The letter was not long, only two pages long, and the little Ciano quickly swept over the opening greeting, and then turned his scrutinizing gaze to the text that followed. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Less than half a minute later, little Ziano's eyes suddenly bloomed with a condensed and sharp light, and he stared at the letter in his hand, and his thoughts began to run rapidly.

"This ...... This is definitely not something written by Xiwei's little sister! Little Ziano read the letter in his hand carefully and said flatly. Although this letter is ostensibly written in Sylvia's tone and handwriting, every sentence in it is someone else's will: if nothing else, Sylvia has never cared about politics, how can she uncharacteristically express her hope that Italy will help Finland as soon as possible, and actively make suggestions?

However, the strategy of assistance to Finland proposed in the letter made little Ziano's heart suddenly shake, and there was a kind of surprise. "Establish an air and civilian route to Sweden first, and then replace passenger planes with four-engine heavy bombers to transport large quantities of arms and ammunition. These heavy bombers returned directly after unloading and finally airlifted supplies in ordinary twin-engine aircraft to Turku, Finland, 300 kilometers away......"

Little Ziano strode over to the map of the study, and his heart was already filled with indescribable excitement. Through this operation, Italy's aid can be smoothly delivered to Finland, which undoubtedly helped Italy successfully solve the most critical problem of intervening in the Soviet-Finnish war, so that Rome, which is adjacent to the Mediterranean, can also reflect its will to Northern Europe, which is 2,000 kilometers away!

"Is that what Jonas meant, or is that the attitude of the German government?" Little Ziano muttered, his left hand habitually holding his jaw up with his fist. Soon, however, he read the answer from the letter. The key to this air aid was the transfer of P-108 heavy bombers, formerly belonging to the Italian Air Force, to fly over German airspace under the license plate of the airliner – which was obviously impossible without the acquiescence of Berlin. After all, such an aircraft is a strategic-level offensive weapon, and who would sit idly by while someone else's heavy bomber patronizes his airspace all day long and remain indifferent?

At the thought of this, little Ziano's face couldn't help but show a little strange look. Because Germany and the Soviet Union kept the memorandum after the treaty of alliance secret, little Ziano, who lacked accurate information, had been believing for more than three months that Germany was quite willing to cooperate with the Soviet Union in carving up Europe; Now, however, it appears that Berlin has other intentions and does not want to see Moscow's tentacles of influence extended. In this context, it is necessary to readjust Italy's current diplomatic policy. -for-tat with Germany was inherently pointless, and Italy would have to expand eastward and southward, wrestling the brickwork needed to build the new Roman Empire from the Soviet Union and Britain and France.

"I'm going to see the leader." Little Ziano took the letter in his bosom and put on the warm clothes he had to go out.

Mussolini was overjoyed to learn that Italy had the means to provide assistance to Finland, which had been invaded by a strong enemy. Early the next morning, Mussolini eagerly summoned the commander of the air force and asked him a series of questions about the bomber's cargo flight to Northern Europe. Finally, Mussolini ordered the Air Force Commander to immediately draw up an airlift plan to determine the lineup and timetable for the operation. At the same time, the Italian government is doing both economically and diplomatically: the former has contacted Continental Airlines to open a route to the Swedish city of Norrköping, while the latter has been active in Germany and Sweden to give them the green light to establish the air route.

As a heavyweight country that once dominated Europe, Sweden, located in the northern part of the Baltic Sea, has gradually been left behind by the European continental powers after entering the era of the Industrial Revolution. Today, the country has completely degenerated into a harmless white rabbit in the field of war force, whose only goal is to stay out of the flames of war. Far from the maelstrom of European strife, Sweden has managed to use max-level stealth skills: while the European powers are fighting each other for their hegemony ambitions, the Swedes are at peace in Scandinavia and making a fortune from orders for light industrial products from both warring sides.

This time, however, the Swedes were not going to be strictly neutral. The Soviet Union's act of bringing the war to Northern Europe made Sweden feel the potential threat of death for the first time, and the ideological differences made Sweden full of hostility to the Soviet Union. Do you know that Sweden today has extremely high per capita wealth, and the petty bourgeoisie makes up the majority of the people, and if the Bolsheviks come, they must not be taken into the Gulag as class enemies?

In view of this, when the Italians implicitly informed the Swedes of their intentions, the Swedes were happy to pretend to be confused and let the Italians do it. In order to make the Italian aid more efficient, the Swedish government has also provided them with as much help as possible in the logistics areas such as airport construction, parts maintenance, and fuel storage. When the Italian planes arrived, there were almost no worries about restricting their movements.

