Hitler and the Wehrmacht were desperate to understand just how powerful their Chinese adversary truly was, which is why they had dispatched Reichenau—considered exceptionally brilliant in both strategy and actual combat—to lead the team. Not only was Reichenau of the highest caliber, but the accompanying German officers were all regarded as the future elite of the Wehrmacht, capable of shouldering great responsibilities.

After a ten-day inspection tour, these young elites of the Wehrmacht grew increasingly silent. When they first arrived in Vietnam, they were shocked by the modern airports. Although Vietnam was a former colony, it had not been left behind by the times. Europe had state-of-the-art airports, and so did Vietnam.

After three days of touring, these young German soldiers still viewed Vietnam as merely a colony. True, Vietnam had a north-south railway, relatively modern ports, and a highway network beginning to cover the entire country. Factories had been established in various cities. Yet, the Vietnam they saw was a fragmented one.

Perhaps millions of Vietnamese had begun to enter modernity due to massive Chinese investment, but the vast majority of the country remained in the agrarian age. Vietnamese peasants lived in huts made of bamboo and thatch, with only oil lamps and no electricity. Oxen roamed the fields, and transportation relied on two legs or small boats. There was no sign of mechanized production tools, nor were there many metal products.

The shift in perspective began on the sixth day. Spring plowing was starting in Vietnam. When the production teams opened the sluice gates to release water, although farm tools were scarce, metal was indeed used where it was needed most. Moreover, these tools were clearly mass-produced, not forged individually by each peasant household.

Thousands of peasants stood side-by-side in the paddy fields, bending over to transplant rice seedlings. This uniformity, combined with the use of mass-produced tools, appeared no different from an army.

Over the next three days, although the planting scenes Reichenau and the German soldiers witnessed varied, the level of organization in rural Vietnam was even higher than that of German farmers. Furthermore, every one of these peasant households owned their own land—these highly organized Vietnamese peasants were all yeoman farmers!

On the roads and rivers connecting cities to the countryside, vehicles and boats shuttled back and forth, transporting agricultural production supplies. These roads had been repaired before the spring plowing; though they were earthen country roads, they allowed vehicles to bump along their way. The boats on the rivers were also well-suited to the waterways.

When the German soldiers reached the cities, they found Vietnamese state-owned enterprises, foreign enterprises invested by China, and small workshops and factories funded by local Vietnamese capital. Although wages varied, production operations were passable. Vietnam's commerce wasn't bad either; due to the dense population, the commercial streets had their merits. In particular, the commercial districts left behind by the French were operating no worse than they had under French rule.

Although they hadn't yet observed Vietnam's conscription or training, the German officers no longer had the mood to judge Vietnam from a position of superiority. As a militaristic nation, Germany had extensive experience with conscription. Generally speaking, the best conscripts were yeoman farmers and urban industrial workers. The German soldiers could say Vietnam's industrial level was low, but they could not say Vietnam lacked a broad base of yeoman farmers and industrial workers.

Reichenau remained silent most of the time, but he understood perfectly well in his heart. Previously, Li Runshi had said that one could conscript 1% of the total population from liberated colonies. By Reichenau's assessment, given Vietnam's current situation, conscription could easily reach 4%. Reportedly, the Vietnamese census results showed that by 1941, the population had reached 22 million. By the 4% standard, Vietnam could provide 880,000 troops. Such a scale would allow Vietnam to maintain a sustained combat force of around 300,000 on the front lines.

The entire Indochina region reportedly had a population of over 44 million, which should be able to provide China with 600,000 troops. China didn't need these 600,000 troops to fight the powerful German army; they only needed this force to defeat the British and French colonial troops and maintain order in China's newly occupied territories.

Moreover, Reichenau began to suspect he might have underestimated these Vietnamese troops trained by China. During his short tour of Vietnam, Reichenau noticed schools everywhere, as well as literacy classes for ordinary people. This proved that China was helping Vietnam eradicate illiteracy and build an education system.

In the First World War, the main force of the German army consisted of ordinary Germans who had completed primary compulsory education, and they held a huge advantage on the European battlefield. Germany's opponent, Russia, which had crushed the Austro-Hungarian Empire, caused Germany considerable trouble. Yet the majority of soldiers in that Russian army were illiterate and had no opportunity to experience modern industrial life before enlisting.

