Chapter 76: Mountain Rain is Coming
The arrogant attitude and blind self-confidence of the Entente countries, especially the short-sighted decision of French President Poincaré, increased the possibility that the Federal States of Germany would be "reddished", which made the United States on the other side of the ocean and Britain close at hand very anxious, and a small rift appeared within the Entente. Of course, such a rift is not irreparable, after all, the values and goals of the Entente will always be the same.
The various measures to coerce the Entente into submission were just Eric? Adrian's expediency to justify Germany in World War I was also a big game of chess for him to play, and it was a big gamble, rather than a real decision to follow the Soviet Union. While Adrian did not see this plan as the only strategy to try to relent, the French were relenting. As the saying goes, people are not as good as the sky, and the sky is not as good as the people, if Eric? President Adrian usually walked on only one leg, so he would never have led the trend of recent European history, let alone repudiated the question of whether the Entente was defeated and surrendered for post-war Germany.
Winter is already in Germany, and the temperature is slowly dropping. In the evening, the lights are on, and the people who have worked all day have returned to their warm homes one after another. This is the first winter since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the city of Berlin at this time is lit up with thousands of lights, and it is peaceful and quiet.
In the Dauphin's Palace in Berlin, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Erik? Adrian and some of the country's dignitaries were giving a grand banquet to the distinguished guests of the Red Soviet Union and Poland on their state visits. At the same time, on the evening of November 17, 1918, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht Army Group C, who was far away on the Western Front in Germany, Friedrich ? Woolf? Feng? Admiral Bartlet suddenly received a letter from Musk, Chief of Staff of the National United Front Work Department? The Secret Epistle of Hoffmann's Hand. Along with Admiral Bartlet, the deputy commander-in-chief of Army Group D, Elvis, who received secret letters at the same time? Feng? Admiral Ulysses. Although these two generals were also deputy commanders-in-chief of the group army, when Berlin participated in the military reform, Adrian had clearly designated them as the main leaders of the military work of their respective group armies. The content of Hoffman's handwritten secret letter was very simple, requiring only the two of them to temporarily leave the unit and meet at a secret location according to the instructions of the messenger. There is no doubt that the person they want to meet is Max, the chief of staff of the United Front Work Department of the People's Republic of China? Hoffman.
The evening breeze brought a chill, and the two generals were nervous, so late, as the chief of staff of the United Front Work Department of the German Federal States, Hoffmann summoned late at night, and it was such a sensitive front line, something must have happened, neither of them dared to hesitate, and hurriedly put on a cold coat and followed the people to set off separately.
On this special day of the month, the moon does not come out until late at night, which undoubtedly adds to the mystery of this sudden meeting.
As a result of years of fighting along the Franco-German border, there has been a serious abandonment of farmland in many places, and local residents have either relocated to the interior or chosen other industries to support their families, leaving their homes where they have lived for generations.
Between the two rivers is a deserted plain farm, with a large area of fertile land slightly undulating. The only mill here was in ruins because of the war, and not far from the mill were a few looming, abandoned dilapidated houses, silently and eerily submerged in the dark night, with no lights, no laughter, only the occasional two miserable hissing of jackdaws, which made people feel terrible. In the cold wind, the dense towering trees are dense and disorderly, covering these dilapidated houses, giving people a visual feeling of virtual reality, hazy, weird and deep, eerie and terrifying, which makes people daunted. This land, watered with the lives and blood of soldiers of several countries, was inaccessible and lifeless, and was once one of the main battlefields of fierce fighting between Britain, France, and Germany. Many people say that this haunted land is often haunted during the day, and at night, especially at night, when you can't see your fingers, it is a forbidden area on earth, and it has become a veritable ghost land.
The cold wind blowing from the Atlantic Ocean not only lowered the temperature in this ghost area, but also made those abandoned altars and jars whining, sometimes intermittent, sometimes high and sometimes low, sometimes whimpering, sometimes screaming. The wolves, which had been lost for many years, returned, and the observant will find that the animals were not wolves, but wild dogs, because the bones scattered all over the entrenchment had fostered their physique, awakened their original wildness, and made their howls full of provocation. A few ghostly black shadows moved slowly in the darkness, like a few ghosts dressed in black with long hair, red eyes, black beads, fangs and claws, ready to pounce on the night walkers. It is common sense that this inaccessible and terrifying realm is devoid of ordinary human activity, let alone at night when you can't see your fingers. The shadows were not like wolves or wild dogs, they were larger than they were, and they stalked all the way, quietly disappearing into the ruins of the ruined houses. Immediately, the two birds, which had spent the night in the woods, let out a terrible scream, flapped their flustered wings, and flew towards a darker and more dreary distance, and the night returned to a deathly silence.
