Colonel General Paulus saw that Hitler's expression was extremely displeased and knew that his evaluation of the Black army's combat effectiveness had indeed touched upon Hitler's racialist sensibilities. He turned his head to look at Model beside him, intending to let Model take over the conversation.

Hitler, for his part, did not want to berate Paulus for telling the plain truth and took the opportunity to turn to Model. "Model, what are the Army's conceptions for the campaign?"

As a defensive expert, Model had already conducted numerous simulations. When Hitler asked, Model replied immediately: "At this stage, our army does not possess the capability to launch an offensive by crossing the Sahara region."

Hearing this, Hitler felt an impulse for his facial muscles to twitch. It was already annoying enough that a fellow like Paulus dared to speak the truth. Model not only dared to tell the truth but also had an overbearing personality, so his truth-telling felt somewhat insulting.

But what Model said was the real, absolute truth: the German army truly lacked the capability to cross the Sahara and launch an attack. Yet this also seemed to imply that China possessed such a capability.

Model, however, didn't care. During the defensive battles of 1943, when faced with Hitler's questioning, Model had dared to ask Hitler to his face: "My Führer, is the frontline commander you or me?"

In the current situation, Model felt he was being very restrained. He continued: "Since our army does not possess the capability to launch an offensive by crossing the Sahara, whether in North Africa or Europe, the fighting will be a defensive war."

"Conducting a defensive war in North Africa places immense pressure on our logistics, and the consumption of maneuver warfare far exceeds that of defending from behind fortified lines."

"However, if we cede North Africa, we must consider whether our partners in the Allies are reliable. Therefore, my view is not to abandon North Africa for the time being. While the Afrika Korps ties down China, we should construct a defense ring centered on Germany within Europe. Outside this defense ring, we should build another ring utilizing the terrain, and we must have our allies join it."

After hearing such a detailed analysis, Hitler was temporarily unable to keep up with Model's train of thought. But Hitler didn't want to keep up with it anyway. He asked in a stern tone: "Model, do you believe our army has no way to win in North Africa?"

Model nodded immediately. "Yes, my Führer. Our army can win many battles in North Africa, but the terrain and environment there cannot support a continuous defensive line. No matter how many victories we win, we will only face enemies who continue to swarm in, and we will engage in a fierce war of attrition with them."

"My Führer, as long as the enemy is willing to keep fighting, can continuously mobilize manpower, arm their troops with the most sophisticated equipment, and conduct sufficient training, we cannot win in North Africa."

Hitler's face almost turned black with rage. Reichsmarschall Göring and Propaganda Minister Goebbels, who were listening to the generals' war predictions beside him, looked even worse. Propaganda Minister Goebbels, in particular, completely hadn't expected Model, who hadn't retreated a single step during the Soviet winter operations, to say such things.

Just as Goebbels was about to berate Model, Hitler suddenly raised his arm to stop him. Though Hitler was indeed incredibly angry, he turned to Guderian, who hadn't yet had a chance to speak. "Guderian, what is the current state of our army's equipment?"

Guderian, not being responsible for battlefield command, didn't feel as much pressure. He replied immediately: "My Führer, within 14 months, we can complete the equipment plan for the troops. The 500,000 active German troops will be fully equipped."

"14 months?" Hitler caught the key point. He followed up: "And what about now?"

"Currently, we can only achieve full equipment for 2.6 million troops," Guderian replied without any evasion. Although he knew Hitler wouldn't be happy about this, Guderian still felt he had a clear conscience. This was because the German army had finally settled on its main combat equipment: jet fighters for the Luftwaffe, and 30-ton Tiger and 42-ton Panther tanks for the Army. From this point on, the kaleidoscope of semi-finished equipment in the German army finally entered history. Focusing on producing main combat equipment saved a vast amount of resources and improved production efficiency.

Hitler stared at Guderian for a few seconds, then said to Manstein, "You may go!"

