Presidential Palace, Helsinki, Finland.

There were no flashing lights, no journalists, and a handful of spectators just diplomats from both sides and Finnish guards, and in this brightly lit hall, the signatories signed, exchanged documents, signed, stood and shook hands, followed by sparse applause.

"Happy working together!" Finnish President Kalistan Larante has a joyful smile on his face.

"Happy working together!" German Prime Minister Gustavnoske with a confident smile.

On March 1, 1928, Germany and Finland signed the Secret Treaty of Helsinki, also known as the Treaty of the Franco-Finnish Offensive and Defensive Alliance.

Finland, the "Land of a Thousand Lakes", borders Norway in the north, Russia in the east, the Gulf of Finland in the south, the Gulf of Bothnia in the west, and Sweden in the northwest. Finland belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809, became the Grand Duchy of Russia after the Russo-Swedish War, and in 1914, when Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was killed and the Russian Revolution swept through most of Russia, Finland declared independence with the support of Germany.

However, as the strength and military strength of the Tsarist Russia gradually recovered, the Finns began to feel a sense of anxiety about the threat from the east, and at this time, the Germans, who were preparing to wage war against Russia, began to convince the Finnish government that the Russians were interested in seeking large areas of eastern Finland and the southern coastline, and promised that if Finland won the war against Russia, Finland would gain Russian land on the Kola Peninsula and the White Sea coast.

After careful consideration, the Finns boarded the German chariot, and under the main terms of the Helsinki Treaty, Germany was granted the right to build and use six air bases and two naval ports in Finland, and in the event of a war between Germany and Russia, Finland would spare no effort to "confront" Russia with Germany.

In Berlin, General Hasporatini, the plenipotentiary of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief Kemal, was discussing with the German Army Chief of Staff Ludendorff, the Chief of the Navy General Staff, and the Chief of the Air Force General Staff Waffle on the question of where Turkey would send troops in the event of a war between Germany and Russia. After more than ten years of construction, Turkey's national strength has been restored and improved to a great extent. The strength of the army has also been improved accordingly, of which the army is based on 3 Turkish armored divisions equipped with German "Stone I" and "Stone II" tanks, supplemented by 31 infantry divisions and 8 independent cavalry brigades armed with German equipment and domestic equipment, with a total strength of about 550,000 troops; Half of the Air Force is equipped with German-made fighters, and half uses the fighters produced by the Ankara aircraft factory established with German assistance, with a total of more than 280 fighters and more than 400 pilots; After the German-American War, the navy has jumped to the third place in the world, with 6 German-made battleships, 1 battleship converted from captured British battleships, 1 battle cruiser, in addition to 2 light aircraft carriers, 35 submarines, and more than 30 light cruisers and destroyers. The country's shipyards are capable of producing light cruisers of up to 3,500 tons, destroyers and torpedo boats and gunboats of up to 1,500 tons, and domestic submarines of the first class are also being built.

Backed by military strength, the Turks hoped that this time they would be able to deal with the Russian Caucasian Army Group alone, and once they occupied the Russian oil field area of Baku, the oil there would follow the model of Iran and Iraq, that is, it would be developed by German capital and provided to Germany first, and Turkey would only charge a thousandth of the "resource use fee" from it.

After possessing the abundant oil resources in Africa and the Gulf region, the German government did not mind that the Baku oil field area was occupied by the Turks, but the German generals were cautious about whether the Turkish army could independently defeat the Caucasus Army, one of the elite of the Russian army. As soon as the Turks lost in this direction. At that time, the main German forces would not be able to divide their forces to support this direction. However, seeing the resolute attitude of the Turks, coupled with Turkey's more than 500,000 local reservists and abundant resources and population. The German generals reluctantly agreed that the Turks should dominate the land offensive alone, and that Germany would send Turkey an additional mixed air wing and a detachment of the Navy's Mediterranean Fleet by February, to which the Turks agreed.

By the end of March, 15 million Euromarks, 100,000 M1903 rifles, 500 Lewis machine guns, 200 cannons and 20 million bullets, 2 million grenades, 200,000 mines, and 20,000 shells had arrived in the Turkish province of Tiflis from Germany.

