Chapter 482 Sea Lion Project

Even if Seishiro Itagaki died, the remaining more than a thousand devils still gritted their teeth and fought to the end. When the sky turned white the next day, the devils who retreated to Tianwangzhai were all annihilated by the vanguard army that followed.

The feints launched by the Japanese on the north and south sides of Dabie Mountain, except for the south, which occupied a position of 100 meters from the hands of the Central Army, and the north, which was bombarded by the vanguard army and lost nearly 1,000 soldiers, finally came to an end.

In this way, on the territory of the vanguard army, all the devils who have fled since the end of last year will be cleaned up, and half of the remaining fish that have slipped through the net will also be drowned in the sea of the people's war.

"It's almost digested, and the next step is to expand the territory." Meng Xiang calculated that in the past six months, there has been no large-scale battle between the vanguard army and the devil. Not only the vanguard army, but even the Central Army and the devils are not very different. It can be regarded as entering the stalemate stage in advance.

However, the gunfire at the border of the confrontation has not stopped. The battle for turf has not stopped.

The recruits of the vanguard army who came out of the new barracks were sent to the place where they bordered the devils for training. Whether it is near Shanhaiguan and the Rehe area, or on both sides of the Huai River, or around the three guerrilla columns, there are rookie footprints that have matured. With these trials alone, three or four thousand of the recruits of the vanguard army fell, never to rise again. Even if there were no nearly 10,000 devils who also fell, such a tempering would be worth it.

If you don't go through these low-intensity actual combat tests, if you let those recruits go directly to the battlefield, I'm afraid that more people will die.

It is not only those recruits who have been sharpened in turn, but even the reserve troops have been pulled to the battlefield to adapt to it. Don't look at the vanguard army, which already has an army of two million, but once a large-scale battle begins, sometimes the consumption of soldiers is also amazing, especially when Meng Xiang has begun to turn his eyes to the north in the next step.

By the time he made these decisions, history had already begun to change, turning into a side line that he was no longer familiar with. When this war began, Meng Xiang couldn't predict how much it would cost. A plan is always a plan, and it doesn't mean that everything will go the way Meng Xiang envisioned.

Meng Xiang has been preparing for these for half a year. The equipment is easy to solve, the base has been constantly producing, and began to transport and accumulate strategic materials towards the border areas. In terms of personnel, there is also continuous training, and going to the battlefield to temper is an opportunity. Although the Japanese could not be compared with the army armed with steel in Soviet Russia, they could be regarded as having an understanding of the battlefield.

The war of the whole nation requires not only elite soldiers, but also numerical superiority.

Zi also likes to use crowd tactics, and it took 30 or 40 million lives to cast a red pyramid. According to their combat effectiveness, even if Meng enjoyed the base and the Germans, the final losses would not be small. A large number of reserves is indispensable.

At this time, although the regular army of the vanguard army was controlled to 2 million, the number of reservists was constantly growing.

At this time, the area controlled by the vanguard army, including the three guerrilla column bases, had a preliminary population of more than 200 million. In the end, Meng Xiang set a scale of 3% to recruit regular army and reserve personnel. Although being a soldier is a job with a head, the salary of the front army is very high, and it still attracts many people to join. The 100 registration points set up in various places are often crowded.

After a period of accumulation, the number of the vanguard army reserve at this time quickly reached two million. Moreover, these are all reservists who have come out of the boot camp or are in the process of coming out of the regular training, and they are not comparable to those ordinary militia organizations.

Because there are not many retired soldiers in the vanguard army, these reservists are trained exclusively according to the standards of new recruits. If you don't meet the requirements, you can't become a qualified soldier reserve.

Of course, a reserve is a reserve after all. For this reason, their standards are divided into three grades.

One is Class A, which is an excellent reservist, and these people can be supplemented to those ace armies when the time comes.

The second class is Class B, which is an ordinary reservist. These are randomly incorporated into the troops.

Again, the first class is the C level, which is the reserve personnel to be determined, and these can be incorporated into the army, but these are not used as military personnel, and can only contribute some efforts in logistics, engineering, and tuntian.

