readx;

Chapter 1723 Trading and Intelligence

After Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September last year, the peace shown by the two sides in the strange war on the Western Front could not hide the tension that pervaded the Atlantic. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

On the same day that Britain and France declared war on Germany, Admiral Linp, the captain of the German U30 boat, discovered that a British ship leaving the usual route had not lit its lights according to the regulations, and was sailing in a "Z" shape, believing it to be a transport ship, fired a torpedo and sank it, and 128 lives were buried at the bottom of the sea along with the ship. As a result, the ship was a passenger ship "Athena" bound for the United States, and most of the people who died were civilians. This accidental attack opened the prelude to the Battle of the Atlantic.

On 14 September, the British aircraft carrier HMS Royal Ark sailed in the waters northwest of the Heblin Islands. The U39 boat under the command of Major Gladys of the German Navy happened to encounter the ship, and the U39 boat desperately fired torpedoes. However, although the submarine used an advanced magnetic explosive torpedo, it was extremely unfortunate to lose control and cause an early outbreak, which only caused the paint of the aircraft carrier to peel off. Subsequently, the destroyer escorting the aircraft carrier sank the U39 boat and captured all the personnel on board.

Three days later, the attack of the German U29 boat was an unexpected success.

The captain, Major Schuhard, was waiting for the British ship to take the bait on the western side of the English Channel, and soon after, a 10,000-ton passenger liner was spotted in the periscope of the U29 boat, and a escort plane was spotted flying above the passenger ship, so the major judged that the attack on the passenger ship was legitimate. But when he gave the order to fire a torpedo, the liner suddenly changed direction, and due to its extremely high speed, the U29 boat, which was slow underwater, could not pursue, and it was worth surfacing to move as fast as possible in an attempt to launch an offensive at the appropriate firing point in front.

Before ascending, Major Thuhald's periscope spotted a black dot on the port side of the horizon, and upon closer inspection, it was confirmed that it was a huge aircraft carrier. Two hours later, the aircraft carrier came into torpedo range, and Major Schuhald seized the opportunity to aim at the target by visual inspection, firing three torpedoes in quick succession, while quickly making a deep dive to avoid the attack of the frigate. The British Navy's aircraft carrier "Callegias" and its captain, including its captain, were all sunk in the blue water.

In the early morning of 14 October, the German U47 submarine infiltrated the main anchorage of the British Royal Fleet in Sparka Bay and sank the "Sovereign-class" battleship "Royal Oak", killing 786 officers and men, including the commander of the British Second Fleet, Admiral Grove, and the captain of the "Royal Oak."

On 30 October, British Admiral Winston Churchill was on his way to Scapa Bay on the battleship "Nelson", the flagship of Admiral Booth, when he was attacked by the German submarines U56 and U59.

But Churchill's luck was once again extreme, and only 126 of the ship's 1,640 crew members were rescued, less than a tenth of the total number, but Churchill was one of them. The fat, pot-bellied man, who didn't know why, didn't feel very sure, went to the bow of the boat and looked around with a telescope, trying to find the source of his uneasiness. As a result, when the torpedo hit the "Nelson", the bow of the ship was raised high, and it was thrown into the icy water, and it was rescued by a destroyer following the battleship "Nelson", and fortunately escaped.

By the end of last year, Germany had sunk more than 150 merchant ships with a total tonnage of 780,000 tons at the cost of nine submarines, and in January this year, it sank another 40 ships, amounting to 120,000 tons, and by February it had reached 45 ships totaling 170,000 tons.

It is precisely because of the strong containment of the German Navy that the British Royal Navy must deploy a large number of warships to defend the mainland, and at the same time seal the North Sea and tie the hands and feet of the German Navy, so it can only barely cope with the aggressive offensive launched by the Navy in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Germany, Obersalzburg Hill near Berchtesgaden, Hitler's Palace.

On this morning, Hitler, who had spent the night with his lover Eva, was in a sweet dream, and his personal attendant Ringer shouted outside the door: "Good morning, my Führer!" It's time for you to get up. Newspapers and newsletters were then placed in front of the door.

Hitler got up in his pajamas, opened the door and picked up the newspapers and press bulletins, returned to the bedroom, sat down on the sofa, took a quick look at it, and found that it was all boring news, so he threw it down and walked alone to the huge floor-to-ceiling window of the bedroom, overlooking the Alps, and calmly thinking about the next battle against Denmark and Norway.

