The night was deep, the wind was biting, and on the docks of Murmansk, the shipment of arms was already coming to an end. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Raphael stood on the shore and calmly watched as the Soviet soldiers used carts and other tools to transport the guns to their own ships. Although he and the cargo are under the guns of the Soviets at the moment, it can be said that it is an absolutely unfavorable situation in which people are fighting for the sake of fish and meat, but because the other party still has deep interests with Germany behind him, Raphael is not worried at all that the other party will kill the chicken and take the eggs, and immediately turn his face after receiving his own mark. Before leaving, Hiko had already informed him that Valentin was secretly selling fuel to the German Navy, and if the latter wanted to maintain this steady stream of money, then he would not be offended in any way.

"Three gentlemen, now that the deal is complete, I'm ready to leave here." Raphael turned to the Soviets in front of him and said. According to Fang Yan's instructions to him, ships carrying munitions must depart and return by 15 November. Although Raphael did not understand the reason for Fang Yan's establishment of this deadline, as an employee with a contract with the Brom family, he had to unconditionally fulfill his employer's wishes.

"Please greet Mr. Brom on my behalf and convey my sincere thanks to him." Valentin said with a smile on his face, and his words did not appear because Mark had crossed the river and demolished the bridge. Raphael was stunned for a moment, then reacted that the other party was referring to Fang Yan, and said with a smile: "I will transfer your friendship to Little General Brom." Your Excellency has established a long-term cooperation with the German Navy, and there will be a chance to see you again in the future. ”

In the end, Raphael seemed to suddenly think of something, and slapped his head sharply. He bowed slightly to the person in front of him with an apologetic face, and said in a shameful voice: "Three gentlemen, I almost forgot another important matter. At present, three warships of the German Navy are undergoing repairs at your shipyard, and due to the tense situation of the war, we are eager to complete the repair of these warships as soon as possible. These are our little thoughts, and we hope that you can give us the maintenance workers to the greatest convenience on site. ”

Seeing the thick "envelope" handed over by Raphael, the eyes of the three Soviet officers suddenly lit up. After glancing at each other, Yevgeny, who was still the commander of the port garrison, took the envelope and said with a happy face: "Sir, please rest assured, I will definitely ask my subordinates to fully cooperate with the work of your personnel!" Speaking of which, the maintenance workers sent by your navy are all guests of Murmansk, and we in Russia are the most hospitable people. ”

"That's a few troubles. If these warships can be repaired by February next year, we will have additional thanks at that time. Raphael saluted again. Oleg smiled like a chrysanthemum with an old face, and said hesitantly: "We will also do our best to supervise this matter." If anyone dares to have other thoughts and ruin your ship-repairing business, the Gulag labor camp in White Sea City has not received new residents for a long time. ”

After spending another sum of money, Raphael finally boarded the ship that was about to return in the middle of the night. At this time, the cargo was all ready, and the Soviet soldiers were dismantling the steel frame of the temporary platform on the dock. While he was still in Murmansk, Raphael telegraphed Fang Yan, who was far away in Kiel, to report the situation here. The task that belongs to him has come to an end for the time being, and then Fang Yan will go to the next step after returning to China.

The ice wind howls in the Arctic Circle, and the Western European continent is also a vast snow country.

On the banks of the Rhine River on the border between Germany and France, the tense atmosphere originally set off by the two countries entering a state of war has been completely dispelled by this harsh winter that has not been encountered in 50 years. Soldiers on both sides burrowed into their tents like hibernating bears, fending off the harsh winter in soft and comfortable hay and quilts. The 300-kilometre-long border is silent, and no gunfire is often heard all day, except for the small detachments of daily patrols that move deep and shallow in the snowy wind, adding a touch of activity to the forefront of the two countries' fighting.

It has been two months and 15 days since Britain and France declared war on Germany. During this period, with the exception of the symbolic offensive launched at the beginning of the war at the behest of the Polish government, this area at the forefront of the war in Europe has always been a situation of calm and wait-and-see. The total casualties of the German and French armies were less than 100, and the British Expeditionary Force, which arrived belatedly in mid-October, did not lose even a single hair. The millions of troops of the two groups quietly looked at each other at a distance of 2~4km, which became a spectacle of war that made military observers and war correspondents of various countries jaw-dropping.

