readx; Du Yanpeng still has a hand in the command of the armored forces, attacking Greece for less than half a day and a month, and attacking to the hinterland of Greece, and did not rush to capture the city, but adopted the tactics of gathering and annihilating, using Thessaloniki to attract almost all of Greece and part of the Yugoslavia The enemy's forces were viable, and successfully surrounded them. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 During this time, our army has achieved a remarkable record of inflicting heavy losses on more than 10 divisions of the Axis Army, encircling and annihilating two German divisions and three Italian divisions. And our own casualties were less than 3,000. When Shen Gang said this, he revealed his appreciation for Du Yanpeng, a junior.

Although Shen Gang and Du Yanpeng both started with Chen Jingyun during the Civil War, Shen Gang, like Chen Yi and others, was already a high-level general during the Civil War, and their most glorious time was the Civil War and the two battlefields. In this World War II, Shen Gang, Chen Yi and other older generation bigwigs have actually retreated to the bottom, and even the younger Zuo Yugang did not play the role of actual commander.

It was the second-generation generals of the Chinese Army who really went into battle to serve as commanders in actual combat, and the middle-level officers were the ones who graduated from the Wuhan Military Academy after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

In the face of the fact that the juniors performed well in the war against China and the European war, Shen Gang still felt very relieved, and someone finally inherited this army career.

Otherwise, if the Chinese Army, which was full of famous generals in the twenties and thirties, did not have a few outstanding generals in World War II, how would they be embarrassed by the generals of the older generation.

Chen Jingyun nodded: "There are a few people who are still doing well!" After saying this, Chen Jingyun glanced at Shen Gang, who was already gray-haired and wrinkled: "Brother Shen, have you really decided?" ”

Shen Gang said: "We old guys are all old, and even Zuo Yugang, the youngest of us, is sixty-six years old this year. If I stay for a few more years, I am afraid that others will say that our army is a group of old men who can't climb, and most of us are not in good health, and when it is time for them to take the position, we can't wait for them to be seventy or eighty years old before taking over the class of a few of us! ”

Chen Jingyun heard this and did not speak immediately.

In fact, after the end of the war in the middle of last year, Shen Gang mentioned to Chen Jingyun that he was ready to retire from active service, saying that he wanted to give up his position as a member of the Central Committee of the State Military Commission to young people. The young man in his Shen Gang's mouth is actually the second-generation generals of the Chinese Army, including General Du Yanpeng and others, in fact, the age of these second-generation generals is not young, all of them are about sixty, and they are estimated to be seventy or eighty years old in a few more years.

The transition of the decision-making level of the military is much more complicated than that of the political axe, and Chen Jingyun can be changed every five years on the political axe, but it is not so easy for the change of the military bosses, because the generals who started with him were generally young, and they were all in high positions at the age of thirty or forty, such as Shen Gang in front of him, when he was in his forties, he determined his identity as an army boss during the civil war, and he has been the real power boss of the army for more than 30 years, and Chen Yi and others are mostly like this.

Chen Jingyun can't say that they should retire when they are forty or fifty years old, at that time for a general is at the peak of his life, coupled with Chen Jingyun's trust in them, the power structure of the Chinese [***] side has basically remained unchanged for decades, and those bigwigs have sat aside where they can sit.

And now, it's time for change, it's not only about the promotion channels of the high-level generals in the military, but also about Chen Jingyun's paving the way for Chen Huayun's ascension, if he dies in the future, the people in charge of the military are still the first-generation bigwigs, Chen Jingyun is really worried that Chen Huayun can't suppress them, if they are replaced by second-generation generals with relatively small qualifications and prestige, it will be much easier.

"Let me think about this again, but now it is a critical juncture in Europe, and I still need Brother Shen to work for a while, and I will look at the proper arrangements later!" Chen Jingyun said this, thinking about who should be allowed to enter the Central Committee of the State Military Commission on the army side.

"In addition, on the European side, I think the strength is still a little less, and now there are only two armored divisions and three infantry divisions, which are obviously insufficient, and the scale of our army is huge, I think we can appropriately transfer some troops to the European region for rotation operations." Shen Gang said after taking a sip of tea.

First of all, although the Chinese Army is huge, it does not mean that it can send a large number of troops into Europe to fight without restrictions, which is not to say that China does not have enough troops to send, in fact, although the Chinese Army is deployed on multiple fronts, although the Pacific direction, Southeast Asia direction and Siberia direction all need a large number of troops, but the pressure it faces is not great. As long as the Chinese navy is not defeated for a day, then China's strategic security in the western Pacific region can be guaranteed, and in the Siberian direction, although there is pressure from Soviet Russia, the main direction of Soviet Russia's use of troops is still in the war against Germany, and the overall Soviet Russia is on the defensive, and the Chinese army does not need to say that it has deployed too many troops.

In this case, in fact, the Chinese Army is able to allocate a considerable number of troops to participate in the war in Europe, but although the strength is sufficient, it is limited by the long distance and the supply capacity is also limited, which directly leads to the fact that China cannot send a large number of troops to participate in the European war without restrictions.