Manstein hadn't expected that Hitler wouldn't lose his temper but instead ended the meeting when it should have ended. He immediately saluted, and after the other three had also finished saluting, Manstein lowered his arm and turned to leave.

Once outside the Chancellery, Manstein breathed a soft sigh of relief. He felt very gratified by the answers of the other three; at least all three had told the plain truth and hadn't said anything inconsistent with the current situation for any reason.

As for what the war would become, Manstein couldn't figure it out now either. He had once imagined various scenarios, even including the great military strategist He Rui personally being stationed in Egypt to command the Chinese army in an attack on Europe. But Manstein truly hadn't expected that the enemy Germany would face would be millions of Black soldiers.

Just then, Paulus spoke: "Gentlemen, when the late Field Marshal Reichenau was conducting strategic analysis with China's Li Runshi, Li Runshi guaranteed to Field Marshal Reichenau that China could establish a non-Sino-Japanese army with a scale of 12 million. If necessary, the scale of this army could reach 24 million."

"Field Marshal Reichenau believed there was a theoretical possibility for this direction of development, and he also believed China truly intended to execute such a plan. I want to hear your thoughts: before Europe sheds its last drop of blood, can we defeat an army of 24 million?"

Manstein remained silent, as did Guderian, though there was immense unease in his expression. Model, however, spoke in a sarcastic tone: "Does the possibility you mention include the Black army, driven by an impulse for revenge, beginning a genocidal massacre of every European they see after landing in Europe?"

"Hmph!" Manstein snorted and walked away.

Guderian was startled by what Model had said, but he suddenly realized that such a hypothesis was not without possibility. Europe had committed countless sins across the world, especially in Africa, where the number of Black Africans who had died at the hands of Europeans likely exceeded 100 million. When Black people set foot in Europe as an army, they would have every reason to seek revenge.

Paulus's face had already turned somewhat pale by now, but he forced himself to nod. "That can also be taken into consideration."

Model had conducted multiple massacres in the Soviet Union and knew very well what a massacre was. Seeing that Paulus actually dared to face such a bleak situation, Model finally became angry. He stepped forward and grabbed Paulus by the collar, shouting, "Paulus, do you really think—"

However, Model couldn't continue. He shoved Paulus hard in the chest, making him stagger backward. Model then turned his head and walked away quickly.

For centuries, white people had faced no rivals in the world. But Model was forced to face a war that might not be winnable against a Black army on the battlefield. Moreover, if the war were lost, the fate of the Germans would be in the hands of the victorious Black army. Model felt he couldn't catch his breath.

Guderian also felt as if the strength had been drained from his body. To avoid being trapped in such emotions, he turned and left.

By this time, Manstein was already in his car. His driver said something, but Manstein didn't hear it at all. He just waved his hand for the driver to drive on, his thoughts having completely returned to the memory of his conversation when Field Marshal Reichenau was still alive.

"Manstein, if Germany were faced with 10 million enemy troops invading its territory and the German army was already exhausted, what would you choose?" After Reichenau spoke, he took a sip of strong coffee.

Though surprised, Manstein replied calmly: "I would continue to fight to the end."

"Why wouldn't you choose to stop the war?" Reichenau followed up.

Manstein replied, "If the government chose to seek peace, I would obey the order."

Listening to this very cautious answer, Reichenau couldn't help but smile bitterly. "Haha, Manstein, can you accept living in an era where white people no longer have any glory?"

Manstein hadn't answered, because he didn't believe China could completely defeat Europe.

Looking back now, Manstein had to admit that Reichenau's strategic judgment indeed had more depth. China not only had the capability to defeat Europe but could do so even more thoroughly. China had the capability to arm and train a Black army and let that army defeat and conquer Europe.

Just thinking of the scene where squads of Black soldiers sang songs of victory as they marched through the streets of Germany as conquerors made Manstein want to die.

