The silence before the Great War was the hardest to endure.

When the piercing phone rang, Jiang Yunzhi picked up the microphone almost immediately: "I'm Jiang Yunzhi!" ”

"Jiang Shuai, the Air Force has completed its preparations and can set off at any time, please give an order from the commander-in-chief!" Long Xiaotian shouted loudly, and the voice in the microphone was a little noisy. Friendship Airport is still too simple, the roar of planes on the runway and the roar of ground crews tearing their throats are mixed together, like an airport symphony.

Jiang Yunzhi frowned invisibly, "Xiaotian, I wish the soldiers good luck for me!" 'Supermarket Sale' Campaign - Let's Go! ”

Supermarket discounts...... If it's discounted, then sweep the goods! Zhong Yi's ability to name the code name of the action is still so invincible in the universe.

However, in a sense, this code name, which made Jiang Shuai ashamed and indignant, still fits the campaign goal very well. Airborne into the area of Cross Hill, with paratroopers rushing to Penrith, cutting off the supply route of the Multinational Force on the Western Front before England and Scotland.

Of course, since it was to sweep the goods, then the actions of the Allies were by no means limited to this. More than 70 percent of the sea area has been cleared by the mine blockade line in the Strait of Dover, and the route for the allied navies to go north has been opened.

Based on the limited width of the island of Great Britain and the inability to carry out a roundabout attack by a large army, it is imperative to conduct another landing campaign to attack the Scottish area behind the multinational force and speed up the course of the war.

The "supermarket discount" campaign came into being. Under the command of Admiral Guan Canghai, the Allied navies mobilized four twin aircraft carrier battle groups of the Royal Navy, as well as the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila and the Soyuz aircraft carrier of the Kingdom of Judah, and the Spanish and Turkish navies also sent a number of warships.

After entering the North Sea, the large Allied fleet launched numerous air and artillery raids on cities controlled by the multinational forces along the coast. The Spanish Navy's old battleships showed their might, and in the later era of battleships, it was a rare opportunity to seize the last glory of the cannons of the great ships. Hartlepool, Sunderland, and even Newcastle, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall, trembled at the roar of the thick guns. The black smoke and flames of the explosion became the theme of the east coast of the island of Great Britain. This is a catastrophe of human industrialization and a regression of human history.

In England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the roar of war tore apart the course of civilization. Compared with Rear Admiral Liu Gen's civilized demolition team, the navy's behavior is simply a group of underworlds, grabbing sticks and smashing glass is nothing, they are simply underworlds driving forklifts to knock down houses, and they don't even bring out the people in the houses.

Airdrop paratroopers were in the area of Mount Cross on the Western Front, while the Navy was just in charge of the harbor cities on the Eastern Front. The navy and air force acted at the same time, aiming directly at the railway line around the island of Great Britain. In Jiang Shuai's words, "cut off the two major arteries of the multinational force." ”

Cross Mountain, 893 meters above sea level, is the highest peak in the Pennines in the northern part of England, with a steep western slope and a gentle eastern slope, with a few passes for east-west transportation. The limestone is bare, and the lava terrain is all over the place.

Well, this sentence found in the British Geological Encyclopedia, Lieutenant General Qin Shaoquan, commander of the 7th Airborne Corps of the Guards, firmly remembered it in his mind. The relatively gentle eastern slope of Cross Hill is the York Vale, with its many underground caves, waterways, and of course many small market towns.

The paratroopers landed in the triangle between the towns of Howth, Muirk and Glassington, crossing the Pennines Mountains and the Benning and Deere Trail on the west coast of Great Britain just a dozen kilometres west of the town of Howth.

Capturing the Benning and Deere trails at the first opportunity will be crucial for the paratroopers. Otherwise, the multinational force would have been able to keep the paratroopers in the valley with a high probability of being trapped in the valley by virtue of the narrow terrain of the pass.

Intelligence shows that on the Benning and Deere trails, the multinational force each has a company of defenders, all of which are subordinate to the U.S. 52nd Army stationed in Blair. Located south of Hadrian's Wall, Blair was the largest city on the border between Britain and the Soviet Union, only thirty kilometres from Penrith.

The U.S. 52nd Army was the main opponent of the paratroopers in this operation. Lieutenant General Qin Shaoquan's heart was not too sure. In this airborne operation, only the 19th Division of the 7th Airborne Army participated in the battle, the other Guards Airborne Division was the 21st Division of the 8th Army, and the other three divisions were Japanese paratroopers from the Toei Army. With five airborne divisions and nearly 60,000 paratroopers, Jiang Shuai can indeed be regarded as a big deal. But on this small island of Great Britain, where the Allies and multinational forces have concentrated more than 3 million troops, 60,000 troops are really nothing, and it is a matter of a week to throw them to Leeds City and lose them.

Trenches and bunkers, the Multinational Force used the city-by-city retreat to gain time, and concentrated their efforts on building Leeds into a fortified fortress. Lieutenant General Wilkins, commander of the Multinational Force, built two defensive belts outside Leeds, with concrete bunkers as fulcrums, and trenches criss-crossed, so that the defenders could be quickly mobilized for key defenses. Drawing lessons from the rout of the Trent River defense line, Eisenhower urgently transferred a considerable number of "Stingers," a shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile, which posed a great threat to the Han army's helicopter gunships in Africa.