There is no clear D grade, and unqualified personnel are not recognized by the reserves.

I can't even reach grade C, so I can only say that people are too wasteful. It was brushed off during the military physical examination and preliminary training. But even those personnel of the C rank made some people sigh that they were comparable to ordinary soldiers of the Central Army. Of course, even these C-level reserves are fed with at least three hundred rounds of ammunition. And many ordinary soldiers of the Central Army were dragged to the battlefield before they could get more than 100 bullets.

This is definitely not the case here in Mengxiang, even if it is cannon fodder, it needs to be valuable. There must be no unnecessary sacrifices. So, even the reservists are trained in the same way as recruits. Not only bullets, but also artillery, grenades, machine guns, etc., are also subject to adaptation training. As a result, the ammunition consumption of the vanguard army is also an earth-shattering figure, which is no less than fighting a large-scale battle.

Raise soldiers for a thousand days, and use soldiers for a while. At this time, although the reserve was still recruiting new people, Meng Xiang had millions of troops in his hands, but he only watched the smoke rise in Europe, and he was also a little restless.

It was not a time of peace in China at this time, and the iron hooves of the Japanese were still trampling on the country. However, the expanded strength of the vanguard army did not try its best to devote itself to the anti-Japanese battlefield, which naturally caused dissatisfaction among some people. It turned out that they were busy encircling and suppressing Itagaki Seishiro and them, and they were still a little short. As soon as those devils were annihilated, some rumors came out.

"It's time for us to beat the little devils hard. Otherwise, others will say that we have compromised with the devil and signed a treaty. Meng Xiang is also helpless, sometimes things at the strategic level are likely to lose a lot of tactical advantages. Only by enduring a moment of anger can we seek a hundred years of national fortune. However, in the face of the expectations of the Chinese people at this time, Meng Xiang felt that it was better to move.

After all, the strength of the vanguard army at this time was growing, and even the Japanese could feel it. The more the vanguard remained quiet, the more worried the Japanese were about what the vanguard would deal with next. In this case, it is better to knock it out.

"We haven't recovered all of our Rehe area yet!" Fan Chong nodded around Chengde.

After the Beijing-Tianjin area was captured, the vanguard army never attacked again in the direction of Rehe. At that time, the puppet Manchurians also included Rehe Province in the territory, and according to the strength of the vanguard army at that time, plus the Kwantung Army, it was a little difficult. Moreover, the relationship between Beijing and Tianjin needs to be adjusted and straightened out, and the Northwest Army, which has been entrenched in Beijing and Tianjin for a long time, also needs to be rectified, so there has been no action.

At this time, everything was under control, and Meng Xiang's previous adjustment of Japan's policy was only beginning to close the net at this time.

The flames of war once again permeated the north, attracting the attention of the Chinese people, and even the Central Army, which was arguing with the vanguard army on issues such as Xiangfan, also focused its attention on Rehe. The territory outside the Rehe Great Wall, which had been carved out a long time ago, involved the puppet Manchuria, so the relationship was complicated. Although the central government has not officially recognized the puppet Manchuria, it is also powerless to do anything about it.

All countries also understood that the Japanese had engaged in such a puppet trick, and they were naturally dissatisfied with the Japanese monopolizing the Northeast, which led to the pressure exerted by the League of Nations on Japan. But the Japanese simply ignored them and withdrew directly from the League of Nations. This is one of the reasons why the Japanese had no intention of joining the Allies at this time.

However, it was the state that officially recognized this puppet Manchuria.

The Italians and even the Germans officially recognized the capital. One in 36 years and the other in the beginning of 38 years are relatively early, and they are also for the needs of the Japanese. Even with the rise of the vanguard army at this time, neither country has changed, although at this time the Japanese are not allies and cannot be natives.

The French, who followed the Germans as their younger brothers, had recently recognized the Manchurians in view of the armistice agreement signed with the Japanese in Vietnam.

But very early on, the Vatican, the center of the European cults, they officially recognized the Manchurians. Their minds are worth scrutinizing, whether it is religiously or ethnically, even in later generations, they have never given up their hearts to split China.

