"Chairman, General Hu and General Cheng request an audience."

Hearing the secretary's report, He Rui felt a touch of anticipation. Cheng Ruofan was responsible for the formation of the World People's Liberation Army, while Hu Xiushan was in charge of staff work and military industry coordination. With these two coming together, there must be some progress.

"Please let them in," He Rui ordered.

Sure enough, as soon as Cheng Ruofan and Hu Xiushan entered, Cheng Ruofan said, "Chairman, let Xiushan speak first."

Listening to Cheng Ruofan's eager tone, Hu Xiushan remained composed. After sitting down, he spoke in his consistently calm manner. "Chairman, I was ordered to study the acquisition of bombing base locations in the United States. The current research result is that it would be best to first obtain a bombing base in the Alaska region of North America. However, to acquire a bombing base in Alaska, it is best to have Soviet support. Therefore, I believe it is necessary to send some signals to Germany."

These brief remarks had Cheng Ruofan nodding repeatedly. As a member of the Military Commission, Cheng Ruofan was naturally very clear about nuclear weapon development. He also knew that the theoretical basis of nuclear weapons originated from atomic research proposed by scholars of several Nordic quantum schools. Many of these scientists were currently in the United States, and many of their students were German. Germany currently also possessed a very capable nuclear weapons development team. This was why He Rui had formulated plans for nuclear strikes against both the United States and Germany.

Although China had already developed ballistic missiles, and with the positioning provided by laser gyroscopes, the accuracy of Chinese ballistic missiles was already very high—the landing error after flying over a thousand kilometers was approximately one kilometer. Given the power of nuclear weapons, a deviation of one kilometer had a very limited impact. However, one thousand kilometers was not enough to attack America's nuclear weapons research and production bases; China could only use long-range bombers to launch attacks on American nuclear test sites. Even so, the bomber formation would essentially be on a one-way mission. If they could only take off from the sea, the bombers would be completely unable to reach their destinations. Therefore, obtaining a good air force airfield in the United States, or rather North America, was the key to the success of the bombing operation.

Hearing this, He Rui frowned slightly. But he didn't say anything, choosing to continue listening.

Hu Xiushan was considered the most excellent staff officer in the army, with an extremely high level of planning ability. After speaking, he took out a map. This map was centered on the North Pole, rather than the common map centered on the equator. Looking at this map, once Alaska was taken, bombers could cross the vast, sparsely populated areas of Canada and head straight for the core Great Lakes region of the United States.

"Alaska has very little population to begin with, and no railway access. Once our army captures Hawaii, we can blockade American maritime transport to Alaska. As long as we can obtain ports provided by the Soviet Union, our army can easily capture Alaska. I know the Soviet Union cannot agree at this stage, so we can exert influence on Germany. For example, warn Germany not to attack the Soviet Union. In my judgment, Germany will be greatly stimulated by this," Hu Xiushan finished, staring at He Rui, waiting for him to express his opinion.

"Does Xiushan believe that war will definitely break out between Germany and the Soviet Union?" He Rui asked.

"Yes," Hu Xiushan answered decisively.

"In that case, write an analysis report and discuss it with Comrade Li Runshi. Then provide the Soviet Union with a suggestion on how to avoid war."

"The Chairman believes it is possible to avoid a war between the Soviet Union and Germany?" Hu Xiushan was somewhat puzzled.

He Rui looked at Hu Xiushan, this relatively pure soldier, and couldn't help but smile. The purer the soldier, the more lovable they were—provided that one must never let soldiers engage in non-military work. Hu Xiushan could certainly write a superb war analysis, but this did not mean Hu Xiushan could understand what truly avoiding war entailed. So He Rui could only explain to Hu Xiushan.

Putting away his involuntary smile, He Rui kept a straight face and replied, "Avoiding it completely is impossible. But there are capable people within the CPSU, and they will certainly be able to understand our suggestions. Moreover, when giving this suggestion to the Soviet Union, I will tell the CPSU that if the Soviet Union can avoid being dragged into this war, it would be very beneficial to China."

"Does the Chairman really hope that the Soviet Union will not be dragged into the war?" Hu Xiushan asked straightforwardly, without hiding anything.

"My purpose in doing this is to hope that after the war breaks out, we can obtain the Soviet Union's understanding. The Soviet Union is hesitant at this stage. On one hand, Soviet military construction has not completed the goals expected by the CPSU Central Committee. On the other hand, the Soviet Union also has to worry that we might use Soviet interests to trade for a compromise with Nazi Germany. With Germany's Reichenau visiting Singapore this time, the Soviet side is actually very nervous. Therefore, we must give the Soviet Union an explanation that the Soviets can understand."

Hu Xiushan lowered his gaze for a moment, then quickly looked up at He Rui again. "Chairman, the Soviet Army's level of understanding of modern war is not high. According to the intelligence we have obtained, the Soviet Union currently believes that the Soviet Union is there to win wars, not to fight wars. In terms of military understanding, the Soviet Army is far inferior to the German Army. An explanation that the Soviet Union can accept will be difficult to form a logical closed loop."

