At noon on the 18th, Field Marshal Wilhelm Liszt, commander of the German 12th Army, received a strict order from Hitler to block the Balkan campaign within two weeks. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Upon learning of the devastating air raids by the Soviet Air Force on the oil fields of Romania, the marshal, who had neither opposed nor approved of the "National Socialism" practiced by Germany, had a premonition of the gravity of the situation—it was evident that Soviet Russia had clearly regarded Germany as a formidable adversary to be faced.

The Balkan question was a minor problem for the Third Reich, and it was not a problem to occupy the Balkans in two weeks, except for Crete, which would cause some trouble, and would need the help of those arrogant vultures, and it would have to drag on for a while.

"It won't be so easy next time!" As a veteran of the First World War, Liszt was not as optimistic as Hitler - the "steam steamroller" of the First World War caused constant problems for the Second Reich, and now the Soviet Union is no longer the backward Tsarist Russia, and the overall strength is not comparable to that of the vain French or John Bull.

The commander of the 5th Mountain Division, Julius Ringle, was reporting to the marshal that his troops, having taken the Greek line at Mount Eastby, were now advancing deep into the interior of Greece. The ultimate goal of his forces at present would be the Isthmus of Corinth, cutting off the Anglo-Spanish army's rear route.

"My marshal, the situation will now be relatively difficult, and the British and Greek resistance will be even more intense." The bearded Ringer was a little worried about his men - the 5th Mountain Division had suffered more casualties in the capture of Mount Eastby than the German army in the entire Yugoslav campaign. Now that the Anglo-Spanish army has the "support of the Russians", the fighting spirit must be high, and it is not a good thing for them to be trapped in the beasts.

The lads of the mountain division were prepared for the offensive of the Carpathians, and not consumed on the bald mountains of Greece!

"Prepare for the offensive on Crete, the Führer has decided to end the Greek campaign as soon as possible, and the damned island of Trite is to be solved with an airborne operation. The order stated that the 7th Airborne Division would be the main attacker, and that the 22nd Airborne Division was now being transferred to the Romanian oil fields to prevent a possible ground attack by the Soviets. ”

Hitler had long drawn up plans for the airborne landing of Crete, and for him the battle on the Greek mainland was only a difference between "a week and a half a month", but the rocky island that held the eastern Mediterranean would pose a serious threat to the underbelly of the Third Reich, and the nail had to be pulled out before the "Barbarossa plan" began. If Crete is not taken, the sea passage from Italy to the Black Sea will also be cut off by it.

The number of troops of the Seventh Airborne Division alone was obviously insufficient, and apart from paratroopers, only a few mountain units in the German Army, the Fifth Mountain Division of Ringel, had received some parachute training.

Turning over the 22nd Division, which was still in Romania, obviously could not satisfy Hitler's order to "end the Greek campaign as quickly and at any cost", and the mountain division could only be used as an airborne force: before the end of the Continental Campaign, Hitler's senior staff members were able to come up with this alternative, and the efficiency was still quite high.

For Operation Mercury, commander of the German 11th Air Corps, Kurt Student, had a simple plan for the attack on Crete: seize the airfield with paratroopers and ******, send reinforcements by large number of transport planes, and finally ship large troops and heavy equipment to the island.

The plan is simple and feasible, but it is necessary to test the nerve strength of the mountain elites - their skydiving training is only emergency training, and it is not comparable to the professional "green ** ghost"!

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On April 19, after a long cruise of more than five hours, the Ri-2 took off from Odessa and arrived over the Moscow Special Region, not far in front of the city of Moscow.

Lin Jun was on the first special plane, and the plane would land at the central airport in 10 minutes. He basically didn't sleep last night, and only took a hot shower before boarding the plane early this morning, and made up for a good night's sleep in the seat of the special plane.

Gusev shook Lin Jun, who was half-lying down, awake, "Marshal, we have entered the Moscow Oblast and will land in ten minutes." ”

I took the towel that Leonov handed over and moistened it with hot water, wiped my face, and felt a lot of freshness in my brain.

"It's finally relieved!" During this time, I was completely reversed day and night, with severe sleep deprivation and scary black bags under my eyes.

Raised his hand and looked at the time, it was already 11:30 noon, "Is there any situation?" ”

"Everything is fine, nothing special."

"Yes." Lin Jun didn't want to be in the sky and what would happen: who could guarantee that Hitler, who should have been stimulated by himself to go crazy, wouldn't do something stupid, Lin Jun didn't want to miss the moment when a full-scale war broke out between the Red Army and the Germans on the ground - if he was on the plane at that time, he would definitely regret it!

At 11:40, the plane landed on the cement runway of the central airport. Lin Jun had already seen in the sky that new anti-aircraft artillery units had been added around the airfield, and Moscow had already begun to prepare for air defense.

