With the end of May, Berlin is at its hottest summer of the year.

In the majestic and solemn main hall of the palace, Qing Ying is standing in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling window and staring into the distance; The warm sunlight poured down obliquely, reflecting a tall gray figure on the ground. At the height of the war in Europe, Qingying, as the supreme commander, did not go to the Charlottenburg Palace on the outskirts of the city to escape the summer, but stayed in Berlin with his government center to keep abreast of the latest information about the war. As for Koblenz, the army's front-line headquarters, Qingying also has no need to stay any longer: the overall situation of the French battlefield has been decided, and all that remains is to clean up the remnants of resistance!

The steady footsteps sounded low, and there was a little more lightness in the hurry; A short time later, Newwright, the secretary of state for foreign affairs in formal clothes, appeared in front of the door of the main hall with a telegram in his arms, and his face was full of joy. In the face of Qing Ying's inquiring gaze, Newright handed the telegram that still had the fragrance of ink to Qing Ying, and said with excitement: "Your Majesty, the British have sent us a statement of hope for an immediate truce, and the words are almost pleading: they have completely bowed to the power of the Empire!" “

Qingying's heart suddenly moved, and her eyes showed a bit of surprise. Although after 20 years of layout, he has long been full of confidence in today's situation, but when it really becomes a reality, Qingying's heart is still full of indescribable excitement and happiness. With the great power of carrier-based aircraft, the High Seas Fleet was able to wipe out the main force of the British Navy in one fell swoop; The process was so smooth and the results were so brilliant that even Qing Ying, the initiator of the efforts to promote the aviation of the navy, was shocked. Attack aircraft with speeds of more than 200 knots and a range of movement that has left the two-dimensional surface of the water and entered the vast sky. The naval warfare they brought about was completely revolutionary: they not only made the relative space of the battlefield drastically smaller. The attack efficiency has been greatly improved. It also makes any escape within its combat radius difficult. In the final stages of the naval battle, the British fleet turned and fled towards a thunderstorm, but German attack aircraft, ten times as fast as the enemy, did not give them any chance. Before the British fleet entered the edge of the thunderstorm zone, the third wave of attack planes of the German aircraft carriers roared in, and the whizzing and falling bombs and torpedoes flying vertically and horizontally directly destroyed the last trace of courage of the British officers and men to resist!

And on land, Britain suffered a catastrophic defeat as well. As the two clusters of armored forces in the center and on the right flank met on the beaches of Dunkirk, the 15 most well-equipped elite regular divisions of the British army were immediately encircled; When the British mainland was in a hurry to assemble ships and prepare to withdraw the troops. only to find that the entire coast on the other side had no place for them to stand. The Straits Fleet, with its two old light cruisers, tried to join forces with the encircled army and open a breach from the beach, but their efforts were soon ruthlessly routed by the overwhelming array of German fighters. Under the fierce air raids of the Luftwaffe approaching 2,000 sorties a day, the British Channel Fleet shelled on the opposite shore was almost completely annihilated, and the British and French troops in the encirclement were even more killed and wounded. Squeezed into a small area of less than 400 square kilometres, without any supplies, and with no hope of retreating, the hungry coalition soldiers were soon deprived of all their combat effectiveness.

On 3 June, the day after the destruction of the British main fleet, the Northern Coalition Army, which had been without food for two days, was finally in the midst of the German offensive wave after wave. Once again, he waved the white flag against his long-cherished enemy. More than 350,000 prisoners, two-thirds of whom were British, were escorted by the Germans into makeshift prisoner of war camps. And only three weeks ago. They also accepted the welcome of the French people "all the way with pride" and met the strong enemy with excitement and fighting spirit.

After a complete defeat on land and at sea, Britain naturally lost all the confidence to continue the war. After an all-night of urgent negotiations, the top military and political leaders in London finally reached a consensus on the need for an immediate truce. While it is not clear what harsh terms the Germans will offer for an armistice, one thing is certain: with each day of delay, Britain will face a worse situation and eventually become unmanageable. As for the terms of the treaty between the alliances that did not make peace with the enemy alone, they had long been thrown out of the clouds, and what could be more important than saving their own lives?

"Summoning the Prime Minister and the State Secretaries to the Imperial Palace at once, and at the same time returning the Chief of the General Staff to Berlin." Qingying immediately gave the order. Although he already has a full-fledged armistice plan, a state council can undoubtedly optimize it in more depth. What's more, he is already a sure winner in the European battlefield, and time will only be more beneficial to himself!

