At six o'clock in the morning on the D day, Churchill woke up from his bed, and he pressed the electric bell next to the bed. According to his usual habits, the first thing he does when he wakes up every morning is to listen to the confidential secretary's latest briefing in bed, and then choose whether to continue to lie in bed or get up to wash up and eat breakfast according to his mood.

The dedicated lady had the worst situation of her career, the Prime Minister had drunk too much last night and woke up too early in the morning. As soon as the confidential secretary entered the door, he felt the almost frozen low pressure in the room, and the prime minister was suffering from a double torment of hangover and insomnia. The shrewd confidential secretary did not dare to slack off, and having had several terrible experiences, she knew very well that the slightest mistake at this time would cause a terrifying thunderstorm.

Churchill sat with his back leaning back at the head of the bed, the quilt pulled up to his chest, and two pillows under his waist. He twisted his body with great difficulty, picked up the ashtray on the bedside table and put it on his stomach, and then picked out half of the cigar from the ashtray that he had not finished smoking last night, and the confidential secretary hurriedly walked over and picked up a box of matches from the bedside table and handed it to him.

"Thank you, Miss Christine. What's the good news today, I feel like I've never needed a piece of good news like I have now. Churchill lit his cigar, shook out the match in his hand, and threw it into the ashtray. He now had a terrible headache, like an awl poking his brain, and for weeks the stress of the war had forced him to work almost sleeplessly day and night, with less than three hours of rest a day, but the situation in England had not improved in the slightest, but had only gotten worse.

The Germans had made several huge cuts in the arteries of the British Empire, and the giant was bleeding rapidly, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The Army has worked very hard to restore its strength, and they have undertaken ninety percent of the tasks of the homeland defense project, and the efforts and sacrifices made by the generals of the headquarters are obvious to all, but the final result is more and more chilling the more you look at it, the lack of weapons and equipment, and the shortage of officers and non-commissioned officers. The training time of soldiers has been compressed, but the age range for conscription has been greatly expanded. Although there was no shortage of soldiers, the speed of the army's organization could not be improved, and the War Department gave a bunch of empty shell troops the famous name in an attempt to confuse the Germans. Churchill can only continue to use awards and promotions to boost the morale of these rookies, and what kind of effect can be achieved in the end, Churchill is no longer interested, he only hopes that these young soldiers can fight for the honor of the British Empire like their predecessors.

The Air Force Dowding disappointed him greatly, and that cowardly display was nothing short of blatant flattering to the enemy. But Churchill not only could not punish him, but also defended him in the cabinet, he had to protect his most loyal subordinates, especially in such a critical moment, the cohesion of the team is the most important thing, once the hearts are scattered, then everything is over.

The performance of the Royal Navy was nothing short of impressive, and Churchill served two terms as Lord of the Admiralty, during which he was in office. He constantly introduced the latest technology and equipment, studied the latest tactics and tactics, promoted a group of young admirals, and worked hard to eliminate the stale atmosphere in the British Navy. It can be said that the modern British Royal Navy was built entirely by his own hands. But it is clear that his reforms did not succeed, or that the recalcitrant forces in the navy were deeply entrenched. The Royal Navy seems to have an incredible ability to restore the Navy, and as soon as he leaves the position of Lord of the Admiralty. The Navy will immediately return to its original state, and his efforts will only be to bring some new toys to the Navy with his downfall. The equipment development program has also been completely stalled.

Now the British Royal Navy has eaten the bitter fruit of their own planting, and the Germans have caught up in equipment and technology. Although a large part of the debacle at Dunkirk was a human error, especially since he played the most crucial role in it, and he was not prepared to shirk his responsibility, the subsequent series of Atlantic escort defeats was entirely a problem for the Royal Navy itself.

The high-level navy leaders of the artillery giant ship faction were short-sighted to the point of outrageous short-sightedness in submarine technology and tactics, and after experiencing the bitter lessons of the First World War, they still did not want to forge ahead, did not conduct special research on them, and carried out targeted equipment development, and now the destroyers of the British Royal Navy still use those equipment developed during the First World War, and it has been proved that these things cannot suppress the attack of German submarines at all.

But the victory in the First World War blinded the British, who reveled in the aura of victory, and the German surrender proved that the submarine was only a crooked way, and the cannon ships were the key force in determining the outcome of the war. Now these crooked ways are once again choking the throat of the British, and the cannon ships have no effect on it.

The destruction of the Somerville fleet dealt a heavy blow to him again, before that, Churchill had been very conceited, he believed that the plans he had made were perfect, the strategic direction was correct, but his subordinates had some deviations in the implementation process, encountered some obstacles that had never been encountered before, and the failure was just luck, not that there was anything wrong with the plan. The Gallipoli landing and the Dunkirk retreat were theoretically entirely achievable, but it was only bad luck that led to the final fiasco. But this time Somerville's defeat dealt a serious blow to Churchill's self-confidence. It was he who was the first to introduce aircraft to the Royal Navy, and it was with his support that he developed the aircraft carrier, and Churchill thought that no one knew more about this kind of ship and how to use it than he did.

