Joseph I wanted to help Germany for two reasons, first, Austria-Hungary bordered Germany, and there were many German-speaking areas on the border, and these German-speaking regions also had the momentum of independence, and Joseph I wanted to help Germany in exchange for Germany not supporting the independence of the German-speaking areas.

Second, Ukraine bordered Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia in the Austro-Pop-Hungarian Empire, and people in these regions also wanted independence, and Joseph I feared that China would use Ukraine as a base to support the independence of Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia after Ukraine entered China's sphere of influence.

Only then did Joseph I send troops into Ukraine to fight alongside the German army.

Austria-Hungary used to have a strong army, but in recent years, as China under Lin Yuan has continued to come up with new weapons, the world's weapons and equipment have undergone great changes, and various countries have incorporated tank-based vehicles into their armies, and various countries also want to have aircraft and missile warships, but they do not have such strong technical strength after all, and they can't get these things.

It took a lot of money to integrate vehicles into the army, but the economic strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not allow them to burn too much, so their troops were only equipped with some cars, basically no tanks, and Joseph I sent troops in the hope of fighting for the German army.

At 9 a.m. on April 9, the Austro-Crarian 25th Division entered Ukraine, and although Austria-Hungary was a dual empire, the Austrian emperor held military power, so Joseph I could mobilize troops to fight.

The most important political, economic and cultural center of Ukraine in this era is Kiev, so the competition between the two sides will revolve around Kiev, and the whole of Ukraine is a plain, so this battle will be an armored offensive and defensive battle in the plain area.

Moltke the Younger did not dare to let the Austro-Hungarian army rush to the forefront, so let them be behind the German 2nd Heavy Division.

On the Chinese side, the 7th and 39th Divisions marched together, and at 4 p.m. on April 9, they arrived at the small town of Kuks, 95 kilometers from Kiev, and Xiao Yingwu immediately dispatched drones and scouts to reconnoiter the enemy's situation with a single means.

China's UAVs at this time have also been updated, the batch on the Beijing ship is no longer usable, and the newly designed UAVs are equipped with higher-definition cameras and have stronger reconnaissance capabilities.

UAV reconnaissance found only sporadic German tanks, while a large number of German tanks were not found, which is not surprising, the German army could not expose the tanks to the Chinese, it would definitely use anti-reconnaissance camouflage, and the sporadic tanks found by the UAV may also be false targets set by the German army.

Aerial reconnaissance also found a unit ten kilometers behind the German army, Xiao Yingwu was very surprised to see the troops in the photo, because this unit did not pay attention to anti-aerial reconnaissance, and was actually discovered by a drone.

Xiao Yingwu thought for a while and decided that this unit had just been transferred and had not had time to camouflage, so he notified the theater air force and dispatched bombers to bomb this unit.

This force is the Austro-Hungarian army, and their military qualities are not bad, and they know that counter-reconnaissance methods should be used, but after all, they have just entered Ukraine and have not yet poured out their hands to carry out large-scale camouflage.

The bombers of the Chinese Air Force arrived a little more than twenty minutes later and dropped bombs on the heads of the Austro-Hungarian 25th Division, but these bombs did not cause much damage to the Austro-Hungarian army, because the range of aerial bombs was limited after all, and the Austro-Hungarian army was very scattered.

Moltke Jr. soon received the news that the Austro-Hungarian army was attacked, and he immediately realized that the Chinese army had made a move against Ukraine!

Little Moltke hurriedly reported to Schlieffen, hoping to get the order to take the initiative, but what he didn't expect was that Schlieffen actually ordered him to retreat on all fronts! Not only the troops in Ukraine were withdrawn, including those stationed in Belarus, but also the troops of Lithuania were withdrawn to Poland.

Although Moltke was unwilling, he was a rigid soldier, and he had long engraved the word "obedience" in his bone marrow, and immediately ordered a retreat when he heard the order.

As soon as the German army retreated, Xiao Yingwu found out, Xiao Yingwu was very surprised, he could not guess the strategy of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, his first reaction was that the German army wanted to lure the enemy deeper, so he reported the situation on the battlefield to Lin Yuan, and ordered the troops to stand by.

After receiving Xiao Yingwu's report, Lin Yuan also received information from the direction of Belarus and Lithuania, which said that the German 1st and 3rd Heavy Divisions also began to retreat, and Lin Yuan immediately realized that the retreat of the German army in the Ukrainian direction was not an isolated action, but the overall action of the German army.

Then why did the Germans retreat as a whole? Lin Yuan remembered the matter of Germany's proposal to possess Poland during the negotiations, and then thought of the fiasco suffered by the Fourth and Fifth Heavy Divisions due to insufficient logistical supplies, and suddenly understood that Germany wanted to gather troops to Poland and then stick to Poland.

Lin Yuan immediately instructed Xiao Yingwu to enter Kiev, and at the same time ordered the 5th and 6th Divisions of the Siberian Front on the Smolensk front to enter Minsk. As for Lithuania, Lin Yuan sent envoys to talk with Surenweil, the leader of the Lithuanian independence forces.

Xiao Yingwu immediately marched after receiving the order, and at one o'clock in the morning of April 10, the two divisions encircled the 25th Austro-Hungarian Division, and the 25th Division resisted for less than an hour before being completely annihilated.

The soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian 25th Division are also the same as the German soldiers, they will choose to surrender after losing their combat effectiveness, so many Austro-Hungarian soldiers have surrendered, and the soldiers of the 7th Division have been interrogated and found that they are Austro-Khalinarian people, and they can't help but be surprised, and immediately report to the above, Xiao Yingwu immediately reported to Lin Yuan after receiving the news.

Lin Yuan was also taken aback when he received the report, thinking to himself why Austria-Hungary was still involved? In my time, the First World War started because of Austria-Hungary, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Bosnia-Herzegovina War and the Kosovo War broke out here.

Lin Yuan then decided to ignore the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the first time, let it worry about its own affairs, and I will first stabilize the part of Ukraine, so Lin Yuan instructed Xiao Yingwu not to spread the news of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's dispatch of troops first, as if this incident did not happen.