Cai Yi and Cai Guodong were called the "two Cai" of the Chinese military by outsiders, they are really two people under one person and above 10,000 people, they are both surnamed Cai, but they are not relatives, they have no relationship at all, that is, these two people occupy an important position in the Chinese army.

Originally, in this appointment incident, if they were appointed as the supreme commander of the Balkan Peninsula Theater, then who would be considered the second person with real power besides Xiao Zhenlei, but this matter was not so simple, Xiao Zhenlei did not appoint it at the beginning, but postponed the matter, even if they thought that Cai Guodong's chances were greater, it was therefore untenable.

Although the meeting did not determine on the spot who would be the supreme commander of the future Balkan Theater, Xiao Zhenlei still asked Cai Ye to report the information, and Cai Yi and others immediately made defensive adjustments based on the actual situation of the German and Austrian troops, so as not to be caught off guard by the German army.

Cai Yi and others on the Balkan Peninsula immediately made arrangements after receiving the domestic briefing, and did not mention it. That night, Xiao Zhenlei sent people to invite Jiang Fangzhen, Fan Zhiyong, Song Shijie, Ma Hanlong, Sa Zhenbing and others to his home for a chat.

After eating, Xiao Zhenlei and others enjoyed the cool in the small garden, everyone sat in a circle, Xiao Zhenlei said: "Everyone, there are many people during the day, I didn't continue to let everyone talk about it, now there are no outsiders here, do you all share your opinions?" Between Cai Guodong and Cai Yi, who is more suitable to preside over the affairs of the Balkan theater? Old Song, you talk about it first."

Song Shijie was the first to call his name when he saw Xiao Zhenlei. I couldn't help but smile bitterly in my heart, and he said: "President, judging from ability and seniority. Both General Cai are suitable to be the supreme commanders of the Balkan theater, but domestic appointments cannot be arbitrary, and there must be a convincing reason. From the perspective of experience, General Cai Guodong has experience in logistics and equipment management, which is undoubtedly stronger than General Cai Yi, but General Cai Ye does not have this experience, but both Cai have experience in commanding large-scale battles. They are all suitable to serve as commanders-in-chief, and General Cai Guodong cannot be appointed to support the logistics work of the expeditionary force just because he has experience in logistics, after all, the status of the supreme commander of the Balkan theater is undoubtedly higher than that of the deputy commander. This is unfair to General Cai Guodong, but General Songpa, who has no experience in logistics, cannot be allowed to be his deputy to assist General Cai Guodong, this matter is really difficult to do, President. I don't really know who's in charge. Who is the deputy".

Xiao Zhenlei listened to Song Shijie's words, was speechless for a while, and after being silent for a while, he spoke: "Although you said a lot, it seems to make a lot of sense, but in fact, what you said is equivalent to not saying it!" Old Fan, tell me what you think".

Fan Zhiyong shook his head and said: "President, I really don't know who I think is the most suitable, judging from the current situation." It would be unfair to choose one of them as the Supreme Commander of the Balkan Theater of Operations. And the other generals are either not qualified and competent, or they are not suitable, you can't let General Sa and General Ma take this position, so ah, I think it is best for you to take this position yourself, so that the two of them are also convinced, and the others have no reason to object."

Xiao Zhenlei listened and pointed at Fan Zhiyong and said: "You are more cunning than Song Shijie, and you still say this knowing that I can't take this position personally."

The others laughed, and the atmosphere suddenly eased a lot.

Xiao Zhenlei couldn't make up his mind immediately for a while, he did have concerns about avoiding suspicion, among Cai Guodong and Cai Jie, his relationship with Cai Guodong is undoubtedly much better than others, but his relationship with Cai Ye is not bad, if he directly appoints Cai Guodong as the commander of the Balkan Theater, this will be suspected of cronyism, of course, Cai Ye may not have this idea, but he can't stand others who don't have this idea, if his appointee is Cai Ye, then it is undoubtedly unfair to Cai Guodong, Could it be that just because he has a good relationship with Xiao Zhenlei, he should take the initiative to be humble? Therefore, this matter is also very difficult for Xiao Zhenlei to make a decision.

Xiao Zhenlei had not yet made up his mind to decide who would be the supreme commander of the Balkan theater, and the German-Austrian army had already launched an attack on the thirteen strategic points occupied by the Chinese army in Europe, and all kinds of intelligence had also arrived, and now the main target of the German-Austrian army's attack could finally be determined.

The German offensive was mainly divided into two routes, the north was on the Transvassinian plateau, with Brasov, Mierku and Georgini as the forward bases, the German Fifteenth Army in Brasov, and the German Sixteenth Army in Mierku and Georghini; On the south road, the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army is advancing to the southwestern Romanian town of Orshova, which is the closest passage from Hungary to the east, and the famous Tiemen Gorge is in Orshova, but now the Chinese army has deployed heavy defenses between the mountains and mountains on both sides of the Tiemen Gorge, and it is obviously not easy to seize this strategic location, but the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army is already on the way to the Tiemen Gorge.

