USSR 1941

So Shulka received another box of money.

In fact, money is a very hot thing for Shulka. As I said before, in the Soviet Union, this money is almost impossible to spend, especially when the supplies are exhausted during the war... Most of the supplies are made by The country distributes it uniformly, and the use of the money is probably to buy some food or other things among the people to play a role.

Simply put, money is indeed necessary, because it can be exchanged for food to ensure that you will not starve to death.

But too much money is meaningless...it only creates potential danger for itself.

So, it's not that Shulka doesn't like money, it's just that it came at the wrong time.

But Shulka still showed his eyes shining...he had to pretend that he liked money and was willing to be bought by John.

"Comrade Shulka!" John said in a low voice: "We are studying the feasibility of your previous suggestion. Although we probably will not adopt this suggestion, thank you for providing us with information and ideas! These are Just a little bit, for confidentiality reasons, we hope you don't tell anyone what we talked about!"

"Of course, Comrade John!" Shulka took the suitcase, weighed it, and replied with a satisfied expression: "I won't tell anyone!"

Shulka knows that John is not telling the truth... The reason why John emphasizes that "we will probably not adopt this suggestion" is because John is worried that Shulka will leak the information.

But in fact, John was just talking nonsense. He knew very well that Shulka could not be fooled, especially since the UK had to buy a large number of amphibious landing ships from the Soviet Union, not to mention that Shulka was inextricably linked with the top Soviet army.

So Shulka didn't tell John the truth either.

As soon as John left Shulka, he called Beria... Only Beria knew about the "spy" relationship with the UK, so he had to report directly to him.

"They made a decision!" Shulka said. "I think you should consider the terms of the negotiation, Comrade Beria!"

"Very well, Comrade Shulka!" Beria replied: "You have done a great job again, just do it!"

In fact, this is not the first phone call between Shulka and Beria on this matter.

Shulka reported to Beria after giving John some advice last time... This matter is not only related to the strategies of Britain and the Soviet Union, but also more likely to be related to whether the Soviet Union will be attacked by two sides.

Shulka didn't dare to make his own claim on such a big matter.

After a brief report, Beria agreed on the spot: "I agree to do this. If the British lose Africa, it will not benefit us at all! In fact, we have been worrying about this matter recently, discussing How to solve this problem, some people even suggested that we send troops to Africa to reinforce the British, because helping the British keep Africa can protect our transportation line in the Caucasus direction and will not be attacked! However, we don’t have extra troops and supplies to go to Africa .I didn’t expect this difficult problem to be solved for you like this. None of us thought that we could do this, Shulka! The price we have to pay is probably just a few amphibious landing ships!"

"No, Comrade Beria!" Shulka said. "That won't be our 'pay,' because we can negotiate with the British!"

"Yes!" Beria nodded in satisfaction: "We can indeed negotiate with them!"

Although the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom have common interests in Africa, the United Kingdom is impatient and the Soviet Union is still uncertain.

So the Soviet Union is certainly qualified to negotiate with the British direction.

The result was exactly as Shulka imagined, because the Soviet Union was fully prepared and took the absolute initiative in this negotiation.

The negotiation method is basically:

"No, this is simply blackmail. You can't ask for so many planes and tanks, and all you get in exchange are your wrecked ships!"

"You don't have to change!"

"But, we are allies! Britain has given you a lot of supplies, and now it's time for you to repay us!"

"It's not for giving, it's for renting! If you don't want to change it...we don't care!"

"It's even easy to produce! So can we!"

"Then why don't we wait?"

...

In the end, the British compromised. They exchanged 50 Spitfire fighters and 100 tanks, plus dozens of tons of supporting ammunition and parts in exchange for 500 amphibious landing ships.

This is almost unimaginable, because the amphibious landing ship does not have much technical content, it is more of an idea, that is, adding wheels to the ship so that it can travel on both water and land, and this thing It also happens to be able to make up for the shortcomings of the extremely difficult and immature amphibious landing warfare in this era.

If it was in normal times, the British side would not be willing to exchange 500 of these things for a British Spitfire, but now, they can exchange for 50 in one go, and there are 100 tanks...

Of course Churchill was jumping with anger, but there was nothing he could do.

Because if the war in Africa fails, the impact on Britain will be too great, and Britain cannot afford such a loss.

All Churchill could do was to ask for a delay in the delivery of these materials and to deliver them from Leningrad at the same time. (Note: There is another route for British supplies to the Soviet Union, from the British mainland to Leningrad via the Norwegian Sea, bypassing Sweden and Finland)

This request is very reasonable. On the one hand, the UK needs these materials because of the tense war situation in Africa. On the other hand, it is very difficult to transport the materials produced in the UK to the island of Malta. Shipping these materials to the Soviet Union can reduce the pressure on the direction of the island of Malta. .

So the Soviet Union stopped tossing and quickly signed the contract.

At that moment Beria excitedly called Shulka.

"Do you know? We got another 50 Spitfires!" Beria said, "In addition to the 50 we bought with information, we can even build an aviation division!"

"We really need to build an aviation division!" Shulka said. "This winter is a great opportunity!"

"Yes!" Beria said. "We can use this winter to familiarize the pilots with these planes. Of course, we need the help of British pilots!"

"I think we must have asked for a pilot when we were negotiating!"

"Of course!" Beria laughed loudly: "Do you think we are that stupid?"

"No, of course not!" Shulka also felt that his worry was unnecessary.

In fact, since the last batch of 50 Spitfire fighters were delivered to the Soviet Air Force, the British side has sent instructors to train Soviet pilots.

So it's not a problem at all.