Fuxi's plan was good, but until the French army mobilized enough troops to surround the German army, the pressure was on Qin Zhiyuan's shoulders.

Soissons and Champagne Chalons are huge salients for the French, rightly so; But Qin Zhiyuan's defense of Reims is also a huge salient for the Germans.

With the Foreign Legion led by Qin Zhiyuan nailed to Reims, the Bavarian prince did not dare to drive straight into Reims unscrupulously, because Reims would threaten the rear of the German army at any time, and if the German army advanced regardless of it, they would not be able to transport it back to Germany even if they grabbed enough things.

True, the Germans who entered Soissons had become a group of looters.

On the morning of the 16th, a German unit failed to advance as planned on the march to Soissons, a full four hours slower than originally planned, because the force had grabbed too much and thus seriously slowed down the advance.

A German captain recorded everything he saw: we approached a town and noticed something strange. There were strangers, not like soldiers, running back, driving herds of cattle with chickens under their armpits, some holding stationery stolen from the stationery store, wine in hand, and others drinking as they walked...... Entering the town, there was wine flowing down the streets, no one knew what was going on, and a lieutenant of the 2nd Marine Division came out of a wine cellar and I asked him "what happened?" Why are you stopping moving forward? The lieutenant looked desperate and sad "I can't get the soldiers out of the cellar without the use of bloodshed......"

In terms of material shortages, Germany has reached the point of exhaustion, so the Germans must seize the last chance to give it a go.

The trapped beast is still fighting, and this is the case.

In late June, when the Germans finally transported their A7Vs from Etregiville across the Ypres Canal, Qin Zhiyuan immediately ordered Griff and Xu Sheng to shrink their defenses from the Ypres Canal to the line from Bethany to Chhandrey, so that the area that the Foreign Legion needed to defend was greatly reduced, leaving only about 50 square kilometers of area.

In this narrow area, 100,000 foreign legions and 400,000 German soldiers have been assembled, and they are about to start a life-and-death battle.

One advantage was that even in such a narrow area, there were still two rivers to exploit, and the defense line that the Foreign Legion needed to defend was two straight lines about four kilometers wide, and the rest of the area was covered by rivers, which was not so easy for the Germans to use.

These two defensive lines have been laid out for three months, and the construction work has begun since Qin Zhiyuan entered the Reims area, and although it is not impregnable now, at least if the Germans do not bring siege artillery, I am afraid that it will take a lot of effort to capture them.

While the Germans were besieging Reims, Qin Zhiyuan ordered Liu Zizheng to make a detour in the direction of Laon, ready to harass the German logistics at any time to relieve the pressure in the direction of Reims.

While the Germans were besieging Reims, the Germans did not stop their efforts to attack Paris, and 11 German divisions attacked Pershing's two integrated divisions day and night, and George Patton was the commander of these two divisions.

Patton's plan was successful, retreating from Pierphonon to Crépienvalois, and Patton finally withstood the Germans, which were only fifty kilometers from Paris.

In fact, by the time the Germans occupied Soissons, the Germans already had the ability to threaten Paris.

The Germans brought in a super-train cannon with a range of more than 70 kilometers and a direct blow from Soissons to Paris.

Of course, at this distance, this artillery has no accuracy at all, so it can only guarantee that the shell will reach the range of Paris, and as for what can be hit, it is all up to luck.

Since mid-June, the shelling has not stopped, maintaining an intensity of about forty or fifty rounds per day.

This caused a certain amount of panic in Paris, and many Parisians fled, and the French government had already left Bordeaux three years earlier, and they abandoned Paris before the populace.

In late June, the Germans completed preparations for the attack and began the first siege of Reims.

There was no temptation, no strategy, no sound to attack the west, the Bavarian prince came up and started with a real gun, and the end was crisp and neat.

The Germans were still very strategic, they only attacked the line in the southwest, and abandoned the line in the east, leaving a way for the Foreign Legion to retreat.

This was a trap in which if the Foreign Legion abandoned its fortified positions and withdrew from the east, then the Bavarian prince could mobilize his army and encircle the Foreign Legion in the wilderness.

Of course, Qin Zhiyuan will not be fooled, from the moment the German army surrounded Reims, Qin Zhiyuan was ready to fight with the Bavarian prince in Reims to see how much combat power the Germans' elite troops had.

The German offensive began with the tank unit as the lead, in this respect, the Germans are indeed very good at learning, they have learned a lot of experience from Qin Zhiyuan through a limited number of battles with Qin Zhiyuan, at least now the coordination of infantry and tanks is quite skilled, with the original infantry and artillery coordination, it is simply multiplied.

The A7V's body was too large, and one A7V charged forward, barely able to hide from a company of German troops in the back, which caused problems for the defenders.

The defence line of the Foreign Legion was a three-dimensional defensive line leaning on the slope of the hill, the first line was at the foot of the hill, where all the solid pillboxes of reinforced concrete structure were made, each of which was not high above the ground, and the firing holes were not directly facing the direction from which the enemy came, but through various dislocations, forming crossfire.

After the bunker complex, there was a platform with a ramp, where tanks were parked. Tanks can directly provide fire support to the bunker group, or they can quickly make a sortie to repel German troops approaching the bunker group.

