Berlin, Charlottenburg Palace.

The scorching sun of August is rising into the sky, and the brilliant light is blazing like fire, and even in the summer house under the shade of the trees, you can still clearly feel its temperature. In the empty hall, Kaiser Wilhelm was standing with his hands behind his hands at the end of the top, and several halos of light poured into him like silk, reflecting his body in light and darkness.

When Qingying and Schlieffen walked into the main hall side by side, they saw this scene. Under the huge oil painting of Wilhelm I and Duke Bismarck galloping on a prancing horse, the figure of Wilhelm II looks so small and thin; However, he still stubbornly held his head high, wanting to look at these two imperial heroes who ruled Germany. Hearing the sound of clear footsteps coming from the temple door, William's ears moved, and he asked softly in a flat tone, "What happened to the result?" ”

Hearing these clear words that echoed in the main hall, Old Schliefen showed a trace of embarrassment on his face, and said: "Returning to Your Majesty, it was His Highness who won the exercise, and I failed to break through the defensive position he had built. In the last offensive, I even temporarily used 210mm howitzers that were not on the exercise list in order to test the resistance of this defensive line, but in the end it still ended in failure. ”

Qingying's face changed slightly. In the last artillery preparation carried out by Schlieffen, the damage and destruction caused by some shells had clearly exceeded the effect that could be achieved by 150 mm guns, and he felt that something was wrong, and it turned out that Schlieffen, who played the attacker, had done something in it! He turned around and looked at the thin old man in front of him with blazing eyes, and the questioning look in his eyes was unmistakable. Schlieffen shrugged slightly. said indifferently: "Your Highness, don't look at me like this." I do this for a reason. This offensive and defensive drill. To prove that our line of defense was able to withstand the onslaught of large corps of the French in Alsace and Lorraine, who apparently had more than 150 mm of large-caliber heavy artillery. Therefore, it was necessary for me to drag larger caliber artillery into the exercises as well to test whether the line of defense could reach the point of true impregnability. If the drill is not in place, then it is very likely that the staff will be misled by appearances and thus make wrong judgments. ”

Qingying glanced at Schlieffen, but did not refute his words. In fact, the exercise was a foreshadowing of a west-to-east offensive strategy, in order to convince the German General Staff of the fact that even a small number of troops would be used to defend Alsace and Lorraine, the provinces they had seized in 1871. It can also be guaranteed to be safe under the impact of the main force of the French army. Although Schlieffen's approach is suspected of violating the law, it is a further confirmation of the characteristics of warfare in an era when defense is greater than offense.

William's brows furrowed slightly, and for the first time, there was a hint of disbelief in his words, and he said, "My earl, you have 6 times the strength and artillery superiority, haven't you captured Ettel's defense?" Schlieffen said softly, "Yes." Here is a detailed layout of the defensive line, and your majesty will understand it when you look at it. With that, he pulled out a drawing from the document he was carrying, and respectfully placed it in front of William.

"The line of defense constructed by His Highness is exceptionally novel and sophisticated. The erection of barbed wire greatly hindered the advance of the infantry, which allowed the large-scale use of machine gun fire in the rear to gain unimaginable firepower. Most notably, these firing holes, jagged trenches, and shelters more than 5 meters deep underground. The former can gain absolute superiority over the attacking forces in frontal direct fire, while the latter can greatly preserve combat effectiveness in the artillery preparation carried out by the attacking side. The deep trenches in which the fortified shelters are located provide a perfect defense against artillery. Conventional artillery fire simply cannot carry out effective strikes against targets deep underground; Even if the attackers used extremely heavy fire to blow up the trenches, the soldiers inside could quickly move through the underground communication trenches that extended in all directions. Combined with the half-buried concrete bunkers and artillery cover in the rear, there was little strategy for the line to be captured. "When the exercise was just over, I wondered how His Highness could preserve his forces under artillery fire; It was only after reading this diagram and walking around the line of defense that I finally understood its meaning. ”

Seeing that Schlieffen still had a tendency to continue to deepen, William hurriedly waved his hand to stop his speech, and said, "Okay, my earl, I don't know much about the specific tactics of land warfare. I just want to know if the Reich can use such a line of defense to resist the attack of the French on the southwestern frontier. ”

