Middle East trip

"What, what?" Manstein couldn't react for a while after hearing Lyon's words, "My head of state, Chief of Staff of Army Group A? Really?"

"Yes, Chief of Staff of Army Group A!" Leon confirmed with a smile.

"What about the original chief of staff of Army Group A? Has he been dismissed?" Manstein asked with concern.

He was very thoughtful. If the original chief of staff was demoted because of his promotion, then he would prepare early and find a suitable time to visit him to avoid problems in future cooperation.

"No, no, Manstein, I understand what you mean," Leon explained, "but no one has been demoted because of your promotion."

"In fact, on the contrary, not only no one was demoted because of your promotion, but a large number of officers were promoted."

"Because the French have been expanding their troops recently, in order to maintain the balance of the Western Front, we carried out a new expansion yesterday. The Wehrmacht added two new army groups, and the SS added three new infantry corps. Of course, These establishments are still being replenished slowly, and they are not yet capable of combat."

"Haha, it seems that I have been in Norway for two days, and the western front has changed completely." Manstein joked, "By the way, who is my partner in Army Group A?"

"It's still Admiral Rundstedt. I think he and you will get along very well." Leon replied.

Rundstedt is the oldest among the senior commanders of the German army. At the same time, he is full of the spirit of traditional German officers and has the typical demeanor of a Prussian officer.

In terms of military thought, Lundstedt's basic concepts are relatively stable. He is neither brave to innovate nor conservative. He insists on the infantry as the main branch of arms, and also advocates the renewal of technical equipment of the troops, especially the development of armored troops. His use of the new German tactics is also in place.

It is precisely because of the above characteristics, coupled with the fact that he never interferes too much in the command of his subordinates and is good at taking the opinions of his colleagues, Lyon will choose to let him cooperate with Manstein and continue to serve as the commander of Army Group A to ensure that Manstein can unashamedly and comprehensively exert his excellent strategic talents.

It can be foreseen that with the stable and experienced Lundstedt as the head coach, and the bold, careful and diligent Manstein as the chief of staff, the strength of Army Group A will be gained in a short period of time. Greatly improved, it will become a terrifying powerhouse that will give the Allies a headache.

In addition, in order to further enable this unit to completely crush the Allied forces in future wars and become the tip of the German war spear, Lyon also drew some elites from the armored units of other army groups and used them to These elites formed four brand-new German armored divisions. These four armored divisions formed two armored corps - the German Wehrmacht 1st Panzer Corps and the German Wehrmacht 2nd Panzer Corps. Drian and Rommel led.

They did not belong to any army group, but Zhili and Army Group A, under the direct command of Manstein and Rundstedt.

"In general, Manstein, I've given you the best troops in the Empire, and at the same time, as much as possible, allow you to command your troops individually, so that you can use your talents to the fullest. So I think You won't let me down, the empire, will you?" Leon asked solemnly.

"Of course, my Führer." Manstein assured equally solemnly, "I will never let you and the Empire down!"

"That's good." Leon smiled and said, "That's it, I wish you a smooth journey."

"Thank you, Führer!" Manstein said at attention, then put down the wireless microphone in his hand, walked back to the passenger cabin from the cockpit of the plane, found a seat and sat down, and began to carefully plan his future plans.

He used to be the chief of staff of the army group. This time, the head of state directly promoted him to the chief officer of the army group level. It would be a lie to say that he was not nervous, but he was more expectant than nervous. Unleash your ambitions and command the Empire's most powerful army to avenge the success of the Führer and Motherland who trusted him so much.

On the other side, Ludwig saw that Leon had ended the call with Manstein, stepped forward and whispered, "Führer, the plane is ready and can take off at any time."

"Tell me about the specific route." Leon rubbed his temples, stood up and walked towards the door of the Fuhrer's Palace.

"Okay Führer." Ludwig nodded, "We took off from Berlin, escorted by our air force, and arrived at the Italian Air Force Base in Calabria, where we refueled and flew directly across the Mediterranean Sea this time. The first stop of the Middle East trip - Iraq."

"That's good." Lyon nodded and sat in a high-end bulletproof car specially developed for Lyon by Dailem B.

This is the first time Lyon has traveled to the Middle East. In his previous life, the place in the Middle East was always full of wars and assassinations, and it was a little far away from Europe—that is, Lyon's sphere of influence—so he fought. He was reluctant to go to that place in his heart. After all, he now had the fate of the whole of Germany hanging on him.

The reason why he will "go against his original intention" to arrange this trip to the Middle East this time is all because the oil balance of the empire has become negative and the army has begun to consume the oil reserves of the empire, so he has to go to the Middle East to seek oil resources .

However, although the Middle East is not very stable due to geographical issues (since ancient times, it has been the core area of ​​conflict between Europe and the Arab world, plus the border issue after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire) and religious issues, but because of the most serious core at this time The problem hasn't arisen yet (YSL and BLST about Jerusalem), so this kind of instability doesn't mean that it's going to get to the point where it's going to be a bloodbath in the future.

In addition, the strength of the Gestapo Middle East headquarters is very strong, and Iran and Iraq are now pro-German, so Lyon dared to go to the Middle East to discuss the oil issue in person.

After everyone arrived at the airport, three huge four-engine planes began to warm up their engines, and the security forces of the Gestapo also began to check these three planes to ensure the safety of the Fuehrer.

After a rigorous inspection to ensure that everything was in order, Lyon and Ludwig boarded the remodeled and very comfortable "Führer's plane" with some accompanying officials and personal guards. The accompanying Führer's guards carried weapons The equipment boarded the other two.

Compared with the "Führer's special plane", the environment of the two planes that the Führer's Guard rides is not very comfortable. They are typical troop transport aircraft - there are a lot of seats and can put down a lot of weapons and equipment, but the environment is bad.