Since last year, Zhu Lingjing has often been entangled in Zhou's future development, which is a bit similar to the cultivation and paving of subordinates by his boss.

At first, in view of the fact that he didn't seem to like to socialize, Zhu Lingjing thought about simply treating him as a general to develop and simply concentrate on military affairs.

But at present, there has been a change, after his own reminders and suggestions, he did begin to communicate with powerful businessmen one after another, and his popularity is okay.

In this way, he seems to have the necessary ability to be handsome.

Marshals are one level higher than generals in the classical sense, for example, Di Renjie was the marshal of the Hebei Provincial March, that is, "those who can lead the army are called generals; Those who can lead the generals are said to be handsome".

At this point, it is impossible to stay out of politics.

The position of marshal is not just the pinnacle of glory on the surface, because the person who is the commander must have the qualifications and ability to serve the people, otherwise how can he lead the generals?

At the same time, it is also necessary to be able to establish a good relationship with the bigwigs in the political and business circles, otherwise both of them will be able to stumble and drag their feet in all aspects.

However, Zhu Shiyan is not optimistic about his daughter's idea, he feels that people like Zhou are not easy to restrain and are not reliable enough, and said that Zhou "should be the choice of general", which means that it is not recommended to develop it to the marshal.

His words were a little vague, probably because he thought he might be blind.

Maybe Zhu Lingjing didn't understand it, or maybe she deliberately ignored it.

"Yes, Your Majesty, the Governor's Staff Office can come here at any time, and as for the Staff College... I don't know now, but as usual, most of the last semester has passed. ”

"Okay."

waited for the other end of the phone to hang up first, and Cheng Han put down the microphone.

His gaze fell motionless on the table, but his mind had drifted into the distance.

Zhou's path to ascension seems to be changing, but... Different means to the same end.

That night, Zhou Changfeng dragged his tired body back home, and today he was busy all afternoon, because he talked too much so that his voice was a little hoarse.

However, as soon as he arrived home, he received a not-so-good news from his wife.

"Sir, there was a phone call from the palace before, relaying that Your Majesty had an edict to let you report to the Staff University as soon as possible." Xia Xiaoshi's face was a little strange, and obviously she didn't know why.

"Staff University?" Zhou Changfeng was gurgling and drinking Coca-Cola in glass bottles at this time, the cold touch and the stimulation of bubbles were actually too enjoyable.

Different from the four major military academies that train junior officers, the Daming Army Staff University is a place responsible for cultivating and educating senior military talents, and the lowest number of "students" enrolled in the school is a major.

Generally speaking, majors and lieutenant colonels will study in campaign studies, military drills, logistics management, staff operations, and so on, and they will become middle- and high-ranking professional officers.

Colonels and brigadier generals are different, they come here to learn to command large corps operations, and the direction of training is operational command.

"......" Zhou Changfeng explained to his wife the relevant matters of the Staff University, and then complained helplessly: "I didn't expect that I still have to study at this point!" ”

It's a great thing, this guy can stay in Beijing after that, and he doesn't have to go to a foreign country thousands of miles away for the time being.

Xia Xiaoshi, who was in a good mood, joked: "Oh, Zhou Kexing, didn't you boast of being excellent in your studies before?" Why are you still tired of studying? ”

"Just because I'm okay with reading doesn't mean I like to read." As he spoke, Zhou Changfeng reached out and pinched her waist.

"Hey, but I'm different, I'm so cute about the old days when I went to school."

After a few ordinary words, the topic of the two immediately returned to business.

"I plan to send Jian Jian to her parents when she is older, it's too boring to stay at home like this. First ~ Sheng~" Xia Xiaoshi came to Zhou Changfeng's side, and her words were also a little coquettish.

The latter hesitated: "They usually have to work, it's inconvenient." ”

"Yes. That...... Let's hire someone to help take care of it, and I'll have to go back to teaching then. ”

"Okay, whatever you want." Zhou Changfeng smiled dumbly.

No wonder when he went to Xia's house back then, Xia's father and Xia's mother would show a sense of relief.

When he first met Xia Xiaoshi, he made a keen and accurate judgment from the beginning - it is difficult for a girl like her to marry.

Being highly educated means having "more" thoughts, as the saying goes, being more thoughtful and exquisite.

This is obviously not in line with traditional values, and the right man will exclude her at once - heh, why should Lao Tzu find an unconscious wife to come back?

