V4CH32: Scheming and Painting

Sitting against the bed, Xu Jun sipped the fragrant milk and mushroom gumbo while listening to Wehrle's report about his cooperation agreement with the Polish partisans.

　　"Yeah, let them all go." After listening to Wehrle's account Xu Jun put down the soup spoon in his hand, then leaned his head towards the head of the bed and closed his eyes.

　　"My marshal. Do you feel that there is something wrong with my arrangement? Or are you unhappy that I took it upon myself to sign this agreement with them?" Wehrle cautiously spoke aside, "I also know that I made that kind of decision privately without your consent, and I was mentally prepared to accept any punishment from you. But in that situation, the only way to get the best results was to tear down that woman's psychological defenses when she was at her most confused and vulnerable. And you also talked to me about your plan, and this time it happened that a Polish partisan came to our door, saving us the effort to find such partisans again. When I found out from the confessions of the prisoners that they had deep ties with Russia I felt that our opportunity had come and that the girl was the best person to realize your plan, so I took it upon myself to sign an agreement with her. If you think there's something wrong, I can arrange remedial work right away, they're still in our grasp and we can wipe them all out at any time."

　　"No. Oh, my chief of staff. You need not be nervous. I don't have a problem with your decision. I was thinking ahead about how we can make better use of this new card in our hands. In the end, we have not yet broken down with the Russians, so how to use this special force will be a very difficult problem. If the Russians find out that we are behind this unit, we will become very passive in our diplomatic activities with them. Wouldn't you say so, my dear Chief of Staff?" Xu Jun smiled and opened his eyes, turning his head to look at Wehrle.

　　"Yes, my marshal, I have taken your concern into consideration. The scope of their future activities and all plans will be formulated and supervised by me personally, I believe that precise planning should not make those Russians suspect us. I will direct those suspicions to the other enemies of Russia, and what other countries in this world are not their secret enemies now. What do you think of my handling of this?" Wehrle said respectfully.

　　"Well, if you are the one to arrange it, I am very relieved. Still, be careful, the situation was not as complicated as it is now when I proposed such an intention to you. I didn't expect the Russians to put their hands so quickly on this half of Poland that we occupy. I think there must be something wrong in the middle. The Russians have always adopted a policy of compromise and concessions to us, and they want to maintain this state of non-aggression with us. But now, they suddenly send spies inside Poland to destabilize our occupied areas and even to assassinate me, the German vice-Führer, which makes one wonder what the deeper meaning of this is. I can't think of what they want to do at the moment. But I am sure that if we strengthen our vigilance in this regard from now on, their purpose will be figured out by us sooner or later.

　　The fact that the Russians now have the audacity to do such things that might irritate us means that they already have countermeasures to deal with our reaction, so let's simply press on and pretend that these things never happened, that we don't even know that such things exist and that we want them to have this false impression to paralyze them. I vow to make them pay for this stupid action of theirs, and let all my enemies in the shadows know that whoever is planning to take my life should think twice about what will happen to him before he does so."

　　Xu Jun tore off a small piece of white bread and dipped it into the cream of mushroom soup and put it in his mouth, and after he swallowed the food in his mouth, he then said to Wehrle "From this incident also let us find out some problems within us."

I dare not say that there are Russian spies among sus, but at least there must be loopholes in our security work. My operation is completely confidential, in order to keep that person from finding out, I made very secret and detailed preparations. But yesterday's incident proved that my operation was at least known to the Russians, and I can't figure out which part of it went wrong yet, but I can be sure that someone must have leaked my action plan to the outside world.

　　This means that it is possible that that person also knows about my plan as well, and now we are put in an awkward position. If we continue with the plan, if the other side has already prepared, then we will be very passive, and in the end, this will end in absolutely complete failure. But if we do not proceed with this plan now, then all our previous efforts will come to naught, and this best opportunity now will be gone forever, and I believe that now is the only chance to take our homeland from that man, and I will not give up this opportunity."

