In early November 1940, the whole world was echoing Washington's declaration of war. From Beijing to London, the eyes of the world are slowly moving with the Stars and Stripes. For this day, Roosevelt was apparently extremely well prepared, and just two days after the declaration of war by the United States, Brazil and Mexico announced their accession to the alliance, and the League of the Americas also issued a statement of hope for the restoration of peace, and even the former Philippine President Manuel Quezon in exile in the United States was pulled out to declare war on the three countries in the name of the commander-in-chief of the Republic of the Philippines.

At the same time, the Atlantic Fleet's aircraft carriers Yorktown, the battleships New York, and Texas, with four cruisers, forty-five merchant ships, and fifty old destroyers from the last European war, set out from the Chesapeake Bay and entered the British base at Portsmouth, which was to be transferred to the British Royal Navy. The sheer size of the American fleet shook the Atlantic, especially the fifty destroyers, which made Raeder even more nervous. But he didn't know that Churchill was actually pinching his nose and swallowing the business. Originally, after exchanging jurisdiction over the Chagos Archipelago and Kuwait for China's territorial waters-class frigates, the British Royal Navy no longer wanted these old ships, but Roosevelt linked this business with the United States' declaration of war, and the Soviet Union sold warships to Germany, so he bought these old warships with eight islands and eight air bases in the Atlantic.

Even Churchill felt disgusted by this deal, because Yang Qiu was quite sincere, at least the 20 or so frigates sold were installed with sonar and anti-submarine weapons, and the 50 destroyers provided by the United States, not to mention sonar, were even temporarily equipped with depth charges. "Come on, it's already selling the country anyway, and it's not too much to sell, the British Empire has a thick foundation. This lord is ruined again. The most important India and South Africa cannot be ruined. Churchill mocked himself while actively preparing for the arrival of American troops. In order to curry favor with Roosevelt, he first removed most of the pictorial magazines that originally filled the streets and alleys of China and Britain working together to resist the enemy, replaced them with posters of Uncle Sam in a star-striped hat shaking hands with British children, and then opened bases on the mainland and Casablanca, set up military camps, set up special offices, and asked the War Department to be ready to receive American soldiers.

While Beijing is somewhat unhappy with this snobbish approach, this is also normal. In addition to a small number of air service regiments to aid Britain, China can only bring morale and weapons, while the United States can bring super industrial capacity and millions of armed troops to the teeth.

Don't you understand which is more important?

In the end, he ignored the hungry people at home and transported the first batch of 100,000 tons of oil, 50,000 tons of wheat, and a large number of other supplies sent by the United States to A Coruña in accordance with the Lend-Lease Act. Give it to Franco. There is no way, in order not to let Spain fall to Hitler, for the sake of Gibraltar, the common people in the country continue to starve.

Roosevelt's declaration of war really shook the world, and even Yang Qiu admitted that it was far more sensational than the conclusion of the "Cairo Declaration" between China and Britain at that time! This also made many countries think carefully, and de Gaulle began to strike a big balance between China, the United States and the United Kingdom. Trying to get the most out of the cracks between the three countries.

Hitler, of course, was so angry that he thought of an important question that he had never seriously thought about before.

Ribbentrop "saved" the Reich Foreign Office, and less than seventy-two hours after the United States declared war, an alliance agreement was formally signed with Italy and Japan in Berlin. Romania, Hungary and Slovakia were also brought in. But to Germany's annoyance, Moscow, which had previously offered to sign a military alliance agreement, suddenly changed its mind. Because there was no news of the Soviet Union in the American declaration of war, Stalin was full of illusions again.

"I'll clean you up when I'm free!" The Axis group was finally formed, but Hitler, who learned that Moscow was vacillating, was not happy. But now he also knows that he has missed the moment. I could only endure a toothache and decided to do so before the arrival of the US troops. Let's hit Britain hard. The Führer was annoyed, and Goering, of course, had to step forward and immediately organize the largest bombing cluster since the start of the war, aimed at Coventry, northwest of London, the base of British tank and aircraft manufacturing.

At seven o'clock in the evening of November 14, the first batch of 118 German bombers visited Coventry, which had a population of only 250,000. Historically, Churchill had learned in advance that the Germans were going to bomb Coventry, but in order to keep the top-secret "super decoder", he could only endure the pain of watching the city be destroyed. But this time, the development of the decoder had only just made progress, so he had no idea. Eventually, in the seven-hour bombardment, tens of thousands of houses were reduced to ashes and the entire city was reduced to a silent tomb.

