"The whole group set sail, except for the escort fleet, the rest of the fleet sailed past Malta and turned west..."

"Zhengxi?" Several staff officers thought they had heard it wrong and hurriedly said, "Sir, we are back home. How can we go directly to the west? We should go directly to the east across the Suez Canal."

"I won't go back to my country for the time being, go to the Strait of Gibraltar and go to the Atlantic Ocean."

"What?" Everyone in the commander's tower looked at each other, not understanding what Hori Teiki wanted to do for a moment.

General Cao Lu Renyi, Chief of Staff of the United Fleet, whispered: "Sir, I understand your wish, but we have promised to return home as soon as possible..."

"I know. I will be outside, and I will not accept the order. What's more, the originally scheduled return date was April 15. I have already made half a month in advance, so I can explain it to them in terms of time."

"But...this..." Cao Lu Renyi found that he couldn't think of anything to refute.

"The Strait of Gibraltar is still controlled by the British, so the fleet is only afraid of passing..." A staff officer asked again.

"Don't worry, the Battle of Gibraltar is coming to an end. Germany promises to open the channel within three days, and it's just right for us to drive it over."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"If the blockade is not strict, just break through. If the blockade is very strict, think of other ways. If it really doesn't work, it doesn't matter if it comes back."

Seeing that Kurori was still trying to persuade him, Hori Teiki waved his hand and said, "Issue an order first. If the commanders of each fleet cannot understand, please tell them not to send telegrams and take the traffic boat to Nagato to inquire."

Due to the limited width of the hull, the Musashi was unable to enter the Suez Canal and stayed on Socotra Island. Some generals, including Kondo Nobutake, also stayed there. Therefore, the flagship that Hori Teki took was changed to the Nagato with a slightly smaller tonnage. As a result, after this order, except for the command of the mobile fleet, the commander of the mobile fleet, Tsukahara, and the commander of the escort fleet, Keno Kurita, did not come, the rest of the fleet commanders rushed over anxiously.

Tsukahara did not come because he understood Hori Teki's idea, and Kurita did not come because the escort fleet he led was the only fleet that did not need to sail west. When the joint fleet was reorganized and selected personnel to serve as commanders of the escort fleet, Kusato recommended several candidates in succession, but in the end, Horita did not use anyone, but chose Keno Kurita.

This made the latter puzzled, because although Kurita had been rooted at sea (the military and political departments had never stayed for a day) and had rich experience in surface ship command, judging from the previous battle situation, there was a vague reputation of "conservative and timid" within the joint fleet. When he raised this concern in a vague way, he expected Hori Teiki nodded repeatedly and said, "It's good to be timid. Only timid people can control the transport ships so that they won't rush out to fight when they are in a hurry. Some admirals just don't know what they can do."

This reason was so powerful that Kurita had nothing to say, so Keno Kurita led a group of light cruisers and destroyers, leading more than 100 transport ships out of the door and turned left to Alexandria. One reason was that the transport ships drove slowly, and the other was that the Mediterranean was now full of axial forces. Not to mention warships, the Allies could not even get in with planes and submarines.

In the Nagato combat conference room, everyone sat upright and turned their attention to Hori Teki, who was sitting upright in the center. No one understood why the commander was so persistent in going west. However, because Hori Teki commanded the joint fleet for more than half a year and had won consecutive victories and was famous. In addition, he was polite to his subordinates and treated the officers and soldiers well, and was able to work with the top German and Italian leaders to seek additional benefits and equipment. He went north to follow the German fleet out for a while and got 5 million marks of pocket money for tens of thousands of officers and soldiers, leaving only the "five-minded" conviction in the minds of the soldiers of the army.

"Such an important decision should have been discussed with everyone first, but I was afraid that the soldiers would have other ideas, so I delayed the order until today." Horitiki explained in detail the reason for his doing this:

First, I owe the German head of state a favor. Not only did he give the fleet a lot of extra supplies, supplies and equipment, he also promised to provide 4 marine brigades, with more than 20,000 people cooperating with us to attack India. Due to the great pressure on coastal defense in the direction of Azore, he specifically begged us to stay for a few more days, and this face must be given;

Second, the Battle of Gibraltar has lasted for a month and the waterway is about to be opened. I want to take you to the Atlantic Ocean to see the world. Maybe there will be no such opportunity in the future. This kind of experience can be bragging with our children and grandchildren when we were in the United Fleet. When I was in the United Fleet, which one I had never been to? Which one I had never fought?

Third, the Americans fought very vigorously in the Aleutian Islands. The army defenders were about to break their heads and it was impolite to come but not go. We went to the East Coast to help the Americans improve and consolidate the shore defense system.

