While the Soviet and German armies were fighting fierce and bloody battles at Stalingrad and Moscow, the Don Army turned into a period of strategic recuperation.

In addition to the Tang occupation forces in the Japanese archipelago replacing the Japanese police and army and arresting Japanese war criminals everywhere, in some of the British colonies seized by the Tang army, there were still small remnants of the British army and local armed forces, and they adopted guerrilla warfare, and the Tang army had to spend all its efforts to encircle and suppress them.

In addition, 80% of the army of the Tang Empire has entered a period of recuperation. This period of recuperation is not a holiday, but to maintain a small training intensity so that the soldiers can relieve the pressure of the war, but will not relax the combat readiness, the new recruits of the Tang Army are still being conscripted, and the total strength is still expanding.

Due to the outbreak of World War II and the Tang Empire's successive annexation of British and French colonies, the land area increased dramatically, the territory expanded from 20,000 square kilometers before the war to 16.2 million square kilometers, and the territorial sea area expanded by 90 million square kilometers, almost incorporating the Pacific Ocean into the inner lake of the Tang Empire. (6.2 million square kilometers in the Far East, 9.97 million square kilometers in Oceania, Taiwan, and the Ryukyu Islands)

Among them, only about 1.5 million square kilometers of Far Eastern territory was originally returned by the Soviet Union and the Tang Empire, all of which were land seized from the Manchu government during the Tsarist era. This part of the land was unconditionally transferred to the Tang Empire.

However, with the white-hot Soviet-German war, the Soviet Union was facing unprecedented military pressure, most of the heavy industrial areas in the country fell, and it was difficult for the Soviet army to quickly put into production the factory equipment relocated, and even if it was put into production, the production capacity was limited, and it was difficult to resist the steel torrent of the German army.

For this. Stalin had a secret telephone conversation with Zhang Meng alone, and Stalin hoped that the Tang Empire would be able to provide the Soviet Union with strategic materials such as steel, grain, and medicine on a larger scale, and even hoped that the Tang Empire would provide weapons and equipment. In exchange. The USSR sold the entire Far East to the Tang Empire in exchange for the strategic materials they needed.

Although most of the more than 6 million square kilometers of land in the entire Far East are frozen and permafrosty, and there is no value in the eyes of all Shijie people, only Zhang Meng knows how valuable it will be in the future, and there are countless high-value oil and mineral resources. Even forest resources are worth buying.

Zhang Meng agreed, and the Tang Empire offered 5 million tons of steel, 500,000 tons of grain, and 30,000 boxes of medicines. The remaining 3 million square kilometers of land in the Far East were purchased from the Soviet Union, so that the entire 6.2 million square kilometers of land in the Far East became the property of the Tang Empire.

At the same time, Zhang Meng also promised Stalin that the Tang Empire would supply the Soviet Union with 5 million tons of steel and 500,000 tons of grain every year in the future. 30,000 boxes of medicines. Even some weapons and industrial equipment, which would not have attracted the attention of the German army, were to be delivered to the territory of the USSR via the Trans-Siberian Railway through the Far East.

In this way, the Tang Empire gained the entire Soviet Far East, expanding the territory of the Tang Empire to 16.2 million square kilometers and reaching the Arctic Circle.

To manage such a large territory, the existing forces of the Tang Empire were far from sufficient, which was exposed when the Tang Army had just taken over Australia, and it was impossible to draw more troops to deal with the Japanese army at that time. Fortunately, Australians are very honest. There was no rebellion or even formation of guerrilla units to confront the Tang army, so that the Tang army quickly completed its domination of Australia. Troops were divided to participate in the brigade battle, and finally won the victory.

Now, the Tang Empire has openly made a territorial exchange deal with the Soviet Union, which has offended Hitler, but the two sides have not torn their faces, but Zhang Meng knows that whether the German army wins or the Soviet army wins, the victorious side will definitely settle accounts with the Tang Empire, if the German army will compete with the Tang Dynasty for territory and hegemony by land, sea and air, if the Soviet army is inevitably unwilling to lose the Far East, it will make a comeback, and let the fist stipulate the dominance of the Far East.

