In the spring of May, the whole country has entered the busy season of farming.

Grain has become the most troublesome thing for the warring countries, except for the United States, which is not short of grain, the rest of the countries have all switched to the grain rationing system, and even South Asia and the Great Plains of India, which are rich in grain, have been seriously abandoned because of the competition between various parties. In Thailand, for example, grain production plummeted by 30 percent last year in the face of continuous bombardment by China's Southwest Army, and the Philippines and Indonesia are also in turmoil, with guerrillas of all kinds abounding. Even the U.S. government realized that the food problem could determine the outcome of the war, so at the end of April, Roosevelt restricted grain exports for the first time, and only provided them to necessary allies such as China and Britain and Free France, or limited supplies. By the beginning of May, the number of domestic troops had increased to 6.26 million, and the number of military personnel serving the military was as high as more than 30 million. Therefore, after entering April, Gu Weijun had to slow down the pace of reform, and the weekly meeting of the cabinet also added a report on agriculture and animal husbandry for the first time. In order to solve the problem of a large number of young and middle-aged Vietnamese joining the army and the lack of labor, Yang Thu also promised to provide Vietnam with 30,000 walk-behind tractors free of charge for farming, and to organize grain production teams from Guangxi and other places to increase the grain planting area. Finally, the General Staff also gave Li Zongren a secret order allowing him to directly send troops to seize the grain-producing areas controlled by Nehru and the PKI if necessary.

At the beginning of the world food shortage, all the leading parties are like gamblers who lose red eyes, constantly strengthening their forces, trying to take advantage of the good weather in spring and summer to crush their opponents in the shortest possible time. In Europe, on the fourth day after the end of the Battle of Kerama, Guderian successfully opened the passage to Barcelona, and the main force of 1.5 million German troops poured into the Iberian Peninsula along the West-French railway. Although both the alliance and the entente said that they would respect Portugal's neutrality, the Portuguese royal family, fearing the impact of the war, hurried to Brazil for refuge. Seeing that the last 'fortress' on the European continent was about to be breached by the German army, in order to keep the continental springboard and avoid a brutal landing war in the future, the United States finally showed its super industrial heritage. In just three months, the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Hornet were repaired, and the modified Raider was completed ahead of schedule. On the Army side, the first M4 tank has rolled off the assembly line to begin testing, and the M3 half-track has even been sent to a cargo ship. Aircraft production has increased to 5,000 aircraft per month. The 'Storm' fighter (similar to the F6F) purchased from China also quickly passed the test flight evaluation, but because the US Navy refused to accept foreign aircraft, it had to be handed over to Goodyear and other conversion factories to manufacture as an army emergency model, and finally gave a nondescript P43 number.

Although the Navy refused to use foreign aircraft, it did not waste time. With the defeat of the Japanese Navy, a large number of time-consuming equipment began to be canceled, the production of destroyers and escort aircraft carriers with short construction periods began to accelerate, and the strength began to gradually recover. But compared to before the Battle of Wake Island, it is still far behind. By mid-May, the U.S. Army had more than 33 divisions and a total of 1.3 million troops in Spain and North Africa, of which 700,000 had entered Spain, and the number of British troops had increased from less than 50,000 to 310,000. In addition to increasing their own military strength, Britain and the United States also made a strong political stance, establishing a Spanish democratic government headed by Bourbon, Prince of Parma, and then actively joined forces with opponents of Franco, and sent a large number of arms from the United States to form the Spanish Resistance Army.

Roosevelt was well aware of his own problems, the transatlantic operation was the same as China's westward expedition, nearly half of the supplies had to be consumed on long-distance transportation, so Europe had to have enough forces to contain the German army and buy time for transportation. To achieve this goal, the US military not only accelerated the arming of Spain, but also used humanitarian supplies as an excuse to send large quantities of weapons and ammunition to the Yugoslav guerrillas led by Tito through Turkey and Greece. This angered Hitler, who not only intensified the clearance of Balkan forces in the face of the growing Yugoslav resistance, but also warned Turkey of strict neutrality.

