Expedition to Europe

In September, the sky looked particularly high, the ground looked particularly green, and the wind looked particularly soft.

The Germans were particularly crazy on this day.

The German bombardment continued, accompanied by rain of shells. Heavy artillery would be involved, and each shell would cause great damage to the French, Chinese, and Germans.

The French artillery was also crazy, and the density of the shells was even greater than that of the Germans. If the German shells were drizzle, the French shells were torrential rain.

The distance between Qin Zhiyuan's position and the German starting position was always covered by dust and smoke stirred up by the shells, covering the large and small craters on the ground, covering the crazy charging German army, covering the dead bodies, and covering people's eyes and hearts.

At 4:30, a full hour and a half, the Germans finally retreated under the crazy attack of the French and German artillery. In this one and a half hour battle, the Germans left at least 4,000 bodies.

The Germans also made progress. Because of the fierce attack of the Germans, the left and right wing positions of Qin Zhiyuan's position had collapsed, and the Germans occupied those positions. Now the Germans have surrounded Qin Zhiyuan's position from three directions, and the position is in danger.

Because of the crazy attack of the Germans, Qin Zhiyuan and his men suffered heavy casualties. Within an hour and a half, more than half of the casualties of the newly formed Sixth Regiment of the Foreign Legion were left, with only 53 of the 130 infantrymen and 150 of the 180 auxiliary soldiers. The French suffered more casualties. Of the 460 French troops before the war, there are now less than 300 left, most of whom were injured, and many were seriously injured.

After the battle, Qin Zhiyuan sent a telegram to Ferdinand Foch. In the telegram, Qin Zhiyuan wrote: My left wing is retreating, my right wing is retreating, and my front is under fierce attack by the enemy. Great, I am attacking.

This telegram was not Qin Zhiyuan's original. It was a telegram sent by Foch himself to the then French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre during the Battle of the Marne. At that time, Foch led the Ninth Army under extremely difficult conditions and resolutely withstood the pincer attack of the German Third Army and the Second Army, ensuring the victory of the Battle of the Marne.

Although Foch had more soldiers and stronger forces at the time, Foch was in the same situation as Qin Zhiyuan now.

After receiving the telegram, Foch only replied with a simple sentence: They will not pass.

This is the famous slogan put forward by Henri Philippe Pétain, known as the "Savior of France" in the Battle of Verdun, which just ended. It was inspired by this slogan that the French won the victory of the Battle of Verdun.

Although he knew Pétain's behavior in World War II, Qin Zhiyuan could not despise Pétain because of unknown things because it had not happened yet. Especially at this special moment, Qin Zhiyuan clearly knew the meaning of this sentence.

Well, they will not pass, whether they are British or Germans.

After Qin Zhiyuan counted the casualties, he moved everyone into the tunnel, and then prepared to fight the Germans to the death in the tunnel.

The position has been surrounded on three sides, and Qin Zhiyuan's troops are almost gone. There are only a hundred people who can fight. They can no longer support the ground defense. They can only concentrate their defense forces and focus on the key position of the tunnel.

The Germans have begun indiscriminate shelling, which clearly means that they want to exchange lives for lives and use their superiority in manpower to pile Qin Zhiyuan and his men to death. It is stupid to continue to fight hard at this time. It is smart to use the power in your hands to organize a counterattack more effectively.

Just when Qin Zhiyuan was thinking about how to counterattack, Qin Zhisheng, Chen Kangjian, Ge Lifu and Liu Zizheng found Qin Zhiyuan together.

"Master Qin, should we withdraw?" Chen Kangjian, who is straightforward, got straight to the point.

"Master Qin, let's carry the gold and leave. We can carry as much as we can, and then hand it over to the French. In this way, we can also prove that we have tried our best." Liu Zizheng is still as cautious as ever.

"Yuan, why don't you take the wounded and withdraw first, and we will stay and fight the foreigners." Qin Zhisheng habitually protected his brother.

"..." Ge Lifu habitually kept silent.