Either way, the Tang Empire had to be prepared, so Zhang Meng considered that the existing military system and territorial defense were no longer suitable, so the United Ministry of Defense reformulated the expansion of armaments.

According to the new Jihua, the total strength of the imperial army of the Tang Empire was expanded to 500,000 people. It has 3 army group headquarters, 4 army headquarters, 16 combat divisions (4 armored divisions, 4 mechanized divisions, 4 light infantry divisions, 1 air assault division, and 3 airborne divisions) in the Pacific Theater, the Oceania Theater, and the Far East Theater, including 3 army group headquarters, 4 army headquarters, and 1 airborne special forces.

The strength of the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire was expanded to 412,000 men, excluding the Marine Corps. It has five fleets, namely the Pacific Fleet (West, South and North Pacific), the Indian Ocean Fleet (Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea), the Atlantic Fleet (South, North and East Atlantic), the Mediterranean Fleet (Mediterranean), and the Home Fleet (Central Pacific).

The strength of the Royal Tang Air Force has been expanded to 402,000 people, with an Air Operations Command and an Air Mobility Command. The Air Operations Command has 10 air groups (one of which is a strategic bomber air group) and 24 air wings. The Air Mobility Command has 2 air groups and 15 flight wings.

The strength of the Datang Royal Marines was expanded to 350,000. There are 10 Marine Corps divisions, 8 service support brigades, 3 security and security force battalions, and 5 frogman special forces battalions.

The expansion of the Datang Imperial Coast Guard is the largest, from the initial Central Pacific Guard Fleet composed of less than 40 patrol ships, to 105 patrol ships, 400 seaplanes, and more than 1,500 speedboats and boats, and 10 new Arctic icebreakers. The size of the force reached 53,000.

In addition, there is a special force, with a strength of 50,000 troops, which is directly controlled by the Homeland Security Agency and is not under the direct command of the Ministry of Defense, but the army, navy and air force are only loyal to the royal family of the Tang Empire, and the full name is the Royal Special Service. This unit includes all kinds of military talents, and its station is in Chang'an, next to the Daming Palace. Among them, there are 3,000 royal guards, who directly protect the safety of the royal family and do not go out of Chang'an in peacetime.

The special service team is directly a condensed essence of the Tang Army, including 25,300 people of the army's special operations forces, 5 brigades (each including 3 battalions), 1 BIEDONG infantry regiment (including 3 battalions), 1 aviation regiment, 1 psychological operations brigade (including 5 battalions), 1 civilian battalion (including 5 companies), 1 communications battalion and 1 support battalion. The Navy has 14,000 special operations troops, including 1 command center, 1 operations center, 3 brigades, 6 units, 6 "SEALs", 2 "SEALs" transport convoys, and 2 special boat squadrons. The Air Force has 5,000 special operations troops, including 1 headquarters, 1 wing, and 14 squadrons. There are 3,000 members of the information warfare unit, which are actually distributed among other special service units.

The Tang Army carried out a large-scale expansion, with a total strength of more than 1.7 million, and it would be too much to only guard the 20,000 square kilometers of land on the mainland of the Tang Empire, but looking at the global strategy of the Tang Empire, hundreds of new strategic support points have been added, and these 1.7 million people are not much.

Especially since World War II has not yet ended, although the Tang Army is resting, there is always a risk of re-entering the war, and the enemy it faces next will be extremely powerful.

If it weren't for the population base of the Tang Empire, which was centered on economic development, the Tang army would probably expand even more.

Even so, the original hundreds of thousands of Tang army troops were enough to shock the whole Shijie, and now it has expanded to more than 1.7 million people, and the actions of the Tang Empire make the whole Shijie tremble, and they have guessed who the next target of the Tang Army will be.

Especially in the United States, after the fall of Britain and France, the US government clearly felt the danger, although the Hoover administration did not believe that the Tang Empire and Germany would attack the United States, but still made corresponding preparations for war, but he was very low-key and did not dare to arouse the accusations of American public opinion. (To be continued......)