Further back was the artillery position, and all the artillery in this position were "Miss 75" attached to the battalion level, and these guns were modified to fire at an almost direct angle.

This is the anti-tank position arranged by Qin Zhiyuan, when there is no fighting, these artillery and tanks are hidden in the tunnel, and only when the Germans start to attack, the tanks and artillery will be quickly deployed.

The Germans were mentally prepared for the defensive intensity of the Foreign Legion, but they did not expect that the Foreign Legion was already armed to the teeth.

So the attacking Germans were out of luck.

In the first attack, the Germans dispatched about a division, and the A7Vs numbered nearly 100 vehicles, and they advanced to the Foreign Legion positions in an almost flat attitude.

To take care of the speed of the infantry, the tank did not advance fast.

This gave the Foreign Legion artillerymen time to take aim calmly.

In charge of commanding these artillery was Cheng Feiming, whose artillery division suffered heavy losses in the artillery battle with the Germans, and now all the stationary artillery of the Foreign Legion was under the command of Cheng Feiming, and the self-propelled artillery unit was still under the command of Zheng Dali, which was now the only mobile force.

Cheng Feiming was the chief officer of the artillery, and half of his staff officers were French, and now the staff officers were waiting for Cheng Feiming's order to prepare for the first shot of the ground battle.

"Order, as soon as the German tanks came into range, there was no need to coordinate, and immediately began shelling, to destroy them as much as possible in the way of the charge." Cheng Feiming's order was unexpected.

"Why don't you put some in, then the results will be more." Chief of Staff Glynton Augustine disagreed.

From a probabilistic point of view, the closer you get to the enemy, the more certain you are, and Glynton wants to pursue maximum damage. Besides, the Foreign Legion has no combat experience with the A7V, and it is not clear whether the 75 mm gun will be able to penetrate the front armor of the A7V at maximum distance.

The A7V of the Germans had just entered the ranks, and all the data was still a mystery to the Entente, and Glinton they did not even know the thickness of the front armor of the A7V.

"No, we can't let them get too close to our positions, otherwise even if we destroy them, they will provide cover for the follow-up German troops, which will become an obstacle within the range of the bunker group." Cheng Feiming has a clear understanding.

"Well, as you wish." Greenton agrees with Cheng Feiming.

Let the Europeans be unwilling and helpless to say "as you wish", which used to be one of Qin Zhiyuan's goals.

Now this sentence does not belong only to Qin Zhiyuan, more and more Chinese officers have achieved convincing results, and they have succeeded in winning the respect of French officers.

Cheng Feiming's orders were immediately delivered to different artillery positions through electrified lines, and almost instantly, the sound of artillery began to roar one after another.

Responsible for defending the southwest defense line was the 9th Division led by Xu Sheng, some of the soldiers in this division belonged to the original 2nd Division, and the combat effectiveness belonged to the first group in the Foreign Legion.

Xu Sheng's chief of staff, Gary Ulysses, was an old-fashioned officer who was not resistant to new tactics and weapons.

Gary was previously a member of Foch's staff, and when Qin Zhiyuan asked Foch to transfer some officers to join the Foreign Legion, Gary came to the Ninth Division.

Gary and Xu Sheng's cooperation is very good, Xu Sheng's personality is a bit feminine, and he doesn't like to talk much under the influence of Griff, while Gary is a chatterbox, and he won't be lonely where he is.

"Xu, how sure are you?" Gary was apprehensive.

"Why do you ask? We only need to defend for one day, can't we hold even one day? Xu Sheng was drinking unsweetened coffee, and he liked the slightly burnt taste.

Qin Zhiyuan's troops were now divided into three parts, with Greif, Xu Sheng, and Wang Dingshan each leading a part, of which Greif had two divisions under him. In view of the fact that no Germans were found on the eastern defense line, and the battles were concentrated in the southwest, Qin Zhiyuan ordered the troops to rotate, not only to maintain a certain state, but not to use a force to the death.

According to the plan, if there was no fighting in the east all the time, then Xu Sheng would be on the first day, Wang Dingshan on the second day, Gerif on the third and fourth days, and so on.

"It depends on how determined the Germans are, and if the Bavarian prince really wants to avenge the 'Red Baron', then we are in big trouble." Gary instantly crooked the building.

After the Red Baron was killed in battle, his car fell to pieces on the ground, and many of the Allied pilots took some of it as a memento.

Pierre suggested burying the Red Baron, and Qin Zhiyuan agreed to this request and gave the Red Baron the treatment that matched his status. In order to correspond to the rank of the Red Baron, six Allied captains carried the Red Baron's coffin and buried him in Reims, and some soldiers fired guns in salute.

The Germans were apparently unhappy that the body of the Red Baron was buried in Reims, and in Germany there was an offer to recover his body with 20 divisions and 5,000 cannons.

This was obviously unrealistic, and although there were now more than 20 divisions of German troops besieging Reims, they were not here for the Red Baron.

Gary also knew that the Germans were not here for the Red Baron, he was just telling a joke to lighten the mood.

Gary successfully won Xu Sheng's eyes, and Xu Sheng didn't feel funny at all.

(To be continued.) )