But Model's judgment of the war was correct: Italy was simply not fit for major tasks. If Germany continuously committed troops to Africa, they would be constantly consumed until they were completely drained. And Germany wouldn't even have the chance to shed its last drop of blood, because it had to guard against a Soviet surprise attack. Once domestic troop strength in Germany fell below 2 million, 6 million Soviet Red Army troops would launch an offensive against Germany!

In other words, no matter how hard the German troops on the front line fought, it would be useless. It was inevitable that a Black army would land in Europe and launch a war of conquest!

Unless the Allies could now reach an armistice with China.

Manstein considered the possibility of an armistice, only to feel it was extremely slim. Germany, which had essentially no colonies, might still be able to accept an armistice, even if China followed the European standard where the front line was the armistice line.

However, Britain could never accept it. If they accepted such an armistice demand, Britain would only be left with Western Canada, or might not even be able to save Canada. If peace only left Britain with the British Isles, then Britain had absolutely no reason to stop the war; instead, they had every reason to drag the rest of the Allies down with them. If we're going to die, we all die together!

Manstein's judgment of Britain was very correct. The Churchill cabinet had indeed made a judgment regarding future developments: "Britain will never surrender, nor will it accept the Allies making peace with China."

However, the members of the Churchill cabinet didn't think they were dragging the Allies down with them; they were truly making a judgment based on a defensive mindset.

The Chinese army was fighting very hard in North America but had never broken through the US-Canada border. This approach was undoubtedly giving the United States a graceful exit, allowing them space to withdraw from the war.

Once the United States withdrew from the war, Britain certainly wouldn't be able to hold Canada. Britain had already lost too much; once Canada was lost, all that would remain were the British Isles. Therefore, Britain had to ensure that Germany and the United States continued the war to maintain their hold on Canada.

Based on this attitude, the Churchill cabinet decided to immediately dispatch 200,000 troops to North Africa to sustain the British African Corps in continued combat. They also requested that the German Afrika Korps must help the British.

As a "shit-stirrer" of several centuries, Britain knew very well that it could not withdraw its troops from Africa at this time. Once the British African Corps withdrew, Germany would certainly not persist in fighting in North Africa. The German army must not leave North Africa, because once they did, France would surely surrender.

According to intelligence obtained by Britain, the high-level French leadership was currently engaged in fierce debate, but they had actually reached a consensus: once China occupied the whole of Africa, France would never refuse to negotiate with China.

The pro-China faction in France had even prepared the contents of the negotiations, including the issue of Algeria's ownership if France withdrew from the war, and how China would help France guarantee the security of its territory should France be attacked by Britain and Germany.

Therefore, the Churchill cabinet utilized all its capabilities to transport troops to North Africa. At the same time, the Churchill cabinet maintained a seemingly calm attitude, once again issuing a declaration that "the white world must unite," and calling on the Soviet Union to join the Allies.

Upon receiving the public appeal from the Churchill cabinet, Stalin did not respond at all. This was because the internal upheaval in the Soviet Union was currently greater than imagined. In Stalin's conception, once the western regions were regained, the Soviet Union would quickly reuse the manpower and resources there. However, the reconstruction work in the west required more resources than imagined and necessitated the import of more industrial goods from China.

China, as before, had not set up obstacles for Sino-Soviet trade. But although China hadn't pursued the more than 30 billion Chinese yuan that the Soviet Union had taken from China for free during the war (at this time, the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Chinese yuan was about 1:4), it demanded that subsequent trade return to the pre-war model.

This was not an unreasonable demand, but it was one the Soviet Union could not meet at present. Before the war, Soviet industry had developed rapidly, with a large part of its capacity increased specifically for Sino-Soviet trade. Currently, the Soviet Union had suffered heavy losses, with a large amount of industrial capacity converted to military use, and it was impossible to return to civilian tracks in a short time. This resulted in the Soviet Union being unable to provide goods for trade with China.