In the early morning of May 16, 680,000 German troops entered Italian Albania and officially launched the 'Marita' combat operation against Greece. However, the delay of 40 days brought great annoyance to the German offensive. With the frantic support of Britain and the United States, the Metaxus defense line has been repeatedly strengthened, and there are more than 700 heavy artillery pieces of various types alone, including 305 mm caliber fortress guns, and a large number of strong fortifications have been urgently built. Under the personal supervision of Eisenhower and Churchill, the U.S. Army mobilized 716 B17 bombers and 800 P40 fighters to base in Cyprus and Trik Island to carry out non-stop bombing of the German army. The Anglo-Australian forces also set out from the island of Trick and entered Greece to fight.

Although Beijing clearly did not have time to fight in the Mediterranean, as an ally, the Beijing General Staff also began to fight the 'African Lion'. The 160,000 East African Coalition troops belonging to Zhu Jiande set out from Addis Ababa and cooperated with the British army in Kenya to advance to Mogadishu and southern Ethiopia to attack the remaining Italian East African Army and ensure the safety of Egypt's back, so that the British Egyptian Corps could free up their hands to deal with Rommel.

At the same time, MacArthur, who had been suppressed by Roosevelt for a long time, finally hung his corncob pipe and set foot in Spain with great pride. On the night of his arrival, the Germans launched a spring offensive, and Guderian personally led eight divisions, marching hundreds of kilometers in a row, appearing on the north bank of the Ebro River. Due to a lack of awareness of armored lightning tactics, MacArthur's three infantry divisions were all surrounded as soon as they arrived in Zaragoza. In three days of fierce fighting, 70,000 American troops suffered heavy casualties and had to lay down their arms and surrender. Before MacArthur could digest the bad news of the Battle of Zaragoza, Rommel led two German panzer divisions, an SS grenadier division, and four Italian infantry divisions to the south of Djellefa. The 60,000 Anglo-American-French troops stationed here were beaten to the ground, and finally left behind hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, more than 2,000 trucks and baggage, and strode back to Algiers. Jellefa was an important strategic stronghold in the Saharan Atlas Mountains, and the loss of this place also meant that Rommel had completed the siege of Algiers on both sides.

After capturing Djellefa, Rommel did not give up and pursued all night, wanting to take Algiers in one go. But he was fiercely attacked by 3 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships and 6 heavy cruisers of the British and American navies. The North African Corps, which did not have sea supremacy, suffered heavy losses and could only accept the result of Wangmei's sigh again. Although the British and American sides relied on their navy to stabilize their positions, in just two weeks, they lost Zaragoza and Jerfa in succession, and lost 100,000 troops, but Roosevelt and Churchill had a headache.

After Hitler received Rommel's report, he was also very annoyed by the inaction of the navy, on the one hand, he asked Goering to intensify the bombing of Britain and southern Spain, and through the cover of the Maltese air force, he accelerated the increase of troops in North Africa, and on the other hand, he simply asked Rommel to simply abandon North Africa first and attack Egypt with all his might. In the end, he personally went to the Admiralty, scolded Raeder and Dönitz and others, and demanded to strengthen submarine production and attack the British and American navies. It was only when the news of the main forces of the German Army crossing Zaragoza came that his attention turned to vital Spain.

As the main German army approached Madrid, the countdown to the first major battle after the United States entered the war.

A light jeep driving fast on the Shenping Highway. The highway was jointly built by China and North Korea in 1938, and it was originally planned to lead directly from Shenyang to Pyongyang, but the section from Sinuiju to Pyongyang could not be started before the war broke out.

After the convoy passed the Andong Bridge, it was Sinuiju, where the Korean wartime government and theater command were located.