After about half an hour, Hitler rang the bell and called for breakfast to be served, and Ringer brought a glass of milk and some bread made according to a particular recipe to the table.

After breakfast, the personal bodyguard Hans. Radden Huber came to report that SS lieutenant Reinhard. Heydrich came to meet him, and he brought a Chinese with him.

"Chinese?"

Hitler suddenly remembered that Heydrich, who was still in Berlin last night, had mentioned to him on the phone that he would bring Zhou Chong'an, vice premier and finance minister of the South China Council, to meet him today. At present, the strategic materials urgently needed by Germany, especially tungsten, antimony, tin and other non-ferrous metals are mainly provided by South China, and the Chinese have a lot of activity ability in Germany, not to mention anything else, just the discovery of the oil fields in northern Germany and the Libyan oil fields in North Africa has great benefits to Germany and its ally Italy, so the density of Germany and the Chinese is not known to be many times stronger than in real history.

Hitler was dressed neatly and felt that the whole person was new, and Eva got up lazily, and Hitler kissed Eva on the cheek, and came to the meeting room full of energy.

Reinhard. When Heydrich saw Hitler, he quickly stood up and stretched out his right hand to salute, and Zhou Chongan stood up with a smile on his face, bowing slightly.

Hitler walked to Zhou Chong'an's side, took the initiative to stretch out his hand, and said with a smile: "I have been friends with Chairman An Yi, the leader of your country, and General Yin Jinan, the governor of your country, for many years, and I heard that Mr. Zhou is the brother-in-law of Chairman An Yi, and he is in charge of Nanhua's money bag, this meeting, it is an honor!" ”

Zhou Chongan always thought that Hitler was a war maniac, his character must be indifferent and ruthless, and the atmosphere of the meeting must be very bad, but when he saw it this time, he found that this leader who had been praised by the Germans on the stage of the gods, with a kind smile on his face, gave people a feeling of spring breeze, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart, this is the true character of the hero.

Zhou Chongan shook Hitler's hand heavily and said in skilful and sincere German:

"Führer, allow me to extend cordial greetings to the Führer on behalf of Chairman An Yi and Deputy Marshal General Yin Jinan, the Supreme Commander of our country. Chairman An Yi said that when he visited Europe, he had a heated discussion with the head of state on the future of Germany and the world, predicting that the rejuvenation of the Germanic nation and the Chinese nation would become an irresistible trend.

General Yin Jinan said that the future of Germany is in the hands of the Führer, when General Yin left Berlin, he had made suggestions on the future development strategy of Germany, and what the Führer is doing now has far exceeded his expectations, for which General Yin feels great admiration and gratification. General Yin asked me to tell the Führer that the points he suggested that the Führer should pay attention to are still the points that must be paid full attention to at present, as long as Germany can maintain a single-line battle, protect experienced veterans as much as possible, and use more brains on the resource supply ground, it will be able to fully occupy the initiative in future wars! ”

Hitler couldn't help but recall that before he took power in Germany, An Yi generously sponsored the German National Socialist Workers' Party with a huge amount of money, and gave a little to himself who was in trouble and confused at that time, so that he was more determined to lead the Germanic nation to glory, which led to today's achievements. During his tenure as military attache in Germany, Yin Jinan did his best to help him design a path of rapid rise in the gap between Britain and France.

Thinking of this, Hitler pulled Zhou Chongan to sit down on the sofa and asked with a smile: "I don't know what Mr. Zhou is going to Germany for this time?" If you need my help, I will do my best! ”

Zhou Chongan said with a smile: "I came to Germany this time mainly for a batch of submarines in our hands. We received seventy-eight submarines from the Navy of the Far Eastern Republic, which were built entirely with advanced technologies and processes supplied by Germany, and were the sister submarines of the German U-boats, so to speak.

"The year before last, we obtained the manufacturing drawings of U-boats from Germany, and so far we have produced 24 U-boats, and it is expected that by the end of the year there will be more than 60 U-boats. Our current navy can no longer accommodate so many submarines, but at the same time, Germany is unable to block Britain's communication with the outside world because of the lack of combat submarines. I think we can work together on that. ”

Hitler's eyes lit up. According to the naval agreement signed between Germany and Great Britain four years earlier, the Admiralty's plan for building the "Z" ship foresaw that by 1945 Germany would be able to build only six battleships, eight cruisers, four aircraft carriers, and 233 U-boats.

