"I don't think we can give him more power, he's too young, he's impulsive, and we can't leave the future of Germany to this kind of hairy boy. An old general with thick eyebrows leaned back in his chair and said.

Beside him, a middle-aged man in a brand-new lieutenant general's uniform looked disdainful: "We are all old, and he has done what we want to do, but can't." We should support him. ”

"What else can be considered to support him? What he did would have been enough to hang him dozens of times when I was younger! We didn't pursue him, and we gave him more and more power. An old admiral with a white beard and a bald center of his head said, patting the table.

"But his last few diplomatic successes have been quite successful, and we can't ignore his contribution because he has done something out of the ordinary, because Germany is growing stronger, which is what we all want to see. President Hindenburg, who was sitting at the top, squinted his eyes and said that he had not been in good health lately, and he was a little relieved after saying a few words.

"General Hamstein sitting in the position of commander-in-chief is still reassuring for all of us, and it can also put some pressure on Admiral Acre to make him do things with some scruples!"

"Well, we can't just change the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, Hamstein is our man, and he can still be relied on at a critical time, so there is no need to change him. The middle-aged general, who was still opposed to him at first, nodded and said, "Our troops are decreasing, and we can't give him real power anymore." ”

"If you don't feel at ease, hand over the navy to him, it can be seen that he is a rare talent, proficient in many arms of warfare, I have no opinion on handing over the navy to him, and the navy is less than 20,000 people, we can afford this reward. Sitting in the corner of the table, Vice Admiral Raeder*, the de facto ruler of the German Navy, spoke.

The bald old general in the center snorted: "Hmph, you are willing to pay for the navy part of the navy to turn over the commander of the navy, and you are so desperate to support the little rear admiral of Accardo, and give him all the power in your hands?"

"Watch your words!" said the thick-eyed old general who spoke at the beginning with some annoyance, "We are discussing how to deal with the problem of Major General Accardo Rudolph, what does this have to do with Lieutenant General Raeder*?"

"What else can we do? We promoted him to lieutenant general? Joke, have you ever seen a German lieutenant general under the age of 28? You go to the Wehrmacht to have a look! How many colonels are forty years old? A fifty-year-old major general is already a young man! How do you let us nobles behave ourselves? Salute a general who is younger than their sons?" the balding old general became more and more angry, and patted the table and complained.

"Don't slap the table in front of me! there is only one person who can slap my table in this life, and that is His Majesty the Emperor!" Hindenburg opened his eyes and said this slowly, and the room immediately fell silent, and no one dared to speak loudly anymore.

"All the plans for the Wehrmacht's current exercises have been drawn up by his hands, more than half of the weapons and equipment have been ordered to be procured by him, and the future development program has also been proposed by him a few years ago and gradually improved to the present ......" The speech seemed to be a very exhausting task for Hindenburg, and he finished his sentence very slowly, pausing and taking a few deep breaths.

Then he looked around at his generals, most of whom had followed him in the four directions, and were the descendants of his lineage: "We are all old! One day we will have to hand over the power in our hands to the young people behind us, and what we have to do is very simple, it is enough to choose these successors for Germany." ”

"I'm just a lieutenant general. The middle-aged general stood up and said, "But I know that I am not as good as General Accardo, so there is no shame in letting me salute him, if he can lead us to victory, I will salute him!

"So let's do it this time. Hindenburg nodded, and slowly stood up with the support of his secretary: "In my name, Accardo Rudolph is promoted to Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht, and is responsible for preparing for the establishment of the Wehrmacht Joint Operations Staff in charge of the Navy, Army and Air Force. He served as the first chief of staff for joint operations of the three services. It is responsible for the preparation and reorganization of the naval, land and air forces of the National Defense Force. ”

With a bang, everyone stood up from their seats and saluted in unison: "Yes!"

Now that the matter was completely settled and the meeting was over, Hindenburg walked out of the conference room with the help of the secretary, while the others dispersed in twos and threes.

"The commander-in-chief of the three armed forces who is not yet 28 years old, the German Wehrmacht will become the laughing stock of the world! The old marshal, after all, is old. As he moved down the hallway outside the conference room, the bald general frowned and complained to the thick-eyebrow general, who was about his age.

"I am more worried about the expansion of the Greater German Party in the army than this, I am not afraid of a lieutenant general of the Wehrmacht, I am afraid of a dictator who controls the military and political power and loses the restraint of power. If this man makes a mistake, Germany will never recover. The thick-eyed old general sighed and said.

