In March, the French positions were changed, and the troops that had been defending for the winter retreated to rest, and the troops who had rested in the winter moved forward in preparation for the war of 1918.

The Foreign Legion was still in charge of the Reims region, and they were to take over from Michelet's Tenth Army.

By this time, the Foreign Legion had been further expanded to include eight Chinese infantry divisions, two Chinese artillery divisions, one armored division, and an air division with a mixture of bombers and fighters.

At a rough count, there are now more than 150,000 Chinese troops alone, and more than 30,000 are training in Corsica, and they will probably not be able to complete all the training subjects until May.

In addition to the Chinese troops, Qin Zhiyuan also had four Annan divisions and two Senegalese divisions, which together were nearly 100,000 people.

On the entire Western Front now, Qin Zhiyuan has the largest number of troops in his hands, and even Bastian's Fifth Army is dwarfed.

Bastian's Fifth Army line was next to the Foreign Legion line, the line from Susunva to Compiègne, and beyond that of Hubert Gough of the British Fifth Army.

Compared with Qin Zhiyuan and Bastian, Gough was the worst, he only had 14 divisions in his hands, but he was responsible for a 52-mile defensive line.

Bastian had 17 divisions at his disposal, but was responsible for only about 41 miles of defense between Roy and Laon.

Qin Zhiyuan had the largest number of troops at his disposal, and he was responsible for the defense line of about 56 miles from Laon to Champagne Chalons.

At the beginning of March, Qin Zhiyuan said goodbye to Julie and went to Reims to hand over to Michelet.

I still remember that the first time Qin Zhiyuan met Michelet was in Foch's office, Michelet was a lieutenant general at that time, and Qin Zhiyuan was just a colonel who had not yet been officially appointed.

A year and a half has passed in a blink of an eye, Qin Zhiyuan's military rank has been promoted to general, and although Mishelai has also been promoted to general, he is as slow as a snail compared to Qin Zhiyuan.

So when he saw Qin Zhiyuan, Mi Shelai was not without envy: "Oh, Qin, I'm so happy to see you." ”

"Ah, General, your belly is big again, you can't go on like this, I'm afraid your car will have to be custom-made." Qin Zhiyuan joked casually.

The place where Qin Zhiyuan and Michele met was called Brimont, which was originally the headquarters of Crown Prince William, and after Michelet arrived in Reims, he also used this place as a headquarters.

Qin Zhiyuan had no intention of changing it, and he didn't want to toss it anymore, so he set the headquarters here.

Brimont is a small town, the town is not big, about 100 households, the surrounding scenery is beautiful, there are mountains and rivers, if you ignore the dog-like trenches, this is a very good place.

When Brimont was occupied by the Germans, the French residents here had already run out, and after Qin Zhiyuan recovered Reims, some of the residents here had returned, but were persuaded by Michelet's people on the grounds that the war had not yet ended.

So now Brimont is a military fortress, and there is not even a dog except for the military.

Mishele's headquarters was located in a hotel, which was not very spacious, but it was well equipped with living facilities and separate meetings.

Entering the headquarters, Qin Zhiyuan's tone was not without complaints: "I went to the front line just now, you are really easy enough, you don't even repair the fortifications, now we have something to do this month." ”

"Fortifications?" Mishelet's expression was wonderful, as if he had heard something incredible: "Is it necessary for us to build fortifications?" The Germans had always been in the trenches, and if they dared to leave their positions, we could drive them back to Germany. ”

Throughout the winter, the Germans launched several attacks and succeeded in driving the 10th Army's line from the Aisne back to the Supp, although Mischele apparently ignored this fact.

"The Supreme War Council has already decided that there will be no large-scale offensive this year, so it is necessary for us to guard against the Germans. Recent intelligence suggests that the Germans are moving frequently, and that they are likely to attack within two months, or even a month, so even if you get to the rear, be ready to support at any time. Qin Zhiyuan didn't want to correct Mishelai's approach, he just wanted to remind him.

"Damn it, hurry up and end this damn war, our nerves have been tense all winter, but even if it's a vacation, it's not peaceful." Misheré, also tired of the war, rubbed his temples and collapsed on the couch, which let out an unbearable moan.

"Come on! You are in charge of the defense in winter, but the Germans are not going to attack. We came over in the summer to change the guard, and every time we fought the Germans to the end. So don't complain, I have more reasons to complain than you. Qin Zhiyuan also wanted to complain, but Qin Zhiyuan didn't dare, because Foch was Qin Zhiyuan's top boss.

"Hahahaha...... You're right! My vacation is about to begin, so goodbye. "Michele really has nothing to complain about on this issue.

The staff officers and secretaries had already packed their things, all the boxes were loaded into the car, and they were waiting for Mishelai and Qin Zhiyuan to say goodbye.

Qin Zhiyuan sent Mishelai out of the headquarters, and when Mishelai shook hands with Qin Zhiyuan, he suddenly remembered something: "Oh, by the way, I left you something good upstairs, don't thank me." ”

Qin Zhiyuan didn't know what to do, but he still thanked him politely.