And among them there was also a Soviet Russia, although it was not officially recognized, but it also adopted a tacit attitude. Maybe they also figured it out, since the Japanese cut off the Northeast from Huaxia, it means that this piece of fat is out of Huaxia's guards, and in the end they don't know who is cheaper. Some situations are much simpler when dealing with the Japanese alone.

It was under these circumstances that the puppet Manchurians, recognized by more than a dozen large and small countries, began to loudly denounce the vanguard army's aggression after the vanguard army launched an attack.

"Go on the offensive! Capture all of Rehe Province! Meng Xiang turned a deaf ear to these accusations and continued to cheer up his team in the back.

However, his mind was not entirely focused on this, because Japan and the Soviet Union were in the final negotiation process, during which some tension often arose. At this time, this season was beneficial to Soviet Russia, and when the vanguard army did not move for a long time, the Kwantung Army, which was short of manpower after attacking Vietnam, also focused its attention on the side of Soviet Russia.

In the face of the fortified fortresses built by the vanguard army, it was impossible to hold all the defensive lines.

On July 1, Fu Zuoyi's motorized team broke through the devil's thin defense on the grassland from the Guangxingyuan area, attacked Longhua and Chifeng, and went around the back of Chengde. broke through the devil's defense at once, and took Chengde into control in a day and a half.

Seeing Chengde and Chifeng starting, Meng Xiang, who had already breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, no longer worried about future changes, but turned to pay attention to the situation in Europe.

After conquering France, Lao Xi made a special trip to Paris, leaving the footprints of the conqueror in front of Napoleon's tombstone, and leaving the voice announcing the rise of a huge empire to the world at the end of the Eiffel Tower. From the North Cape of the Arctic Circle to Bordeaux, from the Boug River to the eastern shore of the English Channel, an empire far beyond Napoleon has taken shape.

His success also gave him unprecedented prestige in Germany. The opposition was gone. The whole of Germany is transmitting the miracle of his defeat of the French, who have been enemies for centuries. This period of time was one of Hitler's peaks. While the Continent was at the heart of his voice, trembling at the sound of German boots, a small discordant ditch held back the Germans' continued expansion.

The British, too, were Germany's old enemies. Sitting on the world's largest colony, it is guarded in the British Isles, and it has stirred up centuries of grievances and hatreds that have dominated the European continent.

Hitler's fist had already smashed the British's top hat off at Dunkirk, smashed the bridge of his nose with his hand, and all that remained was to wait for them to surrender obediently.

But this time his opponent was the stubborn Churchill. The royal dignity of the British Empire, which had been maintained for hundreds of years, could not be trampled on. They chose to fight to the death. When Hitler's inflated ambitions could not wait for the British royal crown to be covered, Hitler knew that he needed to give the British another hard blow.

"Our intelligence officers analyzed that after passing Dunkirk, the British would not have more than 15 divisions of combat-worthy troops on home territory at this time." Heydrich sat upright, his marble-carved face, his sun-kissed blonde hair, and a hint of coldness at the corners of his mouth more conspicuous, reminding him of the title of a blonde beast.

"However, we got a new piece of information in Skynet, they have a full division of artillery and tanks, only 6 divisions, and their native troops are not so many, estimated to be about 11 divisions. They came to the conclusion that as long as we could send 150,000 elite troops to the British Isles, we would be able to defeat them. ”

Hitler listened to him and did not speak.

Goering, who was next to him, shouted: "Why do you need 150,000 troops, our air force is enough to destroy the British!" Our planes will blow up every British ship from the air, our planes will completely smash every cannon and every tank of the British from the air, and our planes will grind every ounce of British will from the air. ”

"If our navy is to land and fight, it really needs the cooperation of the air force!" Raeder said suddenly. Since the navy has several huge warships, the confidence to speak in front of Ge Fat has also hardened. When he said this, he actually put the Air Force in the role of cooperation.

"No matter how powerful the plane is, can't it still have long legs?" He was full of opinions about Goering. He also realized that without air supremacy, the navy would often appear passive. That's why he actively advocated that Germany build its own aircraft carriers. Originally, Lao Xi agreed, but Ge Fatzi came out to make trouble. The German planes were in Goering's hands. How could he have divided this power?

