"Gentlemen, I have to tell you bad news." Inside the headquarters of the Republican Army, Manuel Azania frowned and said to the commander of the Republican Army, "One of our important front-line airfields was hit by an airstrike three hours ago, and the entire airfield was bombed so that not a single building could be found. ”

"Air strikes?" The officers below were stunned, "When will the rebels have the ability to launch an air strike?" Aren't all their planes running out of Soviet air forces? ”

"Not a rebel plane." Azania shook his head and said, "It's a German plane!" ”

"German?" The officer below asked suspiciously, "When did the Germans send the plane?" Why haven't we received any news? ”

"No, no, no, they didn't send planes over, but directly sent an aircraft carrier, and the German planes that attacked us took off from the aircraft carrier named Count Zeppelin." Azania replied.

"What about our fighters? And what about Soviet fighters? A Spanish major general asked angrily.

"Are you accusing me?" The leader of the Soviet Volunteer Air Corps asked the Spanish major general with a dark face, "We lost 32 fighters in this battle!" 27 pilots were sacrificed! Who are you to accuse us? ”

As soon as the Soviet officer said this, everyone locked on to the Spanish officer with their eyes, as if they wanted to tear him apart with their eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to accuse you." The Spanish officer panicked, he wiped the cold sweat on his forehead, and said with a smile, "Soviet friends have come thousands of miles to help us because of Soviet-Western friendship, how can I accuse you?" ”

"Yes, Soviet friends, we don't mean to accuse you." Azania hurriedly reassured, "I feel very sorry for the Soviet pilots who died, and then our first priority now is to find a way to solve this trouble together, not to blame each other." ”

"Humph!" Listening to the apology from the Spanish side, the Soviet officer snorted coldly, and his face became a little better.

"Regarding the question raised by this gentleman, I want to say that we sent fighter jets to intercept German air attacks, but their fighter called 'ME109T' is so powerful that it successfully protected their bomber forces, not to mention, and shot down 32 of our fighters, without any casualties of their own!" Azania said with a wry smile.

"God! 0:32？ How is this possible?! The officer below shouted again in surprise.

"A large proportion of the 32 fighters shot down were inferior I-15M-22 fighters, and the I-16 fighters were still capable of fighting in front of the German ME109T." The Soviet officer said with a red face, after all, 0:32 was typed by them.

"It's okay to say that the problem of the air force is that Germany and Italy have directly sent their armies to help the rebels." Azania shrugged his shoulders, "Our eyeliner in Italy sent back the news that three days ago, there was an unusual movement on the part of the Italian Navy, and they sent warships to secretly cover several transport ships leaving the Italian military port and heading in our direction. ”

"President, is there any conclusive evidence that the transport ship is the German army?" An officer asked with a dark face.

"Our eyes saw people wearing German military uniforms in the military port, and we also saw several armored vehicles covered with rainproof canvas, after comparison of appearances, it should be the No. 3 tank and the latest No. 4 tank equipped by Germany." Azania replied helplessly, "Obviously, this is the German ground forces. ”

Indeed, that was the ground forces of Germany, consisting of the 21st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht and the 11th Panzer Division of the SS.

Both divisions were formed recently and were not fully manned, and they were armed with a total of 324 tanks.

Among them, the 21st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht is armed with 150 No. 3 tanks, 62 of the latest No. 4 tanks, for a total of 212 tanks.

The 11th SS Panzer Division was armed with 60 No. 3 tanks and 52 No. 4 tanks, for a total of 112 tanks.

The two armoured divisions, with the help of the Italian Navy's transport units, were transported to the ports controlled by the People's Army in three separate shipments at the end of early August.

After a short reorganization in the rear of the People's Army, the German-Italian Expeditionary Force, under the leadership of Rommel, went directly to the front line to help the Spanish People's Army open up the situation on the line from Badajoz to Toledo, in order to be able to integrate the two control areas that had been divided between the north and the south.

After half a month of fierce fighting, with the support of the powerful German-Italian coalition army, the People's Army successively captured Badajoz, Cáceres, Talavera, Toledo and other towns, and successfully united the two control areas in the south and north.

In September, the People's Army captured Irun and San Sebastian in the north, cutting off the northern part of the Republican Army from France.

In October, the People's Army marched on Madrid in four directions, and on 6 November it reached the outskirts of Madrid, where the Republican junta moved to Valencia, where it formed a regular army of 300,000 troops.

From November 1936 ~ March 1937, the defenders of Madrid bravely searched for it and repeatedly blocked the attacks of the People's Army. During this period, the People's Army, at the signal of Rommel, launched the Battle of the Harama River in the southeast of Madrid on February 6~27, intending to cut off the communication line from Madrid to the southeast.

However, due to the frenzied counterattack of the Republican Army, the People's Army did not win the Battle of the Harama River.

In order to contain the strength of the Republican Army, the KPA switched to attacking along the southern lines of Córdoba, Granada and Gibraltar, occupying Montoro and Malaga and then moving to the defensive.

Sure enough, the Republican army immediately sent large numbers of troops to the south after the defeat in the south, hoping to recapture some important towns in the south.

Seeing that the IRA had taken the lead, Rommel immediately shifted his offensive to the north, in order to capture the Basque Country and Asturias, which were important industrial areas along the coast of the Bay of Piscay.

To this end, the People's Army concentrated 150,000 troops (including 100,000 Italian troops) to launch an attack on Bilbao, the capital of the Basque Country, which was stubbornly resisted by 60,000 Republican troops.

Although the IRA fought very tenaciously, on 20 June KPA captured Bilbao with superior forces, and then developed an offensive towards Santander and Gijón.

In July and September of the same year, in order to alleviate the pressure on the northern front, the IRA launched two offensive campaigns in Brunette, northwest of Madrid on the central front, and east of Zaragoza on the eastern front, but failed to stop the powerful offensive of the KPA on the northern front.

On 26 August, Santander fell.

On 22 October, the last base of the IRA in Asturias fell, Gijón, and the Northern Industrial Region was completely destroyed.

The fall of the Northern Industrial Zone dealt a heavy blow to the republic. On 28 October, the government of the Republic moved from Valencia to Barcelona, and the People's Army, with the help of Rommel, succeeded in seizing the initiative on the battlefield.