Reichenau had to suspect that, given China's ability to fully arm the Vietnamese military, these Vietnamese—who were clearly well-adapted to highly organized production work—might possess combat capabilities similar to the Russian army. If Vietnamese soldiers truly reached that level, with the assistance of the Chinese Air Force and artillery, they could completely hold their own lines when fighting against Britain and France.

These thoughts merely surged through Reichenau's mind; he did not voice them. Seeing the increasingly grave expressions of the elite German soldiers, Reichenau assumed they likely shared similar views. As China's enemy, the feasibility of China obtaining 600,000 line-filling troops out of thin air was terrifying to Germany.

Five days later, Reichenau concluded his "investigation" of the Vietnamese army. The group of German officers looked exhausted. Perhaps because the blow was too severe, their evaluations seemed devoid of substance. During the meeting, they only discussed details like machine gun placement, artillery application, and battlefield ammunition transport of the Vietnamese army.

Looking at this bunch of cowards, Reichenau ordered coldly, "If you think this is the level you should be displaying, I can only express my regret!"

Seeing Reichenau angry, the German officers dared not be perfunctory anymore. The lieutenant colonel who spoke frequently spoke up first: "Vietnam has accepted a systematic modern warfare system. I believe China's decision to place advisors at the platoon level in Vietnam is one that completely meets the current needs of the Vietnamese army. With such equipment and training levels, what the current Vietnamese army lacks is actual combat experience. As for their ability to sustain casualties, I don't think it will be too poor."

As soon as the lieutenant colonel finished, the major immediately followed up: "The Vietnamese army's offensive will shown in drills is not bad. The officers are somewhat rigid in their grasp of attack timing, but it can't be called wrong. However, the height and weight of the Vietnamese troops are poor, which I believe affects their close-quarters combat ability."

Reichenau listened quietly, feeling that the German officers finally dared to speak some truth. However, this truth was a bit sour, because it was an assessment made by treating the Vietnamese army as an opponent on par with first-rate European armies. If the Vietnamese army could really trade blows with first-rate European armies, Europe's only choice would be to sue for peace decisively to avoid greater losses.

Because the armies in Upper Burma and Assam had defeated the British in the Burma theater, making Britain the laughingstock of Europe. Aside from these troops that had never entered the Europeans' field of vision, Korea—liberated from colonial rule ten years ago—had a population of 40 million, and Japan had nearly 60 million. Korea could provide 500,000 qualified line-filling troops, while Japan could provide 1 million troops capable of launching offensives.

Reichenau's evaluation of these elite German officers' level was merely acceptable. There are always accidents in war, so strategy must be the calculation after excluding accidents. If they were officers without strategic level, they would likely keep discussing how German tactics had a huge advantage over the Vietnamese army. That is not the attitude of strategic thinking.

As long as an army can continue to fight, it will naturally absorb lessons from the brutal life-and-death struggle of war to improve its tactics. Even if the German army could inflict heavy casualties on the Vietnamese army at the beginning of the engagement, as long as the Vietnamese army could continuously replenish its troops, the German army would fail to defeat Vietnam strategically. As the war progressed, the Vietnamese army would certainly grow stronger with each battle, eventually reaching the same level as the German army. At that time, the tactical abilities the German army boasted of would be a joke.

What's more, Vietnam was following the fierce and brave Chinese army. The Chinese army was fighting a heated war with the United States in the Pacific. In this great war for hegemony over the Pacific, the ratio of participating troops to the number of aircraft and warships reached an unprecedented low in the world.

On the European battlefield, the death of a soldier might just mean the loss of a uniform; the weapons and ammunition carried by that soldier would likely be taken by comrades. China and the US were each deploying tens of thousands of fighter jets to battle in the Pacific; the death of a soldier meant the loss of a fighter jet. And in landing operations, when a soldier died, the weapons and ammunition they carried sank to the bottom of the sea with them, with no possibility of recovery.

If it were Germany fighting China right now instead of the United States, Germany would certainly have been dragged down by the unprecedented war consumption. This is what strategic consideration needs to focus on: when the Chinese army can continuously send fully armed troops to the front lines while Germany's equipment is exhausted and its forces are hollowed out. No matter how Germany struggles, it has already failed strategically! As for the day of actual defeat, there is no value in discussing it.