This batch of arms was quickly transferred to the revolutionary army headed by Stalin, and the revolutionary armed forces, whose morale and vitality had been greatly damaged by the failure of the previous insurrections, were well restored and strengthened. The American Princefield M1903 was not left behind in the confrontation with the Mosin-Nagant 1891 rifle, the standard weapon of the Russian army, and with sufficient guns and ammunition, the revolutionary center led by Stalin quickly organized a large number of revolutionary guards, guerrillas and militias, and the ambition to rise through the insurrection once again filled the chests of these murderers.

End of February. After leaving its home port for almost a year, the German Pacific Fleet returned to Jiaozhou Bay in the Far East. The fleet commanded by Admiral Spee was completely new, and the spectators on the docks of the military port applauded the new warships with powerful firepower and majestic posture. The original three old armored cruisers in the fleet, the "Scharnhorst", "Gneisenau" and "Leipzig", were all retired from active service, and Spee's flagship was replaced by the famous "Thessaloniki" battle cruiser, which has a full load displacement of 370,000 tons, equipped with 674 twin 45 times the diameter of 350 mm guns, and the armored defense and internal structure will continue the style of the German Navy - focusing on survivability, using small compartments, heavy watertight doors, and separate ammunition in the turret.

For the new flagship of the German Pacific Fleet, Japan, the hegemon of the Far East, showed a certain concern. This is because it is a first-class battleship that surpasses the Japanese Kongo-class battlecruisers in terms of firepower, defense, and speed, and it is said that it is also equipped with the latest German shipborne radar. However, this concern did not trigger a hostile attitude towards the Japanese Navy, because they currently have not only four Kongo-class, but also four Amagi-class super-battlecruisers that were put into active service three years ago, and are known as the world's "unprecedented and unprecedented" super battlecruisers, even Germany's best Mackensen-class cannot match them.

In addition, a slightly older battle cruiser in the German Navy, the "Seydlitz", was also transferred to the Pacific Fleet after a major refit. Coupled with the new heavy cruisers "Scharnhorst", "Gneisenau" and "Leipzig", as well as 3 light aircraft carriers, 4 light cruisers, 12 destroyers and a large number of submarines, the strength of the German Pacific Fleet has comprehensively surpassed that of the Russian Pacific Fleet stationed in Vladivostok, and once war breaks out, this fleet will quickly go north to blockade Vladivostok. Even if the Japanese government did not cooperate with the dispatch of troops, there was no reason to obstruct the German navy from blockading Vladivostok.

In Spee's fleet, the Xindi "Scharnhorst" was a super-heavy cruiser between a battle cruiser and an ordinary heavy cruiser. Its standard displacement of 21,000 tons, equipped with three triple 50 times the diameter of 280 mm naval guns, this is the first time that the German Navy has tried a triple turret on a large ship, in terms of firepower, speed and defense, at present, no heavy cruiser in any country can fight against the German "Scharnhorst" alone.

The new "Gneisenau" and "Leipzig" are two 15,500-ton heavy cruisers of the same class, although the displacement is very ordinary, but the unique appearance of the two ships has attracted a lot of attention as soon as it appeared, especially the Japanese Navy across the sea to pay great attention!

The front half of this type of battleship was indistinguishable from that of an ordinary heavy cruiser, with two twin 55-fold diameter 203 mm turrets arranged in front of the main bridge, but behind the chimney.

The rear bridge and rear main guns of the past have been replaced by decks that only exist on aircraft carriers! It is about 60 meters long and 25 meters wide just above the freeboard deck of the battleship. There is no hangar in sight, but there are always several seaplanes on a single wing parked on the deck, equipped with two catapults for aircraft take-off.