"During the Battle of the Somme, I knew that you could see farther than me, I was just a martial artist, and I didn't have as many twists and turns as you, but I just didn't like this Accardo, why did I become a senior general at a young age? I, a lieutenant general, were exchanged for my life! When Lao Tzu fought, he was still a big-headed soldier! Damn......" The bald bearded general scolded and walked farther and farther away beside the thick-eyed old general, and his voice gradually became inaudible.

The middle-aged general watched the two of them walk away, stopped and waited for Raeder to walk side by side, before asking: "I heard that you and Lieutenant General Accardor met two years ago, and the friendship is still very good, I will be the east when I have time, let's have dinner together?"

There is never a shortage of smart people in this world, after seeing the unstoppable rise of Accardo, the lieutenant general who held the command of two divisions of the Wehrmacht near Leipzig and Dresden, Germany, finally decided to choose in advance, sometimes life is a big gamble, if you win, you will soar, and if you lose, you will never recover, but if you want to gamble, you must start early, because you can only get the benefits by sending charcoal in the snow, and the icing on the cake is easy to be settled after the autumn.

Lieutenant General Bock was a smart man, and he knew that he was able to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht because he had relied on Accardor to expand the number of Wehrmacht. In 1920, he was a staff officer of the Ministry of National Defense, with the rank of colonel, and in just five years, he became a lieutenant general of the Wehrmacht with the expansion of the army.

Originally, he was determined to reciprocate his Prussian loyalty with the president of Hindenburg, but when he found that Hindenburg's old body was about to fall, the idea of finding another way out lingered in his mind. After comparing the various forces, he decided to gamble his life on the newly emerging Accardo Rudolph group.

"There's no problem, General Accardo has always wanted to get to know General Bock, but he hasn't had the chance. Raeder was stunned, he was the only one who had a close relationship with Accardo among the people attending this meeting, and he was the only one who spoke for Accardo with great fanfare, and if he hadn't represented the Navy's opinion, it was likely that he would not have been called.

"Thank you! I have a bottle of French Château de Margaux there for some years! Come to my house in the evening! I asked Mary to prepare her favorite salad and soup. In line with the principle that it is better to choose a day than to hit the day, Bock did not intend to waste this opportunity, he wanted to establish a friendship with Raeder immediately. And his home was in Berlin, and not in Dresden, where his army command was stationed.

Eddell also nodded happily in agreement with the purpose of gaining friendship: "Of course." You know I'm a wine worm, and I don't want to leave when I hear that there's good wine. Hahahaha. ”

He laughed and followed Bock forward, then changed his voice and said, "If you don't mind, General Accardo and Mr. Streismmann, the vice chairman of the Greater German Party, may be free tonight, so why don't you call them?"

"Of course you can! No problem at all!" Bock smiled even more happily, if he can know Accardo directly, then in the future, under Accardo, he will at least be at the same level as Rydell, and the benefits will naturally not be less, so he said: "Since I can invite so many distinguished guests, I will just eat salad and thick soup and be lazy, I will rush back to call, and ask the maid to choose a little more high-quality steak and prepare a roast chicken." ”

In the evening, Accardo, Streisman and his henchmen Merkel and Jerinac Kasia followed Raeder to Bock's home in Berlin, and several people talked and laughed until eight o'clock in the evening.

The next day, Bock secretly joined the Greater German Party, and hurried back to the headquarters in Dresden, where he began to deploy the armored vehicles and new artillery that Accardo had secretly assigned to him.

Moreover, at the regimental commander-level meeting under his command, that is, at the regular meeting attended by officers above the commander of the 9th and 10th divisions of the Wehrmacht, he personally announced that he would no longer interfere in the development of the Greater German Party within the troops. When the news came back to Berlin, Hindenburg heard about it, and sat silently in his chair without saying a word for more than ten minutes.

Just a few hours earlier, he had issued an order to establish the Wehrmacht Joint Operations Staff in charge of the Navy, Army, and Air Force, with the newly promoted Lieutenant General Accardo Rudolph* as the first Chief of Staff for Joint Operations of the three services.

For the first time, Accardo controlled more than half of the Wehrmacht's troops in numbers, which means that even if Hindenburg had the intention of removing Accardo, he would not have received the support of the Wehrmacht as before.