"For example, the idea you just proposed, leaving two airships to strengthen the air defense in the rear, but can only two airships stop the First Fleet or the Second Fleet of the Empire? At the same time, due to the lack of two airships on the front line and the lack of air force for attack, it may be difficult to smoothly break through the blockade of the Imperial Air Force and suppress the ground artillery positions in a timely and effective manner, and this will lead to greater resistance to our ground offensive troops, resulting in a series of vicious chain reactions. ”

"In order to avoid the above-mentioned unfavorable situation, we must concentrate on the use of the air force and put all the magic airships into the front line of the attack, of course, the price paid for this is that the rear is slightly empty, and it is very likely to prompt the Imperial Air Force to launch a sneak attack, but this is not entirely a bad thing, the enemy launched an air attack on our rear positions, which means that a part of the forces must be taken from the positions on the east coast, which gives our air force an opportunity to break through the blockade more quickly and bombard the enemy artillery positions."

After listening to Marshal Pavel's explanation, Jennifer shrugged and looked very unconvinced.

"I understand what His Excellency Marshal meant, to put it simply, you want to sacrifice the security of the rear position and even the headquarters in exchange for the superiority of the front-line air force, but is it really worth it?"

"General Edric, it's a bit risky, but I think it's worth trying!" Marshal Pavel looked solemn and said in a firm tone, "The Imperial Air Force and our Air Force carry out the same bombing mission, but the risks are very different. On our positions, all the Magic Crystal anti-aircraft guns are equipped with 'proximity fuses' with higher air defense efficiency, and even without air support, only ground artillery fire can effectively prevent attacks from the air, and this is precisely a major potential advantage of our army over the enemy, and the arrangements I have made for the air force are precisely based on the premise of giving full play to this advantage. ”

Jennifer was about to refute, but was interrupted by Roland raising her hand.

"I have listened to the opinions of both Marshal Pavel and General Edric, and personally, I agree with His Excellency the Marshal. If there are no other objections, let's settle the battle plan like this. ”

Roland's words fully upheld the absolute authority of Field Marshal Pavel in the command, and all the generals present - except Jennifer - disagreed, and the pre-war meeting was declared.

After the meeting was dismissed, Roland stayed behind to discuss the details of tomorrow's operation with Marshal Pavel alone. Marshal Pavel smiled bitterly and winked at him, and whispered: "'Little Pepper' is about to explode, why don't Your Highness go and appease him?" Otherwise, none of us will want to stop tonight. ”

Roland looked back, and sure enough, he saw Jennifer walking around the door of the conference room, looking extremely anxious.

Roland sighed helplessly and walked over to pat her on the shoulder.

"It's none of your business here, why don't you go back and have a good rest."

"Your Highness, listen to me—" Jennifer was eager to explain something, but was stopped by Roland waving her hand.

"Jennifer, I know what you're worried about, there are some things that are not convenient to say now, but I can assure you that if the Imperial Air Force dares to come and attack our rear positions tomorrow, the result is destined to run headlong into the iron plate, not only will you not be able to get a bargain, but you will also suffer a big loss."

"Your Highness, are you kidding?" Jennifer's black and white eyes flashed, and she looked at Roland in disbelief.

"It's a major matter related to the survival of countless soldiers and people in Lengxi Town, how dare I say it casually!" Roland glared at her angrily, "Don't worry, go to sleep, tell you a secret, in fact, our air force in the Far East is far more powerful than it shows, if you don't believe it, you can wait to see a good show tomorrow." ”

"How much strength does the Far Eastern Air Force have, isn't it clear to me, the deputy commander of the Air Force?" Jennifer reluctantly swallowed back the disrespectful words, and left the headquarters with a head full of doubts.

……

Roland inspected the positions on the Western Front in a high-profile manner under the escort of the Flying Dragon Knights, this kind of style that clearly wanted to be in the limelight, of course, could not hide the Imperial Vulture Sentinel who was stealth in the sky over Cold Creek Town day and night.

On the evening of May 5, the news that the Far Eastern Regent, together with the Flying Dragon Knights, had arrived in the town of Cold Creek and publicly declared a counteroffensive reached the headquarters of the Legion of the Eastern Expedition in the Olevy Fortress. Most of the imperial generals in the headquarters regarded the arrogant remarks made by the Far Eastern Regents during their inspection of the front-line troops as a political show, but Commander-in-Chief Engel immediately became vigilant and dispatched troops overnight to strengthen the defensive forces of the positions on the east bank.

In order to strengthen the air defense of the positions on the east coast, Commander-in-Chief Engel instructed Admiral Alvons Beck, commander of the Imperial Air Force, to personally lead the First Fleet of the Air Force to establish a warning zone over the positions on the east coast, and at the same time he also ordered Vice Admiral Holmzberg, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Imperial Air Force, to lead the Second Fleet of the Air Force to sit in the position on the west bank and be ready to support the First Fleet at any time.

At eight o'clock in the evening of May 5, the Imperial forces began to carry out large-scale emergency movements. Under the cover of the First and Second Fleets of the Imperial Air Force in the vast night, four large transport boats were dispatched en masse and airlifted two infantry divisions, one light cavalry division, and an artillery brigade mainly equipped with magic crystal anti-aircraft guns to the other side of the Zhuolang River, greatly expanding the strength of the positions on the east bank.

Such a large-scale airlift of troops and equipment cannot, of course, hide from the Far East garrison troops in Lengxi Town. It stands to reason that the Far Eastern Air Force should intervene to prevent the Imperial from massively increasing troops on the east coast, and General Engel was worried about this all night, personally sitting on the front line to supervise the airlift, and also took out all the air force to escort the transport fleet and guard against the Far Eastern Air Force that might appear at any time.

However, to his surprise, the night was very quiet, and the Far East side did not attempt to launch an air blockade, allowing General Engel to complete the plan to increase troops on the east bank as scheduled.

There must be something strange when things go wrong, and General Engel analyzed two possibilities from the unusually passive avoidance of war by the Far Eastern Air Force. First of all, the commanders of the Far East side may think that their air power is not enough to completely overwhelm the Imperial Air Force, and that it would take a great risk and pay a lot of casualties to send out an overnight sortie to block the airship crossing the river, and it would hinder the subsequent counteroffensive operations.

General Engel also hoped that the facts would be as optimistic as the above conjecture, but more than 20 years of experience in staff and command operations forced him to reject this overly optimistic conjecture.