"Your Excellency, Captain, we found this ...... in the dark compartment of Barbossa's room."

Cheng Hao hurriedly stepped forward and took the thing in Sickert's hand, whose hands trembled slightly, this is a metal item that is not very big, but the meaning behind this item makes the German officers on the entire ship shudder, because the name of this item is - Enigma!

The Enigma cipher machine is not large, measuring only 34cm× 28cm×15cm, but the size of a shoebox has an extremely fine internal structure.

The keyboard has a total of 26 keys, and the keyboard arrangement is basically the same as that of the widely used computer keyboard, except that in order to make communication as short and difficult to decipher as possible, spaces, numbers, and punctuation marks are eliminated, and only the letter keys are used.

Above the keyboard is the display,Of course, it's not a screen display in the sense.,It's just a 26 small light bulbs marked with the same letter.,When a key on the keyboard is pressed,The small bulb corresponding to the ciphertext letter after the letter is encrypted lights up.,It's such an almost primitive "display"。

On the top of the display are three rotors with a diameter of 6 cm, the main part of which is hidden under the panel, and the rotor is the core and key part of the "Enigma" cipher machine.

Because it will turn! That's the key! When a letter key is pressed on the keyboard, the corresponding encrypted letter is displayed on the monitor by a light bulb flashing, and the rotor automatically rotates the position of a letter. For example, when you type A for the first time, the light bulb B turns on and the rotor turns one square, and the password corresponding to each letter changes. The second time you type A, the letter it corresponds to may become C; Similarly, when you type A for the third time, it may be that the bulb D is on.

This is the key to how difficult it is to decipher the "Enigma", which is not a simple replacement code. The same letter can be replaced by different letters in different positions in the plaintext, and the same letter in different positions in the ciphertext can represent different letters in the plaintext, and the letter frequency analysis method is useless here. This type of encryption is known in cryptography as a "double-entry replacement cipher".

"However, even if they get an Enigma, they won't be able to crack it......" Looking at Cheng Hao's somewhat pale face, Sickert's originally confident tone became uncertain.

Since the advent of radio and Morse code, military communication has entered a new era, but radio communication is completely an open system, while receiving the message, the other party can also "see at a glance", so the code that appeared with the war in human history was immediately combined with radio, and the reason why Enigma can shine is because of its encryption method.

Sickert has such self-confidence, not arrogance, you must know that Enigma is equipped with three rotors, connected by a reflector, when the first rotor turns a circle, that is, the 26-letter connecting line, it will drive the second rotor, and down in turn, there are 26×26×26, that is, 17,576 possibilities.

And there is a connecting board at the bottom of the keyboard to connect the letters, and the encrypted letters can be exchanged, so that the number of possibilities constituted by the exchange of two pairs on the connecting board is very huge, and there are a total of 10,391,791,500 possibilities.

Even if the enemy acquires the same machine, it will still be able to guarantee the secrecy of its encryption system. "Even if you have an Enigma, if you don't know the key, you have to try hundreds of billions of combinations to decipher the message, which is unrealistic.

In Sickert, no, in the eyes of all the German officers and soldiers, Enigma is undoubtedly safe and reliable, but Cheng Hao, who comes from another world line, naturally knows that Enigma has long been unreliable.

In Hans. Tiro. After Schmidt sold the information on the operation and the internal wiring of the rotor to the French, the situation changed, and the French government, which felt useless, sent this information to the Poles, but the Poles, who were really worried about solving Enigma's headache, developed a machine that could verify all rotor directions, codenamed "Bomb", with the genius of Rejewski's genius

In the six years from January 1933 to December 1938, the Poles deciphered nearly 100,000 messages from Germany.

And on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, the Poles handed over the drawings of the bomb and a copy of Enigma to the British and French.

In the spring of 40 years, the British will crack Enigma for the first time, and from that time on, the Enigma cipher machine is no longer safe and reliable.

Cheng Hao, who was worried, naturally couldn't tell Sickert these words in public, "Did you find the codebook on the ship?" Cheng Hao, who remembered something, hurriedly asked.

Sickert, who understood the seriousness of the problem, shook his head and said apologetically, "I led people to search the entire cargo ship, and I didn't find anything other than this Enigma cipher machine......

For submarine operations, especially the "wolf pack" tactics of the German Navy, radio communication is the most important means for submarines to operate at sea and obtain information and report the situation, and the "Enigma" cipher machine is a device related to the security of the entire radio communication, and its importance can be imagined.

However, such a machine was found on a cargo ship, and although Enigma's encryption method made Sickert feel that there was no possibility of being deciphered, Enigma's appearance was very intriguing.

Taking a deep breath, Cheng Hao looked at Sickert and said in a serious tone, "I know, now immediately check the clothes of all the crew members on the Black Pearl, I'll give you 10 minutes is enough." ”

Looking at Cheng Hao's gloomy face, Sickert didn't dare to slack off, and after receiving the order, he immediately turned around, took his soldiers, and began to inspect the crew members who were still standing on the deck.

In fact, Sickert blamed Cheng Hao for this, Cheng Hao's unkind face was just because he blamed himself for ignoring this problem, and Cheng Hao, who had just crossed over to the Bismarck and was about to face the Rhine exercise, forgot one thing.

It was May 8, 1941, and the U-100 submarine had been captured, but the Germans had no idea that the U-110 had been captured, nor that their Enigma cipher machine had been compromised.

As a result, from then until the end of the war, the German Navy's communications about submarines, down to the exact location of each submarine, the operational situation, and the names of commanders, were mastered and used by British naval intelligence.

How important is intelligence for warfare?

For the attacker of each military operation, it plays a role in helping him to formulate a battle plan for the situation of the opponent and deploy comprehensively, and it can also confuse the opponent.

The use of intelligence deception methods against the attacking opponent allows the other side to capture the wrong information and take advantage of its unpreparedness or divert its forces to attack it elsewhere, thus reducing the pressure on the attack.

In the Rhine exercise, Cheng Hao relied on the advantage of another world line, and he could even be an unpredictable prophet, this is the advantage of intelligence!

Every day here, for others, is the present, and for Cheng Hao, it is the past that has happened in another world line.

"It's really, careless......" Cheng Hao smiled bitterly.