In front of the window on the top floor of a small building near the municipal square in the city of Pula, slightly above the surrounding buildings, under the snow-white tulle curtain that was slightly lifted in the corner, Schubert was carefully observing the situation in the harbor with a telescope. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

This area is about the size of two football fields, and the local people call it Forum, the name comes from the Latin Foro, which means that the small square of the square is located on the west side of the Kashtel Bastion, and on its north side is the commercial port area of Pula Port, and to the northwest, the entire Pula Port water area can be seen at a glance. The top floor of the small building where Schubert was located had a panoramic view of the entire port of Pula, and the movements of the German fleet in the harbor were also observed by Schubert.

It is not true that the Germans did not come to investigate this area after the outbreak of war, but the area surrounding the Castel Fortress was already a residential area during the Republic of Venice, and it was unrealistic to want all the people in the vicinity to be relocated. And Schubert himself has a typical Austrian name, speaks an authentic Austrian accent, and has lived here for several years, so no one will suspect him for no reason.

"Did the 5th Battleship Squadron of the German Mediterranean Fleet sail again? I really have some sympathy for the Negro guys of those doors. Schubert joked to himself, and in the telescope, several tugboats spewing tumbling black soot pushed four Brandenburg-class dreadnoughts slowly in the harbor. The same faint black smoke from the chimneys of the four huge warships indicated that their boilers were already working. This shows that this is not a change of berths, but that these 4 warships are preparing to sail.

Schubert did not care about the fact that the German battleships were in action, and he had already learned about the situation from the mouths of German sailors who had gone ashore for a holiday with a few bottles of spirits in a tavern in the city of Pula. After the Kingdom of Croatia declared war on the Negoro of the Gate, the Negoro artillery position of the Gate of the Lovchen Mountain began to shell the Cataro military port of the Kingdom of Croatia, due to the height advantage of the Lovchen Mountain, the Navy of the Kingdom of Croatia did not have enough firepower to hit the position on the hill except for 2 dreadnoughts, and it was a waste to use two dreadnoughts to do this kind of work, so the Germans sent the former dreadnoughts equipped with 260 mm naval guns to help solve the problem.

Two squadrons of battleships belonging to nine former dreadnoughts armed with 260 mm guns rotated to Cataro to assist the Royal Croatian Navy in the shelling of Mount Lovechen, and to cooperate with Croatian light ships to bombard the port of Montenegro in Antivari (now the port of Bar in Montenegro) and blockade the coast of Montenegro to intercept all transport vessels.

Such an operation has been going on for 1 month, and apart from verbal sympathy for the Negoros, who were bombarded with 260-mm naval guns, Schubert has long since stopped paying attention to these old goods, which were built 20 years ago.

What really cared about Schubert was the 3 dreadnoughts in the harbor and the 10 battleships in total, known as quasi-dreadnoughts, which were the real core of the Allied Combined Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Today, however, the situation in the harbor was somewhat unusual, with shuttling transport boats transporting groups of sailors to the battleship, while several battleships docked a cargo ship that was lifting cargo onto the battleship.

The sailors of the German Navy usually live on the shore, and only a part of the personnel on duty are left on the ship in peacetime, if it is a shift change, it is impossible to have so many traffic boats that come and go to transport sailors constantly, and the traffic boats bound for the dock are all empty, indicating that there are no sailors disembarking.

In addition, the warships in the harbor are in a state of ready to fight, ammunition and fuel should be quite sufficient, and only when they return from a mission will they dock for replenishment, and now the cargo is transported by cargo ships, which can only be food, fresh water and other supplies.

Both of these circumstances indicate that the warships in the harbor are preparing to set sail, and it will be a long voyage! The Germans are going to make a big move! Where are they going?

Schubert stood up, and was about to change his clothes and go out to investigate.

"The 5th Battleship Squadron has set sail." At the same time, on the windowsill of the Mediterranean Fleet Commander's Office, Didrichs and House were also watching the tugboat slowly move away from the former dreadnought, and the four warships slowly sailed out of the harbor under their own power.

"This voyage is going to be a bit long." Diedrichs said with some incomprehension.