Churchill was depressed when he received the Navy report, and the defeat severely damaged his self-esteem and self-confidence. Therefore, Churchill only gave an operational order for the raid plan of the home fleet, put forward an operational objective, and threw all the specific plans and operations to the Royal Navy Command. Until the moment of his death, poor Tovey thought that the plans and orders were all the same as before, and that Churchill himself had formulated and issued them, but he did not expect that it was the Navy Command's own plan, and he showed it to the dog.

By the time Churchill had begun to smoke his cigar, the confidential secretary had begun his early morning briefing. The clever confidential secretary had already anticipated that this morning would not be easy, so he very skillfully rearranged the order of the debriefings. Report some bad news first, and then sandwich a little slightly better news. The best news is put last, so that Churchill will not be bothered by bad news and can get up and work in a good mood.

First of all, the French Pétain government sent a formal protest to the British Imperial Government, the content of the protest does not need to be expressed one by one, the key is that the attitude of the French is very tough, and the choice of words is extremely fierce, in which a lot of space is used to violently criticize the British government's treachery and shamelessness, and demand that the British government give a clear statement, punish those responsible and compensate France for its losses, otherwise it will seriously hurt the feelings of the French people. Affect the relationship between the two countries, take a path that no one wants to see, anyway, in the eyes of expert diplomats, this document can be seen as a pre-declaration of war. Of course, Churchill was dismissive of this, and the person responsible for this incident was himself, and it was difficult to punish those responsible for his resignation? Those losers on the continent really dare to think about it. Churchill pursed his lips, dusted off his cigarette ashes, and motioned for the secretary to continue.

German bombers bombed Oxford again, reducing several large estates there to ashes, and the local fire department was completely helpless against this particular incendiary bomb. As reported in towns on the southern coast, such incendiary bombs are very difficult to extinguish and can even burn in water.

Churchill frowned, this thing had already caused him too much trouble. He had already ordered someone to take charge of the project, contacting chemistry experts from all the major academies in an effort to find a way to restrain the flames as quickly as possible. The military immediately organized experts to rush to the bombing site to investigate and take samples, but the feedback was not very good. Due to the high level of fuel combustion and the contamination of the site with other impurities, it was not possible to obtain a fuel sample.

The only way to pray for now is to get a malfunctioning unexploded bomb, but that's easy to say. It's easier said than done, this thing is filled with an incendiary agent, and even if the fuse fails, other incendiary bombs can detonate it, and the only way to get a sample is to rely on providence. Churchill nodded again and motioned for the secretary to continue.

What follows is the German bombing, to be precise, the after-effects of the bombing. Yesterday afternoon, Churchill had been informed of the influx of refugees along the coast, but it was not until midnight that the government received a full report and recorded data on the incident, which really understood the seriousness of the incident.

From noon onwards, between 1.7 million and 2 million people were expected to have fled their homes, a large part of them to several large cities near London, and some of them were still migrating north. Due to the huge number of people, the garrisons and police along the route did not dare to stop them, and the self-defense forces in various parts of the road only guarded the entrances and exits of their respective villages and towns to prevent the influx of refugees, and the rest did not interfere at all.

With the arrival of the refugees, there are all kinds of strange rumors, most of which are extremely alarmist, but there is a very good market for the people at the bottom, and many urban residents and villagers have already listened to those rumors and joined the ranks of the exodus. The police arrested some of the fugitives on the streets on charges of being homeless, but they did nothing to stop the panicked fleeing of the group. The National Police Agency interrogated some of them and found that some of them didn't want to leave their homeland at all, but everyone in the village was preparing to flee at the time, and if they stayed where they were, they would starve to death, so they had to follow the brigade. The Metropolitan Police has asked the Cabinet to give more power to control some refugees entering London.

Until 12 o'clock last night, 600,000 people were stranded on the roads leading to the north. What worries the government is that many villages and towns along the southern coast have been emptied, and the local People's Self-Defense Forces have all fled, so to speak, from four o'clock yesterday afternoon until Churchill read this document, most of the southern coast of Britain was unguarded.

Hearing this, Churchill was taken aback, but then it occurred to him that it did not matter whether those coasts were guarded or not, the Germans must choose the landing at Dover, as long as the army troops arrived there in time, then they could completely defend those two ports, as long as the Germans were repelled from this landing, there would be no more major battles this year. However, some troops will still need to be mobilized to re-establish the coast guard, and Churchill intends to specifically raise this issue at the daily meeting of the Chiefs of Staff in the morning.

