In the Soviet Union, inside the General Headquarters of the Western Front, Zhukov had just gotten up and was brushing his teeth and washing his face. This commander, who had been guilty of meritorious service on the Soviet Far Eastern Front, has now become the commander-in-chief of the entire Soviet Army's Western Front, and his every order will be faithfully carried out, because the Soviet officers and soldiers after the Great Purge no longer have the courage to question any decision of their superiors.

So now Zhukov can be said to be in power, and his army is somewhat stronger than the Soviet forces that suffered a catastrophe a few months ago - although the Soviet front-line troops lost more than half of them in a few months, the Soviet Union's strong replenishment speed allowed them to quickly increase their strength to pre-war levels.

Moreover, these units were allocated a full 300 T-34 tanks, as well as a large number of KV-1 and KV-2 tanks. Although the latter two tanks have been discontinued, because Stalin personally ordered intervention in the production of Soviet tanks, although these two tanks have been eliminated, there is also a large reserve base. As a result, the Soviet troops at the front had to continue to use these two obsolete tanks, and more than 2,000 of them were used at a time. Together with the huge number of T-26 tanks, the Soviet Union still had more tanks than the German armored forces, and the quality was partially improved.

"How are Stalin's tanks equipped? I'll let you keep an eye on this piece and tell me what you think. While wiping his face, Zhukov asked his assistant, a middle-aged colonel officer.

Of course, the colonel-officer would not take the words of the commander seriously, and he had indeed been staring at the production of Stalin's tank lately, after all, it was a super tank named after a great leader. So he took a step forward and quickly replied: "Comrade Commander, 15 tanks named after Comrade Leader have already been produced, most of which are assembled by hand in the workshop by workers, after all, our technology for producing heavy weapons and equipment is not yet mature. ”

In fact, the equipment for the production of Stalin's tanks in the Soviet Union was already in place, but because the steel mills near the Ural Mountains could not be put on operation for a long time, the Soviet steel production in 1938 had a significant decline, which also limited the production of Soviet tanks.

It is a pity that the person in charge of this steel part has always been a few of Khrushchev's cronies, after the incident of Khrushchev's retreat to the Crimean Peninsula, these cronies were all dealt with by Stalin for various reasons, and now the steel production management is simply a mess, no one can take over for a while, and no one has been able to recover until now.

Hearing his assistant say this, Zhukov nodded with satisfaction, now he is more concerned about the mature technology, imitating the T-34 tank produced by the German Leopard tank, after all, this kind of tank has been used in actual combat, although the record is very average, but it is very suitable to replace those T-26 tanks that are as many as cattle. After all, there are tens of thousands of T-26 tanks, and it is impossible to replace them all with expensive Stalin tanks.

Zhukov has not been in a good mood lately, and his plan to counterattack the German army in the autumn was vetoed by Stalin, and now Stalin is more optimistic about the Stalin's tanks, which are not produced in large quantities and produce complex processes, and hopes that the Soviet Red Army can wait until later to use Stalin's tanks before counterattacking.

This is the origin of the Soviet Union's winter counterattack plan, which is why the German army dared to transfer some troops to travel around the Balkans. However, it will take hundreds of Stalin tanks to enter service, at least until winter, but if winter comes as scheduled, then the Soviet Red Army will face no less difficulties than the German army.

At least in the messages sent back by some Soviet spies lurking in Germany, Zhukov found evidence that the Germans were preparing for the winter. For example, he found information that the Germans were involving about 3,000 prisoners of war in the preparation of charcoal for the winter. Although the little charcoal produced by 3,000 logging slaves was not enough for an army, who knows how many concentration camps there were in the whole of Poland, and how much charcoal these camps could provide, is also an incalculable mystery.

But if you count the hoarding of ammunition and the reserve of winter clothing, Zhukov knows no less than 20 pieces of information about the German army's preparation for the winter, and judging from him, a veteran who has been fighting on the battlefield for many years, since the opponent has begun to prepare reserves for the winter, it is absolutely unwise to expect the winter offensive to work.

So just a few days ago, Zhukov, once again risking being disliked by Stalin, uploaded a telegram in which he hoped that when autumn came, he could use the rainy season to attack the German defenses, and take the lead in opening up the situation, at least occupying the perimeter of Kiev, and using it to shell Kiev to prevent the Germans from using the factories in Kiev to modify and repair tanks.