Schlieffen nodded, "Absolutely." Its defensive effectiveness has far exceeded our previous expectations. If we can start digging fortifications on the German-French border in the southwest now, and invest enough manpower and time, it will eventually be several times stronger than the defensive line built in two months during the exercise! Hearing this, Qingying smiled and nodded, and was about to take advantage of the situation to propose a strategy of defending the west and attacking the east, but unexpectedly, Shi Lifen changed his words and said; In this way, we will be able to pin down the main French forces on the left flank and the central axis with fewer troops, and then assemble a more powerful right wing cluster to wipe France to the ground in one fell swoop! ”

"It's not ......" Qingying's words stuck in her throat, her face full of surprise and complicated expressions. He originally wanted to use this fact to get the German General Staff to guarantee the security of the west, so that they could rest assured to look to the east, but he did not expect that Schlieffen would have the idea of strengthening the right-wing cluster through Belgium even more! Out of the corner of his eye, Shi Lifen saw Qingying's expression of wanting to speak, and turned his head and said, "Your Highness, you should mean that we can just take this opportunity to take a defensive strategy on the Western Front, and then launch an attack on Russia on the Eastern Front, right?" ”

Qingying was stunned for a moment, and then said, "Shouldn't you do this?" Our border with France is small, so we don't have to stretch too long to build a defensive line; With a few years of effort, it will definitely be able to turn it into an impregnable cluster of trenches and fortresses. Our army only needs to have 15 divisions left in this section, and no matter how great the French offensive is, it will not be possible to break this defense, which is stronger than steel. On the Eastern Front, on the other hand, the vast expanse of the land made it impossible for the Russians to build defensive lines like we did in Lorraine, where the offensive was the main theme. As long as we can inflict heavy losses on the Russian army, we will inevitably trigger a revolutionary wave in Russia that is even more vigorous than today, forcing them to sign an armistice treaty with Germany for land reparations, and we will be able to inflict a heavy blow on the Russian army with a 120% probability! Today's Russian army is far from the terrifying steamroller that made the whole world tremble, and it is very different from our German army. ”

"Do you mean that the policy towards Russia is to promote change by fighting, to promote revolutionary rebellion in Russia through defeat on the battlefield, and to force little Nicky to sign an armistice with us that humiliates the country?" William's gray pupils suddenly bloomed with a hint of essence, and he asked in a tone full of surprise.

Well, it was not your cousin Nikolai who signed the armistice, but Comrade Vladimir, the founder of the Red Soviet. Otherwise, who could have entered into such a shockingly harsh treaty except the Bolsheviks, who would not hesitate to use any means to seize power? Qingying said secretly in her heart. In the Brest-Litovsk Treaty signed between the newly-born Soviet Russia and Germany, Soviet Russia lost more than 3 million square kilometers of land, including Poland and Ukraine's granary, nearly 50 million people, 33% of agriculture, 54% of industry, 80% of sugar, 73% of iron ore and 75% of coal mines, and paid Germany 6 billion gold marks in war reparations. Such a frantic treaty was exchanged for an external truce between Soviet Russia and Germany and Austria in order to engage in a vigorous civil war with the White Army, thereby consolidating the artifact of power they had stolen from the Romanovs. If it weren't for the collapse of Germany under the heavy pressure of the United States after entering the war, and the unilateral annulment of the treaty by Soviet Russia, Russia would really have been drained of blood by this super traitorous pact signed by the Bolsheviks!

Although the affairs of Red Russia were listed as the highest level of secret in Qing Ying's heart, in order to make Germany choose Russia as a breakthrough, he could only loosen his completely closed mouth a little. Seeing that William and Schlieffen were both looking at him with shocked eyes, Qing Ying nodded slightly and replied in a low voice, "That's right." Father and Mr. Count may wish to think about how Japan was able to provoke a war with Russia in the Far East, and could they really be sure that they would defeat the Russians on the battlefield? Even if Japan had a blood transfusion from Britain and the United States, it would obviously be impossible to completely defeat Russia. They had only one hope, and that was to induce revolutionary unrest in Russia through a partial victory in the Far East, to ignite a raging fire in Nikolai's backyard that was about to burn into his room, and thus force him to make compromises in order to stabilize the situation at home! Now there is a large-scale unrest in Russia, which makes Nikolai Shu feel troubled. In that case, why can't we also implement this strategy? It would be much easier to solve the problem on the Eastern Front by fighting and promoting change than it was to conquer Russia. ”

William closed his eyes. After a while, his lips moved, and he said slowly: "Good strategy." But Ettel, now we don't have the conditions to implement this plan. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the reward from efgh5~