"Outside, outside, the Second French Republic has reached the most critical moment, the German army has broken through the three lines of defense of Verdun in a row, and General Nivel is organizing the French army to defend the first line of defense in Zuihou"

"The Chinese expeditionary force was crushed, and the Germans broke through two lines of defense held by Chinese troops with lightning speed."

The battle at Verdun soon appeared on the streets of Paris, the capital of the Second French Republic, and the newsboys screamed as they should, sounding extremely depressing.

"Damn it, can't we really escape the fate of 1870?" An old Frenchman who had experienced the vicissitudes of life sat on the side of the street and cried with tears.

A middle-aged man shouted angrily, "I know that those Chinese who smoke opium are unreliable, what is the use of having more people, it is better to arm them than to arm the indigenous people of Africa, the government gang is really stupid." Now France is going to be finished, we have worked hard for more than three years in vain, what are we not fed and warm, what are we not good at, damn it! ”

All kinds of talk filled the streets and alleys, and the French, who usually saw Chinese workers as polite, were now a little more indifferent. And even those who don't care about the current situation among the Chinese workers can't help but start asking for news: "What the hell is wrong with our army?" ”

What the hell is going on? No one can tell!

Neither the French nor the Germans could tell, it was a strange moment, at least that's what the German chief of staff, Field Marshal Hindenburg, thought.

"You idiots, do you think you can blow up all the Chinese troops with artillery alone? Or do you think that 200,000 people can be hidden in that little bit of Vauburg? These Chinese took the initiative to abandon the defense line, this does not need to be discussed? There are only two things you really have to care about, the first is to expand our war gains, and the second is to find me where these Chinese who can't fight have slipped away. ”

Although he despised the Chinese, this did not mean that Marshal Hindenburg would take it for granted that the Chinese were defeated. He began to think about a serious problem, since the Chinese could have the ability to hold back the Germans at Vauburg, they must also be able to hold off the Germans in other areas. But they didn't do it, so there is only one explanation, these Chinese have another jihua.

So what are these Chinese jihua? Is it to dig a hole in the ground, hide in it like a marmot, and then wait for your own army to retreat before popping out? Field Marshal Hindenburg fell into bitter thought.

And in the Allied Command, Marshal Fuxi didn't know how many times he was asking the damn Chinese guy what he wanted to do.

The air reconnaissance planes risked being killed by the Luftwaffe and flew desperately to the front line, and according to the results of their reconnaissance, the Chinese troops were still resisting in the vicinity of Warburg and Adreburg, and the German offensive was also very fierce......

The Sixth Division of the Expeditionary Force, of which Zhang Zizhong was the division commander, was the only unit in the entire Expeditionary Force that directly experienced the seven-hour heavy artillery bombardment, and this is also the capital that many officers and men of the Sixth Division can still boast of for many years after retiring. But at that time, every officer and soldier in the anti-artillery holes and bunkers felt extremely uncomfortable. The four regiment commanders of the 6th Division were Colonel Xue Yue, chief of staff of the division and commander of the 61st Regiment, Colonel Wang Mingzhang, commander of the 62nd Regiment, Colonel Lu Han, commander of the 63rd Regiment, and Colonel Zhang Zhizhong, commander of the 64th Regiment. At present, these four are all pressed in their respective regimental headquarters, and Zhang Zizhong and the four battalions directly under the division headquarters are all in the division headquarters in Fort Vau. Feeling the earth-shattering shelling, basically for seven hours, no one expected a little peace, and a huge explosion sounded overhead. The soldiers stationed on the front line felt even more obvious, as if they had been hit, and almost everyone was praying to the gods and Buddhas to bless themselves, and to bless the Germans' shells to turn around when they could see the bunkers and bunkers they were in. In the words of the officer, as long as the bunkers and pillboxes are not directly hit, then everyone must be safe and sound, after all, is the whole position so wide? So before the shelling began, Wang Mingzhang, the commander of the 62nd Regiment, said in his Sichuan accent: "Are you afraid of something?" Which one would be so backshit? ”

After all, the probability of being directly hit is said to be 1 in 10,000, but when the shelling was carried out for an hour, Wang Mingzhang, who estimated the number of shells, did not dare to be careless anymore: "Ge Laozi, the Germans' shells don't cost money." At the beginning in Sichuan, if the Beiyang Army had such fierce firepower, what kind of Yuan would Lao Tzu ask for? ”

At this moment, courage or cowardice does not matter, and the only choice that everyone, whether a warrior or a coward, can do at this moment is to cover his ears tightly, shrink his body into the hiding hole, and pray that time will pass faster.