Having discussed to this point, Reichenau did not want to continue. Although the white world had not yet reached the stage of strategic failure, the struggle for dominance with China in the Pacific and Indian Oceans had clearly placed unprecedented pressure on the white world.

As Li Runshi had said, the white world had to keep fighting. If China were allowed to smoothly occupy the entire Pacific and Indian Oceans, the white world's economy would collapse first. At least in the view of a strategist like Reichenau, the reason the white world continued to fight now was not to maintain the ideal of white supremacy, but to prevent the economic collapse of the white world.

The more they fought, the greater the losses for the white world. The greater the losses, the higher the probability of economic collapse. To prevent economic collapse, the white world had to fight on a larger scale and with greater intensity. A vicious cycle was gradually forming. This put Reichenau in a very bad mood.

In a bad mood, Reichenau turned on the radio, wanting to listen to some music. The Chinese-style music didn't last long before the broadcast was suddenly interrupted. The announcer's cheerful voice cut in, "The Battle of Midway has erupted. The Allied force executing this campaign is the Japanese Combined Fleet. Admiral Yamaguchi Tamon, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, has stated that this battle will definitely inflict heavy damage on the US military!"

"Midway..." Reichenau murmured. He had heard naval admirals discuss several focal areas of the Pacific campaign, and Midway was one of them. Once China occupied Midway, it would gain a springboard to attack Hawaii. Hawaii would henceforth be constantly exposed to the range of the Chinese Air Force, and this anchorage of the US Pacific Fleet would no longer be safe.

Currently, the high-ranking generals of most industrial nations in the world were not poor at operational assessment. At this moment, not only did German Field Marshal Reichenau know the importance of Midway, but the generals of Britain, France, the US, and the Soviet Union also knew.

Yamaguchi Tamon, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, remained in high spirits when he returned to the command room after holding a press conference for reporters. Although he said he would inflict heavy damage on the US military, once the US Pacific Fleet fully assembled in Hawaii, Yamaguchi Tamon prepared to wage guerrilla warfare against the US Pacific Fleet, which far outnumbered the Japanese Combined Fleet. He would try his best to lure the US fleet near the Marshall Islands, where a large number of Chinese land-based naval aviation forces were already stationed, and let the land-based aviation deal with the US Pacific Fleet.

No matter how reckless, Yamaguchi Tamon was not a fool who would bang his head against a wall. Under the current war situation, the Chinese Navy was launching fierce attacks on the islands of the Central Pacific. The US Pacific Fleet returning to defend Hawaii meant abandoning the Central Pacific region. As long as Yamaguchi Tamon could tie down the main force of the US Pacific Fleet for one or two months, the shipping lanes between the US and Australia would be completely cut off by the Chinese Navy. At that time, if US convoys wanted to transport supplies to Australia, they would have to break through layers of land-based naval aviation and blockade lines formed by Chinese submarines.

If the US was really that stubborn, the unscathed Japanese Combined Fleet could launch the Battle of Midway again. The US military would still face the choice of whether to return to defend Hawaii.

Once a strategic advantage is revealed, its power is just that great. No matter how strong American industrial strength is, as long as the US does not have the strategic advantage, it has to run itself ragged. China, occupying the strategic advantage, continuously liberates colonies and integrates them into the Asian economic community, constantly gaining new strength. As one side falls and the other rises, America's strategic disadvantage will only grow.

Sitting in the command chair, Yamaguchi gave the order with high spirits, "First wave of bombing, begin!"

Midway is a coral atoll with a circumference of 24 kilometers. It has a land area of 5 square kilometers and consists of Sand Island, Eastern Island, and Spit Island, with a subtropical climate. Although Midway's strategic significance is great, Midway itself is nothing special.

Less than three hours after Yamaguchi's order was given, the J-9 formation taking off from Wake Island had flown 1,900 kilometers and arrived over Midway. From a distance, they could faintly see US fighter jets already circling over Midway.

Moments later, fighter jets from both sides met head-on. The Battle of Midway, after several interruptions, had finally erupted!