As a result, when the war broke out last year, only 46 of the 56 U-boats commanded by Dönitz, commander-in-chief of the Navy's submarine forces, were able to participate in combat operations, of which only 22 were operating in the Atlantic, and the rest were small UII boats, which could only be used in operations in the North Sea because of their limited endurance.

Dönitz studied the relationship between the mission of the U-boat and the size of the boat, and believed that if you want to attack a fleet with escort forces, the large U-boat is much superior to the small U-boat in terms of speed, torpedo load, taste ability, and endurance distance, but the small U-boat has the advantage of having a small radius to turn, and in case of emergency, it can quickly sneak quickly, and even if it surfaces, it is more difficult to be detected by the enemy.

At the same time, with the resources of building one large U-boat, it is possible to build four small U-boats, and it is obvious that four small U-boats are more powerful than one large U-boat, because once several small U-boats are scattered over a wide sea surface at the same time, the rate of encounters with enemy ships will be increased. Considering the above factors, Dönitz determined that the displacement of each U-boat was 500 tonnage, which was the largest number of Type VII submarines in the German Navy.

Dönitz was extremely dissatisfied with the current number of submarines, and he repeatedly complained in front of Hitler that if he could be given 300 U-boats, then he would be able to deal a fatal blow to the Allies as soon as possible. His plan was to use 100 ships to attack the enemy fleet, 100 ships to travel between the battlefield and the base, and another 100 ships to be refurbished at the base.

Hitler knew very well that if he could keep 100 U-boats on the front line on a regular basis, it would not be difficult for Germany to cut off the British trade routes, which were the lifeline of the British people, and once cut off, it would not be difficult to destroy the British economy, disintegrate the morale of the British people, and subdue Britain.

"I don't know what you're asking for?" Hitler groaned and asked quietly.

Zhou Chong'an explained: "A brand-new U-boat, in terms of hull alone, costs about $2,500 per ton, and the surface displacement of the C-class medium submarine equipped by the Navy of the Far Eastern Republic is 1,070 tons, and the cost is $2,675,000, and we have eight submarines of this type; The surface displacement of the J-class submarine is 924 tons, and the cost is 2,310,000 US dollars, and we have twelve submarines of this type; The surface displacement of the K-class submarine is 1,480 tons, and the cost is 3,700,000 dollars, and we have twenty-two submarines of this type; The surface displacement of M-class submarines is 420 tons, and the cost is 1,050,000 US dollars, and we have 36 submarines of this type.

"All these submarines are built with German technology, using all-fusion welded high-strength steel pressure-resistant shells, strong battery capacity, and all torpedo tubes are of German standard, which can be put into use when driven back to Germany. Generally speaking, the power and weapon systems account for half of the overall cost of the ship, but given that these ships are all old ships, we can only calculate the cost of the hull. I wonder what the Führer has to say about this? ”

Hitler quickly calculated in his mind.

Nanhua's offer is very fair, according to the budget of the Admiralty, the cost of submarines per ton is now about 3,200 US dollars, and the quotation provided by Nanhua is obviously the price before the outbreak of the war; with Britain and France declaring war on Germany, the price of weapons in the international arms market has risen by at least 40 to 50 percent, and for Germany, money cannot buy anything, and now the other side has also given weapons and equipment, which is almost half cheaper than building it itself.

What is especially crucial is that even if the major German shipyards seize the time to start construction now, they will be able to build so many submarines by the end of the year, and now they can be obtained by paying only a sum of money, and it is even possible to catch up with the operation against Norway in April, which is nothing more exciting.

Zhou Chong'an saw that Hitler was still pondering, thinking that he disliked these submarines as old ships, and said: "We calculated before we came, the total price of these submarines is about 169 million US dollars, we only need to pay the equivalent of 100 million US dollars in gold or silver, and the rest should be regarded as a thank you to the German Empire for the convenience provided to us in taking care of our Chinese diaspora and relocating Jews!" ”

Now Hitler felt more comfortable.

You must know that from three to three years to the present, the Nazi tax authorities have been actively engaged in the "elimination of the Jewish economy", plundering and misappropriating the wealth of Jews in Germany, and those Jews who wanted to flee had to leave behind all their property, which was collected in the form of a so-called "export tax".

To date, nearly 80 billion Reichsmarks, or $32 billion, have been looted and looted from the Jews, and the looted and confiscated property of the Jews provided one-third of the financial guarantee for Germany to wage war.

