After the first line of defense was captured, Cai Yi ordered the Wehrmacht to continue to pursue the victory... So soon, on the second line of defense, the army staged a good show.

It is normal for this to happen, although the quality of the military is much stronger than that of the Wehrmacht, and on many occasions it is still fond of doing disgusting things like "suicide attacks." But in the final analysis, the current Yue Jun is not the Yue Jun of later generations, and he is not so crazy. The current Wehrmacht is not as useless as the Kuomintang troops of later generations, and tens of thousands of people are often driven around by hundreds of people―――――― and such a drama as a thousand miles will be often staged by the Kuomintang troops 20 years later.

After the army on the first line of defense broke and retreated to the second line of defense, the Wehrmacht army that pursued after the victory followed behind the butt of the retreating army, so that the army on the second line of defense did not know what to do.

Of course, for himself, he only needs to hesitate for a moment about similar things.

Because after a little hesitation, the generals of the front line had already ordered the defenders to fire with machine guns... In the eyes of these generals of the army, nothing is more important than victory, and for the sake of victory, even if it is to sacrifice the lives of some officers and soldiers, after all, they are all loyal to the "Great Imperial Empire" and the "Taisho Emperor"... Even if you die at the hands of your own people, you can return to that shrine in the end.

It's just that... These officers are bold enough, but the soldiers below are not necessarily like this, after all, they are all their comrades in front of them.

Thus, in the midst of hesitation, the Wehrmacht had already rushed many distances behind the defeated army. When these soldiers came back to their senses and really opened fire at the urging of the officers, the Wehrmacht was not much away from the second line of defense―――――― and there was another reason for this, that is, many machine gunners and ordinary soldiers did not aim their guns at their own people when aiming, but directly at the guns released in the sky... Under these circumstances, it is clearly impossible to carry out an effective interdiction of the Wehrmacht.

At this time, the retreat to the first line of defense also caused a certain amount of confusion to the army on the second line of defense.

It was at this time that the Wehrmacht, who had followed them, rushed into the position and engaged in a hand-to-hand battle with the Wehrmacht, who had rushed into the defensive line.

The fighting that took place on the second line of defense was much more intense than that on the first line.

First, there are already a lot of defenders in the second line of defense, and secondly, I am very crazy after all, although they have been beaten quite embarrassed now, but this does not mean that they have no power to fight back. In fact, after entering the second line of defense and gaining some breathing room, the Japanese army, which had retreated to the second line of defense, had already counterattacked the Wehrmacht together with the defenders.

"White-knuckle combat..."

Since ancient times......... It doesn't seem to be very old... In any case, white-knuckle warfare has always been a rather bloody kind of battle, just like trench warfare.

What's more, I also have a bad habit, that is, no matter what the situation is, even if there is still a lot of life, I am used to tying grenades and dying with the enemy... So in the second line of defense, the Wehrmacht is really hard.

Even the reinforcements sent by Terauchi Masashi later had been intercepted by the Wehrmacht's artillery group. Later, the Wehrmacht's artillery group also had an artillery battle with his own artillery group... However, in any case, the Wehrmacht has a lot of advantages in terms of the intersecting armies. What's more, not long after, Cai Ye also sent the infantry division that was used as a reserve.

Thus, after almost three hours of fierce fighting, the Wehrmacht finally took the second line of defense.

At this point, the situation of the Wehrmacht and the Japanese Army has returned to the situation before the war.

However, after recapturing the second line of defense, Cai Ye did not let his Wehrmacht to seize the position of the Yue army.

It's not that he doesn't want to, but the second line, that is, the line of defense that confronts the army, is not far from the defense line of the army itself. After all, this is the line of defense that the Wehrmacht used to confront the Yue Army, and if it is close to the Yue Army, not to mention the Yue Army, even Cai Yi will not allow it―――――― because that means that Yue himself has dug the trenches under his nose.

The army still retains a lot of strength, there is still a large gap between the two positions, and in addition to the continuous capture of two lines of defense, Cai Yi's four infantry divisions also suffered great losses. Therefore, after winning two lines of defense, Cai Ye could only stop.

However, after stopping, Cai Ye did not do nothing.

Of course, the same is true for Masaki Terauchi.

After recapturing and being recaptured, Cai and Terauchi Masashi all regrouped their teams and prepared for the next stage of the encounter... After all, the losses of Cai Yi and Terauchi Masayi were very large, such as the four infantry divisions in charge of the offensive mission, after recapturing the defensive line, they had reached the point where they had to rest. And the troops of Zhengyi in the temple are even worse than Cai Yi's.

Because in addition to the heavy losses, the several troops of Terauchi Masashi also have to add the article of chaos in the organization..."Everything is back to the starting point..."