Before Churchill could wipe away his tears, more serious news came from Alexandria!

After breaking up with Zhu Binhou, Cunningham always wanted to find an opportunity to continue the attack on the remaining two Italian battleships. Because he did not return in time, he was infiltrated by an Italian submarine into the empty sea near Alexandria. On the night he returned with the fleet, the Italian Navy frogman operated the "Pig" manual torpedo, took advantage of the fleet's track when it entered the port, followed behind the butt to avoid the anti-submarine net, and then attached four "Pig" warheads to the battleship "War Weariness", the battleship Malaya, the aircraft carrier Radiance, and the heavy cruiser London. As the British sailors were celebrating Taranto's victory, they did not notice any action, and as a result, all four warships were sunk.

If it is only the loss of four warships, it will be counted, as long as the US Atlantic Fleet shakes its sleeves, it can be replenished in a few days. But the problem is that before Cunningham could react, the enraged old fox Campuoni, with the two surviving Andrea-Doria-class battleships, three heavy cruisers and nineteen destroyers, suddenly appeared in Malta. Twenty 320-mm guns, with the fury of the Italian Navy, tilted seven hundred shells at Malta! Before the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Avenger of the British Navy stationed in Gibraltar arrived, 2,000 Italian airborne troops and 5,000 troops launched an onslaught on Malta in an attempt to seize the island.

Cunningham didn't expect it! Churchill didn't expect it! Yang Qiu didn't expect it! Even Hitler didn't expect it! Musonili actually had the audacity to go to Malta alone. Due to poor preparation, only four thousand British troops were stationed on the island of Malta. The Italian army, which thought that it was easy to bully, was attacked head-on, and the tenacious British soldiers used the fortress artillery to constantly return fire, but on the contrary, the Italian army was too lacking in fighting spirit and rushed into battle, so it was quickly defeated. The Italian airborne troops, who finally landed on the island, were even more miserable. As many as 200 people fell to their deaths because the wind was not in the right direction when they landed in the air.

The news scared Hitler to death! I didn't expect Musoniri to bypass himself and go to Malta by himself. Isn't this a scareless snake?! If Cunningham had strengthened his defense, wouldn't he have been doomed in the Mediterranean? So he received the news and asked the air force to attack overnight to help Italy seize Malta. Although it was also rushed, the German army studied the Chinese battle of Guam in detail as early as September, after proposing the Great Mediterranean plan, and conducted a lot of training for Malta.

The elite pre-German airborne troops set out from Paris. Then refuel at Rome airport and finally fly to Malta. It is unimaginable that even Yang Qiu would not dare to ask the airborne troops to carry out airborne operations after flying for several hours in a row, and Guam before was only airborne, not airborne! And because of the hurry. The Germans had only a small amount of heavy equipment, most of which were still being transported overnight by train, and the gliders transporting the heavy equipment were still in Paris and had not taken off. When the German Airborne Forces appeared in the skies over Malta, they were unsurprisingly devastated. However, adversity aroused the German army's will to fight, and the first batch of more than 2,000 airborne troops who successfully landed on the island blocked the two waves of encirclement and suppression by the British army. In order to cover the airborne troops, Hitler, Goering, and Raeder personally called Mussonili three times in succession, asking the Italian air force in Sardinia to make every effort to block the British fleet arriving from Gibraltar.

The Battle of Gibraltar erupted without warning. It was probably Taranto that hit the real fire of Italy, and the Sardinian Air Force and Campuoni's fleet actually blocked the reinforcements led by two British battleships, and more than 20 JU87s rushed from Germany also damaged the Queen Elizabeth, forcing the two battleships to retreat. As more and more German planes arrived. Cunningham, who lost three battleships and one aircraft carrier in a few days, had no choice but to ask Zhu Binhou for help again. But on the day he learned that Alexandria was attacked, Zhu Binhou simply did not return to Djibouti. Went straight to Somalia to support the Horn of North Africa. So after getting the call for help, Cunningham, who was in a hurry and sent three destroyers to help, almost wanted to tow out the two Anhai-class battleships that were maintained in the Alexandria dockyard.

Although the British constantly increased their troops with transport aircraft. But as more and more German planes arrived in Sicily, air supremacy was gradually controlled by the Germans. In just a few days, the total strength of both sides increased to 40,000, and the Germans alone invested 10,000 airborne troops and 8,000 mountain infantry, and Italy also gritted its teeth and invested 10,000 soldiers. By 27 November, Campuoni's fleet, with the help of German dive bombers, had finally destroyed the British positions at Melliha Bay, where 3,000 German Army soldiers had landed with a large number of heavy equipment.