"If all goes well, it won't be too long." House comforted him: "It's good to let our boys go out for activities." ”

"You're right, our boys are probably tired of being in the harbor." Didrichs responded.

At this time, it is no longer meaningful to think about the old ships that I am familiar with and the young sailors on board that may encounter them next. The entire Mediterranean fleet has been put on the chessboard, and as the executor of the entire plan, what he can do now is to let each chess piece play its part. The winner gains everything, and the loser loses everything. This is my realization, after watching the Sino-Japanese War and the seizure of the Philippines.

With this understanding, Didrichs put away a little emotion in his heart, turned his eyes to the 13 capital ships that were being replenished in the harbor, and said to House: "Tomorrow I will lead the 2nd and 3rd battleship squadrons to Trastel first. The rest is up to you. ”

"Rest assured, Fumu's squadron of armored cruisers will depart in 5 days, and after meeting with the formation led by me, it will go to Trastai to join you, and in just a week, everything will go according to plan." House frowned and said, "There won't be any problems on our side. If the plan goes well, the Italians won't have much of a problem. Even if we encounter a patrol of the Italian Navy, we will not give them a chance to get close. They will only know that our fleet has passed through the Strait of Otranto at night, but they will not know the composition of our ships, and we will still be able to hide from the sea. Now it's up to the British to see if they bite the hook. ”

"The British will definitely bite the hook, as I said at the beginning, after the loss of the Helgoland Bay, the British will not come to the more risky Adriatic Sea again, so the bait we have sprinkled is big enough, and they will not be willing to give up such an opportunity to annihilate us without breaking into the Adriatic Sea." Dyedrichs had no doubts about the determination and courage of the Royal Navy, but he was also worried that if the fish was too big, it might not be able to catch it.

The size of the Anglo-French combined fleet is the most difficult variable in this plan to grasp, and once this variable is large enough to a certain extent, the whole plan will fail completely. If the plan failed, a considerable number of German ships, including the 5th Battleship Squadron, would be put in a very dangerous situation, which was what Didrichs feared the most.

But it was useless to worry, and Didrichs could only comfort himself with a teasing self: "I think there must be people who are anxious to figure out what we are going to do." If one of our English friends can help us tell the Royal Navy that they don't have much time, I'll be sure to treat him to a drink. ”

"If I could find such a British friend, I would love to tell him in person what we were going to do." House joked too.

Pula must have had intelligence agents from the Entente, and both men knew this. The intelligence services were annoyed that several previous investigations had failed to find targets, but now the two admirals were hoping that the Allied spies would report their actions to Whitehall in London.

At this time, Schubert, who was worried about the two admirals, was indeed inquiring about the movements of the Germans.

Dressed in a somewhat dirty sailor suit that smelled of sweat and engine oil, Schubert walked leisurely through the Venetian Republic-era cobblestone alleys of the Pula district, where he was heading to a secluded tavern.

It's a bit hard to find, but it's located near the commercial port pier of Pula, and the main customers of this tavern are sailors docked on merchant ships in the commercial port, and Schubert's outfit is easy to mix in. However, due to its secluded location, the main customers are sailors who often go to sea, so there are many female skilled workers engaged in the leather and meat trade in the nearby streets, so there are many sailors who come here to have fun.

And his disguised status as a sailor, as well as the other sailors he met in the tavern, would give him a good cover for his activities here.

Pushing open the wooden door of the tavern, the bell behind the door jingled, and the waitress who was dressed in a fiery figure and exposed the snow-white plump northern hemisphere greeted her with a smile on her face. Schubert slipped a mark into her line of business and waved his hand, declining the waitress's offer to take him to the wine table, and sat down at the bar.

The waitress threw a wink indifferently, and Schubert also showed a lewd smile and deliberately raised his hand and rubbed his fingers, as if reminiscing about the wonderful touch on the other party's chest. Then he turned around and snapped a few pictures at the bar, and Mark shouted to the bartender, "A glass of juniper berries." ”

When flirting with the waitress, Schubert had roughly swept around the tavern, and something was wrong. Although it is the busiest place at night, it is the usual sailor who will make a fuss here on the big night. This is not the case with sailors who come out on vacation to have fun, they will come to drink during the day, and when they have had enough, they will go to get to know each other with the female technical workers in the neighborhood in simple terms, and then drag their drunken bodies back to the barracks before the camp closes, and then use the second holiday to sleep a big awakening and sober up.