Alexander was waiting for Lin Jun on the tarmac with a smile on his face, and there were officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the distance.

"What's the situation?"

Knowing that the NKVD would not be here for no reason - Alexander had been promoted to General Political Commissar of the Red Army, and that the "old rank" equivalent of Marshal of the Soviet Union had been retained, Stalin apparently hoped that Alexander would play the role of a "paperweight" in ideological management. Although it is not uncommon for this brother to greet him, it is still a little unusual for this to appear.

"It's not a big deal. These days in Odessa, our intelligence officers in Tokyo, Japan, sent several important pieces of intelligence. Also, Comrade Stalin explained that you don't have to go to the Kremlin immediately to report, he and the Central Committee members have prepared a grand dinner for you, the great hero. ”

Let Alexander meet the commander-in-chief of the air raid operation, Stalin really gave his love enough face.

"Let's go, go to you, and find out what our ace informant has gotten us into."

The two got into Alexander's bulletproof car, and the convoy sped towards the headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In the small dining room of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lin Jun, who was already very hungry, devoured a meal, and the intelligence work meeting was also held in this tightly guarded small room.

There were only three people in the room: Lin Jun, Alexander and General Jan Karlovich Berzin, who is now the head of the intelligence department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Jan Karlovich Berzin, the former head of the intelligence department of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, was thrown into a concentration camp during the purge, and it was Alexander and Lin Jun who dug him up and put him in the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take up the post of intelligence chief.

The love network in Japan was reorganized by Berzin before he was purged, and he was very familiar with the situation there, and one of Berzin's trump cards was Richard Sorge. The information that came back from Tokyo during this time was also obtained by the ace intelligence officer.

"Comrade Marshal, on November 18 last year, Sorge alerted us for the first time: Hitler was ready to start a war against the Soviet Union! We called back to them for hard evidence, and the Courier's words alone were not credible, even though we both knew that Germany was going to attack us. ”

Lin Jun nodded, and he could also imagine how Sorge was collecting that valuable information: Sorge would definitely do everything possible to collect information and analyze it in detail. His connections with the German embassy in Japan came in handy, as news flowed from Berlin to the embassy in Tokyo.

On December 30 last year, Sorge sent another secret telegram: "80 German divisions have been assembled in the border areas of the Soviet Union. Germany intends to advance along the Kharkov-Moscow-Leningrad line in an attempt to occupy the Soviet Union! It was also this piece of information that led us to discover that Hitler had secretly transferred the Fourth and Twelfth Armies to the Soviet border on the Eastern Front. ”

Berzin maintained his usual seriousness and rigor, "at that time our intelligence officer at the Chancellery in Berlin was being transferred to Italy, so we did not receive timely information about the movement of German troops. At that time, three months had passed since the beginning of the large-scale mobilization of troops by the German army. ”

"Where are the comrades in Berlin now?" This is what Lin Jun cares about.

"He has returned to the Chancellery, but many of Hitler's orders are now issued in his special train and several base camps, and some of them no longer pass through Berlin."

Alexander continued to signal Berzin to continue, "On March 5 of this year, we again received a secret telegram from Sorge: Germany had concentrated 150 divisions of nine armies in preparation for an attack on the Soviet Union. ”

"On the 3rd of this month, Sorge sent another telegram: German couriers and guards from the Ministry of Defense in Berlin came to the German Embassy in Tokyo from Europe in a steady stream, and at first mentioned only in passing, and then frequently talked about the movement of German troops from the Western Front to the Soviet border, and also reported that the German fortifications on the Eastern Front had been completed, and so on."

"He's too dangerous!" Lin Jun clearly knew the crisis that the red spy was facing now: he had disregarded his own safety for the sake of his beliefs, and it was estimated that the cars equipped with radio direction finders in Japan were searching everywhere, and the counterintelligence agencies throughout Tokyo were looking for signals from Radio Sorge.

There was eye contact between Alexander and Lin Jun, and they got the same meaning.

"Berzin, at the next scheduled time for the dispatch of the report, inform Comrade Sorge and his core team that they will immediately try to leave Tokyo and return to Berlin, and inform him that we have understood that the following is for him to protect himself!"

"Yes, Commissar General."

The Soviet Union is ready, the intelligence officer with outstanding contributions is at the time when he should withdraw, Lin Jun doesn't want to lose such an ace intelligence officer, if he doesn't leave, it's too late! The kind of "squeezing out and squeezing out" method of using the intelligence agent is not what Lin Jun needs. If history hadn't changed, it would have been highly likely that he would have allowed Sorge to remain in Tokyo until the moment he was exposed, which was no longer necessary now that everything was under control.

(The blood bat has been busy with life for the past few days, and today it will return to normal and stable updates, and I will try to write some.) (To be continued.) )