When dispatching troops to carry out rotational operations, it is also necessary to take into account the factor of training. On the one hand, it is hoped that more troops will have sufficient combat experience, and on the other hand, it must be considered that more generals will have the accumulation of qualifications. After all, there are more than 100 divisions in China, and it cannot be said that a few divisions of troops can take over all the battle, so many generals below will be very dissatisfied.

Only with fighting can you have qualifications, and only then can you be promoted smoothly in the future, which is a very important thing for those officers.

Chen Jingyun nodded and said, "Now that there are enough troops in Siberia and Central Asia, it is possible to send a few more divisions to carry out rotational operations!" ”

At present, the main forces participating in the European Expeditionary Force of the Chinese Army are the Second Armored Division, the 16th Armored Division, the 2nd Infantry Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 67th Infantry Division, and the 16th Artillery Brigade. The 2nd Armored Division and the 67th Infantry Division are expected to take on major combat missions against Greece for some time to come, after half a month of hard fighting. And when the combat mission in Greece was largely completed, they had been fighting for at least a month, and then it was time to rest.

In the actual war, if the strength of the troops is sufficient, and the situation is not too tense, then a unit will often participate in the war for a period of time, and then it will get time to recuperate, in addition to replenishing equipment and recruits, but also let the soldiers relax and relax, so that the officers can get time to return to China for vacation, otherwise if they have been in a combat state, it is easy for the front-line troops to have an anti-war mentality, which will have a greater impact on the combat effectiveness of the troops.

For example, during the brutal World War I trench warfare on the Western Front in Europe, a division in the British army often only had a few months to go to the front line in a year, and when it went to the front, only part of the troops were really on the front line, and the other troops were resting in the rear, and a soldier often only spent one or two months on the front line in a year, and the rest of the time was talking about the rear.

Chen Jingyun and Shen Gang said that these are all issues related to the entire European strategy, and they will not pay attention to and care about some details, such as what the next move of the European Expeditionary Force after conquering Thessaloniki, they just don't care too much, these are things that the commander of the coalition forces, Song Junpeng, needs to worry about. Chen Jingyun wants the whole of Greece, and as for how to get it, that's what those generals need to work on.

In Greece, Admiral Du Yanpeng, commander of the European Expeditionary Force of the Chinese Army, looked at the huge map of the Balkan Peninsula on the wall, pondering what his troops should do next. There were also much more Italian troops.

And now that the expeditionary force has obtained an important passage to the west, the next step is naturally to continue to attack westward and conquer Katerini, but after that, will the main force of the army go south and go straight to Athens, the capital of Greece, or will the main force go north and enter Yugoslavia?

According to what Du Yanpeng can know at present, the German-Italian coalition army still has a lot of troops in the southern region of Greece, although they are all remnants of the defeated army, but there are still tens of thousands, and if the strength of the southbound troops is less, it is really possible that they will not be able to fight. However, if there are more troops to the south, then how to deal with the German reinforcements from Yugoslavia to the south is a problem.

As for taking the initiative to go north to Yugoslavia on a large scale, there is another problem to be taken into account, that is, the terrain of the Balkan Peninsula is very complicated, and the southern part of Yugoslavia and Albania are mountainous terrain, which is not suitable for heavy mechanized troops to fight like Bulgaria. Of course, this is not suitable for relative, and it does not mean that the mechanized units of the Chinese Army cannot fight in this area, but it is not as advantageous as fighting in the plains.

On April 26, the 67th Infantry Division captured Katerini, the last important stronghold of the German army in northwestern Greece, and then the 67th Infantry Division quickly moved south in a southwesterly direction, arriving at Larissa only a day later, and then quickly moving south with the 2nd Panzer Division to sweep away the leaves in the autumn wind throughout southern Greece.

At the same time, the 3rd Division of the Expeditionary Force continued eastward and headed towards Albania, while the remaining 16th Panzer Division, together with the 2nd Infantry Division, diverted north to enter Yugoslavia.

At this time, the entire expeditionary force was divided into three directions to attack, which also caused the situation that the expeditionary force was too small, so the Chinese Army General Staff transferred the 6th Armored Division and the 63rd Infantry Division, which were originally stationed in the western region of Iran. The 5th Armored Division, the 64th Infantry Division, the 65th Infantry Division, and the 21st Artillery Brigade, which were originally stationed in the western part of the Yulihai Sea, formed the second group of participating troops and went to Turkey to prepare to reinforce the original troops.

The original 2nd Armored Division and the 67th Infantry Division will stay in southern Greece for rest and recuperation, and will not continue to participate in the northward war in the short term.

After the second batch of reinforcements arrives in the Balkans, the Chinese Army's troops sent to Europe will reach the huge strength of four armored divisions, six mechanized infantry divisions, and two mechanized self-propelled artillery brigades, plus various other auxiliary units and naval and air force units, and the number of military personnel deployed in the Balkans and Turkey will already exceed 300,000.