　　"My marshal, I have carefully considered these issues you are worried about, and last night I spent the night thinking about where went wrong. But now in this situation, we no longer have time to investigate our internals, but you can rest assured that I will find this mole as soon as possible and eliminate all hidden dangers that may cause harm to you. Now the first thing we have to consider is whether we should make some changes to our plan, or simply overturn our previous plans, and reformulate a more sophisticated plan in line with the current situation. Of course, you are the de facto decision-maker in this matter, and no matter what your decision is, we will do our best to help you to accomplish it. Everything will be aimed at your will, and we believe that we will be able to save our homeland from that man."

　　"I believe in that too. Your advice is correct, we indeed can no longer count on a plan that may have been leaked to accomplish our goals. Even modifications are dangerous under the present circumstances. I have decided to follow your second point of advice, and I will reformulate a plan that is tighter and more in line with the present situation, and this time we will have to be more careful, I do not want our plans to be hampered in any way by leaks again."

　　"Our new plan is going to be based on the fact that the original plan has been leaked, I also want to put this to good use and make those smug bastards pay a heavy price for their self-confidence. We have to be prepared for both sides, whether that person already knows my plan or not, it will make his corresponding countermeasures useless." Here Xu Jun pushed the soup bowl to the side to indicate that he had finished his breakfast, and Wehrle hurriedly went forward to bring that tray to the side of the table. Xu Jun picked up the latest information brought by Wehrle and put it on the small shelf on the bed and looked through it.

　　"Is this all the information you just received today?" Xu Jun smiled and asked Weierle.

　　"Most of them are, my marshal, a few of them were received at midnight last night, the others were received early this morning," Wehrle replied respectfully.

　　"It seems that the situation is really interesting now. My Chief of Staff, you must have read all of these, what are your thoughts on what this intelligence reflects?" Xu Jun asked while looking at those documents.

　　"I think just like you said, the current situation is indeed very interesting. That man has rushed to the French front, I believe he will reach Army Group A command tomorrow, but I don't know what he is doing there, all the senior officers there have been arrested by Heydrich and are now being taken to Berlin to a special prison, I think they should arrive in Berlin the day after tomorrow if there is no accident, I think you can now give orders to your men in Berlin, you have to think of of a way to save these officers, who are excellent soldiers and will certainly be of great help to your ideals.

　　The information says that now the Generalissimo has in fact disintegrated and that all the generals of the Generalissimo who supported you have resigned in front of that man, which means that the German officer corps has now openly broken diplomacy with that man. Here are the telegrams sent to you by the generals and marshals who are now rushing to the front by all means. They assure you that they will control the troops for you and hope that you will get there quickly and take charge of the situation.

　　That man is now no longer able to use the power of the officer corps to control the German Army, and the situation is becoming more and more favorable to you. But this also makes us be more vigilant, we have to prevent that man from doing something drastic when he is desperate. You know very well that, at least in the eyes of the German people, he is still the savior of Germany and its unparalleled great leader. We have to guard against his use of the power of the ordinary German people to fight you, which would put us in a dilemma. The German Army will not shoot its own citizens, and we may be pushed into the depths of defeat by a population that has been deceived, we cannot fail to be prepared for this possibility in every way."

　　Hearing Wehrle speak, Xu Jun nodded.

　　"You are correct in your analysis, I have thought about the possibility of such a thing happening. I had asked my allies and supporters across the country before we left Warsaw to seize control of the local media by whatever means they could. I believe they should be able to do this soon, and at that point, no one will hear his voice or see his affirmations, no matter how much he comes to agitate. The German people will never know about this struggle we are having, and if anyone wants to spread any news or rumors about it, he should be prepared to get acquainted with life in a concentration camp. I think I can suppress the damage this will do to Germany, but of course, I still do not hope that this will happen, and I want to settle the matter before he has time to do so."

