In response to Lincoln's questioning, Scester's answer was regular, especially when describing the question that Lincoln was most interested in, that is, the defensive battle of Smithland, in great detail, including how he arranged the defense plan at that time, why he did it, and how he did it.

Naturally, in this process, Scist carefully avoided the unfavorable places, for example, he did not say that it was because of his negligence that the Chinese succeeded in the surprise attack from behind, but said that the Chinese were too strong, chose to attack from both sides, and used ironclad chariots and naval artillery to bombard, he went through a difficult defense, and was forced to defeat under the overwhelming firepower of the other side.

Although what Scester said was very complicated, tortuous, and thrilling, it was actually summed up in one sentence, his command was completely fine, and the reason for the failure was not that he was too incompetent, but that the other party was too strong.

Of course, this could not be further from the truth!

In fact, strictly speaking, Skerst also has some talents, after all, he is a top student at West Point, and his grades are better than Grant when he graduates, but he is good at pre-war planning, good at training and leading troops and civil engineering, and before there is no fierce confrontation, he is a decent general. But the problem is that once the enemy and the enemy enter the stage of fierce combat in close combat, his adaptability is somewhat insufficient.

Let's just talk about the original Smithland defensive battle, his previous defense plans were good, such as taking the initiative to abandon Cairo, concentrating on sticking to Smithland, strengthening civil engineering operations, building multiple trench fortifications, etc., all of which were decent, and even the loopholes in the rear, strictly speaking, were not his negligence, but because of insufficient time to prepare.

In other words, Scester had been busy with civil engineering work in Smithland, and it was not wrong to prioritize the fortifications of the frontal defense with limited time and resources. Because if you work in multiple places at the same time, you can't do it anywhere.

Therefore, in terms of pre-war planning, he did quite well, even if he replaced Grant, Mead and other famous generals, he could not do better than him in this regard.

However, once the campaign began, he made the great mistake of concentrating his forces too much on the fortified front and not taking care of his own weak rear. And not too many troops were invested.

If he was thinking of defending and counterattacking, his arrangement would be understandable, but since he knew that the Chinese were attacking sharply, he didn't want to defend with all his might, especially to fill his own loopholes, and even made that kind of arrangement to concentrate his forces on one point, which was a bit of a joke.

Although, as Skerst himself said, with the density and power of the Chinese's firepower at that time, even if he defended it was useless. But if he can concentrate his heavy forces on the weak links in the rear, at least he can delay for a long time, and at least he can cause greater losses to the expeditionary force, and he will not be defeated and surrendered so quickly.

After all, he had 150,000 men at the time. If it weren't for the rapid collapse of the whole front, little by little with the expeditionary army with a total of only 30,000 people, and the troops had to be divided into two ways to fight, it would still be difficult to say the outcome of the battle.

Therefore. The main reason for that defensive battle was Sckerst's negligence, he did not expect the expeditionary force to arrive so quickly. After coming, I didn't expect to guard the rear first, which led to the emptiness of the rear, and was quickly divided by the expeditionary force, and one was caught off guard, resulting in a total loss.

Of course, there is also a reason why Li Yongji's troops are moving too fast, because as soon as Li Yongji arrived on the battlefield, he quickly made a frontal feint and sent troops to attack the rear in a roundabout way.

Li Yongji's kind of tactics already belong to the castrated version of blitzkrieg, and the reaction speed is calculated in modern warfare, while Skerst's tactical thinking is still in the category of modern warfare, and the reaction speed is completely different from that of modern warfare, so he was caught off guard.

If Skerst was given enough time to react, he would definitely react, knowing the emptiness in his rear and mobilizing troops to fill the gap, but Li Yongji's decisive action and speed of action did not give him time to make up for his mistakes, and this was the breakthrough in one fell swoop.

In fact, looking at Li Yongji's series of battles in North America, the reason for the brilliant results in consecutive battles is that in addition to the fact that the weapons and equipment far surpass the opponents, the difference in tactical thinking and tactical rhythm is also very related.

