In mid-January 1939, two pieces of good news came from the distant battlefield, the first of which was that Rommel had captured Cairo, the capital of Egypt, after a 20-day siege in North Africa. On this day, the mysterious and ancient country of Egypt flew the German flag almost all over the territory.

This good news really had a direct impact on Germany, for example, Accardo, as the Führer, had to fulfill his promise to confer the rank of German Field Marshal on the third general, and Rommel, on this day, was recalled to Germany by a telegram.

The only difference was that because the fighting on the Eastern Front was very tense, Rommel was ordered to fly to the Führer's Den instead of Berlin to receive his Order of Command of the Army, 1st class, and the cane of the marshal, who represented the supremacy of the army.

When he was on the plane, Rommel heard the Third Reich's foreign radio about his personal show-off over the radio, and the loudspeaker repeated the endless music over and over again, and a sweet female voice told the exploits of Rommel, the third marshal of the Reich, in a decent voice.

It seems that everything about him has not been forgotten by the world, on the contrary, every one of his exploits has become a heroic legend that everyone talks about after dinner. For example, Rommel showed himself as a general in the blitzkrieg of Poland, in which his armored forces captured several cities in the north in one go, and the Polish defense line collapsed in an instant because of his attack.

And the battlefield he really became famous for was in France, where he advanced dozens of kilometers a day, defeated the main French armored forces in one fell swoop, and fought side by side with Guderian to encircle the main force of the Anglo-French army at Dunkirk, creating the most favorable conditions for Germany's victory over France.

He then fought in North Africa, where he fought all the way through ups and downs, and finally established the victory of the German-Italian alliance in North Africa. He marched into Alexandria, fulfilled the Führer's instructions to him, and now that the German flag had been flown over Cairo, the war situation in North Africa had stabilized, and all that remained was what a fool like the capture of Suez would do.

Not surprisingly, by the time Rommel stepped off the plane, the airport in the Wolf's Lair was already full of people standing to greet him. Some were journalists from the empire, and some were attachés sent by the military to receive him. The general and the colonel stood in a hundred-meter long line, and the hanging ladder at Rommel's feet was facing the red carpet that had been rolling to the side of the car.

"Long live Rudolph!" everyone shouted. Although the German army was secretly divided into two factions, the Führer and the Traditionalists, all the commanders were convinced by the Führer's procedure for promoting the Marshal. Accardo was not the same as Hitler, unlike Hitler's aggressive promotion of marshal to buy people's hearts, Accardo, who came from a military background, did not need to do this. He drew up very strict rules for the promotion of marshals, and rarely nominated generals for promotion.

Therefore, every soldier who won the rank of marshal convinced everyone that the scepter, which represented the supreme power of the German soldiers, was enough to make the soldiers of all factions bow and worship. These people are the real gods of war, military bigwigs who are in charge alone.

Because of this, everyone stood upright, raised their right hand to Rommel, and performed a standard German salute. Rommel walked down the ladder and waved to those who greeted him, his uniform was still covered with sand, making him look a little sloppy. But he was in a good mood, smiled and nodded to everyone, walked through the crowd, and boarded the car to the wolf's den.

"My marshal, you have lived up to my expectations, so I have been waiting for this moment since I heard that you captured Cairo!" Accardo stood at the entrance to the wolf's den, and it was already a very rare courtesy for him to come out to greet Rommel in person, at least in Rommel's opinion, he himself was the god of war created by Accardo, and even if he was a god of war, he was just a god of war under Accardo's command.

He walked up to Accardo, patting his uniform as he went. Along the way, no one could let him tidy up his appearance, and at this time, no one reminded him, so he patted the dust on his body worriedly, like a young man who wanted to see his sweetheart, his face was full of anxiety.

Walking up to Accardo, his legs together, his heels bumping together as he stood upright, making a crunch sound, and then the commander-in-chief of the German-Italian Afrika Korps, who was in North Africa, raised his right hand and made a German salute that could not be more standard. The piety made the people around him a little embarrassed, and they felt that their salute was perfunctory in front of this standard.

"My Führer, Afrika Korps Commander Alvin Rommel, reports to you!" Rommel stood in front of Accardo and sang in a loud voice.