"Okay, that's it!"

Hitler smiled: "With these submarines, the waist of the Imperial Navy will be much harder, and I now doubt that when these submarines infested the Atlantic, Chamberlain's weak fellow would be so frightened that he peed his pants." When, where, and how will these submarines be handed over? ”

Zhou Chongan said with a smile: "Now that the route between Syria and Berlin is unimpeded, the head of state can directly send submarine members to Syria, and then transfer to the naval submarine base in Haiphong Port in Nanhua to receive them." However, the Führer has to say hello to the *** side, and now that the *** Navy controls the Strait of Malacca and the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, the Führer's submarine forces cannot return to Germany without their help. ”

Hitler nodded, did not dwell too much on the details, and apparently had great confidence in negotiating with the Japanese side.

Reinhard. Heydrich had been silent before, and when he saw that the two had finished talking about business, he whispered to Hitler: "Führer, Mr. Zhou has told me a top-secret piece of information, and I feel that the matter is important and must be reported to you in person!" ”

"Huh!?"

Hitler looked at Heydrich suspiciously, and then at Zhou Chong'an.

When Heydrich saw it, he knew that Hitler wanted Zhou Chongan to explain it himself, so he kept silent. Zhou Chongan's expression became extremely solemn, and he whispered:

"Since the advent of radio and Morse code, military communications have entered a new era, but radio communication is completely an open system, and while the other side accepts the message, the other party can also 'see it at a glance', so the ciphers that appeared with wars in human history were immediately combined with radio, and radio codes appeared. Until the end of the last European competition, all radio ciphers were coded by hand.

"Twenty-one years ago, the German inventor Arthur . Shelbius founded a new technology application company, Shelbius, who had studied electrical applications, used modern electrical technology to replace manual coding encryption methods, and invented a machine that can automatically encode, which is the 'Enigma' cipher machine, which was officially equipped by the German Navy thirteen years ago, and two years later the 'Enigma' cipher machine entered the army......"

Hitler interrupted Zhou Chong'an's words and said with some doubts: "Zhou, do you want to say that there is a problem with our 'Enigma' cipher machine?" However, after I became prime minister, I organized an expert group of physicists and mathematicians to evaluate the use of the 'Enigma' cipher machine, which was found to be portable, easy to use, and more importantly, extremely secure. For the enemy, even if he has a cipher machine, if he cannot grasp the key composed of three lines of defense at the same time, it will not be able to decipher.

"I also asked the military for their opinion, the head of the communications department, Erich. Colonel Voergibert considered the 'Enigma' to be the most perfect means of communication for the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg. It is precisely because of this that from our high command to the army, navy and air force, we have widely used 'Enigma' as a standard cipher machine. If you tell me now that it has been decrypted by the enemy, I'm afraid it won't be convincing! ”

"I also hope that our intelligence sources are wrong!"

Zhou Chongan spread out his hands and made a helpless expression: "Among the intelligence officers we recruited, there are a large number of former British and French intelligence personnel, they are all victims of the economic crisis, and the series of information they provided to us before has not gone wrong until now.

"It all started eight years ago, on November 8, when a French intelligence officer and the younger brother of the German communications chief, Hanstiro. Schmidt joints in Belgium. For some reason, Schmidt, who worked in the cipher department, was disgusted with his homeland and went so far as to provide French intelligence officers with two pieces of information about the operation of the 'Enigma' cipher machine and the internal wiring of the rotor. However, at that time, the French intelligence services did not decipher the code, because one of the design requirements of the cipher machine was to have a high degree of secrecy after the machine was seized. At that time, the French believed that because the Treaty of Versailles restricted the development of the German army, even if they could not decipher the German code, they would not suffer much if they met on the battlefield in the future, so after coming to the conclusion that the German code was "indecipherable", they never studied it carefully.

"Unlike the French, Poland, which became independent after the last European war, has a strong sense of crisis, and their leaders need to know the internal information of Germany that has been cut off from many territories, and this precarious situation has created a large number of excellent cryptographers in Poland, who can easily monitor the communication system of the German team, because Poland has signed a military cooperation agreement with France, at the insistence of Poland, France handed over the information obtained from Schmidt to the Poles, and the Poles took this as a breakthrough, Partially deciphered the 'Enigma' cipher machine.