The reason is very simple, although Li Yongji's troops are quite powerful in firepower and mobility, far surpassing the opponent, if the opponent can know the strength and rhythm of your attack, use the number and stacking, use morale to maintain, and then use some combat fortifications, pure defense can still be defended.

After all, although Li Yongji's motorized unit is very strong, the number is too small, and the heavy firepower is not against the sky, and the firepower density is not even as high as the level of World War II in another time and space.

In other words, if we make an analogy, the unit led by Li Yongji can be regarded as the ace unit of the Japanese army in the early stage of the war of aggression against China, while the US army can be regarded as the local miscellaneous army of the Kuomintang army.

With more advanced weapons, stronger organizational skills, and better tactical capabilities, the Japanese army invading China can certainly win more with less many times and be invincible in field battles, but if the opponent's number is large to a certain extent, and the soldiers can also have enough morale and courage, the Japanese army's offensive rhythm will fall into a stagnant stage, and it may not be able to go all the way smoothly.

To put it bluntly, in the anti-Japanese battlefield during World War II, China was inferior to the Japanese army in all aspects except for its vast territory and large number of personnel.

Many later generations of public knowledge said on the Internet that China had not actually won the victory against Japan, and that it was only with the help of the US imperialists that it had won, saying that if it had not been for the US imperialism and the Soviet Union, China would have been annexed by Japan long ago.

This is actually the real brain-dead, because in the middle and late stages of the Anti-Japanese War, Japan, which had fully invaded China, had long been short of stamina, and their national strength was simply not enough to have a full-scale war with China at that time, and it was impossible to swallow China completely.

Therefore, at that time, Japan seemed to be very awesome and sharp on the surface, but it was gradually weakened, and according to the situation of the Sino-Japanese battlefield at that time, in fact, even if the Kwantung Army was put down again, it would not play a big role, and it was impossible to completely defeat China in the short term.

The biggest reason was that China at that time had already aroused the idea of all-out resistance, and it was a real all-people war of resistance. In addition, China's industrial capacity is not strong in the first place, and even if it is an occupied area, it will not be able to provide Japan with more industrial and agricultural supplements.

Therefore, at that time, Japan fell into a strange circle, conquering more and more Chinese land, but not only did not get more replenishment, but had to spend more troops to invest in local suppression, resulting in its own precious troops becoming more and more thin, and the strategic materials obtained through occupation, except for some grain and minerals. Others such as precious oil, rubber, gunpowder, steel, etc., cannot be satisfied.

At that time, the more places Japan fought, the more money it spent, and the more insufficient its troops became, which eventually led to the domestic economy being unable to keep up and entering the brink of bankruptcy.

It is precisely because of the increasing poverty that the materials are becoming more and more scarce. The Japanese army had no choice but to attack Southeast Asia in order to plunder strategic materials such as steel, oil, and rubber, but this would inevitably lead to a conflict with the United States.

Of course, even if Japan does not invade Southeast Asia. The U.S. imperialists would not watch Japan encroach on China, let alone the Soviet Union, so it was an impossible task from the very beginning.

But then again, even without the help of US imperialism and the Soviet Union. Relying solely on China itself, in fact, it can defeat Japan, and nothing else. Just because China is more resilient and can afford to drag it out, while Japan is no longer able to win a complete victory and cannot afford to drag it out.

Therefore, even without the help of the United States and the Soviet Union, China could still win the victory if it continued to drag on its own, but it was the last blow of the US imperialism that was like picking peaches, so that China, which was bearing more pressure and losses, lost the opportunity to repay Japan's blood debt.

In later generations, many people said that a certain leader at that time gave up the opportunity to repay his blood debts, but in fact, this was ignorant, because Japan was already in the pocket of the US imperialists at that time, how could it be possible to give China too much compensation, and that was not cutting the flesh of the US imperialists.

