When Yi Shui walked into the operations conference room on the third floor of the Pentagon, O'Connor and the company's military advisers had already begun their work. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info They gathered in front of a map, studying the trends of the ongoing war in southern Africa, and exchanged their views in a low voice.

Several advisers were working on an important strategic issue: the Boers' target of attack, the military forces they invested in that goal, and whether it was possible for them to achieve their battle plan. O'Connor stood aside, listening quietly, making some comments from time to time, and then Yi Shui walked over and skillfully joined the discussion.

"If, as we expected, the Germans had already begun to provide strategic guidance to the Boers, there would have been only three targets for the Boers." He pointed to the map, "Durban Port in the Natal Colony, Kimberley in the Cape Colony, and Kolsberg." ”

"Really? What do you think, Lieutenant Colonel? A military adviser, who looked younger than any of the advisers next to him, glanced at him, then turned to the map, only to turn back after a dozen seconds, "Or is it the Brigadier General's opinion?" ”

His question made Yi Shui both angry and helpless - both in the company and outside, most people saw him as a marionette who would only accept Qin Lang's orders and had no thoughts of his own. Mcbride. Ms. Yi's utterly disproportionate and unqualified bad husbands - to some extent, they fit the truth, but they shouldn't show one of them to his face.

But what else can he accuse? It is already a very valuable thing to be able to get these people to maintain the necessary respect for a guy like him who has only achieved his current status because he has a good friend and a good lady, and it is better to expect them to behave better than to find a way to change the impression they leave on others.

Of course, he had worked very hard to change the impression he had given others, but so far he had not achieved any results - Qin Lang and Rachel's light was too dazzling, completely obscuring all his work and success, and no one could see it at all.

What a tragedy.

Yi Shui sighed secretly. "It's my opinion." After a moment's hesitation, he added: "Qin Lang thinks that the Boers are only targeting Durban and Kimberley, but I believe that they will attack Colesberg at the same time. ”

The military adviser just now thought about it for a moment. "If the Boers attack Kolsberg, then they will attack Stormberg as well."

He stretched out his right hand, tapped his index finger on the map, where Stormberg was located, and said, "Notice that there are two railways in the Cape Colony to Orange, one starting at Elizabeth and passing through Kolsberg and then to Bloemfontein, and the other from East London, passing through Stormberg and then to Bloemfontein." ”

Then he stopped, but Yi Shui knew what he was trying to say: both railways to Bloemfontein could be routes for British troops, and if the Boers wanted to prevent British troops from entering Orange, they would attack important nodes of both railways at once, not just one of them.

Yi Shui's eyebrows furrowed imperceptibly: he seemed to have made a mistake......

Unfortunately, his mistakes were three.

"It must also be noted that at Stormberg there is also a fork in the railway from Elisabeth to Bloemfontein, which means that Stormberg slightly surpasses Kohlsberg in terms of strategic importance. So, if the Boer army were going to cut off the British army from Orange, and they lacked sufficient military strength, I think they would have attacked Stormberg first. ”

After a pause, the military adviser continued: "I don't think they're going to target Stormberg or Kolsberg, though, and will only send a small number of troops to operate near the two railroads to contain the British forces and look for opportunities to sabotage them—"

"We've discussed this before, but we haven't reached any consensus yet." Another military adviser intervened -- Frank. Captain Baker, an officer in the Marine Corps, Yi Shui had heard of him, and had heard a joke about him: when Baker was promoted to Capitan, one of his classmates who had stayed in the Navy was also promoted to Captian, so he retired and joined Umbrella - the captain apparently disagreed with his new colleague because of its obvious flaws.

"My opinion is that it is impossible for the Boers to abandon the Central Battlefield. As soon as the British discover this weak link, they will choose Orange as a breach, and the little force that the Boers use to contain and sabotage will not be able to organize an effective defense, if they really abandon the battlefield, as you envision. ”

"The Boers had no choice. Demographically, industrially, economically, politically or militarily, the Transvaal and Orange were completely incomparable to the British, and the Boers had already lost the war the moment it began, and now all they could do was make the process of defeat a little more beautiful, save their own face, and at the same time make the British lose face......"

While the military adviser who had just criticized his views and whom he didn't yet know made an impassioned statement, Yi Shui quietly poked O'Connor, who was standing next to him.

"Who is he?"

"Richard. Lieutenant Cody, a West Point graduate, is a graduate of John Brown. Pershing recommended it. ”

"John. Pershing? ”

"An Army Major I knew while fighting in Cuba was a tactical instructor at West Point, and Roosevelt ...... when he visited our training camp in San Diego."

O'Connor quickly stopped, for he suddenly realized that neither the Cuban battlefield nor Roosevelt's brief visit to San Diego before running for governor of New York were very foreign stories to Yi Shui—he didn't know them, certainly not the details, the characters involved, and perhaps a lack of interest.

O'Connor thought he should use the quickest way to complete the explanation. "In short, that's a pretty good army officer, Qin Lang privately predicted to me that he could become a general."

"Oh." Yi Shui nodded. A future general, it was he who recommended Cody. This seems to explain why a young lieutenant from West Point could be a military adviser to the company - and the other military advisers from the Army were at least majors......

But he does have some ability.