Moreover, Stalin knew very well that he had signed the Soviet-German armistice agreement without prior notification to or consultation with China, which had led to great dissatisfaction and distrust from the Chinese side.

China naturally knew that the Soviet Union's current situation was simple, but before the Soviet Union made further commitments and guarantees, China's lack of help was also a perfectly normal attitude.

But the view within the Soviet Union was completely different. Some people believed there were problems with Stalin's leadership that led to the German invasion. Others believed his leadership had major problems by being tied too closely to Chinese aid. Besides these, there was no lack of those who believed Stalin had failed to maintain the Sino-Soviet relationship well, which was a major strategic error.

In short, the German withdrawal from Soviet territory had not only failed to make Stalin's prestige soar but had actually damaged it.

As for the various difficulties encountered in the western reconstruction, they further intensified the struggle between regional factions within the party. Therefore, it was impossible for Stalin to accept the appeal of the Churchill cabinet, or even to refute it.

Stalin was currently just hoping that Britain would hurry up and be finished, so he could release the pent-up anger in his chest.

In Canada at this time, the Chinese army's offensive was extremely sharp. This winter, the aerial combat between China and the Anglo-American air forces hadn't stopped for a moment. Both sides lost at least a hundred aircraft, and sometimes as many as four or five hundred fighters, every day. And these were all jet fighters.

Hu Xiushan, commander of the North American theater, believed that although the cost of such attrition was high, it was very effective. Since the large-scale use of integrated circuits in Chinese air force fighters, the room for improvement for the Chinese air force had become immensely vast. The technological breakthroughs of the Anglo-American forces had reached their end; their scientists and technical personnel had indeed done their best, but they could only make minor repairs and patches to their air forces.

He Rui had proposed that "the number of integrated circuits on a chip doubles every 18-24 months, and chip performance doubles." By now, Chinese military chips had been upgraded twice, and their computing power had increased to four times the original.

The war had catalyzed true demand, and the military technology competition between China and the US had led both sides onto the correct path at this stage, with the direction of research and development essentially determined. On this clear track, Chinese technical personnel pushed for technological progress with difficulty but significant results.

Since February '44, the application of aerial combat tactics between China and the Anglo-American forces had reached its limit, and the loss ratio between the two sides had reached 1:2. For the Anglo-American forces to shoot down one Chinese fighter, they had to pay the price of two of their own.

Such an exchange ratio led to a greatly increased survival rate for experienced Chinese pilots, while the number of experienced Anglo-American pilots plummeted. According to intelligence, the instructors in American flight schools were at best pilots who had shot down five jet fighters. The instructors in Chinese flight academies were pilots who had shot down at least ten jet fighters. Besides quality, the number of instructors in Chinese flight academies was more than three times that of the US and Britain. Even while rotating out experienced pilots at such a high intensity, the number of experienced Chinese pilots on the front line still greatly exceeded that of the Anglo-American forces.

Hu Xiushan launched this offensive not only to take advantage of the Anglo-American complacency but also to force out and consume the last capabilities of the Anglo-American air forces.

With the war reaching this point, the concept of ground-air integration had been completely proven. Any side in the North American war that lost air cover would face destruction.

Hu Xiushan didn't know that the pressure on the Anglo-American forces was even greater than he imagined. Because when China collected intelligence, much of it came from Anglo-American propaganda, unconsciously magnifying their strength.

In reality, the plan to produce 1 million pilots in the US had actually been implemented with every effort. But there simply weren't that many qualified personnel within the United States who could serve as pilots.

The initial 50,000-plus fighter pilots were essentially all consumed; this group of pilots had indeed been elite, most having flying experience from their own farms. But this group had already been exhausted during the propeller era.

Jet fighter pilots had higher physical requirements, and the US government had scoured the country to find another 100,000 people. Of these 100,000, more than 60,000 had already been lost, leaving a bit over 30,000.

The remaining 100,000-plus pilots had indeed completed training, but this group had various problems and had not achieved the capability to face the Chinese air force head-on. In recent battles, these secondary pilots, acting as wingmen, had become the source of the Chinese air force's kill counts.