Therefore, if you don't want anything anyway, you have to admit the other party's affection if you ask for something, so you just have to be generous and don't want it, which looks stupid on the surface, but in fact solidifies hatred, makes the other party always owe China affection, and also makes the history of Japan's invasion of China a fact that can never be erased.

Otherwise, if compensation is given, no matter how much is given, Japan will later say, "I invaded you, but I also compensated you, and the two do not owe each other, then how can it be done?"

This may be a bit hypocritical, but in many cases, this kind of hypocrisy is very effective for the nation's self-improvement mentality, so many things must be looked at in many aspects, not just one side.

Having said that, the Federation Army at this time is the same, although they are far inferior to the Expeditionary Force in terms of weapons and technology, but they are fighting at home, and they have a numerical advantage, if they can understand the battlefield rhythm of the Expeditionary Force in advance and be familiar with their tactical principles, then with their own advantages, they will not fight so badly.

For example, in the Battle of Vicksburg, if Grant could know the arrival of the expeditionary force in advance, and know the attack power and mobility of the expeditionary force, he could retreat in advance, and then stick to Jackson City, with the number, morale and resilience of Grant's legion, plus the city defense and abundant supplies of Jackson City, he can definitely hold it.

However, Grant didn't know the strength of the expeditionary force, and was caught off guard, so he was forced to hastily fight with the expeditionary force, so that he could not give full play to the advantage of his own numbers, and was bombarded and rushed by the opponent's indiscriminate bombardment, and quickly collapsed under the super firepower he had never seen, and because he couldn't outrun the opponent's motor vehicles during the rout, he was finally surrounded and annihilated.

Due to the rapid defeat and the poor means of communication, the defeat situation on the battlefield could not be transmitted to the rear in time, so that when the Grant Corps in the front was completely annihilated, the rear did not know what was happening.

According to the rhythm of modern warfare, the attacking side at this time should rest for at least a week after finishing a large-scale annihilation war, and normally it should be a month, but this is not the case with the expeditionary force.

The expeditionary force itself did not suffer any casualties at that time, and the wear and tear of equipment was replaced and replenished in time, so it quickly continued to move north, without giving the other side time to react, which broke Memphis one after another, and defeated the Cumberland River Corps on the outskirts of Memphis.

So far, by virtue of its quick attack and surprise, the expeditionary force has given full play to its superiority in firepower and mobility, and has completely annihilated the enemy in the field every time, without giving the other side time to react, nor allowing them to pass on their own tactical advantages.

After that, although the expeditionary force was revised for a period of time, it was stationed alone, prohibiting others from approaching, and kept strictly secret weapons and tactics. Even if some information is inevitably transmitted, it is vague and cannot give people a clear understanding.

After all, this is the sixties of the nineteenth century, although there is a telegraph, but it is still quite primitive, the main way of information transmission is still transmitted by horses and manpower, and this kind of war information, in the case of the other side deliberately keeping it secret, and every time it is a total annihilation of the opponent, a little bit of news can not be seen at all. A lot of it is added to their own imagination.

This kind of information usually becomes more vague as the distance becomes, so when it comes to Lincoln, he only knows that when the front line faces the Chinese invading army, it is a series of defeats, and he also knows that the Chinese army has strong firepower, strong mobility, and ironclad vehicles and ironclad ships, but how powerful the opponent's weapons are, there is no time to see with his own eyes. I can only speculate on my own based on the information coming from the front.

In fact, the U.S. military at this time, like the Manchu court that faced the British invaders, believed that its defeat was due to the inability of weapons. It's not that people can't do it, so all the attention is on the weapons used by the Chinese.

Because of this thinking, Lincoln, the British, and the French. They all focused on the various weapons used by the expeditionary force, and after their many investigations, they were like individual light repeating rifles and invulnerable ironclad chariots. They have all detected light and powerful rapid-fire mortars, but they have no concept of a series of new tactics such as radio communication systems and blitzkrieg.