It seems that this time, too, the White House is aware of the importance of the multinational force in Europe.

No matter what the decision is, this million elite troops cannot be left in Britain like this. The navy and air force are quietly accumulating strength after the fiasco, but in terms of ground weapons, they absolutely have everything. After Marshall's retirement, Eisenhower's multinational force in Europe was a rare tyrant. On the perimeter line of the front of Leeds City alone, five hundred "Stingers" were thrown.

On the first day of the Battle of Leeds, more than 50 "Sea Holly" were shot down by Stingers, and Xiao Guoxing was forced to temporarily hide the Army Aviation Division, and the joint air-ground breakthrough failed.

In the ensuing close-ground warfare, the multinational force, dominated by the US and Canadian troops, suddenly issued an unprecedented will to fight. In the face of the combined bombardment of Allied air planes and ground artillery, the multinational forces relied on two outer defensive belts to hold back the Allied forces for eleven days, and nearly 100,000 Allied soldiers fell outside Leeds.

Lieutenant General Wilkins of the U.S. Army adopted a strategy of close shooting. The use of the serpentine curved trench defense line made the Allied attacking forces and the multinational forces intertwined, and the defensive line of the Allies was as close as possible to the Allied forces. As a result, the Allied artillery units, especially feared "Black Widow" units and Air Force bombers, were unable to play to their advantage.

In the course of these two weeks, the war seemed to have returned to the initial period of heat weapons warfare, and there was a vague glimpse of the scene of the First World War.

Trench sniping, bunker strafing, tank rampage, armored killer...... Blood stained the outskirts of ancient Leeds City, and the smoke blackened the white clouds in the British sky.

A sudden rainstorm struck, flooding bunkers and trenches. After the sky cleared, the attack planes of the Allied Air Force were massively sorted, and the targets on the defense belt were immersed in water, and the pilots were clearly visible to the naked eye.

The nail-pulling contest quietly unfolded among the pilots of the "Weilong" attack plane, and the expensive ground-to-ground missiles detonated one dark bunker after another like Chinese cabbage.

And in the waterlogged trenches, the American GIs could not shoot normally at all. Climbing out of the trenches, they soon fell prey to the heavy machine guns of the "Cheetah" armored vehicles.

The long-lost outer line was shattered by a rare rainstorm, and Lieutenant General Wilkins sighed, "Time is not waiting for me!" "Lead the department back into the city.

At a cost of 100,000 casualties, the Allies stormed Leeds. This was the largest Allied loss since the war on the British Isles began. But the battle was far from over, and the Allies still organized three lines of defense in Leeds, fighting street by building, house by house, street by street, which was bloodier than the trench warfare outside the city.

The Belgian units, the Free French units of the multinational forces, seemed to be more adapted to this style of fighting, and in the rubble-strewn ruins, they always found a way to strike at the Allied attacking forces.

Allied tanks and armored vehicles with early black smoke were everywhere, and the number of Allied casualties was mounting. The 27th Division, the 12th Division, and the 4th Guards Armored Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which had recently entered the city, were replaced one after another due to heavy casualties.

Even though the Allies had adopted a joint operation of various arms, dispatching engineering units and air force attack aircraft to coordinate with infantry and artillery at low altitudes, the progress of street fighting in Leeds City was still very slow.

Xiao Guo scolded his mother angrily, and Jiang Yunzhi didn't understand why the sudden burst of the multinational force was so combative!

King George VI's heart is bleeding too! Eighty percent of Leeds' buildings were destroyed, and the two British divisions engaged in street fighting were almost wiped out in three days, which were all loyal to the royal family!

In his report to the British King, Major General Cambenin, who had returned to London, wrote: "There was a fierce battle between the enemy and us for every house, workshop, water tower, railway embankment, and even for a wall, a basement, and every pile of rubble. Our 2nd Division is often thrown into a regiment, and in less than half a day, it will be wiped out, and the survival time of the soldiers on the battlefield will hardly exceed 12 hours, I am a soldier, I am not afraid of sacrifice, but I swear to God: I have really never seen such a bloody battle! ”

Around Leeds City, there are nearly half a million multinational troops. Jiang Yunzhi didn't know how many reserves Wilkins still had in his hands after these days of fighting. Or maybe it didn't have any reserves left at all.

Determined to die? It's hard to believe that this happened to the Americans. But Jiang Yunzhi could only insist, sending different troops every day to fight brutally in the Leeds brand meat grinder.

The "supermarket discount" operation has begun, as long as the multinational force can be cut off and the defenders of Leeds City can be encircled, the battle of Great Britain Island will be decided! It can be seen that before 1944, it was not impossible to complete His Majesty's strategic deployment.

Putting down the shocking casualty report in the Battle of Leeds, Jiang Yunzhi turned his gaze to the map of the Pennine Mountains south of Hadrian's Wall.

"The highest peak at 893 meters above sea level, Cross Mountain! The highest peak of this height is really comparable to the South China Continent. Jiang Shuai grinned lightly, "Presumably, such a small dirt slope won't cause any trouble to the Airborne Army, right?" ”