After patrolling around the field hospital and returning to the headquarters, looking at the military map and sand table where everything was similar to when he arrived, Terauchi Masaki smiled bitterly.

And hearing the words of Terauchi Masatsuki, Senba Taro and Kamio Mitsutomi and others were silent.

At this point, in fact, they also have a certain feeling that this war in Shandong is very likely to fail.

It's just that although they have a premonition of failure, these army generals don't know what the price of defeat will be?

"Your Excellency, now..."

"Don't say anything now..."

After waving his hand and stopping the words, Terau Masashi continued to look at the situation on the sand table.

"After recapturing the two lines of defense, Cai Ye will never have no next move..."

"That's for sure," Senba Taro nodded. For now, Chinese have more strength than we do, and if we continue to fight like this......... There's no way that Cai Ye can't see this, so he's bound to make the next move..."

"yes......... Therefore, our biggest task now is to prepare for the next move of the Chinese people..."

"It's just, how much time will the people of China spend to prepare? I've just been to the troops to see that not only are the troops below suffering heavy losses, but also all the formations are mixed, and if they want to recover, I'm afraid it will take a while..."

Masaki Terauchi smiled.

"Don't worry, our losses are large, and the losses of the people of China may not be small. What's more, our soldiers were very brave, and dragged many of them to hell together during the battle..."

Obviously, Masaki Terauchi did not see the "suicide attack" as something shameful.

―――――――――― In order to prepare for the next stage of the operation, Cai Ye and Terauchi Zhengyi spent almost half a month to prepare... In half a month, except for some smaller encounters between the two sides in Laiyang, there was hardly a battle of more than 2,000 people.

But almost everyone understands that it's no different from the calm before the storm.

Really... After the four infantry divisions in Cai's hands, plus one infantry division newly transferred from the Qingdao fortress, were fully prepared, Cai Ye took the lead in launching a fierce attack on the first line of defense of the Yue army.

A series of fierce attacks lasted almost three days, and in three days, Cai's five infantry divisions continued to launch fierce attacks on the first line of defense of the Yue army, and finally captured the first line of defense after paying a very heavy price.

And this line of defense also represents the official shift of the Wehrmacht from defense to offense... In the days that followed, Cai's troops continued to attack, storming several other lines of defense of Terauchi Zhengyi... Within more than ten days, two lines of defense have been connected, so far the defense line of the army in the hands of Cai Ye has reached three, and the only thing left in the hands of Zhengyi in the temple is only one... Moreover, in terms of combat effectiveness, the four infantry divisions in the hands of Terauchi Masashi also suffered heavy losses. Up to now, there are even more than 70,000 people left in the four infantry divisions in the hands of Terauchi Masatsuki... Among them, there are at least 10,000 wounded inside... At this point, there is no other way for the temple to do so.

Although in Tokyo, the Okuma cabinet asked Terauchi Masashi to hold on, show the strong combat effectiveness of the army, and even let Terauchi Masayi think of a way. After all, in the eyes of the world in this era, China is a weak country, while it is a great power.

The fact that a great power country takes the initiative to wage war against a weak and small country ends up fighting like this is really a big problem for the face of the political axe.

Of course, face or something is a trivial matter, the biggest problem is the people in the country... To be honest, in order to make Yuben a strong country, the people of Yuben have indeed paid a lot in this regard. Seriously speaking, in this respect, the Chinese people may not even have one-tenth of the number of their own people.

Of course, this also has to do with the fact that China is an agricultural country, while Yuben is an industrial country.

After all, the industrial countries are able to mobilize the potential of the country relatively well, and the agricultural countries ... This is the same as the fiscal revenues of the two countries.

The fiscal revenue of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was more than 500 million silver dollars, while the fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty was more than 700 million.

But the fiscal revenue of the Manchu Qing Dynasty accounted for only a few percent of the country's total economic output.

It is said that Ben's fiscal revenue accounts for dozens of the country's total economic output. This is the biggest difference between an industrial country and an agricultural country.

If it were China, it would be impossible for China to squeeze so much money out―――――― it would be impossible to squeeze out the rebellion.

But in any case, the national strength of the current Yuben is the efforts of the people at the lowest level. And the biggest purpose of their efforts is to make Yuben a powerful country.

In the past, the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War made the people of Yuben ecstatic.

The First Sino-Japanese War allowed the company to officially replace China as the most powerful country in East Asia, something that the company had not been able to do in the past few thousand years of history. And the Russo-Japanese War earned him a ticket to the club of the great powers―――――― even if the latter war did not bring huge benefits to Yue Ben like the Sino-Japanese War... In other words, the current people have become accustomed to the victory of the weak over the strong, and have become accustomed to the victory of the weak over the strong.