When he went upstairs, Qin Zhiyuan found that Mishelai left a whole shelf of various wines for Qin Zhiyuan, which made Qin Zhiyuan couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly, it seems that Mishelai has been living a good life during this time.

But when he arrived at Qin Zhiyuan, he didn't have a good life, and after settling down, Qin Zhiyuan immediately convened a military meeting with all the generals to arrange the deployment of the stage and prepare to deal with the German attack.

At present, the commanders of the eight infantry divisions of the Chinese troops are: Ge Lifu, Liu Zizheng, Zhang Tianshou, Xu Sheng, Xiang Ankang, Qin Haoge, Jin Taihe, and Wang Dingshan, the commanders of the artillery division are Zheng Dali and Cheng Feiming, the division commander of the armored division is Chen Kangjian, and the division commander of the air force division is Zhou Hongguang.

The commanders of the four Annan divisions were Vu Yuan Ting, Nguyen Jun Cai, Pham Van Hung, and Hu Duong Shu, and the commanders of the two Senegalese divisions were assigned by the War Department, one named Alex Steele and the other named Jerome Wien.

There is no need to mobilize to fight the Germans, the veterans have been fighting for a year and a half, and the recruits have gone through at least six months of personal skills training, and there are no problems in terms of combat skills.

The main thing is deployment, in fact, in order of combat effectiveness, it should be the strongest Chinese troops, followed by the Annan troops, and the Senegalese troops, but Qin Zhiyuan was reluctant to arrange all the Chinese troops on the front line, so there were only five Chinese divisions on the first line, and then three Annan divisions, as well as a Senegalese division.

The Senegalese division's line of defense, near Champagne Chalons in the far south, and the frontal front, which was only three miles wide, should have no problem.

In last year's operation, Qin Zhiyuan was deeply impressed by Ludendorff's "elastic defense", so when he needed to defend, Qin Zhiyuan simply copied Ludendorff's tactics completely and was ready to use "elastic defense" to defend.

The only downside was time, Qin Zhiyuan did not have enough time, so he may not be as strong as the Germans in the setting of the position.

However, the Foreign Legion also had an advantage that the Germans did not have, and that was the armored forces.

In Qin Zhiyuan's design, if the first-line position was occupied by the Germans, when a counteroffensive was needed, the Foreign Legion would attack with tank troops as the lead, and at that time, because the Germans lacked anti-tank weapons, it was estimated that Chen Kangjian's tanks would be crushed into pulp.

Chen Kangjian's tank force now has nearly 400 tanks, which can actually be almost divided into two divisions, but in order to stop Pershing and Petain, Qin Zhiyuan did not split.

After last year's Battle of Reims, everyone has fully realized the role of tanks, so tanks have become sought-after goods, and it is impossible for Leothay to continue to unscrupulously allocate tanks to Qin Zhiyuan.

Almost all the French generals were envious of the size of the armored forces in the Foreign Legion, and they also had a lot of complaints about Leotei's eccentricity. 、

In fact, Qin Zhiyuan is also equipped with tanks in the infantry divisions, each division is about 40 or so, so calculated, Qin Zhiyuan now has more than 700 tanks in his hands, which is currently the largest armored force in the world.

This time, Chen Kangjian's tank troops were not used intensively, but placed a regiment in Corbeni, Burgundy, and Bacone, each of which assumed the role of a defensive fulcrum, once a certain defensive line was broken, the nearest armored unit would immediately support, and the armored force was a trump card in Qin Zhiyuan's hands.

No, the Air Force is the trump card relative to the armored forces.

The current air force has nearly 100 bombers and more than 140 fighters, strictly speaking, these bombers are Qin Zhiyuan's trump card.

Nearly 100 bombers, with a single bomb load of about one ton, can throw nearly 100 tons of steel on the heads of the Germans every time they are dispatched, and this delivery capacity is much stronger than that of artillery units.

There are two artillery divisions in the Foreign Legion, one armed with self-propelled guns and the other with towed guns.

The self-propelled artillery division was armed with two types of guns, 194 mm and 152 mm, with a total of 76 guns. The towed artillery division was also armed with both calibers, and although the shells were exactly the same, the range and power of the guns were inferior to those of self-propelled guns.

In fact, the infantry divisions are also equipped with artillery, and there are quite a few of them, but they are all "Miss 75", and each division has only one heavy artillery regiment, equipped with 24 152 mm caliber guns, to provide fire support for the infantry.

Throughout March, all the units of the Foreign Legion were busy building positions, and they were to build defensive positions two kilometers deep along the 56-mile line in preparation for a possible German attack.

During this period, Leoté and Foch came to inspect the positions of the Foreign Legion many times, and constantly put forward higher requirements for Qin Zhiyuan, and the depth of the defensive position also changed from two kilometers to four kilometers, from the Xupu River to Reims.

Fortunately, Leotera sent a lot of laborers to Qin Zhiyuan, otherwise it is estimated that he would not be able to complete the task just by relying on the sapper shovels in the hands of the soldiers.

(To be continued.) )