The confidential secretary continued to report that the war on the European continent had stabilized, Germany and France had ceased war for a long time, and the attitude of the two sides was very ambiguous, but the conflict on the Franco-Italian border began to heat up, and the Italian army launched another fierce attack on the French Alpine border defense line the afternoon before yesterday, and at the same time dispatched three mountain divisions and two aviation regiments. The result was easily beaten back by the French Army, the Italians were allegedly attacked by a dense range of large-caliber artillery and a large number of automatic weapons, the front-line troops suffered heavy losses, and the Italian Air Force also encountered stubborn resistance from the French Air Force, the French side claimed to have shot down forty-seven Italian planes, but Italy only admitted that two bombers were lost in the mountains due to miscarriage.

It is not at all surprising that Churchill was thinking that the clown was dying again, and that Noodle was completely to blame for this fate, but he was more concerned about the strength that France had shown in the war, which on the other hand confirmed that France had indeed made secret peace with Germany. Or if a deal had been struck, the Germans must have been secretly supporting French weaponry, as the intelligence had suspected.

Two months ago, France was crying about the end of its weapons factories and asking Britain for heavy artillery and aircraft, so where did the weapons used to beat noodles come from? If the French Army was really so violent, why did it fall to the point where the capital was captured by others.

Churchill decided to meet again with the head of the MIA, and Menzies seemed to be preparing some operation on the Dover front, just in time for him to come back and make a report, and by the way, let him increase his efforts. Sort out the problems between France and Germany.

Next came the report on Dover, where at ten o'clock last night the regrouped 1st Panzer Division and the 5th and 6th Infantry Divisions had finally arrived at Dover and Folkestone. But from eleven o'clock, the large-caliber heavy artillery clusters deployed by the Germans on the line of Wissan began to launch a continuous artillery bombardment of the fortress of Dover and the city of Folkestone. It is alleged that two or three large-caliber shells fell every minute. German bombers also continued to drop bombs on both places, and from three o'clock this morning, Dover lost contact with us.

Folkestone's Army units have been in constant contact with the Kent command post by radio, according to the Army. Local buildings and coastal fortifications have been severely damaged, military casualties have been severe, and large forces have withdrawn from the city. Only a small number of soldiers were left on alert, and the artillery and air raids were still going on intermittently, and the attacks showed no signs of abating, and the German landing fleet was not found on the sea. The last contact was at six a.m., and no new reports were received after that.

Churchill breathed a sigh of relief, it seems that his judgment is correct, Germany is preparing artillery fire for the landing in two places, since the shelling is still ongoing, it means that the landing has not yet begun, the Germans must launch the landing in these two days, and discuss it again at the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see what other troops can be drawn to strengthen the defense there.

The rest of the news was good news for Churchill, as the Canadian government finally couldn't withstand the pressure from the domestic royalists, and passed a resolution to mobilize two infantry divisions to escort the king in Britain by the end of this month. Although the distant water can't quench the thirst of the near, but after all, it is the reinforcements that fell out of nowhere after all, and when the Germans are repelled from the landing, there will be two more infantry divisions of reinforcements in hand, then the British mainland will be regarded as defending. Churchill scoffed at the fighting power of the Canadian soldiers, but he still coveted their weapons supplies, and the Canadians would not dare to complain as long as they deducted a little from them.

The last piece of news made Churchill feel even more energetic, the secret treaty with the United States was finally signed, and Churchill was mentally prepared to be knocked hard, after all, the British have a lot of history and really have little credibility to speak of. But what is interesting is that Franklin Ross showed extraordinary generosity, and Britain did not suffer much in the trade, and it can even be said that it took a big advantage.

The United States agreed that the British government would use British assets in the United States to mortgage the loans, and the interest rate would be very low, and the United States would provide 500,000 M1917 rifles and 500 75mm guns in stock, as well as 5,000 Maxim machine guns, 1 million rounds of ammunition for rifles and 1,000 rounds for machine guns. Among them, 200,000 rifles and 300 cannons have already been loaded and shipped, and the United States has even privately stated that it can send destroyers to help escort the ship, but the destroyers can only fly the British flag. At the same time, the British envoy has begun to discuss with the United States the issue of purchasing tanks and aircraft, and the United States said that since it does not have much equipment, it can only resume production, but if the British side is in a hurry, the United States can draw some of its own army equipment, and now the specific quantity is being discussed, and the results should be obtained soon.

This is the best news Churchill has received this month, and it seems that his cousin is a little impatient, and Churchill is well aware that this deal is good for both sides, especially for the other side who is in trouble, and saving Britain is actually saving himself.

"What a good day, Christine, has General Ismay arrived?" Churchill smiled and put the cigar in the ashtray and handed it to the secretary.

"It's not here yet, do you need me to invite him?" The confidential secretary took the ashtray and placed it on the bedside table.

"In ten minutes, invite him to the small dining room to meet me, what's breakfast today?"

"Mashed potatoes and pan-fried bacon, and boiled eggs."

"Great, I love bacon."

Churchill lifted the covers, climbed out of bed, and stretched his waist as he walked towards the bathroom. At this moment, the headache seemed to be far away from him, his mood had never been more comfortable, and the future of Britain was full of hope. (To be continued, please search, the novel is better and updated faster!)