He Rui laughed. "You are right. What the CPSU is considering now is how to gain benefits by winning the war, so you have to explain modern war to them. If the Soviet Union wants to fully introduce our propeller fighters, we can discuss it with them."

Hu Xiushan fell silent again, obviously thinking. Cheng Ruofan felt that this fellow Hu Xiushan was indeed not very good at international politics. Seeing Hu Xiushan fall silent, Cheng Ruofan said, "Chairman, Xiushan believes that the Soviet Union worries about its western heartland suffering a German invasion, so they keep strengthening the west. The more they strengthen the west, the more it constitutes a threat to eastern Germany. To make Germany feel that the threat from the east has been reduced, the Soviet Union would have to reduce its troops on a large scale in the west, but the Soviet Union currently cannot accept the west being subjected to an active German attack. This is an unsolvable problem."

"Therefore, we must provide the Soviet Union with our views. When facing Germany, the Soviet Union must show the same sincerity with which we reached the demilitarization of the border in the Northeast and Mongolia regions with the Soviet Union. The nearest Soviet garrison point to the border was only 200 kilometers away, while we retreated to 500 kilometers away. This is not because we are afraid of the Soviet Union, but because if the Soviet Union were to deploy reciprocally, their garrison points would have no way to retreat onto the ice sheets. The same goes for Germany; Berlin is too close to the border line actually controlled by the Soviet Union and Germany.

"Of course, Hitler is indeed a person who subjectively expects to solve problems through war, but Hitler is not a fool. If the Soviet Union can really come up with a plan that drastically reduces the pressure on Hitler, he might not necessarily refuse. Moreover, not everyone within Nazi Germany hopes for war; there are also many among them who hope to watch the world change in a relatively peaceful environment."

"...I always feel that the Soviet Union will not accept our suggestions," Cheng Ruofan sighed.

He Rui nodded. "I feel the same way. So we must present our suggestions to the Soviet Union very seriously. Under such tense circumstances, conducting frank negotiations with Germany is a rational choice. Furthermore, Stalin has already moved a large number of factories in the west to the Ural Mountains. If the Soviet Union cooperates by withdrawing its troops, it would actually allow Nazi Germany to sense the logic of Soviet war avoidance. Otherwise, moving factories to a safe location on one hand, while hoarding a large number of tank-led troops on the border on the other—what kind of logic is that?"

Cheng Ruofan was just about to answer when Hu Xiushan spoke first. "Chairman, European thinking places such emphasis on force. In the Soviet view, once the troops on the border are withdrawn on a large scale, it is a sign of weakness. Instead, it would stimulate Nazi Germany's desire to actively attack the Soviet Union."

"Sigh... this is the gap in understanding of war between the Soviet and German armies," He Rui lamented. In the past, He Rui also believed that the struggle between nations was tit-for-tat and that one must absolutely not show weakness. But from a strategic perspective, not showing weakness does not necessarily mean being at daggers drawn. Chinese military science has always considered 'striking later but arriving first' to be the highest state of employing troops; the Soviet Union obviously hasn't understood the essence of this way of using troops.

Hearing He Rui speak like this, Hu Xiushan asked somewhat hesitantly, "Chairman, I'm afraid the Soviet Union cannot understand the views of excellent strategists in the German army. If it were a strategist like Reichenau, what he would care about is whether the Soviet Union can blockade the transportation hubs leading to the Soviet Union for our army before our reinforcements arrive. If a military strategist like Reichenau believes Germany cannot do it, then Reichenau would not agree with Germany launching an attack. Simply fighting into the Soviet homeland and fighting a war of attrition with the Soviet Union has no meaning for Germany. But the Soviet Union thinks that the German General Staff will consider occupying a part of Soviet land to be the meaning of German victory. If we explain this to the Soviet Union, I feel the Soviet side is very likely not to accept it."

Hearing that Hu Xiushan was actually very clear about the difficulties of communicating with the Soviet Union, He Rui replied, "That is why I asked you to communicate with Comrade Li Runshi. Comrade Li Runshi can certainly come up with a solution to this contradiction. Moreover, I emphasized from the beginning that we want the Soviet Union to understand one thing: if the Soviet Union is not dragged into the war, China can have the vast territory of the Soviet Union as a shield, allowing our north to be in a completely safe environment. Our army can then concentrate on fighting the south without any worries about the rear.

"I believe the Soviet Union can understand this. And I also believe that the Soviet Union actually very much wants to know our dependence on the Soviet Union. In this way, the Soviet Union will propose conditions to us without hesitation. This is the Soviet style; they can't change it!"

Cheng Ruofan heard He Rui's description of the Russian personality and couldn't help but sneer, his voice filled with disdain.

He Rui knew that Cheng Ruofan considered the Soviet Union to be revisionists and did not care for them. There was no helping it; this was the so-called factional struggle—heretics are always more detestable than heathens!