The sixth year of the Republic of China, March 15, 1917, is a day worth remembering for the Chinese nation.

In the French port of Marseille, a busy dock is receiving the various supplies sent by the African and Asian colonies through the Mediterranean, which are the basis for supporting the French to continue to fight.

There were no more French people to be seen on the docks, and in France all men under the age of fifty were sent to the front, where they were to engage in zuihou stumbling with the Germans until a drop of their own zuihou blood was shed. The people working on the docks are all yellow-skinned and black-eyed Asians, Chinese to be precise.

These cheap laborers, all hired from China at the expense of the British and French governments, were hard-working, could work fourteen hours a day, and never complained about the treatment or picked the job. This pleased the French bosses, accustomed to workers' strikes: "These Chinese from the East are much more industrious than Arabs and blacks, and these people are really good workers." ”

In fact, the French boss misunderstood, in fact, the reason why these Chinese laborers who lost their land in their hometown worked so hard was that they wanted to save more money to go home and buy land, and second, they were still oppressed by the foreman. If they dare not work hard, the French may have little to do with them, but these reactionary foremen will bring their thugs to beat them severely.

Yu Ba and Xiong Er were representatives of this reactionary foreman, who joined forces to take charge of all the 800 Chinese laborers in the port terminal of Marseille. However, their foreman was not appointed by the Nationalist Government, but self-appointed.

Speaking of which, Yu Ba and Xiong Er were the same as all the laborers when they set off in China, or even worse. Both of them are from Tianmen, Hubei, and originally lived a rich life as small farmers in their hometown, where "the lake is wide and the world is full". However, these two are well-known idlers in the village, stealing chickens and dogs, helping idlers to fight, and never being alone, although they are thirty years old, they are still singles. Originally, I was thinking that I would eat east and take west, and tease the widow in the village for a lifetime, but I didn't think that one day a team came to the village and wanted to forcibly buy the land of the rich man's house in the village, saying that it was a military reclamation farm. How can this be, the land was taken away, what did the brothers eat, and Yu Ba and Xiong Er took the lead in making trouble. The result is naturally a tragedy, Wang Zhenyu's youth army is even more fierce than the forced demolition brigade in later generations, a group of security troops with military sticks at Yu Ba is a beating of them, as for how ruthless it is, anyway, these two will see the blue gray military uniform of the youth army in the future.

There was no way, the strong laborers in the village who were able to farm and feed were incorporated into the military reclamation farm as agricultural technicians, and those who seemed to be honest were sent to the Wuhan factory as workers. And like Yu Ba, who has neither ability nor craftsmanship, can't help it, there is no place to ask for it, Zuihou has no choice, and the two signed up to go to Europe as laborers.

The days on board were miserable, and all the British and French could do was to ensure that the laborers were supplied with fresh water and food. During the long two-month voyage, if someone gets sick, I'm sorry, although they won't be thrown into the sea to feed the sharks like the slave traders. But they will also be immediately quarantined and then disembarked from the ship at the next port, and will be dismissed with just a little loss of living expenses (many years later, the Chinese ** Committee made a ** memorandum on this and filed a claim for compensation with the British and French governments).

However, after arriving in France, Yu Ba and Xiong Er, the shrewdness of the two Hubei people, came out, and they really deserved to be the nine-headed birds in the sky and the Hubei Yankees on the ground. They soon found their own way, first entangled a group of thugs from the laborers to form a so-called gang, in order to protect the laborers, and helped the laborers to successfully control the laborers of the entire port, and obtained the power to pump water from the labor income. Later, they secretly smuggled household goods and luxury goods through personal relations with freighter sailors, and then transferred them to local wealthy people in France at high prices. You must know that during this period, the French government has begun to control the national economy and the distribution of materials, and daily necessities are controlled by the state, and many French families are struggling with food and clothing.

In this way, Yu Ba and Xiong Er changed from laborers to local wealthy people in France, and actually lived an extremely enviable life in this turbulent and war-torn era.

"Brother Yu, I heard that you went to find that big-breasted Camille again last night? How's that, isn't that girl very exciting! Why don't you change your brother and try your hand," Xiong Er** asked Yu Ba, who was resting on a beach chair.

"Mind your, don't think that Lao Tzu doesn't know, that tall Mary was succeeded by your kid, you don't have the idea of beating the old woman" Yu Ba is worthy of being the eldest brother, and he unceremoniously taught Xiong Er.

Xiong Er said with an unhappy face: "Yes, isn't it just a girl?" As long as there is bread and money, they don't kneel and beg us to do it! Besides, these girls all have men, but their men are all on the front line, so I don't know if they can come back? What's wrong with our brothers exchanging games and not losing money......"

At this moment, the whistle of the ship entering the port came from a distance, making Yu Ba and Xiong Er, who was talking nonsense, sit up in surprise and look into the distance. Both of them thought to themselves: "What day is today, why are so many ships coming into the port, it seems that the time has come for our brothers to get rich." ”

At the far end of the horizon, 120,000-ton freighters are lining up to enter the port. If Yu Ba and Xiong Er look at the telescope, they will find that these freighters are flying the Tiger Flag belonging to the Youth Army.