Although there will be some guys who are drunk and can't go back, but in general, most of the people who come out to have fun still act according to the pattern that Schubert summed up for so long. But there wasn't a single sailor in the tavern today, which was not normal. Even if the Germans were ready to take all the battleships out, it would not be possible for not a single sailor on vacation not to see it. There is only one possibility for this to happen, and that is that everyone in the entire military port is strictly forbidden to go out.

If it was just normal routine training, then there was no need for martial law in the whole military port, which means that the Germans were going to conduct military operations, and such an order would be issued out of secrecy.

What do the Germans want to do? The main fleet is all preparing for sailing, and such an operation is bound to be a large-scale attack! But now there was not a single soldier in the tavern, and there was no chance to get out of the way, which made Schubert a little impatient.

"These damn Germans are really leaky." Schubert whispered in his heart. I heard that the situation was completely different on the side of the Italians, who were only separated by the Adriatic Sea. The guys in the Italian Navy had no sense of urgency at all, and the sailors who were not on duty were able to come and go in and out of the barracks as usual on holidays, so they always got some bits and pieces of gossip from their mouths, and then they could restore the actions of the Italians, giving the impression that the Italians were not at war at all.

However, as a professional intelligence officer, Schubert knew that in a place like the tavern, there would always be some news from the sailors who had been here before, and the most well-informed people in the tavern were not sailors, but other people.

The bartender should hear something, but the bartender is not a good person to ask, and people who are bartenders in this kind of place are very wary, and it is not good for them to ask too much.

Schubert had other goals, but it was not appropriate to act in front of the bartender, drinking the gin brought by the bartender, Schubert glanced at the group of sailors gathered in the corner, crowded, noisy, inconspicuous, and more importantly, there were guys who knew him.

Pretending not to see it, Schubert tasted the liquor in his hand alone, but he saw that the guy had already discovered himself. Great, he's here.

Schubert, who pretended not to know anything, was chatting with the bartender when a pair of big hands slapped him on the shoulder: "Hey, isn't this Schubert?" Alone? ”

"Hey, Thomas, your pat on my shoulder hurts." Schubert, who pretended to be startled and trembled, turned around, and then showed a smile when he saw an acquaintance: "I just arrived in Hong Kong, come and have a few drinks." ”

"It's boring to drink alone, come and join us." Thomas laughed heartily, put his arm around Schubert's shoulders, and dragged him to the wine table in the corner.

"Two more juniper berries." Shubert was dragged forward, shouting to the bartender, then smiling at Thomas and saying, "I'll give you a drink." ”

"Hahaha, then you're welcome." Thomas shouted happily, his loud voice so loud that the whole tavern felt as if he could hear an echo.

Thomas was the second officer of a freighter on a short Italian route, a bold man and a regular visitor to the tavern. Of course, Schubert wasn't targeting him, but the enthusiastic loud voice and his friends would provide themselves with good cover.

Sitting at Thomas's table, touching Thomas's glass, and then drinking the spirits in the glass, the bold style made the sailors around him coax.

The liquor in his throat made Schubert's face flush, and then he asked, as if he didn't care, "Hey, Thomas, when I entered the harbor today, I saw that many ships were preparing to sail, and our fleet was finally going out to beat the Entente?" ”

There are usually many sailors in this tavern who come to take care of it, and now that it is a time of war, those sailors who have drunk too much and start to brag about the topic of war, so if someone sees the warship in the harbor moving today, they will not attract attention if they ask.

"I don't know, but I didn't see the shadow of a big-headed soldier today, so it should be a big operation, right?" Thomas shouted in a rough voice, "Those usually high-spirited soldiers are not only going to compete with us. ”

On weekdays, it is not once or twice that sailors and sailors who have drunk too much horse urine fight each other, and Thomas and the sailors have used their fists to deepen their understanding of each other.

Following Thomas's words, Schubert laughed and shouted, "If our fleet can really beat the Entente, then the next time we see them here, we should have a drink with them!" ”

"If you can really beat the Entente, then I'll treat them to a drink!" Thomas shouted haughtily.