Italy was busy building air routes to support the Finnish resistance, and Germany, as the dominant Axis power, was also intensively preparing for the Western Front. Although the temperature drops to minus 15 degrees Celsius every day, the newly formed units of the army are engaged in intense combat exercises: entire divisions and divisions are deployed in plains and mountains to familiarize themselves with the battle in various geographical environments and specific situations. The roar of mules and horses, the roar of trucks, and the gray uniforms of the wild plains form ink stains in the snow, which is particularly spectacular and pleasing to the eye when viewed from the air.

Compared with the army's hot winter training, the German navy's movement is much smaller. Due to temperatures, there is severe ice in the Baltic Sea near the continental shelf, and all icebreakers have been put into operation day and night, but only a few major ports, such as Kiel, are barely functioning. Even the Kiel Canal, which connects the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, was closed in an extremely rare case because of the ice, and the entire Baltic Sea was cold and silent, as if returning to more than a thousand years ago before humans began to use the sea.

The flute roared, steam billowed and spewed, and in the harbor of floating ice, a huge steel battleship slowly stopped at her berth. The bridge is tall and beautiful, and the main guns are magnificent and majestic, showing the unique solemnity and majesty of a battleship. At the camouflage spray on the side of the side with gray tones, the seven huge letters "Tirpitz" suddenly came into view, and they showed the identity of this warship, which was the No. 2 ship "Tirpitz" of the Bismarck-class battleship!

Vice Admiral Marchar, commander of the Panzer Flotilla, stood in front of the dock and looked at the behemoth ship in front of him, which had the highest level of German industry, with a smile on his face. After 50 months of construction, the Tirpitz was completed in mid-August 1939 and was immediately put into sea trials and training. Although the battleship was forced to return to port early due to the freezing of the Baltic Sea, the Tirpitz had been running in for nearly four months, and it was just around the corner from going to sea.

"Colonel Topp, can you tell me about the ship's equipment and personnel?" After boarding the warship, Machar couldn't wait to ask the captain. Originally, as the commander of the lieutenant general, Machar did not need to go to the dock in person, and only needed to wait for Toph to report to him after he came ashore, but at this time, he was not willing to wait for even a few hours, and was eager to know the specific situation of this heavy battleship.

Just yesterday, 7 December, the Bismarck, which had been damaged in the attack on Scapa Bay, had been repaired and re-hoisted with the flag of Lieutenant General Marchar. If the situation with the Tirpitz was equally satisfactory, then Machar would be able to command 2 battleships to go to sea to attack. No matter what kind of enemy they encounter, their cannons will be able to completely tear them apart!

Toph straightened his chest slightly, and replied with a bit of confidence and eagerness: "Dear general, at present, all the equipment on the warship has completed the stand-alone test transfer and chain operation. Due to the previous experience of the Bismarck's sea trials, the engineering technicians dealt with the problems of the equipment quite quickly, and in the last half month, the equipment failure rate has been completely reduced to the standard allowed in actual combat. The soldiers are also basically familiar with their posts, can continue to deepen training, and can also go to the sea to accept the test of actual combat. ”

"The results of several successive sea trials have shown that Tirpitz has fully met her design specifications. With a maximum practical stable output of 142,000 hp, she ran 30.1 knots with a full load displacement of 53,400 tons without wind and waves. If she were in the deep sea, her speed would have increased by about 1 knot. In addition, her low-speed power performance is also excellent, with enough fuel to reach nearly 1,000 hours at 16 knots. Toph added. Although the Tirpitz was not much different from the Bismarck's overall specifications, he carefully reported the corresponding details to Machar.

Hearing Topp's words, Mashal nodded in satisfaction. The Colonel had always been known in the German Navy for his harsh and ruthless treatment of his subordinates, and although this caused little rapport between him and his subordinates, as the captain of a new battleship, Topp did his job well, training 2,000 crews who were mostly new recruits in a short period of time. For the current war, it is quite important for warships to form combat effectiveness every 1 month early, especially an absolute workhorse like the Tirpitz.

"I don't know how the Navy Command is studying the next move." After complimenting Topp, Martial couldn't help but think about what it was like when he set off from Berlin. After three months of hibernation, the navy is generally not satisfied with the current status quo. With the restoration of the Bismarck, the Navy wanted to take active action to further tighten the rope around the British neck. (To be continued.) )