On January 14, 1944, after a fierce debate, Stalin personally examined and agreed with Zhukov's idea of the "Mercury Plan" plan, and was satisfied with the results of the first phase of the Central Asian operation to recapture Samarkand, Dushanbe, Bishkek, Tashkent and other important cities, and to imprison the German Central Asian cluster in the Ferghana Basin. This confirmed the farsightedness and wisdom and correctness of Comrade Stalin's consistent handling of internal contradictions, and enhanced the latter's prestige. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoAt the Politburo meeting, Stalin rarely smiled, and instead of criticizing Zhukov for being naïve, he thought that he was becoming more and more politically mature, and hoped that he could turn the tide again militarily.

As a sign of trust, Stalin personally chaired a meeting of the Supreme High Command and adopted the program. At Zhukov's request, he also included Malinovsky's Independent Army Group in the Central Asian Special Front, and at the same time gritted his teeth and transferred one relatively elite Guards Tank Brigade from each of the three armies on the Southern Front to strengthen the Independent Army. In addition, the Supreme Command dispatched more than 10,000 people from the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Brigades of the most elite Airborne Forces to form the Airborne Corps, which was commanded by Major General Zatevakhin, deputy commander of the Soviet Airborne Forces, and the army headquarters was also composed of personnel drawn from the Airborne Forces Command, which was included in the sequence of the Central Front and placed under the direct command of Zhukov, and was required to be deployed to the vicinity of Astrakhan within two weeks.

Since the journey from Samarkand to the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea is more than 1,200 kilometers, most of which is the Gobi, and in addition to the destruction of grassroots institutions and the flight of a small number of people, it is basically impossible for the Red Army to raise supplies on the spot. Fortunately, the Soviet army was far less mechanized than the German army, and it relied on mules and horses the most, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve long-distance dispatch.

In fact, it is not difficult at all to conduct an offensive in Central Asia, but what is difficult is the supply of materials; Cherny Hovsky judged the situation and believed that it was impossible for the troops to quickly deploy such a large area and such a long distance, and he carefully dispatched three cavalry divisions, three tank brigades, and two mechanized corps to form a 100,000-strong advance attack force to accelerate the march, requiring that they must be deployed in place by 5 February, and the rest of the troops should advance slightly according to the tactical deployment. Due to the lack of people, there was no trace of the road, and such a large army movement was not grasped by the German army for a while. When Zhukov returned to Central Asia a few days later, he was satisfied with all aspects of their work.

The news of the Red Army's bloody sweep of the Central Asian national regime was soon reported by Schellner to Field Marshal Manstein, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Joint Theater of Operations, who had never been very interested in the Central Asian regime, and that Schellner's troops were blocked in the Ferghana Basin, so he suggested that he wait until the weather improved. He had expected Hoffman to be unhappy with the decision, but insisted that waiting was the best thing to do in the current climate and season, and was even ready to disobey. But the instructions from Berlin were unexpected, and they were simple: political issues should not be confused with military ones.

The meaning behind this sentence makes people think about it very carefully, and Manstein thinks that he has grasped the mentality of the Führer: all kinds of dishonesty after the independence of the national regimes in Central Asia, coupled with their mutual antagonism, "if you have a gun, you are the king of grass", there is chaos, order collapses, and there must be a process of purge. It is obviously not very appropriate to let the Germans do this, and now since Stalin is willing to make a move, let him wash it, as long as there is no chaos in the Fergana Basin.

In fact, because the basin is divided into three countries, there has never been a unified local independent regime, and they are also attacking each other, but Schellner can not care about these, and immediately after entering the basin, he strictly controlled the scene with iron and blood, and even established a whole set of ruling system, and the local people generally believe that the German army brought them the long-desired order and stability, and the whole basin has not only become a geographical oasis, but also a psychological oasis because of the continuous flow of people coming to defect.

On January 18, Zhukov, having completed all the deployments, returned to Tashkent again to take command of the entire Battle of Mercury, and the intensive mobilization of troops was ready to do a big job. This was also the same day that Kakuharu Tsunoda led the Second Air War to the Central Pacific for the "Musashi Break", and his fleet received not only the newly renovated aircraft carrier Zuizuru, but also the new Bf-219C fighter with folding wings and other new carrier-based aircraft.

According to the request of the front-line troops and the actual use in the Battle of Newfoundland, the German side decided to officially include the Do-412 (purple electric reform) as a shipboard fighter and the Ju-198 (Meteor reform) as a shipboard attack aircraft.