Thanks to Zhou, as a time-traveler, he has seen the demons dancing under the washing of the postmodern ideology of the 21st century, and in his eyes, Xia Xiaoshi's temperament is simply not worth mentioning compared to later women.

From this point of view, they are really a match made in heaven.

You must know that most of the married women in the world in this era are housewives, and there are not many jobs for women, and the corresponding rights are few.

Historically, Britain, the United States, and Germany gave women the right to vote in the twenties, while France did not ratify it until the forties.

During the war, as many men enlisted in the military, vacant jobs had to be replaced by women, for example, in the United States, about 12 million women were recruited to work in factories, including arsenals, shipyards, automobile factories, aircraft factories, and so on.

In Britain, where the threat was faced, women who were basically only engaged in light industry jobs before the war have also entered heavy industry jobs, and in order to meet the needs of the war, many factories had to work two shifts, and the factories in Glasgow and Manchester often had to work 12 hours a day, and they had to go home after work, queue up to buy daily necessities, do laundry and cooking, and some could only sleep for four hours a day.

Unlike those hypocrites who want to get something for nothing, these women in war earn respect and rights through their own hard work.

However, the situation in the West can only be used as a reference in history, and the national conditions of the Ming Dynasty today are completely different.

Even if the 690 million population is calculated according to the statistics of the local government, and the mobilization efficiency of the Ming Dynasty is very low, 20 to 1, there are as many as 34 million soldiers.

The huge and inexhaustible human resources have spoiled the imperial court and private enterprises in a sense, and the typical example is that "people do not do it", thus subtly depressing the value of "people" and causing a series of negative effects.

The Ming army in peacetime was also very nitpicky, because there were so many soldiers who needed to be recruited every year, but there were far more people who went to conscript than needed.

Don't be too tall, don't be too short, don't be too thin, don't be too fat, don't be too stupid, don't be too smart.

What is more outrageous is that some units of the Ming Navy even have to be picky about their appearance, which is really spoiled.

In the past two years, the situation has changed again, because the policy of public redemption of acres of land has been accelerated, and more and more tenant farmers in Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces have been liberated from the state of personal dependence.

There are many people in Shanhaiguan and little land, and the acres of land allocated by the government to each family are actually not much, and a family only has a few acres of land or a dozen acres of land, and two laborers can cope with it, but now each family often has multiple children, and these people often choose to go to the city to work.

In this way, although the Ming Dynasty has been vigorously expanding the army, the labor force has not decreased but increased, and there is no labor shortage at all.

The next day, dawn.

The gentle breeze in late spring is particularly refreshing, and the bright sunshine makes people's mood involuntarily better.

The Bell and Drum Tower area is the commercial district of the northern part of the capital, which is far inferior to the southern part of the city, but it occupies a unique position in terms of finance, as is the southern section of the Drum Tower Outer Avenue is home to many group corporate headquarters, and the Yingtian Stock Exchange is also located here.

In order to know the opening price at the beginning, the front of the stock exchange was already full of citizens staring at the market.

They came early, planning to wait until they saw the opening price and analyzed the stock market trend before going to their respective places of work.

People are talking about breakfast while eating, and there is a different kind of "vigor" here.

"Brother, listen to my brother's advice, Rongyang Cable must have potential, and it will take off soon, and this dark horse stock must be grasped." A middle-aged man who seems to be very knowledgeable is persuading the young people around him.

At this time, someone nearby shouted angrily: "What nonsense! This stock has been falling for almost a year. Before the war, it was said that it would rise as soon as the war started, but as a result, it fell after a while. Then another guy preached that it would rise sharply when the good news came, but it was still the same half-dead! ”

"Indeed, in my opinion, just be conservative, just look at those white horse stocks, don't think about getting rich at one time." An elegant young man said as he wiped his glasses.

Zhou Changfeng also came here with Lin Xi, and he made a special trip to examine the stock market to observe the economic situation of Daming.

The two traveled in casual clothes, and they were inconspicuous in the vast crowd.

Looking at the stock display board hanging outside the Yingtian Stock Exchange, Zhou Changfeng silently read more than a dozen in succession, and couldn't help but sigh that this was a proper bull market.

Although only a few stocks soared, many of the remaining stocks rose steadily and slightly, which is a relatively healthy state.