To the chart, Hori Teiki finally said lightly: "The east coast of the United States is more than 2,000 nautical miles long, which concentrates more than 50% of the United States' industrial capacity and more than 70% of the shipbuilding capacity. I don't know how many aircraft, warships and soldiers can be drawn to defend the 2,000 nautical miles of coastline."

Although he spoke calmly, the naval generals and the staff members of the rank of the sect were all excited and their hearts were swaying: Damn, this is going to fight the East Coast of the American ghost animals, this is so exciting! It's more satisfying than fighting Pearl Harbor!

Before Hori Teiki spoke, everyone was whispering, but after he explained the three reasons, no one stood up to refute it. Everyone was deeply convinced. In the end, only Kura Lu Ren asked, "What if the Military Order comes to ask?"

"They only have the size of a palm-sized place in Nanyang. What is the global pattern?" Hori Teiki smiled slightly, "During the war, the radio will be silent. I will tell them..."

All the lieutenant generals stood up and bowed slightly to Hori Teiki, and Lang Sheng said, "I hope to make achievements with the superior!"

Hori Teiki nodded slightly: "Please encourage me with you."

Kurori never dreamed that this was a strategy agreed upon by Kohl, who was secretly visiting Horitiki half a month ago on Hoffman's order: Germany used the conditions to support the four land brigades of the joint fleet to exchange for the joint fleet to do two things. One was to fight sea and land on the way back to capture Madagascar, and the other was to march westward to cover the "Spring Awakening" campaign. After thinking for two days, Horitiki resolutely agreed.

At 0:00 on April 3, at the Stalingrad Operations Command, Rokosovsky and Zhukov came to Huasilevsky from Moscow, and 200 T-34 tanks were also coming together.

"Comrade Stalin didn't accuse us, right?" Rokosovsky asked with no confidence. "Now the two armies have basically lost, and the 63rd Army may be..."

"If I had known this, you shouldn't have sent that telegram to Moscow in the first place."

"This, I..." Rokosovsky did not dare to face Vasilevsky's aggressive eyes, so he had to turn his head to Zhukov, but fortunately the latter saved him in time.

"When I came, Comrade Stalin was so angry about the Katyn incident and the Polish bourgeois government, asking us to launch a counterattack. No matter how much the counterattack is, it must be able to hit the Germans."

Hearing the word "Poland", Rokosovsky's carefulness changed his face and asked carefully: "Comrade Stalin did not criticize me for his unstable will to fight, right?"

"Comrade Rokosovsky!" Huasilevsky shouted angrily, "What mess is going on in your mind? Can you put away your self-righteous little thoughts? You are now the commander of the front army, not a Polish spy!"

Although he was scolded by the younger generation (Wascelevsky's qualifications are much younger than Rokosovsky and Zhukov) on the spot, Rokosovsky was very happy that Comrade Stalin still trusted me. After the Katine incident was exposed, if the first one who was most worried about the top leaders of the Russians was Beria (he was the direct executor), the second one was Rokosovsky because he had Polish blood and almost died due to this bloodline in the era of the Great Purge. Now, when he heard that Stalin did not take his anger at all, he couldn't help but nodded: "Yes! Yes! I firmly obey Comrade Stalin's instructions! I firmly attack the German fascism!"

Huasilevsky was amused and crying about this, but now there is obviously no need to bother with these details. He turned his head and said to Zhukov: "To be honest, I still do not agree with the combat policy you are considering, nor do I really want to put Comrade Konev's grassland front into the Don battlefield."

"What's your idea?"

"I want to invest in the direction of Moscow, where there are Western Fronts and Kalinin Fronts, with a total force of up to 1.8 million. The Central Army Group of Model, which confronts us, is only about 1 million. If the grassland Front is added, we will have an advantage of more than 2:1 and can form an advantage of more than 3:1 in the main attack areas. Another advantage is the comparison of technical weapons. In this area, we have an absolute advantage in the number of artillery and tanks, and the gap with the enemy in performance is quite small. At least we haven't heard of them that the Central Army Group has Tiger tanks, and our army has a large number of aircraft in this area. The air supremacy is not as much as the southern line."

Zhukov also fell into silence, and he admitted that Vasilevsky's statement was very reasonable: In theory, it would be better to launch an attack in Moscow than to wishful thinking of waiting for the Germans to come to Stalingrad and launch a counterattack, at least he still has an advantage.

But the next sentence of Vasilevsky made Zhukov feel much better: "However, the attack in the direction of Moscow was too long, which did not meet the need of Comrade Stalin to launch a strike against the enemy as soon as possible..."
Chapter completed!