It is precisely because of the neglect of tactical power that foreigners who pay attention to all this have created an illusion: that is, the weapons of the Chinese have advanced to a terrible point, as long as these weapons are used, anyone can crush everything. And their opponents, in the absence of these weapons, in the face of an enemy with these advanced weapons, no matter how many people they have, no matter how high their morale is, it will still be a defeat in the end.

After realizing this, the Americans, like the Manchus who had faced the British invaders before, fell into a vicious circle of weaponism, and while comforting themselves, their morale also quickly declined, and at least they did not dare to continue fighting the Chinese until they had obtained the weapons they wanted to fight with the Chinese.

It was for this reason that Lincoln was forced to change his original intention and start armistice negotiations with Chinese as soon as possible, even if it was humiliating to cut off half of the United States and cede the future of the United States, that is, the western territories, to the Chinese as soon as possible.

The reason is very simple, that is, even Lincoln believes that the weapons of the Chinese are too strong, and in the face of such a strong and unreasonable Chinese army, it is only right to compromise as soon as possible, otherwise it is really possible to lose everything.

To put it bluntly, this miscalculation is due to information asymmetry, and if Lincoln could clearly know the true reality of the Chinese, such as understanding the Chinese's firepower, mobility, and tactical thinking, especially after the physiological reasons of previous wars, he might not think so.

But no matter what, although Lincoln bowed his head to the Chinese army, he was still very curious about the real combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, and wanted to know what the real strength of the Chinese army was, so this time after seeing Skerst, everything else was secondary, and asking about the combat effectiveness of the Chinese was the point he was most concerned about.

In this regard, Skerst also acted as good as he could, as he had discussed with Li Yongji at the beginning, deliberately exaggerated the strength of the Chinese army's weapons, and also deliberately exaggerated the organization and discipline of the Chinese army, and vigorously advocated the weapon-only theory.

Like accurate and lightweight semi-automatic rifles, all-round burst automatic assault rifles, as well as light machine guns, mortars, rocket artillery, ironclad combat vehicles, assault guns and other weapons and equipment on combat vehicles, Skerst briefly talked about it. He doesn't explain much about the principles of these weapons, and the focus is on explaining the power of these weapons. As he said about rocket artillery, he said that a single salvo could destroy at least two infantry regiments, and the interval between such salvos was so short that no one within range could escape under the attack of such rocket artillery.

There is also the interval and power of mortars, the power and rate of fire of rapid-fire assault rifles, and the invulnerability of ironclad chariots...... All in all, the weapons of the Chinese are very good and powerful, and the first in the world is invincible!

As long as these weapons of the Chinese are available, the most rubbish troops can turn over and become a feared existence.

After blowing the weapon-only theory, Scist began to brag about the strength of the Chinese soldiers, for example, when talking about the Chinese soldiers, Scist said that although they are not strong, they are hard-working, disciplined, and regard death as home, and they do not blink when the sword and gun are on their bodies, and when there is no order to retreat, even if the whole team is destroyed, they will not retreat, which simply says that the Chinese soldiers are a group of humanoid monsters!

And such a monster army that doesn't seem to be human, combined with sharp weapons that are fiercely unreasonable, especially those ironclad chariots that are not afraid of guns, have become synonymous with invincibility.

"So," Skster concluded in his exclamation, "although I don't want to admit it, those Chinese are invincible on the battlefield, and they can give full play to their strength and maximize the power of their weapons." In the face of such an enemy, it no longer matters how many people there are, because no matter how many people face them, it is a failure, just as no matter how many ants there are, it is useless to encounter anteaters.

If we want to defeat them, the only way is to obtain weapons that are not much different from them, restrain the weapons of the Chinese, and then surround them with heavy troops, otherwise, once we fight them to the end, we will only lose even worse! (To be continued......)