“…… Consider the weak military strength of the Boers, if they divide it evenly among the three fronts, it means that they will not be able to achieve any impressive results, and if they abandon two of them and focus on strengthening the remaining one, it is certain that if they do, it will be the eastern front that will be strengthened to the maximum - but this means that the Boer resistance will soon end. Therefore, they will divide their forces between the Eastern and Western Fronts, trying to achieve enough impressive results and prolong the war as long as possible. ”

"Just to maximize the shame of the British?" Harrington stepped into the discussion just right.

"Just to make the British lose face as much as possible. There is no doubt about it, lieutenant colonel. "I have to admit that if the Boers were still in control of the war, they would never have done that." However, it was the Germans who commanded the war, and it is my opinion that Berlin had no interest in continuing the life of the Transvaal and Orange, and that its sole aim was only to avenge the humiliation inflicted on Germany by the British Government. ”

"His views are completely consistent with Qin Lang's." Yi Shui whispered to O'Connor.

"He's completely different from any West Point graduate I've ever seen." O'Connor agreed, then raised his voice, "Do you think the Boers will act strictly according to the Germans' plan, Mr. Cody?" ”

"I'm sure they will, Lord Duke." Cody replied.

O'Connor and Yi Shui both secretly laughed in their hearts: his views were not completely agreed with Qin Lang.

"The Boers will not strictly carry out the orders of the Germans." Qin Lang said, with a mocking smile on his face, "If the Boers in Orange find out that their country is about to be occupied by British troops, and the German commanders still concentrate their main forces on Natal and the Western Cape, they will leave the Boer army under the command of the Germans and return to the farms with weapons to defend their homes." ”

"So the plans of the Germans could not have succeeded in fact?" Morgan was surprised, "Qin, this is completely opposite to the prediction you made at the beginning. ”

"My prediction was based on the fact that the British military commanders would concentrate on the eastern and western fronts, as the Germans expected, and ignore for the time being the middle line, where the Boers were the weakest militarily." Qin Lang explained, "And that's why I think the Germans will choose Durban and Kimberley as targets." ”

The reason is simple, like a child's game: Durban is a port, and if the Boers control it, they can get a steady stream of aid from Europe, so the British army will give priority to retaking this goal, and continue to invest forces until the Boers are defeated; And the Kimberley, it is an important node on the railway from Cape Town to Maflotin, and it is also a treasure that Sir Rhodes cannot give up, so whether it is to rescue the army trapped in Maffertin, or for Sir Rhodes, it will become another strategic center of gravity of the British army.

In fact, history differs little from this prediction: the war began in earnest in October 1899, but it was not until February 1900 that Lord Roberts, who had succeeded Admiral Buller in his resignation due to defeat, shifted the focus of the war from Ladysmith on the Eastern Front to the Central Front; At the same time, it remained the focus of the Western Front until the British army lifted the siege of Kimberley by the Boer Army on February 16.

Historically, however, the Boer offensive ended at Leddy Smith and did not capture Kimberley, so Lord Roberts was able to change his strategic direction so quickly, and now, as long as the Boers were able to capture Durban and Kimberley according to the German plan, Lord Roberts would have to waste more time in those two places.

And the war will last as long as expected.

"Of course, a delay of a few weeks or months at most will allow the British to change their strategic focus, or mobilize a large number of troops to retake the two cities before then." Qin Lang shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, "But as I said just now, the capture of the Transvaal and Orange is not the end, but the beginning of a protracted and arduous war. ”

He said that just when he was explaining to Morgan what modern warfare was -- "modern warfare" is a term with many meanings, for different people, representing different meanings, and Qin Lang just chose the most inconspicuous of them: guerrilla warfare.

There is no doubt that guerrilla warfare was the label of the Second Boer War, and the vast majority of military enthusiasts who were new to this war had heard the story of the Boer guerrillas fighting the British army, but had little understanding of the initial conventional warfare - although guerrilla warfare was not the only means and strength of the Boers, and these improvised militias were also good at regular combat, and with excellent results[note 2] - yes, with enough troops gathered, the British could occupy the Transvaal and Orange, but then they would have fallen into a muddy pit.

A real mud pit.

Qin Lang remembered those numbers, under the command of Lord Roberts, on June 5, 1900, the British army occupied Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, and on September 1, the Lord announced the British annexation of the Transvaal, and at the same time declared that the war was over; But it was not until May 31, 1902, after negotiations and voting, that the war officially ended, and lasted for 31 months, of which the British army was busy purging the Boer guerrillas in December and December.

Qin Lang remembered it very clearly—although he occasionally felt strange, how could he remember it so clearly.

The war was long.

Now it's going to get even longer, and history is changing.

However, no matter what history turns out to become, one thing will never change: a long war means huge economic expenditures, staggering arms consumption, and massive human losses.

Expenditures, consumption, and losses represent the necessary supplements.

It heralds business, business opportunities.

"For you and your company, Mr. Morgan, a protracted war between the British and the Boers will be a profitable good thing."

"The same is true for you and your company, Mr. Qin."

"We should have a toast." Qin Lang picked up his cup and suggested, even though the cup was filled with Coke.

But Morgan happily accepted the suggestion. "Of course."

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Note: Pershing was promoted to honorary major in 1898, while in 1901 he received the official rank of captain

Note 2: The best record of the Boer army in the field was the Battle of Ladysmith, where 3,500 men fought against 4,000 British troops, the British lost 1,139 men, 250 missing, 10 guns lost, and the Boers only 8 killed and 30 wounded - it is a joke to say that the Boers could not fight in the field, and the field capability of the British army during the Second Boer War was a joke, The face of the lobster soldier has been lost (to be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )