Walking into the building where the Mesde Army Garrison Headquarters was located, although the corpses here had been removed by the soldiers, the thick blood in the air and the blood stains in the room could not be cleaned up. Bai Chongxi, who had a serious face, looked at De Gaulle, who was excited, and said in surprise: "Dear Charles, my friend, you look so happy?" ”

De Gaulle could no longer suppress his happiness and said cheerfully: "White, my friend, it is difficult for you to understand the happiness of a Frenchman, you know? We are making history, and for forty-five years, we were the first French soldiers to set foot in the Lorraine region, and this is a shame that we have always remembered and never dared to forget. Can you understand? When the news reached Paris, it was estimated that the entire Champs-Elysées would be boiling. ”

Bai Chongxi is not difficult to understand the feelings of the French, but he still feels that de Gaulle is a little too excited, if this is calculated according to the thinking logic of the French, the Chinese people must not die of depression, since the first Opium War in 1840, this China has not had a day of worry, including the credit of you French. I knew that I had persuaded the commander to participate in the Allied war at the beginning, so that when the Louvre was captured, I could rob it first and then order it to be set on fire, and then I would also leave a ruin for you French to mourn once a year. Thinking about it far, de Gaulle's words reminded Bai Chongxi.

"Staff officer, send a telegram to the Allied Command, the main force of our Chinese European Expeditionary Force and the French Advisory Group Captain de Gaulle captured the German town of Metz, killed and captured countless German soldiers, captured a number of supplies, and asked the Allied Forces to launch a frontal counterattack at Verdun to expand the results of the battle."

At this time, a French officer ran over and talked to de Gaulle for a while, and De Gaulle said to Bai Chongxi even more excitedly: "Bai, a big gain, we found 100 210mm caliber naval heavy guns in the German arsenal in Metz. ”

Bai Chongxi had never seen such a big cannon, so he immediately rushed over with De Gaulle and the others to take a look, so the disaster of the German army began......

Admiral Nivelle was now ready to commit suicide, and after watching the horrific scene of the hundreds of thousands of French troops retreating from the fourth line of defense, he asked his staff to send a report to the War Department in Paris that Verdun was about to fall.

When the telegram reached Paris, Prime Minister Clemenceau, who was presiding over a military meeting at the War Office, slapped the table with great grief and shouted: "Gentlemen, the French Third Republic has reached the most critical moment, and it is time for us to show courage to defend Paris." ”

Marshal Pétain, commander-in-chief of the French army, and Marshal Fuxi, chief of the general staff, who were at the meeting site, looked at each other dumbfounded, they had deployed 500,000 troops in the Verdun area, and they were actually penetrated by the German army in just two days, God, what happened?

Marshal Fuxi roared angrily: "We should now hold those cowardly Chinese ** responsible, we handed over the most important positions in France to them, but they were unceremoniously thrown to the Germans, and we must not let them go." ”

Marshal Pétain shook his head when he heard this, and said: "Now we are afraid that we do not have the time and energy to do this, Your Excellency Marshal Fuxi, we may have to spend some time to see whether this army, which has already driven to Verdun, should be transferred back to guard Paris, or should we continue to advance and retake Verdun?" ”

Then, in front of Prime Minister Clemenceau, a new round of quarrels began, and the captain's staff officer, who was holding a telegram from the Chinese Expeditionary Force, stood at the door of the conference room and did not dare to enter for a while. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, after all, everyone here was sixty or seventy years old, so everyone got tired of the noise and decided to stop and eat something. The staff officer who delivered the telegram had the courage to come in, and Clemenceau felt a little pain in his heart, so he did not hurry to get up, he took the telegram from the staff officer's hand and looked at it, his mind was suddenly filled with a wonderful feeling, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief, and then immediately handed the telegram to Marshal Petain who was standing beside him.

Marshal Petain smiled knowingly at the telegram, and then said to Marshal Fuxi and the others with a confused expression: "Now, gentlemen, I think our quarrel just now is all in vain, and if this damned telegram had been sent in at the beginning, we should have gone and celebrated with champagne now." ”

So the poor staff officer became the object of rebuke from these bigwigs, who did not tell themselves in time such important news as the French army (de Gaulle and his five hundred brethren were promoted to the representatives of the French army at this moment) and the capture of Metz by the Chinese expeditionary force. Everyone was dying of hunger, and if it weren't for the lack of strength, these stubborn old men would have been eager to beat up this poor little staff officer with their own hands.

But this unhappiness was soon forgotten by everyone, Metz, our army actually conquered Metz, this is the first time that the French army has entered the Lorraine region in forty-five years, and it is a shame!

Chancellor Clemenceau, who has always had a strong personality, experienced the fall of Verdun and the reconquest of Lorraine (the French are really good at expanding their achievements, and the recapture of Metz is equivalent to the reconquest of Lorraine?). Under the alternating impact of this sad and happy news, I couldn't help but cry with joy and happiness, this damn war has been going on for too long, and the pressure I have borne is indeed too great.

I don't know who was the first to take the lead in singing the impassioned Marseillaise, and everyone responded.

And Marshal Fuxi's brain was spinning fast, and he jumped on the table with all his might, regardless of his age, and shouted: "Gentlemen, this is the victory of the attack, the victory of France, we need to tell the news of this victory to all France, and let all the citizens celebrate with us, long live France!" ”

"Long live France" Marshal Petain did not agree that this was a victory of the offensive, but he did not like to argue about anything at this time, and he shouted long live.

Then Petain also shouted loudly: "I propose to promote our Captain de Gaulle to colonel of the Honorary Regiment of Lorraine, and he and his comrades are the pride of the French Third Republic." "On this occasion of celebration, no one would disagree with that.

The news of the capture of Metz spread like wings throughout Paris and France, and now everyone knew that the Germans were in serious trouble.

And the name of de Gaulle also spread throughout France at this moment, when the young colonel (who had just been promoted) captured Metz with his Legion of Honor and the Chinese Expeditionary Force. The Chinese laborers, who had been looked down upon by the French for several hours, became old friends of the French people at this moment, the owner of the bar announced that free drinks would be served tonight to celebrate the victory of the French army, and happy Parisian men would go up and hug and kiss every Asian who looked like Chinese, and then say in French: "Thank you, our friend." ”

Even the Japanese were stained, and Nagata Tetsuyama was kissed several times in a row when they went out shopping, and the French treated them as Chinese.

Hirota Hiroki shook his head dissatisfiedly, these French guys really don't pay attention to hygiene, but Nagata Tetsuyama sighed: "This time the empire's continental policy is in trouble, and the victory of the Chinese expeditionary force in Metz is equivalent to the victory of the empire in the Russo-Japanese War." This ancient empire may be on the verge of rising, which may not be good news for the Great Japanese Empire. ”

On May 17, in London, in Paris, and in Rome, the news of the Chinese expeditionary force and the French army's capture of the German town of Metz spread like wings throughout Shijie.

Chinese Minister to France Hu Weide was summoned separately by French Prime Minister Clemenceau last night, and Clemenceau expressed his gratitude to our Minister Hu Weide very sincerely, and at the same time apologized for his actions at the reception the night before: "Mr. Hu, we did not know at that time that your country's army was actually carrying out such a great jihua, and now it seems that they succeeded, they are the best soldiers, and you Chinese are also our French people's eternal old friends (old friends of burning the Old Summer Palace?). Preemptive old friends of Vietnam? Old friends who went to Shanghai and Guangzhou to open concessions? ）。 ”

This was the first time that Hu Weide had won the respect of a foreign power since he entered politics in the former Qing Dynasty, and the root of all this came from the performance of the Chinese Expeditionary Force of the Nationalist Government.

Hu Weide did not hesitate to send a report to China: "The Chinese European Expeditionary Force has won a great victory and conquered the important German town of Metz, and the coalition forces are jubilant. ”

This 25-character good news immediately caused a sensation when it returned to China, and at the beginning of the dispatch, both north and south, they felt that they were sending cannon fodder to Europe.

Even Wang Zhenyu himself has a little bottom in his heart, whether the expeditionary force can fight or not, and whether it can win or not. Now it seems that the Chinese European Expeditionary Force was not only able to fight, but also to win. To quote the words of a commentator's article in the "National Daily": "Wash away the century-old shame of the Chinese nation and regain national self-confidence." ”

According to Liang Qichao's explanation, there are no Han and ethnic minorities in China, because the Han nationality itself is also a multi-ethnic mixed existence, so China is a single ethnic state, that is, the Chinese nation. This interpretation also had a great influence on China's ethnic policy later......

The whole Shijie was shocked, and even the Germans were no exception, and the actual Germans said that they would mobilize troops as soon as possible to recover the Lorraine region and eliminate the Chinese army, just as they easily eliminated the Boxers who would only kill their own compatriots. This is undoubtedly telling Shijie that the results released by the French are real.

Now it was the turn of Field Marshal Hindenburg and Ludendorff to have a headache, because Field Marshal Petain, who had always advocated defense, had just given an order that Nivel must hold the fortress of Verdun, and it did not matter if the whole army was gone. Petain even sent a separate telegram to Nivel, saying that he would not mind court-martialing if he dared to retreat, and that he would replace the French word coward with his name. At the same time, Petain also ordered the French army units that were carrying out the reinforcement of Verdun to change the operation Jihua, and now Jihua is on the offensive, in short, since after three years of war, there was a breakthrough point in the battlefield for the first time, if you don't grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, then Petain, the marshal, can basically be inappropriate. Offensive! This is going to make the Germans miserable......