For this strange situation, Britain, France and Germany, which were direct belligerents, did not feel that there was anything wrong.

Britain, which had long been conscripted, needed more time to train new armies and send them to the European continent -- unlike in the last war, the current army has made a qualitative leap forward in mechanized equipment compared to the past: even an ordinary infantry division has a large number of trucks, motorcycles, and other transport vehicles. And these equipment, whether they are loaded or unloaded, have much more work than the army of the pure mule and horse era.

In addition, due to the intensification of the air threat, the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, which were once the landing places of the British Army, are now too close to the German mainland to be used. Troop transports from the British mainland can now be unloaded at Le Havre or even Saint-Malo, and then have soldiers march hundreds of kilometres on their own to the front. Together, Britain was able to project troops to the continent much less quickly than before, and it took time to ease it.

And the feud between Germany and France is even more justified by not fighting. The French only wanted to avoid the national tragedy of the dead generation of young people, and the Germans played into their hands; Hitler, for his part, had to subdue the high-ranking generals in the army who repeatedly disobeyed his will, and at the same time make all the military preparations for the conquest of Western Europe. For this reason, both sides tacitly restrain their troops not to fire a single shot at the opponent's area first; Air raids and bomb dropping were absolutely forbidden, and only conscientious German reconnaissance planes flew over the border from time to time and took some photographs of the current situation of the French positions.

In this calm atmosphere, the attention of the people of all countries, including the belligerents, was no longer on the land "battlefield" of Western Europe. And although the German Navy's pocket cruisers and submarine wolves were still making waves in the Atlantic, and repeatedly sinking British merchant ships, the battle on the sea did not receive much attention because the main force of the German fleet was not dispatched. At this time, the originally calm Nordic snowfields are gradually surging; This soon replaced the Franco-German confrontation of "declaration without war" and became the focus of attention of the entire Western world.

Since the signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, the Soviet Union has been eagerly beginning its plans to annex Eastern Europe. After the partition of Poland, the Soviet Union sent a "peace request" to the three Baltic coastal countries of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia: for the sake of the safety of the big guys, the Soviet Union will establish air and naval bases on your territory, and each base will be stationed with 1~2 divisions of the Red Army. In this way, as soon as your security is threatened, these Reds can immediately come and "protect".

In the face of this suspended death verdict, which was completely a wolf into the house, the three small countries had no choice but to accept it with humiliation. For if they do not know each other, toast and drink, then the million-strong Red Army will rush into their land like a frenzy the next day. At that time, the Soviets will no longer care about any dignity, and will directly use bayonets and bullets to make all the rebels go to Jesus!

With the help of a powerful military force, the Soviet Union completed a large-scale westward expansion of its power without much effort. The three Baltic states are now in the bag, and in one year at most, they will be able to incorporate these lands into the territory of the Russians again, as was the case in the old days of Tsarist Russia. Greatly encouraged, Stalin set his sights on Finland, a small northern European country, and decided to make it his goal for another conquest.

Finland's feud with the Soviet Union began in 1917. After the October Revolution, the Russian land was practically divided without centralized power; Finland is one of the nations that had been forcibly conquered by Tsarist Russia to declare independence.

The fact that the Finnish White Army had received a lot of aid from the West in the ensuing civil war forced Lenin to formally recognize Finland's independent status and establish a very favorable border for Finland in the subsequent peace treaty. Finland gained most of the Karelian Isthmus, and the southeastern tip of its territory was even deeper, just 23 kilometers from Leningrad.

As time passed, and as the Soviet Union revived, Moscow began to become more and more intolerant of the current Soviet-Finnish border: the Finns' forward positions were so close to Leningrad that a heavy cannon could "bombard the Winter Palace" again, and if the Finns turned to the West, wouldn't Leningrad, an important industrial and port city, be bombed into flames at any time?

Although Finland has repeatedly stressed that it will strictly maintain neutrality and will never allow foreign powers to set foot in its territory, because of the long-standing hostility between the Soviet Union and the Western world, and the old grievances between the Soviet Union and Finland, which cannot be easily resolved, the Soviet Union obviously cannot accept this kind of pinning its fate on the bitter past and the enemy's bitter past wrongs and doing what it says. Under these circumstances, the revision of the border between the two sides was an important event that the Soviet government had to carry out at present. (To be continued.) )