The dense swarm of planes covered almost the entire sky, and the ground rose with pieces of explosive fire, and swarms of fighter jets swooped down and strafed, like the grim reaper raging in the sky.

North Vietnam, north of Thanh Hoa, the Ma Giang and the small town of Kim Son fought to the death.

Chinese troops continued to land in the port of Jinshan Town, and nine warships on the sea not far away continued to fire in depth and vertically, and the smoke of gunpowder brought up by the fierce artillery bombardment almost enveloped the entire fleet. It is undeniable that the naval guns of the navy have strong firepower, but the disadvantages are also obvious, that is, affected by the waves, the accuracy of the shelling is extremely low, and the deviation of the firing range of 10 kilometers is 100 meters, which is commonplace, and no matter how powerful the gunner is, there is nothing to be done, so the combat hit rate of the navy is about 3%. This was true even for the strongest British navy.

The French [***] officials kept driving away with loud voices, and countless colonial legions launched wave after wave of charges.

And under the intensive rain of bullets of the Chinese Defense Forces, the charging enemies fell one by one.

"Da Da Da!" The light and heavy machine guns of the French overseers continued to strafe, killing all the retreating colonial legions.

"Keep rushing! If you don't drive the Chinese into the sea, everyone will have to die! Major General Lake, with a hideous face, roared at a dozen pale French officers at the front headquarters.

"Chief of Staff, the casualties are too great!" Several French major generals cried out indignantly.

Lake said sharply: "No matter how big the casualties are, you have to rush." Thanh Hoa was lost, and the retreat route to the south had been cut off by Chinese, and Chinese even landed at Kim Son. If we cannot hold the Majiang defense line and drive the Chinese who landed at Jinshan into the sea, then the Chinese will completely complete the encirclement of us. The Chinese attack from the south, we will have no danger to defend, the Heishui River defense line will be broken by the Chinese from behind, the strategic depth of our hundreds of thousands of troops will be compressed into a narrow area of several hundred square kilometers, and finally the whole army will be annihilated, do you want to die? Or want to enter a Chinese prisoner of war camp? Become the first white general in the world to be captured by the Chinese? ”

One of the French generals said: "Chief of Staff, I suggest that we should break through to the western mountains, Hue is lost, where are the Chinese landing on a large scale, there are no mobile combat units in the whole of Annam, what is the point of us holding this area to the death?" ”

Lake said bitterly: "We can only hold on and wait for help. The Chinese are already storming Sukhothai in Siam, and in my estimation, the Chinese will conquer Bangkok in a week at most, and even if we break through from the mountains, it will still be in the encirclement of the Chinese, and many of us will starve to death in the rainforest, bitten to death by poisonous insects, it is better to hold on to the main forces that are waiting for help to consume the main forces to contain the Chinese. All we have to do now is hold on, drive the Chinese of Jinshan into the sea, and then pray to God to bless the reinforcements to arrive as soon as possible. Let's do it! ”

The French officer corps reluctantly left the front command and soon organized troops to charge again.

Lake watched the Chinese naval artillery shells continue to set off the sky of flesh and blood in the charging ranks, countless charging indigenous colonial legions fell like straw, and the entire battlefield was full of blood, even the most tragic moment of the Battle of the Somme that he experienced back then was nothing more than this, even if the dead were all indigenous people like pigs and dogs in his eyes, it made him shudder.

"The Chinese infantry firepower is too strong, if there are artillery" Lake sighed, he saw that the troops that were about to rush into the Chinese defense line were covered by dense artillery fire, that knew that it was mortars, the ability of the Chinese to produce artillery is not high, but the mortar production process is simple, but large-scale troops. He never imagined that this kind of small cannon could play such a huge role in field battles.

This war is similar to the Battle of Songhu in future history, except that the Chinese Defense Forces are the party to the landing operation, and the firepower is far stronger than that of the year, while the French army is similar to the [***] of the year, of course, the [***] of the year was the Great Patriotic War without hesitation, while the French were holding guns against the indigenous colonial legions and rushing up.

Suddenly, there was a loud whisking sound from the south, which alarmed Lake, and he yelled at the staff officer on the spot: "What's the matter? ”

The staff officer quickly ran out to check, climbed to a high point, and his face was like dirt on the spot, and he ran back to the headquarters and shouted: "Chief of staff, it's not good, the south is lost!" ”

Lake was shocked and angry: "How is it possible? He rushed out at the moment, came to a commanding height on the edge of the headquarters and looked through a telescope, and sure enough, he saw countless routs. I only felt that my whole body was like falling into an ice cave, and I stumbled back to the command headquarters, shouting: "Immediately pick up the Majiang front!" ”

The staff officer hurriedly dialed the phone in a panic, and when the phone was connected, Lake immediately grabbed it and yelled: "I am the chief of staff of Lake, what's going on on the front line?" ”

"Report to the chief of staff, the Chinese dispatched a large number of tanks, their tanks can directly cross the river, their tanks can bombard us from the water, we can't stop" while talking, while hearing constant explosions.

"Hell yes!" Riker is almost crazy, and the tank can be driven on the water? Can the steel lump not sink? But he knew that the officers on the front line could not lie on this issue, because this lie was too easy to debunk. But if the Chinese tanks can really operate on the water, then why don't the Chinese attack the Red River defense line in the north and the Heishui River defense line in the west? If they had dispatched such tanks, it would have been impossible for the improvised defensive line to be stopped.