"My marshal! You can now call yourself a marshal, although my investiture ceremony has not yet begun, but the broadcast has been broadcast to the whole world, and you are already the marshal of the Third Reich. Accardo smiled and patted Rommel on the shoulder and said happily.

"My Führer, in front of you, Rommel will always be that loyal subordinate, whether colonel, major-general, lieutenant-general, general, or marshal. I will always be your most loyal Alvin as I was when I took over the formation of the 26th Cavalry Division. Rommel replied with his head held high.

Accardo was stunned for a moment, and then sighed with some embarrassment: "Time, in an instant, ten years have passed." We're not young anymore. I have a lot of brave and loyal warriors around me, but I really don't have many friends. You're a ......."

The ceremony was not very grand because of the location, but Field Marshal Brauchitsch attended the ceremony as a representative of the military, along with four generals, 11 lieutenant generals and 19 major generals, and when Rommel received the scepter of the marshal, which represented power and honor, from Accardo's hand, there was applause.

The second news that reached the German Wolf's Den was less exciting for the Reich, and that was that after a fierce battle, the Japanese Navy had lost its strategic initiative in the Pacific theater. The battle for Kauai ended with the victory of the U.S. Navy and Army, and the Japanese Navy and Army finally withdrew from the area.

Marshal Yamamoto 56 tried his best to retreat to the waters of Midway Island with the remnants of the Combined Fleet, and although the loss of the fleet's capital ships was not much, the loss of the pilots of the carrier-based fighters made the Japanese naval marshal, who had already felt the lack of succession, see his own end.

The Zero fighter had already paid a heavy price for the Japanese pilots for that kind of design that went to the extreme, and this kind of plane, which had a high probability of catching fire and exploding in the air once it was hit, was no different from a lighter, and this method of compromising the structural strength requirements of the aircraft in pursuit of performance made Japan's precious pilot resources on the verge of depletion and collapse.

At the beginning of the war, the Japanese Navy had about 1,400 pilots with rich combat experience, but at this time, it had lost more than 500 men because of the attrition of the United States.

Although Yamamoto 56 saved the blood and bones of the Combined Fleet, he lost a lot of blood, which made the Combined Fleet suddenly find that the strongest trump card in his hand, that is, the naval aviation, could not be used, and all that was left was the proud battleship force. At this time, the Japanese battleships still had a certain advantage over the United States, but Yamamoto himself knew that this advantage was not very safe to use.

The good news is that the Japanese Army finally realized the importance of Midway, and deployed about 200 Army fighters and bombers to try to cooperate with the Navy to fight a defensive counterattack on Midway, depleting the U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, the cooperation experience between the army and the navy is basically zero, so in the end, it is easier to study and decide to fight separately.

The battlefield can be silenced, the battle line can be stabilized, but the lost forces will take time to make up, and what the Japanese Navy lacks now is time. The valuable pilot trainees of the Japanese Naval Aviation Corps were rushed to the battlefield before they had completed their studies, and these pilots could only complete basic flight maneuvers, and their overall strength was about the same as that of Soviet pilots.

However, the Japanese did not lack the courage to send them to their deaths, nor did they lack reasons to send them to death, so these already small cadets were transferred to the battlefield and supplemented by Marshal Yamamoto Isoroku, who lacked fighter pilots. Looking at these immature faces who had just arrived at Midway, Yamamoto felt that his war was over, completely over.

Unfortunately, the war will not end because Yamamoto will end, it must be said by the Americans to be over before it is really over. In desperation, Yamamoto had no choice but to allocate a batch of precious aviation gasoline to allow these new cadets to train a few more times before the big war, so as to save their young lives in the cruel war.

"Sato-kun, do you think these pilots can play a role in turning the tide in the upcoming decisive battle?" General Nagumo Tadaichi pressed his hands on the hilt of the command knife and asked Sato, the ace pilot standing beside him with a bandage on his arm.

Sato was wounded in the last air battle, the last air battle on Kauai, and the bullet that hit his plane was lucky not to hit any load-bearing structure, but only pierced his arm, so although he was wounded, he still fled the battlefield in his own plane, which was a fluke to save his life.