After riding the car for a day, Chen Tian felt that he was about to be disbanded.

Today, the command of the 8th Army was temporarily set up in a small French village. The soldiers requisitioned most of the houses here, and the villagers could only spend the night in the church today.

Seeing this scene, Chen Tian couldn't help but think of some scenes in the previous movies. It seemed that during the American Revolutionary War, the British drove all the people in American villages into the church, and then locked the door and set a fire.

"The church will not catch fire at night!" Chen Tian turned his head and said to Hoffman beside him.

Hoffman looked confused, "Your Highness, why did you suddenly ask this?"

"Haha! Let the soldiers be careful at night and be careful about fire prevention. If the church catches fire and the French die, we will become demons! If we don't go to hell, we will be scolded to go to hell!" Chen Tian said half-jokingly.

"That's right... French civilians are still cooperative along the way, so we don't have to make things difficult for them!" Hoffman seemed to have taken it seriously, and even found an officer to give me some advice.

Chen Tian moved his neck, arms, and legs, and walked to the map just laid by the staff. A staff officer was still making the latest signs.

"Major, how many kilometers did we go today?" Chen Tian felt that it was like this when riding an armored vehicle. I'm afraid the tanks would be even worse. And along the way, you could see broken tanks from time to time, and the tankers were extremely depressed to repair them.

The staff member straightened his upper body like a conditioned reflex and saluted, "Report to His Highness the Prince, about 75 kilometers, which is already fast. We only advanced 60 kilometers yesterday."

"Oh, very good! Major, don't be restrained, keep busy with yours!" Chen Tian thought silently in his mind that when the French retreated, the French army destroyed almost all bridges and most roads. Now the vanguard troops are almost building bridges and paving roads while advancing. It is about 1,200 kilometers from Paris to the southernmost part of France. If they have to penetrate the entire France, it will take more than half a month to walk. This is still not blocked by the other side. Once they encounter the French army, it is difficult to say how many kilometers can be advanced in a day. However, if they sweep France, it may not necessarily mean that they have to see the Mediterranean coast to count. Maybe in a few days, the French government will decide to surrender, or a Vichy puppet regime.

At this time, Hoffmann had arranged a security guard mission and walked to the next to the map. "Your Highness, our three troops have not encountered decent resistance from the French army. It seems that Xia Fei decided to concentrate his troops to fight our army in the heart of France!"

"That's good, I'm afraid he will divide his troops to deal with our army! Is there any new situation with General Hindenburg and General Hellingen?"

"General Hindenburg's 5th Army is also progressing smoothly. They are now advancing with us, with the two armies being about 30 kilometers apart. General Hellingen's 7th Army is also following our two armies as planned and responsible for supporting and protecting the logistics transportation line. Since they are also responsible for repairing the railway line, the main force of the 7th Army is about 60 kilometers away from us, which is a day's journey!"

"Well! I think as long as I continue to advance steadily like this, the French will not be able to do anything. The Chief of Staff has no latest instructions!"

"Not yet! The Chief of Staff is still sitting firmly in Paris to control the overall situation!"

"Very good!" Chen Tian touched his stomach, it was almost time to have supper.

Outside the command center, the soldiers were still setting up guard posts and setting up telephone lines, and there was a busy scene. Above their heads, several big things floated by quietly. Some soldiers looked up and continued to work on their own.

Prince's 5th Army was originally a big airship. When the aircraft's reconnaissance effect was poor at night and there was certain danger of taking off and landing, Hindenburg sent a large number of airships without hesitation and stinginess to carry out air alert and reconnaissance tasks. The three armies in the middle were under the protection of these big guys.

On the airship, a young officer looked at the beautiful night view outside the porthole with intoxicated expression. There were stars of fire and lights on the ground, and the bright moon in the sky almost covered the light of the stars, and there were a few floating clouds floating in the clear sky.

"Secretary Dirk, let's have a beef burger!" A crew member enthusiastically handed over the fragrant burger. Their airship had to stay in the sky all night, so the airship had all the food, water and even toilets.

"Oh, Mr. Marcus, thank you so much!" The young lieutenant turned his head. This elegant environment made him feel great. The pod of this medium-sized Zeppelin can accommodate more than 20 people. Now, except for the six crew members and he, the intern officer, there is only one transmitter and three heavy machine guns. Therefore, the space above is very sufficient. The crew even surrounded a simple toilet with cloth in the corner. All of this means this comfortable flight for Dirk.

"You are so kind to me, Lieutenant, please call me Corporal Marcus in the future!" The crew member just replied with a smile. The engine of the airship is far less loud than that of the plane, so the people above can also talk more easily.

Dirk picked up the burger and took a bite. It seemed that the chefs had very good skills.

"So Mr. Marcus, have you been on the airship for a long time?"

"It's been 8 months!" Marcus said as he distributed food to others and signaled to Dirk that the kettle was in a basket next to them.

"Is it safe to ride an airship? I mean the airbags above are full of hydrogen!" Dirk carefully asked the question he had always wanted to ask before he got on the airship.

"What's safe or not?" Marcus took his burger and took a big bite, chewed it and then continued to speak:

"This is a war. No matter where you are, you may die at any time. What kills you may be a bullet, a shrapnel, an enemy bayonet, etc. It is useless to worry about when it will die. Our fate is destined to fight for this country and die for this country when necessary. It is no problem for this big guy to be drilled into a few holes. Once a big explosion occurs, we will not feel pain and will rise to heaven in an instant, haha!"