"After the defeat of Poland last year, the Polish government brought the secret of the cipher machine to the United Kingdom, and the British government immediately set up a special code-breaking agency in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, Bletchley Town, and all the ciphers and cipher files intercepted from Germany, Italy and *** will be sent there for decoding processing. There is a cryptography school in Bletchley Park that trains decoding talents, while the intelligence services of the Admiralty, Military and Air Departments occupy the ground floor of the main house, and the top floor of the main house becomes the territory of MI6. In addition, the estate is equipped with a telecommunications department, a teletypewriter room, a kitchen and a dining room for the use of staff. The Amas Boarding School for Boys, adjacent to the estate, was also requisitioned by the commercial and diplomatic departments of the government school of cryptography.

"According to the information we have, the German Navy uses the 'Enigma' aircraft to transmit all top-secret combat orders, and each submarine is equipped with one. In the British *** the sixth director of the Department of Peace. Under the leadership of General Sinclair, the cipher system of the 'Enigma' aircraft was deciphered by Air Force Colonel Winter Burnham, and although it was not comprehensive enough, it was able to make a more accurate judgment on the content of the message based on the deciphered signal, the secret level, and the location of the report. There is reason to believe that it will not be long before the British will be able to completely decipher the code, so that the message transmitted by the 'Enigma' machine will become the guiding light of the British Navy! ”

When Hitler heard Zhou Chong'an tell the truth, about the time, place, and person, he knew that the situation was true and credible, and immediately tasted the risks contained in it, and his face turned red.

All along, Hitler was an extremely emotional person, because of the anger in his chest, he suddenly stood up, paced back and forth, and finally faced Heydrich and Zhou Chong'an, waving his fists and roaring loudly: "Damn, really hateful, Schmidt's behavior is completely shameless against Germany and the Germanic nation, and traitors must accept God's punishment......"

After half an hour of chattering and scolding, Hitler's tone was a little calmer, and he shook his head again and again: "No, the 'Enigma' machine is no longer reliable, I will not allow every move of our army to fall into the eyes of the British and French, we must update our cipher system......"

In addition, he is also preparing to go to Sweden and Switzerland to buy the production licenses of the 40-mm anti-aircraft guns of the Swedish Bofors Company and the 20mm anti-aircraft guns of the Swiss Erlikon Company, respectively, and these two air defense weapons are highly regarded by Zhang Xianchu, a ship expert who has returned from studying in the United States, believing that the performance is more advanced and reliable than the air defense weapons equipped by the navy now, so An Yi asked Zhou Chongan to get things done together.

Before coming, An Yi had already reminded Zhou Chongan about Hitler's possible schizophrenic symptoms, so in the face of Hitler's hysteria, Zhou Chong'an's face was not shocked, and when Hitler calmed down, he said in an orderly manner:

"As friends, we also hope that Germany will improve the cryptography system of the military and the government and the diplomatic service, so as to ensure the secrecy of military and diplomatic operations. The cipher machine adopted by our Nanhua is very similar to the German 'Enigma' machine, which uses a runner, but the turntable of the 'Enigma' machine, whether it is three or four, is rotated in order, and then drives the turntable next to it, which is relatively simple in mechanical action and easy to be cracked.

"Our cipher machine has fifteen turntables, ten of which can be taken out and rearranged, loaded into different positions, the direction of rotation of the turntable can be forward, or backward, after any keyboard is knocked down, there may be more than one turntable rotation, such a complex mechanical action, making it seem to change randomly, greatly increasing the difficulty of the enemy when cracking. But even so, we still change our password system frequently, leaving the enemy with no chance to take advantage of it. I think this may be a reference for Germany's new cipher machine. ”

Hitler shook his head and looked at it with a rare look of gratitude. He knew very well in his heart what this important information provided by the South China side meant to Germany, and now that the German chariot had started at high speed, it was too late to brake, and it was difficult for Hitler to imagine that if the movement of the army was in the hands of the enemy, how could he still win the victory?

Zhou Chongan is still light and breezy.

Cooperation with Germany is inherently a mutual use. Nanhua needs Germany to charge forward and completely destroy the old order, while Nanhua will obtain sufficient development funds from Germany through the sale of resources and arms, and quickly narrow the industrial gap with the United States and Germany through the continuous replication and expansion of the industrial chain, and then clean up the mess when the situation is clear, so as to obtain the maximum benefits.

~~~~~~~

: Go home the day after tomorrow, ask for a subscription and *** warm up! Hope you don't fall too far behind!