Taken visually and from a distance. The "Gneisenau" and "Leipzig" were named "mysterious air battleships" by Japanese spies and sent back to Tokyo, while the Japanese navy's top brass believed that they were test ships prepared by the German Navy for the construction of "air battleships," and if nothing else, the two warships would be tested on the Russians. Under these circumstances, the Japanese Navy paid close attention to these two heavy cruisers on the one hand, and on the other hand, accelerated the progress of the research and development of its own "aviation battleship", and laid the keel of the lead ship at the Yokosuka shipyard in mid-April. And they didn't realize that the biggest threat to them was actually the "German submarine hunters" with superior performance.

In early February, after a winter of cold training in the Alps, the German African colonial army returned to the German hinterland from the mountains, and although more than 20,000 African soldiers were frostbitten and withdrew from the colonial army, the vast majority of the officers and soldiers persevered.

In addition, various weapons of the German Army and Air Force were subjected to rigorous cold tests, especially tanks and armored vehicles of the German armored forces. Weapons that could not be used in freezing conditions or whose performance was severely affected were ordered to be modified or simply abandoned, and although Barbarossa demanded that it be ended before the onset of winter, no one could guarantee that nothing would happen.

Just when the "road construction operation" jointly carried out by the German armed forces was in full swing, an extremely unfortunate news came from Oceania - under the ferocious offensive of 10 elite Japanese army divisions and a large number of naval ships and warplanes, the last independent city in Australia - Adelaide fell, and in addition to New Zealand, which was completely destroyed in November last year, the Japanese army finally occupied Australia and New Zealand, which were rich in natural resources.

Before the fall of the port, three British submarines carrying dozens of military and political dignitaries from Australia and New Zealand embarked on the road to exile in the Americas, they carried the last glimmer of hope for the people of Oceania, and the tearful Australian President Hughes said that before the last enemy was expelled from their homeland, the Australian people will fight unremittingly, even if they want to fight for a hundred years!

Encouraged by this spirit of freedom, the resistance of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers and civilians turned into underground activities and guerrilla warfare.

While plundering a large amount of mineral materials from Oceania, the Japanese government adopted a series of cruel high-pressure ruling policies in order to implement its own colonial rule, and in order to cooperate with this iron and blood rule, the Japanese army had to station more than 100,000 troops in Australia and New Zealand for a long time, and in order to prevent foreign weapons from being transported in, the Japanese navy had no choice but to use nearly one-third of its own light ships to guard and blockade the Australian coast.

Although the fall of Oceania was a little disappointing for Chentian and German Zhenfu, it was not easy for the Australian, New Zealand and British Volunteers to support the powerful Japanese army for so long. After the exile of the Australian and New dignitaries in the Kingdom of Britain, Chen Tian instructed Robert I and the British government to allow them to recruit volunteers in Britain and continue to provide them with funds and weapons assistance.

By the end of April 1928, the friction on the German-Russian border had not escalated into war as expected, and although three German African colonial divisions had been redeployed to the border between German Poland and Russia to strengthen the border defenses, the vast majority of German troops were still stationed in Prussia, Bavaria, Austria and other German hinterlands.

On April 5, at the initiative of Germany, talks were held in Warsaw to eliminate border frictions. At the beginning of the talks, the German representative still had a tough attitude, and put forward disarmament, land cession, reparations and other harsh conditions that were difficult for the Russians to accept, but just when the peace talks were facing failure, the Germans suddenly changed their attitude, and only asked Russia to severely punish the murderers of the previous border friction and reduce the number of border guards. The number of border guards on both sides has been kept at a low level, and a joint military arbitration commission for border areas has been established to resolve disputes between border guards of both sides.

Just when people thought that the dispute between Germany and Russia would turn a big thing into a small thing, the Russian Empress Diana I ordered a large number of troops to be transferred to Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasus on the grounds of exterminating the revolutionary armed forces, and announced that a month-long military exercise would be carried out on the sea near St. Petersburg in the Gulf of Finland, during which no fishing boats or merchant ships were allowed to enter the exercise area, but according to the report of the German long-range reconnaissance plane, the Russians were laying mines in this sea area on a large scale!

Germany, Finland, and Turkey, by contrast, were surprisingly quiet, and the governments of the three countries seemed to ignore a series of military actions by the Russians.