When the first ship docked, the Chinese laborers who toiled on the wharf did not change, they were still numb loading and unloading the cargo, bag after bag of cashew nuts from Vietnam was loaded onto a truck and left the wharf for its destination.

A group of Chinese laborers who were ready to pick up the goods walked to the side of the ship, only to find that the French tally supervisor who usually scolded them at every turn did not follow, but lit a cigarette in violation of the regulations on the spot and smoked it fiercely.

Immediately after that, a moving wooden ladder was passed on, and the person who walked down was actually Chinese.

It would not be unusual if it was only Chinese, and laborers were sent here from China almost every day. But this time it was different, the workers who received the goods were surprised to see that the Chinese soldiers in blue-gray military uniforms and fully armed walked down one after another, neatly disembarking from the boat, and then lined up at the dock. There was almost an infantry battalion on each boat, and looking at these energetic soldiers, the laborers suddenly realized that this was our own Chinese army.

I don't know who started it, the originally mentally numb, godless workers suddenly shouted excitedly, they stepped forward to look at these soldiers from the motherland, and at this moment they felt the pride of being Chinese. Not far behind them, the French tally supervisor took a puff of his cigarette, then threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it out with his foot, and turned away.

Yes, since the Opium War in 1840, this is the first time that the Chinese army has gone abroad and appeared on the land of a great power. This is the 1st Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the 22nd Field Division of the Future Youth Army, and they are very honored to be the first Chinese army to be sent to Europe. Looking at their compatriots who cheered for themselves, they felt a heavy burden on their shoulders.

At this moment, on the lighthouse not far from the port, General Bai Chongxi, who had just been appointed by the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government as the commander-in-chief of the European Expeditionary Force, tried his best to restrain his emotions, gently put down the telescope in his hand, and then said in a voice that was almost inaudible to others: "Although it is late, it is finally here." ”

Also excited were the officers behind him, Bai Chongxi seemed to feel their maneuvering, and commanded softly: "Liao Lei, Zhang Zizhong, how many of you are not going to receive your own troops?" ”

Liao Lei and several other officers couldn't bear it anymore, and when they heard this, they gave a military salute and trotted down the tower. provoked Bai Chongxi and the other officers for a while.

At this moment, on the dock, Brigadier General Jiang Zhongzheng, director of the Political Guidance of the First Division, was standing at the forefront of the queue in a brigadier gown, waiting for the arrival of Commander Liao Lei. According to the requirements of Britain and France, the number of expeditionary forces that arrived in the first batch was 230,000 people, exactly 9 field divisions.

Bai Chongxi, commander of the expeditionary force, immediately set up nine divisions into three corps:

Liao Lei, commander of the First Army, Li Pinxian, commander of the Second Army of the First, Second, and Third Divisions, Tang Shengzhi, commander of the Third Army of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Divisions, and He Yingqin, Xia Wei, Ye Kaixin, Zhang Zizhong, Li Hongkui, and Zhou Zhengming of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Divisions, served as division commanders, and the commanders of the other three divisions were concurrently served by army commanders.

Wei Lihuang, Chen Cheng, Luo Zhuoying, Zheng Zheng, Deng Yanda, Gu Zhutong, Hu Zongnan, Zhang Fakui, Zhang Zhizhong, Xiong Shihui, Xue Yue, Zheng Jiemin, Wang Tianpei, Sun Zhen and other 36 people served as the head of the regiment. It is worth mentioning that after the settlement of the Southwest Incident, a large number of soldiers from the Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan armies were not added to the 16th to 21st divisions, but mixed with new recruits and entered the expeditionary force. In particular, many regimental and battalion-level officers are mostly used by these people. Among the regiment commanders, such as Wang Mingzhang, Wang Zhanxu, Luo Zezhou, Wang Lingji, Pan Wenhua, Tang Shizun, Tian Songyao, Fan Shaozeng, Guo Xunqi, Wang Jialie, Long Yun, and Lu Han were all from the southwest, and this time they were also sent to the European front.

Bai Chongxi initially thought that Wang Zhenyu meant to take the opportunity to consume these non-descendants, but after more than a month of contact, he found that these people have a common characteristic, that is, they are very talented, and they are all bold and careful masters. Therefore, Bai Chongxi did not shy away from the previous backgrounds of these people, and all of them were promoted to the head of the regiment. The problem of the expeditionary force now is not that there are officers, but that graduates of military academies fill all the positions, and what is lacking is military directors who can lead the troops to victory at a critical moment. The most basic requirement for this type of people is to be familiar with the European battlefield, and the above-mentioned people only arrived at the end of December last year, and they could not be reused, but because of the late arrival of the expeditionary force, this problem was finally overcome......