But before Stalin, who was shaken, could speak, the Soviet air force came out and vetoed Zhukov's proposal, because the United States wanted to thwart the aggression of the Japanese army in the Pacific, so all the 150 P-40 fighters that should have been provided to the Soviet Union were detained in Las Vegas and put into battle as air defense forces there.

The Soviet Air Force, which had no new equipment and could not be replenished, refused to provide Zhukov with any air support, and Zhukov had no choice but to abandon his plan to attack the Germans in the autumn and prepare for a "war that was expected on both sides" in the winter.

Recently, the German army issued an ace flight officer, damn it was the latest German long-nosed FW-190 fighter, I heard that the plane was not the FW-200 model speculated by Soviet intelligence officers, but had a new code name called Ta-152 fighter, the performance is so good that people can't believe it, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the strongest fighter.

And the guy called the Black Tulip Grim Reaper actually shot down 104 Soviet fighters, and for a while the Soviet pilots in that sky talked about it, and even more so when they heard that they were going to that sky, they would rather go to Siberia to mine than take off to carry out combat missions.

This damn German pilot had a black tulip painted on the nose of his plane, and no one knew who this man was, but few of the Soviet pilots who saw the plane came back alive, and even if the lucky ones escaped occasionally, they were almost all full of nonsense.

Thinking of this, Zhukov waved his hand to his deputy, signaling that he could go out, and then walked to the desk by himself, carefully looking at the Wen Jiàn sent in the morning. There is a wide range of texts here, and there is even a German-language newspaper from the previous two days, which contains all kinds of news from Germany.

Zhukov didn't know German, but the German newspaper he gave him had a translated text next to it, and he just had to compare it with it, and the reason why he brought the original text was to compare and look at the pictures above.

At the same time that Zhukov opened the newspaper, Accardo also opened a newspaper, except that his newspaper was from the same day, not the expired version from the previous two days that Zhukov had gotten. While drinking coffee, he carefully looked at the content on it, and compared the time, in fact, Accardo got up some time earlier than Zhukov, because of the time difference, Accardor near Warsaw naturally got up earlier than Zhukov in Minsk.

And not far in front of Accardo, there is also a document from the intelligence department, which is used to corroborate the timing of the Soviet military's attack, and is a top-secret high-level intelligence. Only five people in Germany know the contents of this document, and the military may be the only one in the military who knows the exact content of this document.

The German army's intelligence work started early, and its means were advanced and pervasive, and this was inseparable from Accardo's early deployment in the Wehrmacht, and the German army attached great importance to intelligence, so naturally it also attached importance to the secrecy of intelligence, so some high-level spies such as beggars' poison beehives were directly responsible to Gascoll and Accardo, and ordinary people could not contact them at all -- this was also one of the means to protect them, and Accardo has always been kind to intelligence workers, which is also an important reason why German intelligence work has achieved amazing results.

This information came from the beehive, and Zhukov would have been surprised if he saw it, which showed that the Soviet Union was producing the 19th and 20th Stalin tanks, and that the latest 18th tank had left the workshop and was ready to be submitted to the troops. Compared with Zhukov's own information, this German intelligence is even more detailed than the Soviets themselves know.

With this corroboration of this document, the German High Command came to the right conclusion that the Soviet Union was indeed not prepared to launch an offensive in the autumn, and that the fastest offensive could not be until November 15, and possibly even postponed until around Christmas. Moreover, this offensive plan came from Stalin's supreme order, and even Zhukov did not have the right to change it without authorization.

"Send encrypted messages to Krupp and Augustus, with ...... Let's use the highest-level Führer ciphercode. Accardo thought for a moment and said, "Let them give priority to the ammunition produced by several enterprises in Italy and France to North Africa, and support Rommel to end the Egyptian campaign first." ”

"Yes!" Anna took the message from Accardo, looked at it carefully, and found nothing wrong, then turned around and walked out with a smile.

When she walked to the door, Accardo suddenly stopped her: "Wait a minute, then use the civilian mail channel to send a private message to Mercedes, ask her how little Caesar is, you can help me think about the specific content, and read it to me after writing!"

"My Führer, I'm afraid that when you remember, little Caesar will call her mother. Anna laughed: "The day before yesterday, I had already written a letter to Sister Mercedes in your name, and her reply may be in Warsaw tomorrow, so you will wait to see how Sister Mercedes reproaches you!

Accardo was stunned for a moment, then smiled wryly......