Once even these 100,000-plus secondary pilots were exhausted, what the US could field would be 200,000 inferior pilots—worse than secondary. These inferior pilots had decent physical fitness, but many had reading disabilities; despite being pilots from an English-speaking country, they couldn't even understand English well. The combat quality of such pilots could be imagined.

The US Air Force also submitted an evaluation of these inferior pilots to Congress: "...In summary, they can handle solo flight missions, but as soon as they join coordinated operations, their combat effectiveness plummets... and in modern aerial combat, coordinated operation is already an essential quality..."

So since Hu Xiushan launched the new offensive, US air force losses immediately reached a new record of 600 fighters shot down per day. If the war weren't being fought right next to the United States, the US military wouldn't even be able to dispatch new planes and pilots to supplement the losses.

President Wallace had originally thought he would face various challenges; the Republican Party would surely strive to seize the presidency, and the Democrats would surely try to drive Wallace from office. Seeing that the election was less than eight months away, although the Republicans were cursing Wallace incessantly, it was clearly random cursing—for example, when Wallace went to the front line with comfort items, the Republicans cursed him for bringing too many, claiming it was unfair to those officers and men who didn't receive them.

The Republicans seemed to curse everything, but they specifically avoided cursing the Wallace government's war command. Even the Republican presidential candidate, Dewey, tried his best not to mention anything related to the war, as if the war weren't the most important thing currently facing the United States.

The powerful old politicians within the Democratic Party also hadn't come out to declare their candidacy, with only a few ordinary congressmen jumping in.

Even someone like Wallace, who had absolutely no campaign experience, could see the pattern: these Democratic candidates actually received no funding support. Without money, they couldn't place ads in national newspapers, nor could they present their political views on national radio stations or the Federal Broadcasting Company.

Those who had jumped in could only express their views in local newspapers and small local radio stations directly related to them.

National newspapers and radio stations with influence, while giving these candidates some reporting out of politeness, just glossed over it. They clearly weren't prepared to give these people a chance.

As Roosevelt's Vice President, Wallace clearly saw that the American high-level leadership was not prepared to keep fighting. Or rather, the American elite was waiting for a powerful anti-war wave to emerge within the country. Once such a wave came, the elite would prepare to cater to it; even if they didn't end the war, they would at least withdraw from Canada. Whoever was in power then would be the scapegoat. Once the person in power was sacrificed, those American power players would come to collect the benefits.

Thinking it over, Wallace saw that he was bound to become the scapegoat. Wallace's personality was also not one to be easily manipulated. Since these politicians wanted him to die, he wasn't prepared to let them have it easy.

On March 21st, after listening to an American Broadcasting Company bulletin about the British African Corps being driven back, Wallace continued listening to a radio broadcast by a Democratic presidential candidate. It was clear this candidate was quite excited to have such an opportunity, to the point where he directly and recklessly attacked Wallace during the broadcast as "acting like a woman."

Faced with such an attack, Wallace not only didn't take it to heart but was actually amused. Saying such things wouldn't increase that congressman's support rate.

After the boring broadcast ended, Wallace had intended to sleep for a while. Seeing the bed, he thought of women, and then of that playboy Roosevelt. Subsequently, a thought suddenly popped into his head.

On March 22nd, Wallace arrived at Mrs. Roosevelt's door. At this time, Mrs. Roosevelt did not appear to have been crushed by her husband's death, nor was she depressed because her husband had died in his mistress's arms. Looking closely, Mrs. Roosevelt seemed to have more inner vitality. When meeting Wallace, she was polite but not at all warm.

Thirty minutes later, Mrs. Roosevelt personally escorted Wallace to the door. Her eyes were a bit red, and when they parted, she gripped Wallace's hand warmly. Mrs. Roosevelt said, "Once I've made a decision, I'll let you know."