Dirk thought for a while and thought what he said made sense, so he continued to attack the burger in his hand.

Both of them quickly destroyed their burgers and felt very satisfied after taking a few sips of water.

Marcus sat next to his machine gun, "In addition to these three machine guns, the weapons of this airship also have several bombs hanging in the cabin at the lower part of the pod, but the chance of bombs is much higher than that of machine guns, because machine guns are mainly used to deal with air targets, but the group of young men who were flying the plane have already killed all the flying things over France, which makes us rarely even see birds now!"

There was laughter in the closed pod, and Dirk laughed.

"Second Lieutenant, I heard that you were studying in Berlin before?" another crew member asked from a distance.

"Yes, sir. I just graduated from the Berlin Advanced Military Academy. I volunteered to come to the front line!" Dirk felt that it was a coincidence that he had boarded the airship. Not long ago, he had just reported to a regiment staff department of the 5th Army. In order to let him better understand the situation, his superiors asked him to take the airship to participate in a night reconnaissance operation.

"Oh, Berlin!" several crew members said enviously. It seemed that most of them came from some remote towns.

"When the war is over, I will definitely invite everyone to Berlin for beer!"

"Oh!" Another cheer in the pod.

"We have been to the Paris tavern. Now the lieutenant said we are invited to Berlin for a drink. Next, let's go to London to have a drink together!" Marcus suggested, but was immediately refuted by several crew members.

“Have we been to London to drink?”

Marcus patted his head, "Oh, oh! I forgot! But we should also ask Lieutenant Dirk to go there!"

"Have you been to London?" Dirk was a little surprised.

"Yes! We went to bomb London once last month, and we took the wine over and opened a bottle to drink. Didn't we just go to London to drink?" Marcus replied proudly.

Looking at these simple people, Dirk felt that he liked the life of the army more and more, especially on the airship.

"Okay, everyone is quiet! We have flew past the area occupied by our army and now we have entered the territory of the French!"

The sound from the front was not loud, but the entire pod suddenly became quiet, and there was only the low engine sound behind the pod.

Dirk found that apart from the simple scope in the middle of the pod, the crew had to use a telescope to observe the bottom. The airship flew smoothly at an altitude of about 2 kilometers, which not only prevented the French from hitting bullets fired from the ground, but also ensured a certain observation distance. He also took out the telescope and looked at it for a while, but the ground was basically black, and few French villages were still on. It seemed that only the moon was the best.

Not long after, Dirk found that there were several long strips floating by the moon, and he hurriedly poked Marcus with his arm.

"There are airships over there. I can't see the signs on them clearly. Could it be that they belong to French?"

"Let me see!" Marcus took the telescope and observed for a while. "From the appearance, it was our Zeppelin airships. From the perspective of the course, they should have been found returning during the day. More importantly, the airships are not as big as aircraft or ground troops. The French cannot hide such a big guy in a place we cannot see. During the day, our airships and planes have already conducted detailed reconnaissance on the area within a radius of 200 kilometers!"

"Oh..." Dirk felt relieved.

To the people on the ground, the figures of those giants in the moonlight were particularly conspicuous.

"It's time to give these arrogant Germans a little color!" Near a large flat grass, two French officers whispered. Behind them, a group of French soldiers were pushing several planes out of a temporary hangar disguised as granaries. These planes were all biplane single-shot, not much different from the previous French planes. What made the French officers' confidence greatly increased was the shooting synchronous coordinator technology they obtained from the British not long ago, a small technology that could greatly narrow the gap between France and Germany.

This device can rely on the rotation of the propeller to control the shooting of the machine gun. When the muzzle points to the gap between the blades, the bullets are fired out, and when the muzzle is pointed at the blades, the shooting stops, allowing the aircraft to shoot from the front. Before this, French aircraft basically relied on the co-pilot to operate the machine gun at the rear of the aircraft to attack air targets, which puts the air combat performance of French aircraft far disadvantaged in front of German aircraft, which generally uses shooting synchronization and coordination technology.

During the Battle of Paris and the Battle of Seine, the French also obtained the physical objects of this device from several crashed German aircraft, which also accelerated the French's progress in installing synchronous coordinators for their aircraft. Therefore, as soon as the first batch of aircraft were transformed, French officers couldn't wait to push them to the battlefield.

Despite this, the French realized that there was a certain gap between their aircraft in terms of quantity and flight performance, so they neither wanted to fight head-on with the German air force, but also wanted to win some victory to boost the morale of the troops. After thinking about it, those cigar-shaped German airships became their new target.

When French pilots boarded the plane, one of the French generals seemed more worried. In this case of brighter moonlight, taking off was not a problem, but it was more troublesome when landing. First, the pilots did not find the location of the airport, and second, they could not see clearly the ground when landing. Therefore, in this era, the planes tried to avoid taking off and landing at night.

"The signal flares and flares for the instructions are ready! Also, when will our newly developed anti-aircraft artillery be delivered?"

"General, everything is ready, there will be no problem when the plane lands. It is said that the new air defense artillery still has some technical problems. The test-fire effect in the south does not seem to be very good!" The officer next to him replied.

"May God bless the brave French army!" the general prayed silently, but it seemed that after Napoleon's era, God rarely favored the French army, especially the French army, and his honor was even more discouraged in the French-Prussian War.

After the aircraft engine was started, each French soldiers held a lit signal rod and formed two straight lines on the open space in front, indicating the pilots' take-off runway. The same method was used when the aircraft landed.
Chapter completed!