Recently, there has been more definite news that the aircraft carrier under construction will be canceled. This is still the provocation of the fat man behind Lao Xi. How could this make Raeder angry. At this time, Goering came to attack again, and Raeder couldn't help but stab. You must know that the Sea Lion plan, which Hitler himself devouted, has already begun to prepare. This sea lion project is the lead role of the Navy.

The historic Sea Lion Project died at the beginning.

The Germans came out of the shadow of defeat in World War I, and quickly surpassed Britain and France in military power by leaping forward to catch up, but this came at a cost.

However, any super-speed development will inevitably leave hidden dangers. At a time when the heavy industry of Soviet Russia was shocked to the whole world, the grain and light industry was lame. When China quickly caught up and overtook in later generations, it also left a lot of profound lessons. The rise of great powers takes time.

And the Germans who have emerged from the economic crisis have just lacked enough time, which makes their development only those areas that are most practical. If there is enough time, it may be possible to revitalize the whole system in a point-to-point manner. But Lao Xi, who has piled up all kinds of promises, needs achievements to maintain his regime. More wealth and resources are also needed to eliminate the economic crisis that has led to an empty treasury. So when the war broke out, the Germans were also ill-prepared in many areas.

For example, landing ships.

In order to defeat the British, the Germans learned from the experience of World War I. Battleships were developed, submarines were developed, torpedo boats were also developed, but it was not considered that the British would be defeated so quickly, and in the blink of an eye the Germans would be able to land on the British Isles to fight. But they had little to do to get the armed elite German Army to the British Isles.

The Germans specially recruited a large number of steamboats, cargo ships and barges, but the most likely thing for these civilian ships in the British artillery fire was to add more debris and garbage floating in the English Channel.

Regarding landing ships, not many people in the world have studied this at this time, but it is precisely the vanguard army that has this early on.

The British thought of the footage of thousands of crocodile landing ships landing on the British Isles, and they were also extremely worried, and they began to talk to the vanguard army about this matter early on, and made partial concessions on tariffs and British-owned mines in exchange for not letting them be sold to the Germans. In the face of the British's overtures, coupled with the consensus of the Chinese people that they should not be involved in this war, Meng Xiang also knew that this was not the time to blatantly turn his face against the British. So while receiving the benefits from the British, he nodded and agreed to the matter. Of course, a piece of information was sent for free, and the copycat company had better landing craft.

Not only copycat companies, but also umbrella companies also have landing ships. Meng Xiang plagiarized all the landing ships invented by the Americans in World War II. With the exception of some somewhat more advanced power systems, the structure of the landing craft is simple. Although it is simple, when it comes to use, there is not such a large quantity. When the Germans heard that the copycat company had goods, they immediately bought 300 ships at a large price. Among them are both vehicle-personnel landing craft for LV and mechanized landing craft for LM.

Three hundred ships is already the maximum number that the base can provide. In some ports in China, there are also modified civilian fishing boats that also have the pedigree of orthodox landing craft, but the most important thing is not production, but transportation. The battleships of the British wandered around, and many bases could not be exposed. It is even more important not to involve the vanguard army too early. It is precisely because of the need to take into account the transportation and security of the base that it is impossible to get all the shipyards to start producing this. And those bases that can be produced must also be tasked with producing warships, so these three hundred have been accumulated by Meng Xiang for a long time.

Although these 300 ships were also a big help to the Germans, they were not enough to quickly transport hundreds of thousands of troops. The boats are still being collected. Of course, the task of guarding these civilian ships will fall to the Navy. Even those transport and landing ships are under the jurisdiction of the navy. The core of Project Sea Lion is built around the Navy.

With the defeat of the Anglo-French forces, the majesty of Lao Xi grew, and the relationship between the German Navy and Lao Xi was eased, which made Lao Xi's plan actively supported by the German Navy. However, Raeder still regretted that this plan lacked the support of aircraft carriers.

"Aircraft carriers? We're almost there! Lao Xi's sudden words lifted his spirits.