With the development goal in place, the entire provincial government of Saibei Province and the headquarters of the Eighth Theater fell into silent busyness in the following time, and with the issuance of military and political orders, nearly 20 million soldiers and civilians in the province were all operational.

Quietly, a large number of troops in the Eighth Theater went into the shadows, and the five major group armies and a large number of troops directly under the theater spent a month reducing the strength of their units by about half, half of them remained in the defense zone to continue to monitor the Japanese puppet army, and the other half all went into the depths of the mountains and dense forests or the plateau desert for high-intensity training, and the navy and air force were also doing similar things.

Therefore, the Japanese troops in North China were very surprised to find that the opposing Chinese army was surprisingly quiet this year, and although the time had passed the armistice period agreed by both sides, the opposing Chinese army showed no sign of attacking, but faintly intended to shrink its forces.

China. Although the army did not take the initiative to attack, the North China Front, which had just suffered heavy losses, was naturally happy and quiet, although it received 100,000 reinforcements, but whether it was the new commander of the front army, Tada Jun, or the commanders of the divisions and brigades below, they all knew that these newly formed troops were not of great use at all, and compared with the previous elites, they were not half a star and a half, and they should not be expected to go to the battlefield without half a year of training.

As the attitude of the Nationalist Government gradually became tougher and its demands became more and more demanding, the Japanese Government already knew that the Nationalist Government had no intention of holding peace talks with them, so disputes broke out again in Japan over how to deal with the current crisis.

The military believed that since the Chinese government refused to surrender, the only way was to defeat them. The use of force to force the Chinese government to surrender means that the war must be fought no matter what. However, Mitsumasa Yonechi and others disagreed, and the two sides again brought the matter to the Imperial Council for discussion, but there was still no result.

However, just as the situation in East Asia was confusing, there was another wave on the battlefield in Western Europe - Germany attacked France. In fact, Germany does not want to go to war with Britain and France, after all, after more than 20 years of sanctions, Germany has not reached its peak either economically or militarily. But Britain and France were different, they were the victorious powers of World War I, and received large amounts of war reparations and resources from Germany.

At the same time, Britain and France also had a large number of colonies overseas, which allowed Britain and France to recover in a very short time. Therefore, Germany did not want a full-scale war with Britain and France if it was not necessary.

But after the German conquest of Poland. Adolph. Germany was greatly annoyed by Hitler's peace proposal, but Britain and France rejected it, so Hitler was determined to use his strength to force Britain and France to sue for peace. In the same year Hitler in a directive to the generals of the German Army. He explained his conviction that attacking Western Europe was the only way out for Germany. He was worried about the treaty with the Soviet Union. The USSR will remain neutral only if it serves the objectives of the USSR. Therefore, once Britain and France attacked Germany. The USSR could well deliver a fatal blow from behind. So he was going to attack France well before the USSR was ready. He also believed that if France failed, Britain would follow suit.

But the German army generals, led by the commander-in-chief of the army, Brauchitsch, were adamantly opposed, on the grounds that the German army did not have enough strength to defeat the Western European armies. In the event of a war, Germany would die. Although in the end Hitler severely rebuked Brauchitsch and others and ordered them to comply with his ideas unconditionally, in fact Hitler had the same concerns about Germany's military power.

So before attacking France, Germany conducted "Wiesel exercises", raiding Denmark and Norway. The result of the "exercise" was unexpected: Denmark surrendered in four hours, Norway held out for more than 20 days, but finally surrendered, and even the British expeditionary force that came to reinforce was also severely damaged.

The victory in the Battle of Denmark and Norway completely awakened the beast in Hitler's heart, and Hitler, who was full of confidence in the German army, soon formulated another huge battle plan - the yellow plan.

At Hitler's repeated urging, the General Staff Headquarters of the German Army drew up a plan for operations on the Western Front, codenamed the Yellow Plan. This plan was similar to Schlieffen's plan for the German army to attack France in the First World War, that is, to put the main German army on the right flank and attack France through Belgium.

But the Chief of Staff of Army Group A, Erich. Feng. Manstein, on the other hand, hated the idea and thought it was just a rehash of the same old tune. Hitler himself did not like this plan. As you can see from the map, France and Germany have a stretch of border. To the north of this stretch of border are Luxembourg and Belgium, and to the south are Switzerland. Therefore, if Germany were to attack France, there were only three options: 1. to attack from the border between the two countries;

via Belgium and Luxembourg;

Via Switzerland. Since Switzerland is a high mountain country, the Alps run through the territory, making it difficult to conduct military operations. So the third option was ruled out first, and as a result, there were only two options left for the offensive route.

However, the first tactic turned out to be undesirable. In 914, the First World War broke out. In the beginning, the Germans fought basically according to the "Schlieffen plan", invaded Belgium on August 4, and began to enter France in mid-August. But since then, the "Schliefen plan" has been thrown aside. The Germans did not continue to penetrate deep into the heart of France from the southwest, but met the main French army at the Marne early in the southeast.

Germany may have despised France too much at that time, and wanted to annihilate the main French forces as soon as possible, and then enter Paris with great force, repeating the glory of the Franco-Prussian War more than 40 years ago. However, as a result, Germany was attacked head-on on the Marne, and a quick victory came to naught, and the two countries had to turn to a difficult positional war and a war of attrition.

The "Schlieffen Plan" was expected to defeat France in six weeks, but in fact the First World War was fought for four years. In the end, Germany was defeated.

This leaves history with a question: Would Germany have won the war if the "Schlieffen Plan" had been faithfully implemented? This question is of interest not only to historians, but also to Hitler. After he came to power, he decided to attack France using the "Schlieffin plan". In other words, Hitler still wanted to attack France from Belgium.

