy shortly after his arrival in Donghua, and it seemed that he was about to embark on the evil path of a reactionary dynasty defender.

Before Captain Sun's letter was finished, he suddenly heard several soldiers hurrying to the door to report: "Company commander! The Americans are coming! There are infantry, cavalry and artillery, the scale of several thousand people! Sun Mei, who had already been mentally prepared, rushed out of the shelter and raised his binoculars to observe the northeast. Before the eyepiece could find its target, it felt two blinding flashes of fire suddenly from the northeast, followed by the sound of cannonballs rumbling across the sky. It was long-range shells that swept over their forward positions, and in the rear of the bombardment of the city of Des Moines, which was also in ruins, and there were no targets worth destroying, the American shelling should have been tentative. But all the Chinese officers and soldiers who were guarding the forefront knew that the first shot of the second Des Moines offensive and defensive battle had been fired!

Sun Mei shouted loudly: "Enter the position!" Then he ran into the shelter and shook the phone of the regimental headquarters, and no matter who was answering, he shouted, "The Americans are attacking!" The bombardment of the city of Des Moines has already begun, and the vanguard of thousands of people has already begun in front of our company's position! "It's as if dubbing his report. The infantry in the forward position where the 1st Battalion and 2nd Company of the 306th Regiment of the 97th Division of the Donghua Army were located had already begun to shoot at each other with the top soldiers of the US army. The sound of firing from the crackling Type 73 rifle and the thumping sound of the U.S. Army Henry-style rifle was loud. Then the brass of the Americans' water-cooled heavy machine gun craters also joined the chorus. Finally, there is the sound of hula hula charging slogans all over the mountains! At this scale, even Company Commander Sun Mei, who is at the grassroots level, knows that it must be the beginning of a battle-level battle! Although he could not have known that the scale of this battle had reached an unprecedented level in human history, as a Donghua who had long regarded guns as a part of his life, he knew that his responsibility and that of his soldiers was to fight for the nation and the country, and fight to the end! Until victory!

Lieutenant General Huang Bingkun, commander of the Twelfth Army, was having breakfast in a headquarters converted from an old warehouse on the banks of the Des Moines River. At present, the establishment of the Donghua Army is becoming smaller and smaller, and the group army is no longer a large cluster of several hundred thousand troops as it was at the beginning of the war, and usually only two or three dishonored armies are under its jurisdiction -- almost all the units that belong to the Donghua Army are now understaffed, and for a country with a population of only 18 million, hundreds of thousands of casualties and missing are already a great loss. However, the full strength of the Ming, Japanese, and Korean armies attached to the North American Army remained at a high level.

Of course, a senior general of Huang Bingkun's level knows more about the deployment of the battle, and he also knows how heavy the responsibility of this group army is. With less than 80,000 troops, they had to firmly hold the transportation hub of Des Moines, which was not as important as that of St. Louis, but the occupation of the Chinese army would also bring great logistical supply difficulties to the southward operations of the British and American forces. Therefore, it is also a place where British and American troops must take...... Maybe it's also the burial place of 80,000 brothers of the Twelfth Army!

When the first US artillery shell fell, Huang Bingkun and several commanders of the group army headquarters were discussing the matter of this conference battle while munching on steamed buns. They were all very optimistic about holding Des Moines, and they all thought that if this battle could be won by a big margin, the North American war would be over! The question is how much benefit you can get. It depends on how many Americans can be killed in this battle...... Because the situation in the United States is obviously the same as Donghua, all the young and middle-aged men of a country have gone to the battlefield, if they are all killed, Donghua will naturally be able to collect the most loot!

While everyone was talking about Xingtou, they heard two huge explosions around them, and within a minute, two more! Inside the barracks, the alarm sounded. There were many voices, and the officers who were dining rushed out to check, and they saw the flames rising into the sky from the northeast, and the traces of ballistics flying in the sky that were clearly visible to the naked eye. The same words come to everyone's mind: the great war to decide where North America belongs has begun!

The chief of staff of the army group, who was guarding the phone of the headquarters, hurriedly ran over. When he was far away, he shouted at Huang Bingkun: "Commander, thousands of Americans have begun to attack our forward positions!" ”

In Lordan Mansion, in the headquarters of the North American Army of Daming (Donghua), the news that the US army has begun to attack has also come. Zhu Juan, Han Si, Yang Xien and others have gathered in the war room. The senior staff officers even gathered around the sand table and talked a lot.

"Looks like it's going to be another tough fight! The troops were divided into two routes, from Iowa and southern Illinois to the south and west, each targeting Kansas City. The battle of three or four million people is really exciting! ”

"I think we should still focus on blocking one of the roads, so as to create the illusion that our army will concentrate its forces to annihilate the enemy all the way! The Americans are not fools, and if both roads are opened, they will definitely detect that something is wrong. ”

"I'm afraid that the scale will not be easy to grasp, and if the Americans are hurt, it will not be worth giving up the entire battle plan."

"The U.S. forces on the North Route should be attacked, as long as they are annihilated, the Americans will lose the main force protecting the Great Lakes, which is the industrial center of the United States, rich in iron ore and coal, and must be seized ......"

"The key now is His Majesty Mathilde's Roman legions, I wonder how they are going to deal a fatal blow to the American army?"

All kinds of opinions were raised, and finally someone proposed Mathilde's reinforcements, and all eyes were on King Donghua. Jujuan only smiled faintly and said, "According to the original plan, the northern front will hold Des Moines to the death, and at the same time occupy the Missouri River to threaten the flank of the US army." The main force of the southern front fought and retreated to Kansas City, resisting one by one, attracting American troops to Kansas City for a decisive battle. (To be continued.) )