Shortly after Newwright was ordered to leave, a telegram from Paris reached Qingying. Largely in line with the British government's submissions, the French also made a request for armistice negotiations. However, to Qingying's surprise, the letter was no longer written by the young prime minister Charles de Gaulle, who advocated the establishment of a professional army, but by another name he was familiar with, Philippe Pétain. After some inquiry, it turned out that De Gaulle had been removed from the post of chancellor by the angry parliament because of the defeat at the front, and the old marshal Petain, who advocated cooperation with Germany, was replaced to reorganize the government. He was also dismissed from his post by the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, Gunmarin, who had single-handedly pushed a large number of elite troops into the encirclement of the German army, who had now left his headquarters.

Three hours later, a meeting began in the Imperial Palace in Berlin. Ludendorff, who had returned from Koblenz on a temporary flight, was physically exhausted, but his eyes were still bright and energetic. At the meeting, Ludendorff gave a detailed and accurate account of the front line, noting that the current situation was completely in the hands of the Allied forces: after the collapse of the main forces of the coalition forces on the northern flank, the British and French were left with at most 70 divisions to defend the long line of 650 kilometers, of which two-thirds were second-rate reserve divisions. The German-Austrian army had a total strength of 180 divisions, and the panzer group maintained a strong force during the three-week battle. The Allies had a 2.6 to 1 superiority in numbers, an 8 to 1 advantage in tanks and artillery, and an unhindered air force dominating the skies. Ludendorff finally claimed that in just one more month, the German-Austrian army would be able to sweep across the French plain, from the current Maas River to the Pyrenees in northeastern Spain.

With such optimistic assurances, Qingying decided to ignore the Anglo-French armistice for the time being, and instead continued to drive the current tank at maximum power. Only when the situation has deteriorated to the point of no return, will the imminent British and French governments give themselves the desired benefits at the negotiating table. In addition, Qing Ying was also preparing to completely lay the foundation for the future of Europe through this war. Due to the conditions of the last battle, he had to accept it like a gambler who had won a lot of money, and gently let go of the other two opponents at the table, England and France; However, this time, he will no longer have any softness in his hand, and he will never stop this roulette until he wins all their chips!

The plan has been decided. With the roar of the Junkers, Ludendorff returned to his headquarters 500 kilometers away and began to brew a new large-scale offensive. The Berlin government, on the other hand, continued to carry out its various war work in a systematic manner, as if it had not received these two requests for an armistice. When the first rays of morning light rose from the eastern sky on June 4, the Germans launched a new offensive on the western front, hundreds of kilometers long. The roar of warplanes, the roar of tanks, the roar of artillery and the neighing of bullets form a bloody and magnificent symphony that shakes the entire land of France. Under the cover of air power, the armored torrent of 5,000 IV tanks was unstoppable, and even the rivers that crisscrossed France could not stop the overwhelming progress of these steel behemoths.

The next afternoon, the French government sent another request for an armistice to Berlin, and Qingying, after consulting with the thinkers, decided to reply, but still ordered the army to move on. After a day's onslaught, the French had broken through all fronts, and a large number of defeated soldiers were carrying more refugees fleeing like an avalanche of panic westward to avoid the demon-like German tanks and planes. After nearly a month of fighting, the French officers and men had developed a deep fear under the insatiable mechanization frenzy and had almost completely lost the will to resist: the 7th Panzer Division, commanded by Erwin Rommel, had captured 4,000 prisoners in a single day of fighting, while losing only 36 of its own. On the night of 8 June, the French government hastily fled from Paris, and while declaring it an undefended city, it again sent a pleading telegram to Berlin, saying that France was "extremely anxious" to begin peace talks immediately.

Seeing that the fire was almost brewing, Qingying immediately instructed the Berlin government to give a positive reply agreeing to the ceasefire. As for Britain, Qing Ying only gave the same reply as France, that is, to suspend military operations against the British Expeditionary Force on land, and did not reply to the situation at sea. In addition to asking for further prices in the future, Kiyoying is also waiting for a change in attitude from the other side of the world: Japan retreated at the beginning of the war a month ago, and now that they have won a decisive victory in Europe, it is time for them to make a move, right? (To be continued......)