"Not good! It's a conspiracy! A flash of inspiration flashed in Lake's mind, and his face instantly turned dead gray. He was naturally an excellent officer of the French army, otherwise he could not have been entrusted with a heavy task, and he understood in an instant that the Chinese did not attack, but deliberately did not attack, they were afraid of breaking through the defense line of the Red River and the Heishui River and letting the hundreds of thousands of French troops flee south. The Chinese deliberately did not attack to give them an illusion and a hope so that the Chinese troops on the southern front would land in Thanh Hoa, cut off their route to the south, and encircle them and annihilate them.

Lake finally understood why he fought in Korea in the middle of last year, but he relied on the Qingchuan River to defend but was broken through by the Chinese in just a few hours, because the river could not stop the Chinese tank group. However, he himself held this news tightly, and if they had known this information in advance, they would never have suffered such a big loss.

"Damn it!" At this moment, Lake hated Xiao Yueben, who had already destroyed the country, and if Xiao Yueben was in front of him, he would definitely crush Xiao Yueben to ashes.

"Immediately telegraph to the headquarters!" ――

A green flag on the sand table was pulled out and replaced with a red flag.

"Hahaha!" The hall of the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing was filled with laughter.

Li Bufan, Wu Di, Duan Qirui, Xu Shuzheng, Li Hengshan and Li Huashan were all smiling.

"Well done!" Duan Qirui said excitedly, "The main force of the French army in Annam is already a turtle in the urn, the landing in the Philippines has been smooth, and the US army has withdrawn; The Siamese offensive is also progressing smoothly, and the British are also retreating, and the situation is very good. ”

Li Bufan nodded and said: "With the expansion of the occupied area, the local garrison troops also need to increase, and our Ministry of Defense is ready to immediately order the expansion of the troops to three hundred and fifty divisions and more than five million troops, and at the same time, local conscription and training of three million recruits to replenish the war attrition at any time." ”

Xu Shuzheng said in a deep voice: "Commander-in-chief, in this way, the overall size of our troops will be close to nine million, where will we get the money to support such a huge military expenditure?" ”

Wu Di smiled unscrupulously: "There is no need to worry at all, as long as we take Southeast Asia, are we afraid that there will be no money?" Not to mention the funds of those colonies, even the mines, rubber plantations, factories, houses and other industries controlled by the foreign powers can be auctioned for money, and no matter how bad they are, they can also sell the land. At the beginning, I said that those factories and mines of mine can be sold now, and there is no problem with easily tens of billions of dollars. ”

Duan Qirui smiled bitterly: "This is really a murder and arson gold belt." ”

"Hahaha!" There was another burst of laughter.

Xu Shuzheng said: "The book is completely finished, and I believe there is no problem in selling their property." It's just that Southeast Asia is the territory of the great powers after all, how many people will buy it? ”

Wu Di said lightly: "Don't worry, if no one buys it, the commander-in-chief and I are willing to buy it." We have a lot of industries, all of which are very profitable businesses, and if we don't have enough money, we can borrow from banks, and we have our own banks, so loans are not a problem at all. ”

Duan Qirui and Xu Shuzheng saw that Li Bufan and Wu Di expressed their stance that there was no problem with funds for a long time, and they were not entangled in this issue at the moment. It has to be said that at least so far, the "second combat plan -- Thunder Strike" led by Li Bufan has been progressing quite smoothly.

Xu Shuzheng looked at the sand table and suddenly said, "Why did the Americans shrink their defense line?" ”

Li Huashan said: "In my opinion, there are two possibilities, one is that they see that they can no longer prevent our army from landing, and the surname Suo retreats to favorable terrain to resist; The second possibility is that they have calculated the combat radius of our fighters and detached themselves from this range, so that our air force will attack them without fighter escort. If so, they will certainly draw a group of fighters against our bombers in the shortest possible time. ”

Wu Di sneered: "The idea is wonderful, but the reality is cruel. In the case of today's airstrips, airstrips can be built in just a few days, and asphalt airfields are very simple, and bombers can take off. ”

Li Bufan nodded and said, "Well, write it down and let the front-line troops prepare immediately." He said to Li Huashan, "Where do you think their main battlefield will be located?" ”

Li Huashan said: "Manila, there is no doubt about this. The maximum range of our fighters is only 1,400 kilometers, while Taiwan's southernmost distance from Manila is more than 700 kilometers, and we only have one modified aircraft carrier training ship, and at most one squadron can take off for combat, and if the opponent has more planes, it will not be able to effectively protect the bomber group. Moreover, Manila is the capital of the Philippines, which is of great political significance, and there are millions of tons of merchant ships in Manila Bay that the US military has transported supplies this time, and it is impossible for the Americans to give it up. It is also impossible for them to blow up easily, although these ships are merchant ships and do not have the high cost of warships, but they are only afraid that they will have to enter 100 million US dollars, and it is impossible for the US political axe to buy this order. Unless Manila really can't hold it, they will be able to do this and prevent these ships from falling into our hands. ”

Li Bufan said in a deep voice: "You mean, if you want to capture these ships, unless you quickly capture Manila by thunderous means, so that they don't have time to destroy?" ”

"Yes!" Li Huashan Zhengse said, "We don't have many transport ships, and we have captured more than 2 million tons of capital, plus we have built some ourselves, which seems to be a lot, but the transport ships of the Western powers, Britain and the United States, are tens of millions of tons." Moreover, if it is attacked by a submarine in a war, the ship will lose a lot, although we have anti-submarine technology, but we are not 100% sure. ”

"Submarine raid?" Li Bufan's face sank, he was a German soldier who participated in the world war, and he knew the results of the German submarine sabotage battle. At that moment, he said, "Li Hengshan will go on a trip, lure out their submarine, and kill it!" ”

"Yes!" (To be continued.) )