V4CH15: Memories and Reflections

"Power, it is indeed something that enchants people." Xu Jun let out a soft sigh as he sat in the back seat of the car looking out the car window at the streets of Warsaw.

　　"General, what are you talking about?"

　　Hans, who was sitting across from him, turned his eyes back from the window as he asked in confusion.

　　"Nothing. Hans."

　　Xu Jun raised his eyes to look at the clear eyes of his adjutant and smiled as he replied, "Just an exclamation." While saying that, Xu Jun took out a delicate silver wine decanter from a small drawer by the side of his seat, and judging from the markings on it, it contained a two-year-old Bordeaux red wine.

　　"Oh." Hans nodded, and seeing that there was nothing unusual about the commander, he turned his head and began to view the scenery outside the window again.

　　Xu Jun gently took a sip of red wine emitting a light fragrance, leaned his head on the comfortable cushion on the back of the chair, and slowly closed his eyes. What exactly do you do after you came to this world? How did he become this way, why did he fall into such a state? Xu Jun closed his eyes, he thought back to the road he had traveled since he came to this world, and could not help but feel a lot of emotions.

　　A month ago, he was an ordinary graduate student in the history department, a Chinese student who was considered to be honest. A young man who aimed to become a historian as great as his grandfather. If he was still in that time and place, he would have been able to live his life happily and uneventfully. But now, everything is unreal, and those pleasant memories have become so far away, as distant as the memories of a previous life. Yes, it is indeed the previous life, in that world, he has long since been dead.

　　Xu Jun laughed bitterly and opened his eyes. He tilted his head and took a large sip of the two-year-old Bordeaux, the rich fragrance and wonderful taste made him feel slightly better. He raised his eyes to look at Hans sitting across from him, the adjutant was still curiously watching the view outside the window and didn't notice him. Xu Jun sighed softly and closed his eyes again.

　　He was no longer the confident and pleasant young student he used to be. Ever since he came to this world, Xu Jun found himself slowly changing with the world, becoming more and more strange to himself, becoming more and more frightening to himself. When those battle plans and those conspiracies popped out of his mind one by one, even he himself did not believe that such things could be thought out by himself.

　　He was terrified by those changes in him. Once upon a time, he had never thought of hurting anyone, let alone killing thousands of people he didn't know. But now, he had planned to kill hundreds of thousands of British and French soldiers who had nothing to do with him, and he had set up countless conspiracies that even he felt were despicable and shameless in order to be able to realize that plan.

　　He used all his previous knowledge on how to kill more, faster, and more perfectly, and used the knowledge that should contribute to the development of mankind in the political struggle between the two sides.

　　Xu Jun felt that he had become more and more bloodthirsty from the moment he arrived here, and every time he won a battle, he felt immensely excited and proud of his plan to get countless enemies killed, but he rarely thought about how many families his plan had brought pain and sorrow. Why? Was it simply because they were the enemy? One keeps saying to oneself that if one does not go and bring down those enemies, then one will be brought down by them, so everything one does, any means necessary, is justified.

　　But he knew in his heart that these were just excuses, that he had been deceiving himself. When he got pleasure and satisfaction from the blood of those soldiers, he was no longer pure, he was fighting to satisfy his ego, fighting for the incomparable excitement and bloody pleasure that war brings to him. At that time he completely ignored that he is on the side of injustice and invading other people's homes, only to meet their own vanity and in order to get that kind of excitement, he came up with countless vicious schemes and traps. Even when he was gloating over those beautiful medals and honors he never thought carefully that behind these medals and merits are hidden the bodies of countless soldiers who gave their lives to defend their country and their dignity. His own heart is actually as full of ego as Hitler, that madman, but even when he understood this, everything was already too late, he has been deeply trapped, and he was addicted to this bloody game.

　　The other thing that changed him is power, the most magical thing in the world, countless people are willing to give their lives in pursuit of it. It is a great power that one has, the power to do whatever one wants, that has aroused the dark thoughts in one's heart.

　　Let Germany take the path of justice, let those evil acts disappear from the earth, to make their own country, these glorious ideals make themselves embark on the road to seize more power. In order to gain enough power, he started to become unscrupulous, but when the power was really in his hands, he realized that the power had been stained with the blood of countless innocent people. And has been tainted by the blood of those who are still not qualified to achieve those noble and glorious goals, Xu Jun really does not want to know. (TL: I don't know what to do about this one)

　　He only knows that those ideals have now become the excuse and motivation for his own crazy, power-hungry behavior. What he had done in Poland had been completely disconnected from justice, and nearly half of the Nazi officials he had executed were completely innocent staff members who had fallen victim to the purge he had launched to vent his anger. Although he was indeed disgusted with Hitler and his Nazi Reich, this did not justify his eagerness to turn against him. The only thing he wanted in his heart was the power that Hitler had, and there are no other grand reasons for that.

　　That power has tempted him from the beginning, and with that power he can do everything he wants to do in the world, he can make national policies based on his own, good or bad, and he can use the enormous power he has to accomplish those ideas. Is it all about ideals? The biggest reason is still the desire to satisfy their own ego, right?

　　Thinking of this Xu Jun took another gulp of wine.

　　He has already begun to fall, since he has fallen, as long as he still has those few great ideals still in his heart, even if he is soaked in the blood of the innocent, the heart will still be preserved as a clean piece of pure land. So, what if you become a demon in order to achieve those goals. The only way to succeed in the filthiest and most chaotic era in the history of this country is to fall, and those who maintain a righteous heart in this dirty political struggle will have no chance to survive. Since this is the case, so let the darkness in your heart burst out, let those devils know that there are demons eviler in this world than they are, let them taste all the pain they bring to others and return them to the place they came from with remorse.