So, when they learned that Yamaben had declared war on China again, they thought it was just the beginning of another victory... In fact, when the expeditionary force set off and countless people were seeing off at the port, many of them were wondering in their hearts, how long would it take for the expeditionary force to solve the trouble in Shandong? Is it three months? Two months? One month? Or a week?

And how much benefit can the expeditionary force that rushed to Shandong bring to Yuben after this war?

It is not surprising that the people of Yuben would think so, because in the eyes of the people of Yuben, they have successfully surpassed China and become the most powerful country in East Asia. And what about China? In the past, China may have been really glorious, a country that had to be looked up to, but now China is just a sick man, a weak country.

The weak eat the strong, and the fittest survive.

In his own view, the sole purpose of China's existence is to become the nourishment for the growth of the Asians, and then the people will replace China on behalf of the Asian forces and win the glory of Asians in the whole world.

It's just that... The initial failure at Longkou Bay is needless to say.

Such a big defeat, and the most striking battle of the aviation force since its appearance, it is impossible not to know about such a small place.

And when the people of Yuben learned that the expeditionary fleet they had worked so hard to build had actually lost so many capital ships at one time, I don't know how many people of Yuben were heartbroken.

However, the general public only regarded this incident as an accident.

After all, the aviation unit is also a very foreign thing to Yue himself.

Moreover, although the Navy is the pride of the Navy, the Army is also the pride of the Navy. Although the expeditionary fleet was attacked by the Chinese air force in Longkou Bay and suffered heavy losses, the general people still believed that the invincible army would definitely be able to achieve a brilliant victory for the Great Empire as it did during the Qing War and the Russo-Japanese War.

It's just that... The dream is plump, and the reality is skinny.

After the Yue army landed in Longkou Bay, in several successive battles, the Yue army was not able to win any relatively big victory. Finally, when chaos broke out in the rear of the Wehrmacht, the army took two positions, which made the people in the city excited, but... It didn't take long for the expeditionary force to stalemate with the Wehrmacht in Laiyang.

This scene not only made Okuma and others in Tokyo dissatisfied, but even ordinary people were quite dissatisfied.

You must know that although it is an industrial country with a fiscal revenue of more than 700 million yuan, it is also a debtor country. There is a lot of debt to be repaid every year. In addition, Ben often carries out some military expansion plans.

For example, the mobilization of the army to 500,000 people, and the plan to add new ships to the navy... Hardly any of these plans are money-saving. Especially the Navy's new ship plan, entering the King Kong-class battle cruise, even if it is just one, it will take more than 20,000 yuan to do... More than 20 million yuan, how much is the military expenditure for this year? What's more, it is said that many warships started construction at one time.

However, in order to make the book strong, the people of the book also recognized it.

After all, in Yuben, as long as the people with a little knowledge know what it means to have a strong navy.

But!!!

They can tolerate the plans of the Navy and Army to expand their armaments, but they cannot tolerate them wasting taxpayer money on the battlefield.

Forget about the navy, but what about the army?

After winning two lines of defense, he actually made an inch?

You must know that now the troops of the temple are staying in Laiyang for one more day, but it will cost one more day of money. And this money is by no means a small amount for Yueben, who is already very tight on funds... This is also one of the reasons why Shigenobu Okuma and others are reluctant to Masashi Terauchi.

You know, up to now, in order to prepare military expenses for the war in Shandong, Okuma Shigenobu and others have a few gray hairs on their heads... I can't help it, I really don't have any money... At the same time, in addition to the financial problems, what makes the people unbearable is the possibility that the people will lose to China... He had already defeated China during the Qing War, achieving a brilliant achievement that had not been achieved in the past few thousand years. This is an absolutely proud thing for me.

But now, it is possible that Ben will be defeated by China again? This is absolutely something that the people of this country cannot accept.

Especially after it was rumored that Cai's army had recaptured the two lost lines of defense, and the situation of the whole war had returned to before it began, the people of Yuben could not bear it even more.

To this day, in front of the mansion of Shigenobu Okuma and others, a large number of marchers appear almost every day. For example, in front of the mansion of Masayi in the temple, there are many people haunting, and the gates, walls, and even the houses inside the Masayi mansion in the temple are almost intact... In the end, many people even began to call Terauchi Masashi as a "national thief"... Today's temple Zhengyi, although he is in Shandong, is under tremendous pressure from Cai Yi and China at the same time.

Compared with Masachi Tsunachi, Cai Ye himself is much more relaxed.

Because before the war, few people believed that Cai Ye could achieve victory, and naturally, after Cai Ye achieved today's achievements, no one would choose to blame him.

In fact, by now, Cai Ye has become a hero in the eyes of almost all the people.

Want to blame Cai Ye? It's not a realistic thing!

(To be continued)