However, at this time the French also learned their lesson and built a strong "Maginot Line". The Maginot Line was located from Longuiillon to Belfort. The total length is about 390 km. These include the Metz fortification area, the Saar floodplain area, the Lauter fortification area, the Lower Rhine fortification area, and the Belfort fortification area. The entire defense line consists of a support zone and a main defense zone (6~8 km in depth). The two strongest fortified areas are Metz and Lauter.

The Saar floodplain was formed by natural river barriers and marshland, and fortifications were only started after 1935, and the fortifications were the weakest. Lower Rhine fortified territory to the Rhine, the Rhône? The Caiin Canal was a natural barrier, and only along the Rhine was a support point consisting of permanent firing fortifications. In the most important areas of the Metz and Lauter fortifications, a complex of fortifications suitable for ring defense was constructed with a combination of surface and underground parts. The ground part is armored or reinforced concrete machine gun fortifications and artillery fortifications, and the underground part has several floors, including command posts, personnel lounges, food storage rooms, ammunition depots, ambulance stations, power stations, filtration and ventilation rooms, etc.

There are passages between the fortifications and electric vehicles. The weapons in the firing fortifications were specially designed and installed. A total of about 5,800 permanent fortifications for various purposes were constructed along the entire defensive line, with a density of 15 fortifications per kilometer of frontage. The strongest reinforced concrete fortifications, with a roof and walls up to 3.5 meters thick, and armored towers with armor up to 300 mm thick, were resistant to two direct hits from 420-mm mortar shells. The anti-tank obstacles in the defense line mainly include anti-tank trenches, cliffs, cliffs, and metal and concrete piles. and strengthened with minefields. Anti-infantry obstacles are generally metal piles or wooden piles with barbed wire. In some areas, electrified barbed wire fences have been installed.

The fortified Germans of the Maginot Line, though unaware, could imagine it, and because of this, Hitler himself did not like the plan drawn up by the German Army Staff.

Chief of Staff of Army Group A, Erich. Feng. Manstein was a genius commander. He found that the Maginot Line was divided into two sections. A section on the Franco-German border. The other part is on the border between France and Belgium, with a blank space in between. Hence his strategic concept: the main spearhead of the German offensive should be placed in the center, not on the right flank. With powerful armored forces. The main assault on the Ardennes Forest, a strategically decisive breakthrough, was carried out. This was a shortcut to attack the unprepared and surprisingly victorious invasion of France, which could cut off the connection between the North and the South Allied forces, divide and encircle the Anglo-French forces, and quickly destroy France.

But the commander-in-chief of the German Army, Walter . Feng. Brauchitsch refused to transfer Manstein's plan to Hitler. Manstein put forward his strategic concept: the main spearhead of the German offensive should be placed in the center, not on the right flank. With powerful armored forces, the main assault was carried out on the strategically decisive breakthrough - the Ardennes Forest Belt. This was a shortcut to attack the unprepared and surprisingly victorious invasion of France, which could cut off the connection between the North and the South Allied forces, divide and encircle the Anglo-French forces, and quickly destroy France.

But the commander-in-chief of the German Army, Walter . Feng. Brauchitsch refused to transfer Manstein's plan to Hitler and transferred him to the post of commander of the 38th Infantry Corps. But Manstein took advantage of Hitler's meeting with the new army commanders and presented his views directly to Hitler.

Hitler's statement about Manstein was "understood very quickly like a fairy" and stated that he personally agreed with Manstein's opinion. The next day, Hitler summoned Army Commander-in-Chief Brauchitsch and Chief of the General Staff Halder and ordered them to draw up a new operational plan at once on the basis of Manstein's proposal. Although Brauchitsch and Halder strongly opposed Manstein's suggestion, arguing that his so-called secret passage was a wild hypothesis that would expose the elite of German panzer forces to a flank attack by the French and possibly lead to the annihilation of the entire army. But under pressure from Hitler, the two army chiefs succumbed. As a result, the Chief of the Army General Staff, Halder, was ordered to reformulate the operational plan on the basis of Manstein's suggestion.

On February 22, 1940, Hitler approved a new battle plan that was largely the same as that envisioned by Manstein. The German General Staff replaced this plan with Operation Scythe. Almost no one in the entire Wehrmacht, apart from Hitler, Manstein, and himself, had confidence in this plan.

In order to carry out Operation Scythe, the German High Command made careful arrangements. The total number of troops engaged in operations on the Western Front was 136 divisions (including 10 armored divisions and 4 motorized divisions), 2,439 tanks, 3,700 aircraft, and 600 transport aircraft.

On February 25, 1940, the German army launched an attack from the Netherlands to France, first dispatching more than 3,000 sorties to attack 72 major airfields in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and destroying hundreds of Allied planes on the ground in one fell swoop, and then the airborne troops belonging to the German Army Group B landed at strategic points in the rear of the Netherlands and Belgium, and seized important bridges, ferries, airfields and defensive support points with lightning speed, especially the German airborne troops captured what is known as the strongest fortification in Europe on the 26th- Eben. The fortress of Emar allowed the main German forces to quickly pass through the Maas River and break through the Liege line.

On 28 February, the German armored forces took full advantage of the air force's heavy bombardment and trapped the enemy in extreme confusion and panic, broke through the Dutch defense line, and joined the paratroopers parachuted in the capital Rotterdam, and on the same day the German army captured Rotterdam, and the Queen of the Netherlands fled to England on a British destroyer. On March 1, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, General Winckelmann, announced his surrender, and from this moment on, the mustachioed Hitler swung his demon scythe at Britain, France, and all of Western Europe. (To be continued......)