1890 King of Southeast Asia

"Commander, we can't fight like this." Guo Liang picked up the phone and started complaining.

The crying child gets the milk, Guo Liang knows this well.

"We just repelled the Ottoman attack, how much did you lose?" Li Yunfei was almost immune to Guo Liang's complaints.

"The casualties are huge! Commander, the machine gunners have to fight back against the enemy's shells, and our artillery is not as good as theirs... Alas~" Guo Liang sighed in a low voice, his tone was very heavy.

"Don't sigh, it's as if we lost the battle. How many casualties are there? Does the 5+9th Regiment still have combat effectiveness?" Li Yunfei's face was full of black lines.

Based on Guo Liang's tone, he can guarantee that the casualties of the 5+9th Regiment are not heavy.

"Yes! Our regiment can still hold on, but the soldiers stay in this muddy trench every day, and their morale is inevitably reduced. I wonder if I can transfer a sum of food and clothing to comfort them?" Guo Liang shouted into the phone in a loud voice.

The sound was so loud that Li Yunfei involuntarily took the receiver away and cleaned his ears.

"Give it if you want, why are you shouting so loudly? Are you afraid that I won't give it?" Li Yunfei said unhappily.

"The construction of the field airport has entered the final stage. The shortage of materials will soon be alleviated and the supply will return to normal."

"As for the comfort supplies, the division headquarters will transfer 8 sheep to you, you can kill them yourself, 100 kilograms of dried vegetables, 200 half-kilogram cans of pork, and 100 kilograms of bacon."

"In addition, cigarettes, sugar and other rations will be issued at double the standard for one week. Drinking is not allowed during the war, so keep the wine and talk about it when you return to the rear."

Li Yunfei thought about it and only gave these things.

There are not many things, but there are not a lot. After all, it is an additional supply on the basis of the standard ration, enough for a regiment to have two or three good meals.

The transportation capacity is insufficient. The main transportation capacity should be used to transport war materials, and a part of the transportation capacity should be allocated to the field airport. His division headquarters does not have much surplus food.

There were bullets and shells, as well as biscuits, flour, luncheon meat, and canned food, though not much, but there was some. Bacon and fresh mutton were not easy to come by.

The bacon was transported by the military in the gaps between the ammunition boxes, totaling 1,000 jin, and was cut into 708 pieces and transported.

As for the sheep, they were purchased near Birezhik. 100 were purchased, and there were more than 20 left to eat. As for buying more, it was not easy to buy.

Forced purchases or even robbery would only intensify the resistance of the locals and disperse the already insufficient troops.

"Okay! Thank you, division commander. Would you like to come and have some food together?" Guo Liang agreed readily.

It was a matter of whether there was a date or not, but now it was good to have mutton soup.

8 sheep, you can kill them yourself and keep the offal. The offal plus the meat, one sheep can produce dozens of kilograms of meat and more than ten kilograms of offal, and 4 sheep can stew enough soup for the whole regiment.

It doesn't matter if there is not enough meat, you can add something else, such as dried vegetables, luncheon meat, etc.

It's freezing cold, drink a bowl of mutton soup, the taste, ugh...

"Don't be funny, the army headquarters has received a telegram, General Wang Xu is coming to the front line for inspection, the 5+9th Regiment's coastal defense line is the forefront of the battle with the enemy, and is definitely within the inspection range."

"Be vigilant during this period, don't let the enemy sneak up." Li Yunfei shook his head speechlessly.

Guo Liang is afraid that he will bring people to eat!

"Division Commander, this..."

boo!

Guo Liang just opened his mouth, and the Ottoman artillery bombardment began.

Guo Liang had already thought of this, and the soldiers of the 5+9th Regiment have basically entered the fortifications and huddled, waiting for the artillery bombardment to pass.

"Division Commander, listen, there are still artillery fire outside, why come here to inspect? Here you can only hide in the headquarters like a mouse, there is no point."

"Why not let them go to the 60th Regiment, they can take the initiative to launch an attack over there, here we are just hurting each other across the river, there is nothing to see."

Guo Liang said with some complaints.

"This matter is not for you and me to decide, obey orders!"

"Also, don't do anything moth, don't do face projects, General Wang Xu has been in battle for a long time, if you want to do something small, don't implicate me, don't implicate the 509th Regiment."

"Clean up according to the combat regulations, don't worry about the rest, understand? That's it!"

Li Yunfei finished speaking and hung up the phone.

"Division Commander, isn't General Wang guiding the work in Jerusalem? I heard before that Commander Zheng was going to be transferred back and General Wang would be transferred to preside over the Arab war, but now it seems that this is not the case."

In the division headquarters, the chief of staff looked at this scene and asked in confusion.

"Jerusalem? Ha~~" Li Yunfei shook his head.

"If nothing unexpected happens, Admiral Wang's visit this time is just a simple inspection of the frontline situation. He will eventually return to Chang'an to report the war situation to His Majesty."

