Letting Vlasov return to his station, Accardo rode to the wolf's den with the chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, Manstein. A few days ago, because of the excellent operational performance of the Eastern Front, Field Marshal Brauchitsch was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief of the Third Reich Army, and Manstein, who had been helping Brauchitsch with his advice, naturally rose with the tide, so he was appointed as the new army chief of staff, completely replacing the original position of General Bock.

The view from the window reverses rapidly as the car moves forward, and Accardo is clearly in a good mood sitting in the convertible. He saw the situation he wanted, and he was confident about the next war on the Eastern Front.

"The marshal personally went to Kiev to personally inspect the Brovare Line. Before he left, the Führer's itinerary had not yet been decided, so he was too late to meet you. Manstein carefully explained why Marshal Brauchitsch did not stay in Warsaw to meet him, and mentioned the more worried question of the defense of Kiev.

Accardo smiled, then waved his hand: "General Manstein, I'm not a person who pays attention to subtleties. My marshals fought on the front lines and won wars, earning my respect more than flattering me. ”

"IMHO, my Führer. Most of the Dnieper defense line was very strong, and our grenadiers and elite infantry were enough to withstand the Soviet counterattack. Manstein thought for a moment and said to Accardo: "But there are two relatively tight loopholes in this defensive line, one is the surrounding area of Kyiv and the Brovare region, and the other is in the direction of the Crimean Peninsula. ”

"Well, then, General, how is the General Staff of the Army going to avoid these two flaws?" asked Accardo, raising an eyebrow, very casually.

"The opinion of the General Staff was to launch a limited attack, occupy the Crimean Peninsula, destroy the ports of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet there, replenish the line of defense. Manstein came up with his plan for attacking the Crimea, which would shorten the length of the German lines and interfere with the actions of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. However, there was a very serious problem in front of Accardo, that is, he did not have weapons such as Gustav cannons and Karl mortars, and he lacked heavy fire support to attack the fortress of Sevastopol.

Moreover, the German high-level has recently been discussing the feasibility of jointly sending troops with Turkey and Italy to attack the Balkan countries, and this plan is extremely active on the Turkish side, and even put forward a radical plan to send 700,000 troops, intending to demonstrate the strong military strength of the Turkish army. At this time, if Germany shows weakness on the Balkan issue, then it is conceivable that Turkey in the Balkans will demand more and more in the future.

At the same time, the German-Italian forces launched a powerful offensive in the Tobruk area, intending to capture this important military fortress. The Afrika Korps is building up its forces and is expected to expand into a large military group with three armies. These included Rommel's Army L, General Schellner's Army K, and Garibaldi's 1st Army in Italy. The supply and transportation of this army required a lot of manpower and material resources, and it was obviously not wise to continue the war on the Eastern Front at this time.

"General, I know you have a point, but once we attack the Crimean Peninsula and then take the fortress of Sevastopol. Then the Soviets, who have been forced by us to return to the negotiating table, will completely abandon their intention of peace talks and continue to fight with us. Accardo sighed and looked at the trees outside the car that were getting thicker.

"......" Manstein was vetoed by Accardo for the first time when he proposed his idea in front of Accardo, and now he can imagine his mood, he closed his mouth and waited for Accardo to continue to reprimand.

Manstein is now one of the Wehrmacht's greatest strategists, a rare genius of strategic command, and even his superior, Brauchitsch, praised his performance, and even privately compared Manstein to the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff Schlieffen, who he said of his colleague, General Bock, who had been delegated to Army Group as Commander: "He reminds me of Alfred, and if he continues to be so wise, he will one day surpass us all." ”

But Manstein himself knew that his plan for "Operation Scythe" was proposed by Führer Accardo, and it was because of the successful implementation of this plan that the German army was freed from the danger of fighting on two fronts, and it also allowed Manstein himself to change from an obscure small army commander to Brauchitsch's deputy.

The subsequent change of the Barbarossa plan was also promoted by the Führer behind the scenes, and it had nothing to do with Manstein himself, and now that the situation on the Eastern Front was stabilizing, the Germans had the upper hand and reduced the losses to negligible, in fact, it was all the Führer's elusive strategic vision that predicted in advance.