In the early days of the Sino-Japanese War, when fierce fighting was raging in Central Asia, countries believed that Beijing, unprepared, would be dragged into a 'meat grinder'. But everyone did not expect that Yang Qiu would decisively take the initiative to abandon North Korea, retreat step by step, and lure the Japanese army into depth, but suddenly attacked Japan's strongest combined fleet from the sea. This outlandish strategy seriously interfered with Tokyo's judgment. Taking advantage of the fact that the Japanese army could not increase its troops and was not well prepared, it sank six battleships and two aircraft carriers in a very short time, and also took the vital Mariana and Palau Islands in one fell swoop, cutting off Japan's maritime lifeline. During the period from the occupation of Guam to the end of the Battle of Kerama, more than 4 million tons of Japanese transport ships were sunk, and the import of raw materials such as oil, rubber, rice, and heavy metals from Japan was all halted. Even Nimitz told Roosevelt that if Beijing adopted the traditional strategy of land first and then ocean, Japan would have plenty of time to strengthen the defense of the island chain, and that it would take at least three times as much force and two years to push Japan to the point it is getting to where it is now. More importantly, Japan's national strength was insufficient to cope with multi-front operations, so attracting Japan to the sea was tantamount to buying enough time for the army to adjust and prepare for war.

Of course, this strategy also nearly led to the rupture of the traditional alliance between China and North Korea. For this reason, Yang Qiu had to use political means to force Kim Koo to step down, and then support the pro-China Choi An-in as president and Park Eun-sung as commander-in-chief of the three armed forces. Finally, we are increasing assistance and rearming the three Korean armed forces. Thanks to this assistance, the Korean Army, which had suffered heavy losses at the beginning, had regained three armored divisions, 25 infantry divisions, five air wings and a small flotilla after nine months of rebuilding. In addition to the large number of guerrillas in China, the actual total strength has exceeded 1.8 million, with more than 1,000 tanks/armored vehicles of various types, 650 aircraft, and more than 10,000 artillery pieces of various types, making it the third largest combat force in Asia after China and Japan.

Similarly, after gaining time by sea, the Chinese Army has also assembled 6 armored divisions, 2 infantry divisions, 35 infantry divisions, 20 National Guard brigades, and various engineering and artillery regiments in the northeast, with a total strength of 1.5 million troops. And since the beginning of the year, Beijing has unabashedly piled up supplies and troops along the Yalu River. Faced with the situation of large armies, the Japanese base camp had to continue to strengthen Korea and reduce other fronts, which also led to the insufficient defense of the Ryukyus and the Pacific island chain, and finally suffered a great defeat in Kerama and was landed in the Ryukyus. Up to now, Sinuiju alone has a total of 40 Chinese and North Korean divisions stationed there, with a total strength of about 1.1 million.

Too many armies will destroy production, but it will also bring about deformed prosperity. After the convoy got off the bridge, Liu Mingzhao, who was sitting in the car, saw many shops. In the alleys along the streets, the lights are even brighter, and the trade in scantily clad skin and flesh is extremely active. Both the North Korean government and the Beijing General Staff have turned a blind eye to this. After all, if it is forbidden, not to mention how much chaos millions of hormones-filled soldiers will make, it will also deprive many fleeing North Korean families of their only source of livelihood.

The convoy soon came to the armored base next to the Sanqiao River, and after getting out of the car and questioning the guards, Liu Mingzhao found Zhuo Fan, who was studying tactics with the officers at the training ground. He liked this young man who cooperated closely in the Northwest very much, so he deliberately came here to have a look.

Zhuo Fan is not the kind of officer who is meticulous and always likes to keep a straight face, and he doesn't like to hide in the office and talk to the map. When I saw him, wearing only a sweatshirt, he spread out a full map of North Korea with marks directly on the engine cover of the tank, and the tank and around it were crowded with officers. "Chief of Staff!" Seeing Liu Mingzhao, Zhuo Fan was also startled, and hurriedly tucked the hem of his sweatshirt into his pants.