In the past half month, Horikichi, who is the new Privy Counsellor of the Navy and concurrently holds the two important posts of Chief of the Military Command Department and Commander of the Combined Fleet, and who actually controls the entire Navy, has launched a vigorous and unprecedented naval reform in the form of a naval privy order based on the principle of the Emperor's Edict:

His first fire burned to the "Town Guard Mansion Regulations", which had been in effect since 1886 and had existed for more than half a century, and abolished the four major town guard houses of Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, and Maizuru in one fell swoop (the Maizuru Town Guard Mansion was downgraded to the port department in 1923 and restored in 1939, and its strength was relatively weak), and the Imperial Navy's home theater was newly formed, and all the governors of the town guard were laid off immediately. Subsequently, the former backbone of the fleet and the admiral of the Second Fleet, Admiral Kondo Nobutake, was appointed as the commander of the home theater, Ugaki was served as the chief of staff, and other positions were selected for suitable officials in the four major town guards.

In short, the newly formed Imperial Territorial Theater is mainly divided into two major functions: maintenance and operation, the former is responsible for the maintenance and supply of ships, the formation of newly commissioned ships, the training of ships (marines), the port and waterway, and the management of various naval schools, etc., and the latter is responsible for the unified command of the air force, the sea guard force (surface ships and underwater ships), the special attack team, the marine corps, the garrison unit, and the naval corps to carry out defensive tasks. In other words, the home theater has jurisdiction over all the local combat forces belonging to the navy, and the surface, water, air, marines, garrisons, port fortresses, and radar bases are all under integrated command, but they are only responsible for defense functions (offensive functions belong to the Combined Fleet) and maintenance and supply functions (mainly for the Combined Fleet).

The reform also abolished the ridiculous restrictions on the ownership of ships and soldiers, and the navy could be organized in a chaotic manner, similar to "Kure no Yukikaze and Sasebo's time rain" will become a memory in the future. More importantly, in the former regulations of the Castle Guard, the Commander of the Castle Guard Prefecture stipulated that he would be directly subordinate to the Emperor and that he would be under the leadership of the Minister of the Navy in military and political affairs, and that he would be under the leadership of the Chief of the Military Command Department in military affairs. However, after the reform, the commander of the home theater and the commander of the combined fleet were merged and changed to be subordinate to the leadership of the Privy Envoy of the Navy, and the affairs of military administration and military orders were still under the leadership of the Minister of the Navy and the Chief of the Military Command Department respectively.

This made it clearer to all parties that in the future, the emperor could only be held at the rank of privy envoy, naval minister, and chief of the military command department, and at most he could add military counselors in advisory roles, and could no longer directly arrest the commander of the theater or the commander of the combined fleet, which would be tantamount to cutting off more than ninety percent of the emperor's naval command, and Horikichi would become the first person in the navy worthy of the name.

Admiral Koga Mineichi, former governor of Yokosuka Town, was appointed chief of the Emperor's Chamberlain, Admiral Zengo Yoshida, former governor of Yokosuka Shofu and a classmate of Horikichi and Yamamoto Isoroku, was transferred to the chief military council (not only considered an aviation faction, but also rarely agreed with Horikichi's thinking), Admiral Takayoshi Kato, who had always been opposed to reform, was transferred to the reserve, and the former commander of Maizuru Shofu (generally only a lieutenant general due to his small size and low status), Vice Admiral Okawauchi, who was the same time as Inoue Narumi, was transferred to the position of principal of the Naval Academy.

In this way, all the admirals before the 32nd period were transferred to the reserve, and only he, Yamamoto 56 and Yoshida Zengo were three active generals in the 32nd period, and the rest of the generals were all retired, with the 35th Takasu Shiro being appointed as the commander of the Nanyang Theater of Operations, there were no generals in the combined fleet in the 33rd, 34th, and 35th periods (in fact, all of these three periods have been retired except for a few exceptions), and after Horiyoshi, the oldest admiral of the combined fleet became Tsukahara 243 in the 36th period, In the 37th issue, there was also Jizaburo Ozawa, who had the highest voice, and this created institutional conditions for the reorganization of the combined fleet and the real shift of the focus of operations from the battleship force to the aircraft carrier force.

However, these earth-shaking changes in the Japanese navy were obviously not known to the outside world, at least not when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Lee Haihai, and John Pukins quietly arrived at the hospital to visit Roosevelt, who was seriously ill and hospitalized.

Compared with more than a month ago, Roosevelt's complexion was significantly better, and his physical functions had recovered more ideally, and he maintained consistent thinking clarity and logical coherence during long conversations and exchanges with the two. In the early days of the Battle of Newfoundland, Roosevelt, who had been waiting for good news, obviously could not withstand the stimulation of consecutive defeats, but in the later period, especially after Cunningham used the tactics of killing 500 enemies and losing 1000 to lose both, Roosevelt recovered, he calmly thought about the whole situation, and believed that in terms of the current situation, Cunningham's attrition tactics were actually the only feasible policy - after the battles of Newfoundland and Cape Verde, wouldn't the German fleet, which suffered great losses, not be able to maintain the high-pressure situation of the Anglo-Canadian route?

In fact, a week ago, his body was enough to support his comeback***** but Roosevelt smiled and refused, he wanted to see Wallace's governance methods, but now the reality has undoubtedly disappointed him......