So now Manstein was apprehensive, he suspected that he was not capable of being the chief of the General Staff of the German army at all, that he was just a puppet of the Führer. So he worked up for several days without sleep, using the rest of the night to draw up a complete plan for the attack on the fortress of Sevastopol. For this plan, he even used his own power to consult the intelligence department, and obtained a lot of information from German spies on the Crimean fortress group.

To his disappointment, however, Accardo vetoed his plan to prove himself, which made him suddenly feel disheartened. It seems that the Führer really just regarded him as a microphone with no opinions, an echo worm of the Army Staff Headquarters.

The atmosphere in the car suddenly became awkward, Manstein was silent, and Accardo seemed to be thoughtful. Both of them were silent, and Anna, who was sitting next to Accardo, didn't speak, but just held Accardo's hand and played with it gently.

"I don't have a lot of support for you, and it's going to be months late. We have invested too much in the Balkans and must recoup it in the near future. But as soon as the Balkan problem is over, then I will give you an army group and let you personally solve the Crimean Peninsula. Accardo spoke suddenly, breaking the silence in the car, and it was evident that Manstein, who was sitting across from him, had not expected the conversation to take a turn for a while, and for a moment felt the urge to cry.

He looked at Accardo and listened to him continue to speak to himself: "I do have many supporters in the army, and many of them are in high positions because of their absolute loyalty to me, Raeder, Gascol, and even Catherine and Dick are close friends with me, and Guderian and Rommel in the army are also my confidants. But I found you. It's not that I like your obscurity, but I really feel that when I see you, I see Rommel Guderian, which makes my eyes shine. ”

"You are the man I am looking for, and I have a hunch, as if I had a hunch that Guderian and Rommel would be able to bring me victory. I feel that you will also bring me victory, you will be one of my proudest men, and even I have prepared you for the position of marshal. Accardo said this, and glanced at Manstein, obviously the other party had been frightened by his words, and probably the other party never thought that he would be regarded as a reserve candidate for the marshal by the Führer.

Of course, Accardo could not say this to Manstein: Big brother, in fact, I wrote those plans for you yourself in a few years, and the position I plan to give you as marshal is also something that Hitler will inevitably give you after you conquer the Crimean Peninsula in a few years - he will scare Manstein to death if he says this, or he will be treated by Anna as a psychopath, and sent back to Berlin for treatment.

So he had no choice but to continue to explain his process of discovering Manstein under the guise of discernment, using God's gift to explain the process of discovering Manstein. This frustrated Manstein, after all, he, the chief of the General Staff, could not know more about how smoothly the generals who had been favored by the Führer were now.

"My Führer......" Manstein, who is 51 years old this year, felt that tears were about to well-up in his eyes, he had experienced so much in just a few minutes that he almost gave up on himself and was ready to fade out of the military command circle, but because of Führer Accardo's heartfelt words, he decided to fight for Accardo for the rest of his life.

"Present your plan for an attack on the Crimean Peninsula to Marshal Brauchitsch as a guide to action in the region, and in the future I will give you the opportunity to prove yourself in the Crimea. Accardo continued, "Don't let me down when that time comes, understand?"

"Yes, my Führer, Manstein will never let you down!Führer Accardo, long live Rudolph!" Manstein replied solemnly.

"Don't be discouraged, my general, show me around my wolf's den, and I'll spend the whole summer here. Accardo said helplessly: "I wish the temperature here was slightly better than in Berlin, I hate the heat." ”

The car stopped at the first checkpoint, lined with SS soldiers at three paces and five paces, and on either side of the road was an endless forest, filled with the sound of birds and the dappled light shining on the ground through the dense foliage of the trees. Accardo stood up, took off his trench coat and handed it to Anna, revealing the SS uniform he was wearing.

He wears a lot of clothes, mainly to maintain the image of the head of state in public, and the weather has not been too hot in the last two days, so he even wears a trench coat to maintain a capable and spiritual image. He has a special appearance designer, and his clothes are strictly controlled. These are Fanny's arrangements, and she needs a perfect image to allow her to carry out the propaganda of the German Führer without flaws.

"My Führer, welcome to the Wolf's Lair. An officer at the checkpoint stood in a salute and motioned for the guards to remove the barricade.