"We can't withdraw. If we go back, we can only continue to be laborers, and be ordered around like slaves." Qin Zhiyuan pondered for a while and gave an answer that surprised everyone: "It has been decades since the foreigners first arrived in the East and used artillery to blast open our country. As Chinese workers, we are the first time that Chinese people have appeared in front of ordinary people in Europe. We represent our country and all Chinese people. At this time, what impression should we leave on Europeans? Cowardly? Timid? Ridiculous long braids?"

Qin Zhiyuan's questioning, word by word, successfully won the increasingly heavy breathing of the crowd.

"No! I don't want this. I want to establish a brand new image of Chinese people! I want to establish an image of the Han and Tang dynasties that we have lost for a long time! I want to establish an image of Chinese people who are not afraid of life and death, strong and brave, and indomitable!" Qin Zhiyuan almost shouted these words, which not only attracted the attention of the French, but also successfully gathered more and more Chinese people.

"Fight! Fight them to the end!" Chen Kangjian roared.

"Fight!" Qin Zhisheng no longer thought about keeping it.

"Fight!" More people roared.

"Okay, I'll go settle the wounded." Seeing this, Liu Zizheng said no more. He used the safest way to solve everyone's worries.

Ge Lifu said nothing and followed Liu Zizheng away.

After inspiring morale, Qin Zhiyuan began to arrange the follow-up battle plan. Qin Zhiyuan still had cards to play. He had Zheng Dali, who was called a "human mortar", and enough grenades, a group of hand-to-hand combat experts, eight heavy machine guns and enough bullets, and a maze-like tunnel with complex terrain.

Three of the eight heavy machine guns were set up at each corner from the tunnel entrance to the hall. Solid machine gun forts were set up. Each machine gun fort was defended by two shooters and two grenadiers. They received orders to hold on for at least 20 minutes. In this way, it would take at least an hour for the Germans to break through the three machine gun positions. Then, the Germans would face the cross-fire of the three machine gun positions set up in the hall.

When Qin Zhiyuan and his men broke into the hall, they had experienced a fierce battle. If it weren't for Zheng Dali, they would have paid a heavy price. Now the offense and defense are different. Qin Zhiyuan and his men are on the defensive, while the Germans are on the offensive. Qin Zhiyuan is ready to turn this battle into a nightmare journey for the Germans.

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At five o'clock, a regiment of Germans launched an attack.

The French position was quiet, and no one could be seen. There were no dense shells like a rainstorm, no brutal strafing like a gust of wind, only a few broken heavy machine guns, and shells and craters on the ground.

Did the French withdraw?

The Germans were ecstatic. They cheered and jumped and sang to celebrate this hard-won victory. The Germans were so happy that their cheers were so loud that they covered the whistling sound of the shells flying in the sky. Until the flowers of death bloomed in the cheering crowd, the Germans woke up from their dreams and remembered that this was a battlefield. They crawled and crawled to find tunnels to avoid the French's covering bombardment.

There was only one tunnel on the position, and the Germans swarmed in like a flood of fish, not caring about searching and moving forward.

Just before the Germans entered the tunnel, Qin Zhiyuan had ordered to cut off the lights in this section of the tunnel, so that the Germans could not see anything when they entered the dark tunnel. The French, however, could clearly see the crowd pouring into the tunnel with the help of the light at the tunnel entrance.

"Hey, people inside, don't stop, keep going in, there are still many of our brothers outside." Someone shouted in German, just like a bus conductor, trying to drive people in.

Just when the Germans were about to walk ten meters in front of the machine gun position, Qin Zhiyuan shouted "shoot" in French.

Boom, boom, boom...

The roaring sound of the heavy machine gun in the tunnel was like a heavy hammer, constantly hitting people's hearts, making the heartbeat of those who heard it faster, the adrenaline secretion accelerated, the pupils dilated, and unconsciously fell into madness with the sound of gunfire. The half-meter-long muzzle flame and the dark red chain of tracer bullets were like the sickle of the god of death or the sword of Damocles, rushing forward and wantonly violent.

The German soldiers running in the front were hit by the first round of bullets, and their bodies were broken into two parts from the hit parts. Then the bullets continued to rush forward without slowing down, and only stopped their mission after passing through the bodies of three or five people, or after the bullets broke into shrapnel. Before that, the violent bullets had already created a bloody road.

Ghosts howled, people and horses fell, broken limbs and arms, blood splattered.

It was indeed hell.