Mike Sr., a gardener who stayed in Washington to look after the house, only received a call from Adele this morning and learned that John would be back for a few days. So when John got home from www.biquge.info the quartermaster building, the old Mike and his wife were in a hurry to pack up their room.

For this old couple, this job is not easy. When Adele left, most of the room was sealed. In order to avoid dust, the furniture was covered with white sheets, all kinds of small items were boxed and stored, even the oil paintings on the walls, tapestries and crystal lamps on the ceiling were taken down and put away. Now John is suddenly coming back to live, but old Mac and his wife are exhausted.

"Old Mike, I'll come back for a few days, just clean up the bedroom and study, and continue to seal the other rooms." John said to Old Mike.

"Yes, sir. The bedroom, study, living room and dining room are all packed up and ready for you to use. Old Mac replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He has been serving John's family for thirty years, and he is a very loyal and honest man, and Adele will not feel at ease to leave him to watch the family.

"Sir, what would you like to eat for the evening? I'll go and prepare now. Old Mike's wife stepped forward and asked.

"No need, I have a date in the evening, and I'll be gone in a minute. I'm going to run some errands in my study now, so get me a cup of coffee. With that, John got up and went to the study on the second floor.

"Your coffee, sir. Also, these letters have been sent to my home in the last few days. I haven't had time to send it to Alexandria yet. In a few moments, old Michael went into the study with his coffee, and there was a stack of letters on the tray.

"Let's put it somewhere first." John didn't even raise his head, and while writing something in his notebook, he said, "Adele left a car at home, help me fill up the car, I'll use it later." ”

"Yes, sir." Old Michael put his coffee and letters on the table, turned and went out.

John continued to write and draw in his notebook for another ten minutes before he stopped writing and picked up his coffee. In his notebook, he listed all the questions he could think of, counted them, and there were more than a dozen in total, three of the most important of which were.

First of all, it is whether McNair and Embick have the ability to put him on the throne of the third army's logistics director.

It is true that the elder Embique was the first commander of the Third Army, but he has already retired. Even if his old team is still there and he has a personal relationship with President Roosevelt, in this kind of personnel matter, he only has the right to recommend at most.

McNair, commander of the "reserve" ground forces, now has the right to personnel, establishment, and training of the field troops, but when it comes to the personnel of the Third Army, John is not very sure.

At the beginning, in order to push McNair to the throne, the conservatives came up with the condition that Kruger, who was sent by Marshall, be the commander of the Third Army. The control of the front-line troops has always been the biggest shortcoming of the Marshall faction, and now that he is finally in charge of an army group, can he tolerate McNair continuing to stuff people into it casually?

The second question is why McNair and Embick chose him.

If they simply admired John's abilities and his talents, even John himself would not believe them. In terms of personal relationships, neither John's "teacher-student friendship" nor his friendship with Embick's daughter and son-in-law is enough for these two conservative bigwigs to make such a choice.

The only possibility, then, is that John was pushed out by the conservatives to fight the Marshallists this time. Due to the overall situation of cooperation between the two factions, McNair and Embick were inconvenient to directly intervene in the personnel of the Third Army, but they did not want to further lose their influence on the Third Army, so they chose him, a "neutral person" who had nothing to do with either side.

John even doubted that McNair and Embick would come out in support of him. Noon, today's noon conversation just wanted to induce him to jump out and take the initiative to participate in this competition.

John carefully recalled his conversation with McNair and Embick at noon today. At the time, the two old guys just said that they thought John was a good fit for the position, and helped John analyze a lot of the benefits of going to the Third Group as the head of logistics, but they really never explicitly stated that they wanted to support him in the competition for the position.

Thinking of this, John couldn't help but sneer. McNair and Embick also underestimated him, which was determined that he was too young to hold his breath and could not resist the temptation of the general. didn't even make a false statement of support, so he wanted to fool him into going into battle shirtless and tearing up the Marshalls for them.

Maybe in their opinion, no matter whether John can become the logistics director in the end or not, as long as he can lure out the Stimson behind him, it will be considered a success. If it doesn't work, it's not bad to let John come out and stir up the situation and add some trouble to Marshall's side.

Especially for McNair, letting John suffer a small setback is not only a punishment for his previous use of himself to run Pop, but also allows John to have a grudge with the Marshallists from now on, so that he will not completely fall to the other side.

Probably guessing McNul's intentions, John's heart was half cold. However, he was still a little unwilling. Indeed, as McNair and Embick said, the position of logistics director of the Third Army was simply too suitable for him.

And the thought that he could be the top of this legendary army and participate in the frontal battle in the European theater made John really a little excited. Throw McNner's little abacus aside, and try it yourself.

So, John's third question comes. If he really participated in this personnel competition, would it be possible to win?

John himself had no answer to this question. Because he still lacks a lot of necessary information.

First, the attitude of the current commander of the Third Army, Lieutenant General Kruger, on this matter.

If you want to say who has the most say in the army on the issue of the choice of the logistics director of the Third Army, it is undoubtedly Lieutenant General Kruger. Even Marshall himself would have had a hard time intervening in the matter past him.

First, the county officials are not as good as the current management. The commander of the army group had the right to choose his own auxiliaries. Second, Marshall must also respect the opinion of the most senior general of his faction.

In real terms, Kruger's military age was only one year shorter than Marshall's. During the Spanish-American War, Kruger, who was still in high school, participated in the Battle of San Diego as a volunteer. During World War I, he was the chief of staff of the army, and Marshall was still a small staff officer next to General Pershing at that time.

Kruger threw himself into Marshall's arms mainly because he was at odds with the conservative bigwig and former Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Charles Summerrow, and because of his German and non-professional status. In the 30s, Kruger was even squeezed to the point where he had to leave the Army and go to the Naval Academy to become a teacher.

It was not until after the outbreak of the European war that Marshall invited this senior expert on German military issues (Kruger had translated and published many German military works) back to the General Staff and served as deputy director of the training department.

So, for John to win the position and gain a foothold in the third group, it would not have been possible without Kruger's nod.

Second, why was Major General Harry Sullivan, the former logistics chief of the Third Army, dismissed?

Major General Sullivan had been in charge of logistics in the Third Army for four or five years, and John had several encounters with the scholar-type officer when he was in the Operations Planning Division, and he had a good impression of him.

It stands to reason that Kruger has only been in office for a few months, and his hand-picked chief of staff, Eisenhower, has not yet reported for duty, so why did he suddenly remove Major General Sullivan from his post? Moreover, it was at a time when the group army was about to carry out logistical reform, which was completely out of line with the cleanup.

John felt that it was inappropriate for him to make further decisions until he had figured out the internal situation of the Third Army. In addition to getting some talk from Nevins tonight, he needs to learn a little bit from Eisenhower and Uncle Stimson.