The Iron Gate Gorge is the boundary between the Carpathians and the Balkan Mountains, and is also a section of the river between Serbia and Romania, about three kilometers long and 162 meters wide. In the 14th century, during one of the Crusaders' crusades, it took the Crusaders eight days to cross the Iron Gate Gorge, using pontoon bridges and boats.

The German Fifteenth Army in Brasov had three offensive targets, the first was Bran, the second was Sinaya, and the third was Kaeya. The German Sixteenth Army at Mijerku and Georghini could attack Moineshti and Bikaz, all of which were strategically fortified by extremely steep terrain, but the Germans could not help but attack from these places, after all, only these places could not deploy their forces, and even if they were easy to fight, they could not give full play to their firepower superiority.

The Romanian territory west of the southern section of the Carpathians is now occupied by the German and Austrian troops, so the Austro-Hungarian army can come all the way to Orshova, the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army was blocked by the blocking positions set up by the Chinese army in front of the Tiemen Gorge, and if you want to pass through the Tiemen Gorge, you must deal with the Chinese army guarding the Tiemen Gorge, on both sides of this riverbank, the Chinese army deployed an infantry division, and the Seventh Army of the Austro-Hungarian army has nearly 300,000 people, how to look at the ratio of forces on both sides is more than 10:1, It seemed that the Austro-Hungarian army had an absolute advantage, while the Chinese army was at a disadvantage, but in fact, because of geographical conditions, the superior strength of the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army could not be placed here at all, and each attack could only send one regiment of troops, and any more would be crowded and fall off the cliff or roll down the mountain.

Although the Chinese army has only one infantry division, most of the troops are deployed in key positions, and many places are extremely precipitous places, in these positions, a machine gun team can block the entire passage, not to mention the bridge on the river of Tiemen Gorge, in order to facilitate the reinforcement of the defense before and after, the Chinese army did not demolish the bridge on the river, if the Austro-Hungarian army wants to pass through these bridges, I am afraid that the river below will be filled with corpses.

On August 25, the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army first launched an attack on the position of the 37th Infantry Division of the Chinese Army stationed in the Tiemen Gorge, because the defensive positions of the Chinese Army were all on the mountain, the artillery fire of the Austro-Hungarian Army did not play any role at all, even if it was used with heavy artillery, it could not hit the mountain, only some sporadic mortars could hit the positions of the Chinese Army, although the Chinese Army had no way to transport the artillery to the mountain, but there were still enough mortars, and from the point of view of the number of equipment, There were far more mortars in the Chinese army than in the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, so in the first round of artillery fire, the Austro-Hungarian army suffered a great loss, not only some poor mortars were destroyed, but also the mountain artillery and heavy artillery positions in the rear were also destroyed, and the artillery regiment of an Austro-Hungarian infantry division of this attack was finished.

The Austro-Hungarian commander saw that he could not suppress the fire of the Chinese army on the mountain, so he had to order to stop the attack, after all, there was no artillery suppression, so the casualties of the blind attack were too great, and the Austro-Hungarian commander had just lost a battalion of troops in just one charge, and the Austro-Hungarian commander sent a telegram to the German and Austrian air force to ask the air force to send fighter planes to carry out a large-scale bombardment of the mountain position in the Tiemen Gorge defended by the Chinese army.

The German-Austrian air force bomber group soon arrived, and after arriving, they directly began to bomb the hills of the Tiemen Gorge where the Chinese troops were stationed, and the fighters also began to dive and strafe.

The Chinese army found out that the bomber group of the German and Austrian air forces was coming and immediately hid in the bomb shelter, fortunately the fortifications were built and perfected in these two months, otherwise this first wave of bombing would not be bearable, and the Chinese army did not have heavy equipment, all mortars and heavy machine guns, mortar positions and heavy machine gun positions were relatively easy to transfer, and the losses suffered after being bombed were not large, but there were some, and some soldiers did not have time to hide in the bomb shelters and were killed.

The commander of the Chinese army immediately called to report the bombing of the defensive position in the Tiemen Gorge by the bomber group of the German-Austrian air force, and Cai Yi and others did not have any good way to deal with this after receiving the telegram; judging from the current early warning technology, it was not possible to intercept the German-Austrian air force in time for the time being, even if the Chinese army in the Tiemen Gorge discovered the enemy situation that the German and Austrian air force was coming to bomb very early, the fighters of the Chinese army at the air force airfield in Sofia did not have time to take off, and when the Chinese fighters rushed over, The bomber group of the German-Austrian Air Force had already finished dropping bombs and left, unless they could know in advance about the bombing plan of the German-Austrian Air Force, and this difficulty was not ordinary. (To be continued......)