"Then you can probably save a fortune." The waitress who placed two glasses of gin in front of Schubert and Thomas interjected.

"Oh? Yelena, do you know what they're going to do? Schubert asked with an interested expression, and the sailors next to him all looked like they were waiting to hear the gossip.

"The sailors who came here to drink two days ago said that they were going to the Ionian Sea for sailing training, and that they would sail for about a week." Yelena recalled.

"Awesome!" Schubert cheered inwardly. His initial goal was this plump waitress, as a waitress, Elena would come into contact with everyone who entered the tavern, so that she could hear much more than sailors who tended to stay in fixed circles with people they knew, and men could not help but behave in front of beautiful women.

A week of sailing training? Such information is not enough, and more detailed information is needed. Schubert put on a disappointed expression and coaxed, "Training, I thought those high-spirited soldiers could beat those Entente." ”

This sentence aroused a unanimous response from the sailors around them, and for a while the sound of criticizing the sailors for not being able to beat the Entente and only waving their fists at their own people came and went.

"It's not like we're going to beat up the Entente, and it's going to hurt our Yelena's business for another week." Schubert laughed. Although they don't do the leather business, the waitresses in the tavern don't mind letting people rub the oil, and the sailors on vacation have a lot of marks in their hands, so they can often get a small amount of tips when they get over the addiction, which can be regarded as a fixed income for the waitresses.

"It's not just a week." When it came to money, Yelena was a little unhappy.

"Didn't you just say a week?" Schubert asked, with a puzzled look.

"The sailors of the 1st Battleship Squadron said that they were going to sail for training, and the sailors of the 2nd and 3rd Battleship Squadrons said that they would go out for a long time."

"How long are you going?" Schubert immediately pressed after him, and he keenly felt that there was something wrong with this.

"I don't know." Yelena said helplessly: "They don't know where to go or how long they are going to go, anyway, they only say that they will go out for a long time." Our business here has been quiet for a long time. ”

"Don't worry, those big-headed soldiers won't come, and we, we won't let Yelena be lonely." Schubert laughed and grabbed the waitress's stiff buttocks, causing the sailors to heckle.

The waitresses were patient with the tipping customers, and Yelena gave Schubert a blank look, then swayed her waist and left.

The sailors on top of the alcohol stared at the swaying plump body with a pig-like look on their faces and walked away, but Schubert was thinking about it in his mind.

It should be true that the 1st Battleship Detachment is going to the Ionian Sea for sailing training, this is not a combat mission, it is not long, and if there is any problem, it can be returned to the Adriatic Sea immediately, so it is normal to have a low level of secrecy. The problem was the 2nd and 3rd squadrons of battleships, the sailors had no idea where they were going or what they were going to do, and it was clear that the purpose of the operation was only to inform the fleet after the voyage, and this level of secrecy proved that it was very likely that they were going on a combat mission.

Although the time of the voyage is not clear, it must be more than a week, and the 4th and 5th squadrons of battleships in Negro, which shelled and blocked the gate, were already in rotation, and the opponent of the Negro of the gate did not need a fleet of 10 quasi-dreadnoughts at all, so the Germans were likely to enter the eastern Mediterranean!

This is very likely! There were originally 8 pre-dreadnoughts in Alexandria, and the Germans, although numerically superior, did not dare to act blindly. But now that the Mediterranean Fleet has suffered heavy losses, and it is simply impossible to thwart 10 quasi-dreadnoughts with the forces available at the disposal of Admiral Carden, are the Germans trying to take this opportunity to launch combat operations in the Eastern Mediterranean? What is the goal? Strike patrol ships to further weaken the Mediterranean fleet? Or shelled Alexander to destroy the entire fleet? Or even attack Port Said and strangle the Suez Canal ?!

This thought made Schubert shudder, and he was eager to get up and leave immediately to report the news to London. However, having to deal with Thomas, who was even more enthusiastic after drinking the wine he had invited, leaving immediately would only make his actions visible, and Schubert had to continue chatting with Thomas about boring topics, but by this time his heart had already flown out.