The Germans were only more than 300 meters away from the hideout of the Chinese European Expeditionary Force Assault Force, and the clever camouflage allowed these Chinese Expeditionary Force soldiers to remain undetected by the strict Germans, and the subsequent orders of the German General Staff to urge the troops to advance greatly increased the success of the expeditionary force's assault operations.

However, at this time, Bai Chongxi summoned two middle- and lower-level officers, Li Dachao and Guo Meng.

"Li Dachao, Guo Meng" had nothing to be polite to these two old subordinates Bai Chongxi, and directly called them by their names.

"To" cynically, seeing that everyone is Li Dachao, who has a smiling face, and Guo Meng, who is not smiling, and Guo Meng, who is not smiling, and everyone seems to owe him money, are extremely serious at this moment, and they are extremely serious and listen to the instructions of General Bai Chongxi, the supreme commander of the expeditionary force.

"This 100,000-strong assault is an unprecedented move by our army, and I want to emphasize here that I don't want to fight all the way through, and the result is likely to be the annihilation of the entire army. What I want is to moisturize things silently, creeping in behind the Germans, and tactically achieving suddenness, and it's up to you two guys. From here to Lorraine, I need my reconnaissance troops to perform at the level of Shijie, to find out the deployment of the Germans on every road, and I hope that my army will advance to Lorraine without firing a single shot. ”

Li Dachao glanced at Guo Meng, who was expressionless, and said loudly: "The lowly post understands, the special service battalion of the First Division to which the lowly post belongs guarantees the completion of the reconnaissance mission. ”

Bai Chongxi nodded with satisfaction: "100,000 people will collide with the Germans no matter how careful they are in such a small area, so my Jihua is divided into two ways, so the probability of success is higher, you and Guo Meng's two battalions are the leaders of the two armies respectively, I ask you to do your best to open up a way forward for the whole army......"

Less than twenty kilometers away from Bai Chongxi, the commander of the French Verdun Army, General Nivel, was cursing Bai Chongxi loudly, and he was almost mad. This shijie doesn't bring such a playful person, originally he finally persuaded the British Prime Minister and the French Prime Minister to carry out a full-scale counterattack in the Verdun area. As a result, because of the arrival of this Chinese expeditionary force, I don't know what the situation was, Petain and Fuxi, who have always disagreed, actually joined forces to veto their own Jihua this time, even if French Prime Minister Clemenceau personally intervened, it was useless. Well, Nivel had to postpone embracing his beloved rank of marshal, silently changing from the commander of a campaign to the commander of a theater army group. As a result, something even more tragic happened, when he adjusted the entire Verdun defense line with the idea of using the Chinese as cannon fodder, the Chinese lost their positions so quickly in the face of the German offensive. God, these damned Chinese are armed according to the standard configuration of the British and French armies, and those 105 caliber howitzers alone will not make it so easy for the Germans. Now, with more than 200,000 French troops, he is guarding the entire Verdun area of Zuihou, and I don't know when the German hammer will unceremoniously smash down. To make matters worse, although there were hundreds of thousands of French troops less than a hundred kilometers away, it would still take several days for the army to fully move up. It was a tragedy, and Nivel looked at the cold sky and the vast drizzle, and he suddenly hoped that God would send down a pouring rain, lightning and thunder, and chop himself and the damned Chinese to death.

God seemed to have heard Admiral Nivel's prayer, and on the night of May 15, just as the Germans were preparing to attack the French line of defense, a thunderstorm came, and the trenches were immediately filled with muddy water, and the roaring lightning reflected on everyone's pale faces even more strangely. But God apparently only intended to fulfill the first half of Nivel's prayer, because not a single damned Chinese guy was killed by lightning all the time.

The roads became muddy after the rain, and the German follow-up units were asked to rest on the spot due to lack of supplies, and did not have to rush forward frantically. And in this quiet rainy night, two troops wearing steel helmets and raincoats were wearing waterproof boots and stepping on the muddy road towards the hinterland of the German army......

The most magical, exciting, and large-scale surprise attack in the history of the First Shijie War, Bai Chongxi's Iron Fist, began unceremoniously......

Although Marshal Bai Chongxi's final outcome was not satisfactory, this did not detract from his becoming one of the greatest military strategists of mankind in the 20th century, and he left an indelible mark in the military history of Shijie, and he even influenced the entire pattern of Shijie -- "Military History of the Twentieth Century", written by Powell, a four-star general in the United States.

Bai Chongxi's Iron Fist operation almost changed the course of the entire First World War, not only subverting the previous style of play in the European war tactically, but also accelerating the process of the entire European war strategically. We can even conclude that this was an act of genius, one of the few shining lights in the whole of the First World War - "A History of People in the Twentieth Century", by French President Charles de Gaulle.