　　Thinking of this Xu Jun smiled bitterly again. It seems that his own sense of justice is indeed deep-rooted, and now he is looking for reasons for himself, wanting to meet their own ego is the real reason, right. It seems that he is still not awake enough, in this war of politics and interests there is no righteousness or evil, justice belongs to the victor. And those innocent people who died in the struggle were sacrificed for justice. Since one's goal is righteous, then the process of that evil can also be written off, and then who will know that they are evil except themselves.

　　However, this is not entirely accurate, in fact, there is no absolute righteousness and absolute evil in humanity. Only in the human consciousness, there is a distinction between these two exist, they are constantly changing according to the perspective of the observer to observe things differently, there can be a righteous evil and also evil righteousness, all things are between the human mind. Now he just needs to follow his own heart's desire to go his own way, since fate has pushed him onto this dusty road, then simply let go of the mood to dye black feathers to be a true fallen angel, but also thousand times more painful than the fear of being a hypocritical apostle of God.

　　Xu Jun finally put down the burden in his heart, since he is no longer an angel, let's be a successful demon, anyway, the goal of both is the same, send everyone into heaven, only the means are different.

　　The idea put a smile on Xu Jun's face, he took another gulp of wine to celebrate the fact that he had figured out a problem that had been bothering him for a long time.

　　Xu Jun looked out the window at the street and felt an immense sense of relief. Now that the whole of Poland was under his control, everything was back on track again. Although Xu Jun had selected some of the Nazi officials who had survived the purge to re-establish a new administration, there was still a big hole in the management staff, and as a result, Xu Jun simply used a large number of the original Polish municipal officials to manage their city, but of course, the work of these officials was still under the supervision of German officials. The Poles did a good job, and it seems that there will not be any big problems at least for a short time.

　　Warsaw and the other Polish cities resumed normal operations within a day, with little change except that the security police who used to patrol the streets were replaced by Waffen SS soldiers. Xu Jun felt very satisfied that he had completed the restoration of social order in such a short period of time.

　　At this time, a group of Waffen SS soldiers came along the sidewalk not far from Xu Jun's car, and they saw the most conspicuous luxury Mercedes Benz in Warsaw from a distance. The soldiers waited until the car was close, and stood at attention, neatly saluting with a gun, Xu Jun saw this scene in the car and also gave those soldiers back a military salute in style.

　　Loyalty, Xu Jun secretly lamented, can he really get everyone's loyalty?

　　In that meeting, the day before yesterday he won the oath of allegiance of all the officers, at that time he simply could not control his feelings. But after thinking about it, did he really gain their loyalty? Some of these officers are indeed loyal to him, such as the few army officers, who were promoted by him. These are real front-line combat officers, before they were promoted by him are only some middle rank, so they have not had time to be corrupted by the social circle of those senior officers, their oath can be trusted, and their loyalty can be trusted by him. His own three lieutenants, not to mention, that they can let Jack take with them means that they do not have, their identity is absolutely clean. And they have not been pulling their strings a lot during this time, so their loyalty will not be a problem.

　　What worries him is the Waffen SS officers, although they have sworn to be loyal to him, they were forced by the situation. They probably also knew that if they do not pledge allegiance to him, they will be the next ones to be taken out. These officers were not fools, they knew that the situation they were in did not allow them to make a second choice. But since they have taken an oath, they want to reassure themselves, so for these officers in the future, as long as they are promoted a rank, and given authority, he can still make them loyal to him, but it will just take some time.

　　However, he knew very well that two traitors had already appeared among those who had taken the oath. They reported what happened at the meeting to the Imperial Security Bureau as soon as they returned to their quarters, and the funny thing was that the report was on his desks an hour later. They had underestimated his own strength, but they had also allowed themselves to keep a watchful eye on the officers who had sworn allegiance. Come to think of it, those Waffen SS officers, unlike the Army officers, had to be a loyal Nazi before they could be an officer, and they were certainly resistant to the fact that much of their own speech at the meeting yesterday was a direct attack on their great Führer. The two guys completely misjudged the situation, if they had reported to Hitler before they took control of the military, then they and the officers who attended the meeting would never have escaped Hitler's punishment, but in the present form, Hitler could not do anything to him. Not only would their loyalty to the Führer not bring them any benefit, but they would forfeit their own lives. After careful consideration, Xu Jun decided not to move these two idiots, keeping them might also be useful in a later encounter.

　　They let Xu Jun deeply feel, that Hitler in the hearts of the Nazi party members have a heavyweight, this time directly and Hitler's encounters themselves seem to be more than 10,000 points of caution.

　　Xu Jun understood in his heart that now was the best time to pull Hitler down, if he did not fight him now, then he could never have this opportunity ever again. If the French campaign is won, Hitler's prestige in the hearts of the German people will rise to the highest, then the army generals will also fall to the Führer according to the situation at that time. At that time, it would be too late to do anything about it. Only now, while his popularity and power are on par with Hitler's, one can succeed.

　　Xu Jun knew he was making a gamble, and the stakes were on this country; the winner would own it, while the loser would lose his life. Now that he has played his first card, it is now up to that Führer to see what kind of cards he will use to suppress his own, before Hitler has made his move, any of his plans cannot be implemented, his next move now depends on Hitler's actions.

　　But now something that makes Xu Jun feel puzzled is that three whole days have passed, Hitler still does not have any reaction, which makes the situation feel very abnormal. Xu Jun felt that there is something not right in his heart, he clearly knows that if he can not guess Hitler's next card, waiting for him will be a disaster.