"The war situation in Arabia is far from the point where they can be used, unless the 1st Army is also transferred here to increase the number of troops to 500,000."

"But I think the General Staff does not want to do this. Fighting like this means a decisive battle. Before we have completed sufficient preparations, the decisive battle cannot be fought."

"Otherwise, even if the main force of the Ottoman Empire is defeated, the fruits of victory will mostly be eaten by the Russians."

"Look at the map. It will take at least one month for a soldier to arrive from Southeast Asia."

"Across the Black Sea, several armies of the Russian Empire with millions of troops are stationed there, and they can land in Istanbul within two days."

"If we really want to fight a decisive battle, we will do our best, Russia will eat meat, and we may not even be able to drink enough soup. It is not worth it to exchange our brothers' lives for Russia's meat."

Li Yunfei shook his head and did not mention Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has been cleaned up by the 14th Division. Li Yunfei does not know the specific situation, but he knows that Jerusalem has been half destroyed.

Wang Xu took action, and Li Yunfei did not think that there would be much left in Jerusalem.

…………

Time came to early February.

Many things happened in February. For example, after the weather warmed up, Britain and France launched an offensive on the Somme River again, but the Germans had taken advantage of the winter to build the east bank of the Somme River as solid as a rock, and the British and French coalition forces' offensive undoubtedly failed.

Then, after the British and French coalition forces lost more than 400,000 people in total and the total number of casualties exceeded one million, they could not attack anymore and stopped the Battle of the Somme.

Because of the existence of anti-inflammatory drugs, the medical level of the British and French coalition forces has undergone a qualitative change. A large number of wounded survived and then returned to the battlefield, so that the intensity of the battlefield was even greater than before, which also led to an extremely high death rate.

Germany paid the price of 600,000 casualties, including 200,000 deaths, and won the Battle of the Somme - although the British claimed that they had won, the weak offensive and heavy casualties made it a bit forced.

From the perspective of containing the German troops in the Verdun battlefield, there is still some truth, but if it is just a containment, it is far from that.

A few days later, the Germans also stopped the attack in the direction of Verdun. In this battle, the Germans suffered more than 400,000 casualties, more than 100,000 deaths, the British suffered 160,000 casualties, more than 60,000 deaths, and the French suffered more than 500,000 casualties, more than 180,000 deaths.

On the two battlefields, the French died a total of more than 300,000 people, and the cumulative casualties exceeded one million soldiers. The Germans' goal has actually been achieved-draining the last drop of blood of the French.

France has a total population of only about 41 million, and the number of people available for conscription is less than 6 million - the number of healthy men within the conscription age range.

Generally speaking, these people are also the main force of social production and development in the next 20 years, because the proportion of women participating in work is very low at present, so they are the main productive force.

In less than a year, the future main force of French society has permanently lost more than 1/20, and many of the remaining wounded have left lifelong disabilities and even become a burden.

And these are just the casualties of the two battles. The war is still going on. God knows how many men the French can still keep at the last moment.

However, it is certain that they must import men.

Although the two battles also killed more than 300,000 Germans, the total population of Germany exceeded 65 million, 1.5 times that of the French, and there was still enough energy to continue the attack.

Moreover, the Germans were already doing this. Shortly after Verdun stopped the attack, rumbling artillery sounded in many places on the Western Front, which was the prelude to the German attack.

At this time, although the French still had two army groups and 20 divisions in reserve, they were already afraid. 20 divisions meant that the French had only one chance to choose for an attack of the same scale.

Once the wrong choice was made, it would be another Battle of Paris.

So, France began to frantically call its allies Britain, Russia, and China, asking for increased support for France.

Starting from February 4, in order to save the war, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II, the "Savior of Europe", the Russian Empire increased the strength of the Southwest Army Group to 650,000 and launched multiple rapid assaults on the Austro-Hungarian army in front of it.

This battle was commanded by General Brusilov, who was a main attacker.

On February 4, the Russian army launched a rapid artillery bombardment on a 450-kilometer front. After a short bombardment, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops began to assault.

At this time, the Austro-Hungarian army was hiding deep in the fortifications or in the rear according to the "convention", avoiding the bombardment or reinforcing the two-line offensive.

According to convention, the bombardment would last at least several hours, and they had plenty of time.

Then, the Russian army seized the opportunity and succeeded in the assault.

The panicked Austro-Hungarian army collapsed in one blow, and the Russian army's multi-point breakthrough method made the Austro-Hungarian commander unclear about the main attack direction of the Russian army, and dared not easily send troops to support.

Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire also dispatched an army to help the Ottoman Empire fight, so that the Ottoman Empire could hold on and the front-line defenders would be weakened.

By February 8, the Russian army had advanced 25 kilometers, captured more than 200,000 prisoners, and the Austro-Hungarian front-line positions were basically destroyed.

This battle was called the "trial version of blitzkrieg", but the Russians did not attach importance to this tactic, but the Germans saw its value.

If the battle ended here, it would still be a great victory, and so many things would not happen later...

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