Not bad, at least so far, there are pros and cons to this war, which can almost be described as perfect.

Faced with this situation, Lin Xi's mind also flew out of the clouds.

Quietly leaving her hometown to Daming to pursue a new life, she thought she was amazing, but now she suddenly felt a little homesick.

The faces of family, the smiles of friends, the streets of my hometown, the pedestrians, the small shops that we frequent...... The same people and objects swiped across my eyes like a slide.

Lan Fang has no external threat after this war, and people have been working hard to build national defense for decades, so they should be able to breathe a sigh of relief now, right?

Zhou Changfeng on the side was thinking about the future situation, and he didn't notice that Lin Xi's expression and gaze were different from usual.

"I'm going to the Imperial City, you can go back."

"Yes."

Since the Ming Dynasty launched its war against the Netherlands, the ties between the United States and Australia have rapidly become closer.

Sea traffic became more frequent, and American merchant fleets departing from San Francisco could be seen on the routes.

They are loaded with machine tools and weapons ordered by Australia for the expansion of arsenals and armies.

In the last half month alone, about 30,000 rifles, 4,000 Thomson submachine guns, 1,200 Browning automatic rifles, 80 75mm field guns, 54 M2A4 light tanks, and 32 P-36A fighters have been unloaded from merchant ships calling at Sydney.

It is foreseeable that Australia will inevitably be heavily influenced by the United States in the years to come, because the suzerainty is beyond the reach of the whip.

On the other hand, it will become an increasingly difficult strategic base, and the national defense force will increase day by day, and if it is not brought under control as soon as possible, the consequences will be unimaginable.

This is not only a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty, but also a bad result for the UK.

If Australia and New Zealand had fallen to the United States, wouldn't our British Empire have completely lost its sphere of influence in Oceania?

"Have you heard? The British are also in a mess at this time, and they want to negotiate sincerely. ”

"The huge Australia is a treasure land, and no one is willing to change it."

Before seeing him or hearing his voice, Zhou Changfeng felt the relaxed and proud atmosphere as soon as he walked into the staff office of the Governor's Mansion.

Considering Australia's important strategic position, some of the military and political figures who originally opposed it were also shaken.

Today, they finally relented, abandoned their original resolute refusal, and reluctantly agreed to the plan to attack Australia with preconditions.

Their majority opinion can be summed up as a call for strategic superiority in the war against the United States -- if they can ensure strategic superiority over the United States, then they can consider mobilizing large forces to attack Luzon and Australia.

However, the United States, with its unparalleled industrial capabilities and the Pacific and Atlantic fleets, is likely to avoid engaging the Ming Navy in the early stages of the war, and then take the initiative to attack after gaining an overwhelming superiority in forces.

Therefore, there was a consensus that Pearl Harbor should be used as a problem.

"It's hard to bite, I really can't deal with those heavy shore guns." An army colonel shook his head helplessly.

"Battleships can't beat shore guns, and people put them in forts. The Navy's trial-built carrier-based bomber, which is ready for mass production, can hang armor-piercing bombs of up to 1,000 kilograms, but it can only penetrate more than one meter of reinforced concrete. ”

As a base for the Pacific Fleet, the strategically important island of Oahu has a sizable number of garrisons.

The Americans, who did not have much standing army on their own soil, were stunned to deploy an infantry division and an armored cavalry regiment on Oahu, although they were both in a state of shortage, but after several months of replenishment, they were close to full strength.

Excluding the coastal artillery and militia, there were nearly 20,000 mobile troops and hundreds of tanks.

In addition, thanks to the naval treaty, the old battleships were dismantled, and the main guns of the unfinished Lexington-class battlecruisers were idle, and the Americans placed these spare huge guns on Oahu as shore defense guns.

The tiny island of Oahu has 24 305mm guns, 2 356mm guns, 4 406mm guns, and 32 203mm guns, either in strong reinforced concrete forts or on open ring batteries.

And that's just the way it is now, as Oahu's defenses have historically increased every year with the outbreak of war.

[Picture]

Zhou Changfeng stared at Oahu Island on the sand table, and said calmly: "It is impossible to win easily all the time, you have to gnaw hard bones after all, so be mentally prepared for tens of thousands of casualties." ”

Someone smiled bitterly: "It's not a question of how many casualties there are, it's a question of whether they can be captured after casualties." ”

(End of chapter)