"Hehe, okay, don't pretend with me." Liu Mingzhao laughed and waved his hand to avoid those false courtesies: "I heard that you are doing a good job here, and you happened to come to a meeting, so I came over to take a look." Didn't bother you, did you? ”

"How can it be, it is our honor for the chief of staff to come to inspect."

"It's oily, I don't like it." Liu Mingzhao smiled, and Zhao Dengyu, who was white-eyed and smooth-mouthed, walked to the map, and asked while looking at it: "I heard that you have been reorganizing the troops all this time?" Didn't delay the battle plan, did you? ”

Speaking of this, Zhuo Fan was full of bitterness. After returning from the northwest, he thought that he could do a big job in North Korea, but he didn't think that as soon as he got off the train, Zhu Peide didn't say a word, and first threw him dozens of newly formed armored battalions. You know, tank crews are different from infantry, recruits are trained in battalions all over the country, although most of the tactics are the same, but the instructors tend to rub some of their own ideas. It is very complicated to combine these new recruits from all over the world into an armored fist with unified and coordinated combat capabilities. It took him a few months to finally knead the recruits into four armored divisions. But before he could catch his breath, the theater command transferred two of them to the northeast, and then incorporated the 104th Division into his unit. What is the 104th Division? It's said that it sounds good, it's an ace master! To put it mildly, it's a thorn in the thorn! As a result, it took a lot of effort, relying on the support of Zhu Peide and the theater command, to finally submit the thorns. "You see, there was a big fuss about the shells the other day."

Listening to the little guy's complaints, Liu Mingzhao smiled and didn't answer. In fact, it was he who instructed Zhuo Fan to reorganize the new armored troops. Because Zhuo Fan is the kind of officer who has a very talented command and the ability to coordinate a large corps. From the beginning of Afghanistan to the world-famous battle of the Arkarek tank, he has never commanded a full-fledged army, all of which are improvised patchwork. Even so, it still rose like a comet and crossed the most difficult hurdle in his military career with the fastest record.

"What happened to the shell?" Liu Mingzhao decided not to let Zhuo Fan know the details, and the taste of being nagged behind his back every day was uncomfortable, so he diverted the topic and asked about what happened just now. "It's not like it's a broken armor." Zhuo Fan pointed to the yellow armor fragmentation bullet next to him and said: "A few days ago, when the combat order came down, I asked the Quartermaster Department to replenish all the armor fragmentation shells, but everyone didn't like it and overturned my desk. ”

"Okay, don't be sloppy with me, I don't believe anyone dares to flip your table." Liu Mingzhao pierced Zhuo Fan, but he was very satisfied with his choice of armor shattering bullets: "Armor shattering bullets, not bad." If any more loser bastard comes to you about this, let him come to me. "As we all know, the price of armor fragmentation shells is only one-tenth of that of tungsten alloy high-speed armor-piercing bullets, and the effectiveness is worse than armor-piercing bullets and armor-piercing bullets, so tankmen don't like it very much. Liu Mingzhao supports the use of armor fragmentation shells in North Korea because in the eyes of real soldiers, weapons are not as advanced as possible, but to know themselves and make the best use of them. In the northwest, in the face of rough skin and thick Soviet tanks, the armor fragmentation bullets were ineffective. But North Korea is different, the Japanese tanks are thin-skinned and limited, and most of the armored forces are faced with light armor and bunkers, at this time the armor fragmentation shells can not only ensure the destruction of the armored forces, but also use as grenades if necessary (armor fragmentation shells have a good destructive effect on cement and other bunkers). Not only does it save money, but it also simplifies the logistical hassle. The latter clause, in particular, is particularly important in mountain warfare.