One of the shadows slowly stood upright, followed by several more emerging from the rubble, as if searching for something. At this moment, there was a faint walk in the darkness, as if in a hurry. The shadow touched one of them, reminding him to get ready for action.
The reminded black shadow quickly took out a square black box from his body, and then pressed it a few times regularly, making a few crisp, low birdsong sounds, and after a while, the black box received the same answer. Several black shadows suddenly breathed a sigh of relief and began to move their bodies, it turned out that these were several guard guards in camouflage uniforms. As the people got closer and closer, the shadows quickly lowered the muzzle of their guns, slowly walked out of the ruins, merged with the people very tacitly, and then quickly walked towards another low and dilapidated house.
More than ten minutes later, the same scene played out again, in the dark, the two passers-by met tacitly and entered the low dilapidated house. After a while, the guards quietly spread out, scattered and hidden around the low house.
This house is very small, and it happens that it is small, so that it has miraculously survived to the present day when the artillery was under fire. The room was rudimentary, with a broken table, a few broken chairs, and a thick layer of dust everywhere. In the inner room with four doors closed, a small window was also nailed by layers of wooden planks. Different from the boundary, there is a kerosene horse lamp on the table, and a middle-aged man who is full of energy and grandeur is slowly pacing back and forth in the room.
Ulysses was the first to arrive, and the guard at the gate looked carefully in the darkness without saying a word, and then very respectfully ushered him into the dimly lit room. After groping in the dark for too long, Bartlet suddenly had some inexplicable yearning for the light, and at this time, following this dim light, he finally saw this important person who was supposed to accompany President Eric to the dinner party for the guests of the Soviet Union and Poland at the prince's palace in Berlin - Max, chief of staff of the United Front Work Department of the People's Republic of China? Hoffman.
Bartlet arrived after Ulysses, ten minutes later than Ulysses, because he was travelling a relatively long way.
General Bartlet has just taken his seat, Max? Hoffman calmed down and went straight to the point: "Gentlemen, you have worked hard! I would now like to read out the first top-secret order signed by the President since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, which is known to less than five people, including the two of you. ”
The two of them quickly straightened, and their nerves suddenly tensed, Max? Hoffman hurriedly beckoned them to relax, then took a roll of paper from his handbag, spread it out and placed it on the table.
This is a map of the marching operations of the Western Front, which can be seen at a glance by the generals of the two marching armies, which is clearly marked at a glance, and also accurately marks the deployment of troops on both sides of Germany and France. This seemed to General Bartlet, who was in a prominent position on the German front, to be a great humiliation, because his Army Group C was the closest unit to the French capital Paris, and it also had an intelligence agency, which was mainly engaged in the reconnaissance and collection of dynamic reconnaissance of enemy defenses in the direction of the defense area. The difficulty of intelligence reconnaissance is undoubtedly the deployment of the enemy's forces and firepower, which is not only difficult to achieve, but also the results of the reconnaissance are not necessarily accurate. Not only did Bartlet feel humiliated, but he even suspected that the information brought by the chief of staff of the United Front Work Department might be wrong, and he immediately communicated his thoughts to Hoffman. Hoffman smiled and told them that the accuracy of this information was too high to be questioned, but it was not yet possible to reveal the source of the information. In fact, even Hoffman, who is the chief of staff of the United Front Work Department, does not know where such an accurate figure comes from, he only knows that that night, President Eric put this troop deployment map in front of him, and told him that once there is a change in deployment, new information and change data will be provided in time, and then Adrian ordered Max? Hoffman revised overnight a plan for an offensive on the Western Front drawn up by Hindenburg when he was chief of the General Staff, because the war broke out at that time, Hindenburg did not have time to implement it, and it dragged on until now.
Max? After Hoffman finished revising it overnight, Adrian only took a cursory look at it and signed it, along with Vice President Hindenburg. Hindenburg also doubted the source of the intelligence on the defense deployment of the two sides at that time, but Adrian tried to persuade the intelligence to be accurate, which made Hindenburg agree to sign it. Such a military operation could have bypassed Hindenburg, the vice president, but Adrian did not do so, because Hindenburg's appeal was there, and Adrian needed to unite all the forces that could be united to ensure the confidentiality, speed, and accuracy of this operation, and to make every effort possible.