　　"It's a blessing for Germany that those generals and marshals have finally come to their senses now. Now we don't have to worry about their loyalty; they have now shown you their sincerity through their actions. I think you should now send them a telegram of thanks to show them your attitude, one, so that they can be reassured, and two, so that they can feel your trust in them. We want these people who support us to feel that you are pleased with their behavior and not to chill their hearts." Wehrle picked up the joint telegram from the generals of the commanding general and said.

　　"You make the arrangements, this telegram will be drafted by you, and just show it to me when it comes."

　　"As ordered, my marshal."

　　"Was this information sent in the code I arranged? Did they slack off?" Xu Jun lifted his head and asked with a smile.

　　"These telegrams were sent in a special code as you instructed. I believe no one can decipher such double encrypted telegrams. Only the generals' telegrams were sent using only our side of the Enigma code without further encryption. But it is true, they do not have our codebooks, and even our Enigma code was given to them by our bishops when they contacted them. But my marshal, I think Enigma is already indecipherable, so why do you need to add another layer of a special cipher?" Wehrle asked in confusion.

　　"Because I know that this cipher machine of ours is not as secure as you think, and we still have to be careful now. In addition to Enigma's automatic encryption plus one-time cipher encryption, this is the most secure way to communicate. No one will be able to decipher a telegram encrypted with the one-time code and then sent by Enigma in a short time. There is no harm in being careful except that we have to guard against that person and also against those hostile countries knowing about us."

　　"I see, my marshal. Here is another very interesting piece of information. The Italians attacked again with their entire army and were defeated by the French, I doubt if they are a regular army or not, I think even the militia is now better than their fighting ability. But the intelligence also mentioned that Mussolini may sense something, he sent a telegram to Hitler, asking him to meet, I think there must be a pattern. What are your thoughts on that arrogant punk."

　　"That guy isn't qualified to go against me yet, or he doesn't have the kind of intelligence to go against me yet. Don't bother with him at all."

　　"I know, my marshal."

　　"Where are we now, and how far are we from Danzig."

　　"This? At the rate we are going, I believe we will be able to reach the port of Danzig early tomorrow morning. We should be able to arrive on schedule, please rest assured, my marshal." Wehrle pulled back the curtains to look out of the car and replied.

　　"Oh, and send a telegram to Dorgan and the others asking them to be prepared for a second plan, we may not be able to move as we had planned. I have to send a telegram personally to my old friend and ask him to prepare a new transport for me. But our arrival at the French front may have to be delayed, but it will be worth it for safety reasons." Xu Jun said to Wehrle.

　　"I understand, Colonel Dorgan and Major Randolph will finish the job you gave them, not to mention that there is still Brigadier General Haroon by their side. I am sure they will be able to have everything ready by the time we reach Danzig." Wehrle smiled and said, "But I think they still don't know how they will come to berate the partisans when they see you wounded, not to mention Haroon and Randolph, Dorgan alone might eat me alive. You know, he never looks at his rank when he gets angry."

　　"Hahahaha, it won't be that bad, Dorgan isn't the kind of person you're talking about, the most he'll do is glare at you with that frozen look of his. If he knows your intentions he will definitely understand your arrangement." Xu Jun smiled and replied, "Regarding the matter of guerrillas, I think you did the right thing. To be able to find out where the other side can make use of in such a short period of time, I feel great admiration for this kind of wisdom of yours. As you said, I decided to give this job to you completely, you will be responsible for all things of this guerrilla group. However, I would like to remind you, my chief of staff, that it is not an easy task to manage such a group, and if we find signs of their departure from our grasp or betrayal, we must use all means to remove them immediately and never leave any leverage that can be used by the enemy against us. I think you are well aware of this, I don't need to elaborate on it."

　　"Of course, my Führer, I believe that if they dare to have any thoughts of wanting to break away from our control or be used by other forces appear, I will get rid of all of them when they make their first mistake. I assure you that there will not be a single living betrayer who will escape from my hands. But I think that if you really implement in Poland the kind of policy you told me about and treat the Poles in the way you do, it is impossible for them to betray you. Because they will not betray their motherland. For the sake of Poland, they will be complacent."