This small choice made Liu Mingzhao smile a little more: "I looked at the map just now, are you going to disassemble the troops?" "Worthy of being the chief of staff, he saw through his tactics so quickly. Zhuo Fan admired it even more in his heart, and nodded: "I have 6 divisions, of which the 37th Division, the 72nd Division, and the 104th Division are all pure armored divisions, and the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division also has four armored battalions, and only the 119th Division and the 177th Division are pure infantry divisions. Whether it is the size or the balance of forces, the Japanese army cannot stop me. A hint of pride appeared on Zhuo Fan's face, but he was immediately covered by the endless shadows on the map: "The real trouble is the terrain!" You see, the only area that can be quickly interspersed at the moment is the western coast. But there were also many hills in this narrow area, and the Japanese army also destroyed railways and roads. Therefore, I don't think it's appropriate to continue to use the battalion-level heavy cluster tactics used in the northwest. Combined with the characteristics of the Japanese army, which lacked anti-tank weapons and weak armor, but was good at infantry assault, outflanking, and cutting tactics, I considered using the company as a unit to increase the width and depth of the troops, and adopt the tactic of multi-arrow breakthrough. In the past, it was changed from three to four points of the defense line at the same time to eight to ten, or even fifteen points. At the same time, I'm going to experiment with some new tactics, but I'll have to wait for the effects to come out before I can report back to you. ”

"Hehe, it seems that you haven't been busy in vain in the past few months. Well, yes, it's a good idea to test new tactics in real combat. However, you should pay attention to the fact that this narrow belt is easy to be interspersed by the Japanese army, so be sure to protect the flanks, and if necessary, you may wish to let a few armored units penetrate in depth to pull away the Japanese army. Liu Mingzhao praised a few words, raised his head and looked at his watch: "We can talk for a while." It just so happens that I've always wanted to ask you, too. How long do you think it will take to resolve North Korea? Zhuo Fan was stunned: "Chief of Staff, aren't you embarrassing me." This is not certain, but if you want to complete the encirclement, three months is basically enough. ”

"Three months? You're so confident. ”

"I can't do it after three months, but if I want to advance to Busan and complete the north-south flank, it's more than enough!" Zhuo Fan pointed to the map, and his fingertips crossed Incheon: "If the navy is not available, let me land directly from here, and I can complete the flanking situation in two months." "Zhuo Fan does have this ability, and the staff has also considered the idea of landing at Incheon. But the navy is really not available, at least until October, they need to complete the full encirclement of the Japanese mainland, and then flank the South Seas to capture Singapore and the Andaman so this plan can only be abandoned.

After the two chatted for a few words, Zhuo Fan suddenly remembered Ye Weixun, who came back together: "Chief of Staff, why haven't you seen Weixun?" ”

"What, you still want to pinch him again?" Liu Mingzhao laughed. In the Battle of Petropavlovsk, Zhuo Fan and Ye Weixun were separated by five kilometers, and the accidental injury incident of using artillery to bombard each other has spread throughout the army, and the two have become friends. "For the sake of inquiry, he has been transferred to the commander of the 76th Army, and he went to Sakhalin Island and the Sea of Okhotsk with Wang Geng, the commander of the guards." Liu Mingzhao patted him on the shoulder, turned back and said goodbye to everyone: "Don't send it away, everyone." It's about to attack, so let's all go back and rest. After finishing speaking, he also grabbed Zhuo Fan: "You are the main force this time, so after entering the DPRK, you must annihilate as much of the living forces of the Japanese army as possible and destroy their heavy equipment." ”

The ordinary care fell on Zhuo Fan's ears, but his face changed: "Chief of Staff, is the Soviet army counterattacking again?" ”

"You'll know when the time comes. Remember, be sure to help me beat the 1st Tank Division that Japan blows into the sky to scrap metal! Liu Mingzhao didn't say much, but Zhuo Fan saw that he was afraid of being distracted. It can also be seen that the pressure is rising rapidly, both on the allies and on the western front of Central Asia.