Knowing that he was almost in trouble, Mussoni also increased his troops by 20,000 again, and also brought a few fortress guns and a large number of cement building materials. In the end, after 13 days of hand-to-hand fighting, the German-Italian forces finally captured the island of Malta, which was the choke point of the Mediterranean, at the cost of losing 412 aircraft, three destroyers, four submarines, and more than 8,000 soldiers killed and wounded.

When the news broke, Churchill was so embarrassed that even Roosevelt was alarmed and asked the Navy to immediately support the British Mediterranean Fleet.

The battleships New York, Texas and Yorktown, which had arrived in Portsmouth shortly after their arrival, had to urgently depart for Alexandria to replace Cunningham. However, the U.S. Navy, which entered the war for the first time, apparently underestimated the strength of the Luftwaffe, and just as the fleet passed through Malta, it was suddenly intercepted by more than 60 German aircraft. Although the American pilots resisted hard, they were too tender compared to the old German oilers, and the F4F carrier-based fighters were inferior to the BF109C in terms of speed and comprehensive capabilities, not to mention that the German army also dispatched the FW190 to participate in the war for the first time. Eventually, the aircraft carrier Yorktown had to withdraw to command Gibraltar due to a bomb on its deck and caught fire, and the two battleships that had been lucky enough to pass through were also frightened when they arrived in Alexandria.

Mediterranean sea power, temporarily in the hands of the Axis powers.

Yang Qiudu was taken aback when he heard the news, he did not expect the Battle of Malta to break out in this way. But I have to admit that luck is still on the German side. If it weren't for Cunningham's loss of three capital ships overnight, and if it weren't for Musoni's indiscriminate grabbing of merit, the grinding Hitler would probably have to face the island of Malta, which was garrisoned by tens of thousands of Anglo-American troops.

However, he didn't want to care about the Mediterranean for the time being, and his focus was still on the Soviet Union and Japan!

In order to prevent Stalin and Roosevelt from frowning each other, on November 18, just four days after the bombing of Coventry, the Chinese Air Force concentrated 527 H-7 long-range bombers from Urgench, Turkmenistan, to carry out the first large-scale night bombing of Tbilisi, Georgia. Compared to Coventry, this time the bombing was larger and more destructive. During the bombing, which also lasted seven hours, the Chinese Air Force dropped a total of 2,600 tons of new aluminum-magnesium hybrid high-explosive incendiary bombs at the cost of losing 41 aircraft! According to post-war statistics, the new type of explosives killed more than 5,000 people, injured more than 20,000 people, destroyed or burned more than 30,000 houses and buildings, and spared all living and industrial facilities, including power plants.

Five days later, the last bombardment of Central Asia after the onset of winter fell on the industrial regions of the Urals. A total of 1,862 bombers departing from Petropavlovsk, Cherinograd (present-day Asnata) and Arkarek took advantage of the Soviet army's lack of radar and the disadvantage of night fighters to launch a major bombing campaign codenamed "Winter Thunder" against Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg. The bombing process was originally intended to last 10 days, but was reduced to 6 days due to snowfall. Although it was shortened by four days, the bombing still destroyed 100,000 buildings of various types, killed and injured more than 80,000 people, and also lost 212 aircraft of various types, the largest number of losses in a single battle since the beginning of the war.

For Moscow, the loss of manpower buildings and factories was secondary, and what really made Stalin fidgeting was the outrageous precision shown by the Chinese Air Force throughout the bombing! Even many mines hidden in the mountains have not escaped! This had to remind him of Ivan Myr and Kuibyshev, who fled back then and have disappeared to this day. If it weren't for the fact that they leaked the industrial plan, how could the Chinese Air Force find a sparsely populated mining area at night, in an environment of more than 20 degrees below zero?

As the most important industrial base of the Soviet Union's Second Five-Year Plan, the Ural industrial region with Orenburg, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg as the core suffered heavy losses in this bombing, and the industrial capacity of the entire Soviet Union fell by 20 percent!

Faced with an almost irresistible ferocious air offensive, Stalin had no choice but to order the use of the winter to completely evacuate the Ural industrial zone and move it to the more distant Moscow region.

In the last years of 1940, the situation changed. With the declaration of war by the United States, the war slowly entered its most brutal phase.