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Unexpectedly, Wu Zhefu reported another matter, which An Yi had been concerned about for a long time, but he had never been at ease, this major event was even more important than getting the French fleet, and the surprise was even greater. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Five months ago (March) in the middle of the night of the 13th, the battleship "Brittany", the heavy cruiser "Algiers", and four super destroyers of the French Navy, escorting two 5,000-ton cargo ships, quietly sailed out of the port of Nantes in western France and entered the Atlantic Ocean under the cover of night.

The fleet's mission was strictly secret, and ordinary officers and soldiers were only known to escort a cargo to the port of Halifax, the largest deep-water port in eastern Canada, where they would be received by a special person. After unloading the cargo, the ship immediately returned to the sea.

When the ship entered the waters bordering the Bilkes Bay and the Atlantic, free from the threat of the German Navy's submarine forces, the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Lasatyr, and several captains breathed a sigh of relief, but then they were worried about the mission.

After receiving orders from their superiors, they immediately rushed to the port of Nantes from all over the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the South Atlantic, but when they entered the area of the Bay of Brève and the mouth of the Loire River off the coast of France, they were attacked by German naval submarines with torpedoes and mines***, and they entered the port a day later than scheduled.

At midnight on the 11th, the fleet entered the port of Nantes and joined up with two loaded cargo ships, but at this time the bay outside the port was again heavily mined by German submarines, and the fog was thick enough to delay the journey for two days.

In the past two days, the bigwigs of the Ministry of Defense, the War Department, and the Admiralty have secretly visited, and at the same time, the "French Naval Federation," the "French Seafarers' Welfare Association," the "French Memorial Foundation," the "French War Immigrants Association," and the "French Brittany Evangelical Society" (most of which have South China backgrounds) have also come to the door one after another, giving promises one after another, and sending a sum of money.

In the case of Lieutenant General Rasatyr, he received three political donations worth a total of 2.5 million francs, as well as several military generals and several political institutions, with the sole intention of taking care of him in the following operations.

Take care!?

True, Vice Admiral Lasatyr and several captains knew the purpose of the trip, which was the huge gold reserves of the Banque de France. Due to the long-term gold standard system of the franc, the entire Bank of France has more than 6,000 tons of gold as reserves, plus the gold deposited by Poland, Belgium and other countries, the total amount is as high as more than 7,000 tons.

On this trip, the two cargo ships escorted by the fleet, loaded with 1,179 tons and 1,820 tons of gold respectively, will be sent to Toronto, Canada. Earlier, on January 20, the heavy cruiser "Turville" had loaded 1,350 tons of gold and headed for Beirut, Lebanon, to diversify the risk.

Among the contacts who came this time were dignitaries from the government, the Admiralty, and the War Department.

According to the other side, Admiral Darlan, the supreme commander of the French navy, declared that this batch of gold must not be sent to Canada, which was controlled by the British, because once the French mainland fell, the British would most likely control this batch of gold, causing France to suffer huge losses, so he hoped that after the fleet left the port, two gold ships would be sunk near the Azov Islands, so as to be salvaged after the war.

The Azore Islands are located in the eastern middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, stretching for more than 650 kilometers, consisting of nine large islands, for a long time, the archipelago has been an important supply point of the Atlantic route, is an important shipping station between Western Europe, South America and West Africa, after the invention of the aircraft in the 20th century, the archipelago has become a fuel supply station for aircraft flying over the Atlantic.

After the outbreak of war in September last year, the area was taken over by the British and French navies, and although the Portuguese government protested many times, it was finally abandoned at the insistence of the British and French.

The Azores region has a suitable sea depth, with islands near and far as coordinates and references, which is convenient for future salvage. The specific plan of action was to be assisted by the Admiralty, and under the pretext of encountering a surprise attack by a German naval submarine, one of the destroyers escorting the ship would launch a torpedo to sink the two cargo ships, and the coordinates would be in the hands of senior Admiralty officials and fleet commander, Vice Admiral Lasatyr, and the officers and men of the Navy who would carry out the mission.

This plan was indeed ordered by Dar Lang himself, but it was carried out at the suggestion of his aid, Lieutenant General Croixdevi, a Jewish high counselor.

Darlan was a typical Frenchman, and since coming to power, he has established a complex mentality in the navy that is both German-hateful and hate-British, and it is this mentality that has led to the dilemma of the French Navy at the critical moment when it was finally forced to choose between German occupation and merging with the British, creating an organic opportunity for the South China Republic to intervene.

Darlan had his own intentions, and the gold sent to Canada was not only controlled by the French government, but also restricted by the British, which in Darlan's view, was almost unacceptable. However, if it is sunk in a sea area that only a few people know, then this batch of gold can be controlled by the navy, specifically in the hands of Darlan, and the situation also makes sense, the pervasive submarines of Germany, even the battleships and aircraft carriers of the British can be destroyed, is there anything strange about sending away two cargo ships?

Orders were then given secretly from the Admiralty, for which a staff team of about twenty men entered the fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Rasatyr. No one knew that most of the staff officers of this group of more than 20 people were divided and co-opted by the intelligence agencies in South China, and the key figure was Lieutenant General Crovadwe.

The submarine attack on the French fleet when it entered the Bay of Brève and the Loire estuary was actually composed of the South Chinese Navy's 3,304-ton "Alligator" large cruiser submarine (the former French Navy's "Sukuf" submarine) as its flagship, two "Chinese Sturgeon" 3,500-ton ocean-going underwater transport ships, and ten 800-ton "Swordfish" class submarines.

At present, there are several such special submarine fleets active between the Atlantic coast of Europe and the Americas, the west coast of the United States in the Pacific Ocean, and the mainland of South China, mainly for the smuggling of counterfeit money, arms, controlled and contraband, and if necessary, they do not hesitate to launch attacks to obtain profits.

In view of the chaotic political situation in France, the "Golden Peony" plan has been in place since before the outbreak of the European war last year.

The Atlantic Diving Fleet departed from its submarine base in Yalong Bay in South China in October last year and arrived off the coast of Europe in early January this year to carry out a mission. In mid-February, the shipyard funded by a Chinese consortium on the west coast of the United States in the port of Funchal in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira was undergoing overhauls, and then the submarine formation went north into French waters in the best condition and began to carry out the "Golden Peony" plan carefully organized by the intelligence system.

One of the important steps of the "Golden Peony" plan was to delay the entry of cargo ships and warships into the port of Nantes, where the gold of the Banque de France in Paris arrived.

The French are romantic, and they do things in a big way, and the leakage of the design data of the Mirage fighter that the French government and army in later generations believe that it is impossible to make a mistake is a big problem in the destruction of data.

At that time, an aircraft designer of the Phantom Company thought that the batch of fighter design materials, which totaled two rooms, could be sold for a good price, so he suggested to the government and the military that the materials should be kept in the space occupied by the aircraft company, and because of the high cost of secrecy and storage, it would be better to take photos and archive them and destroy them.

The French government and army approved this proposal and sent a special person to supervise the implementation of the matter. The French were indeed very cautious, supervising every step of the photograph, confirming that only one copy of the negatives had been taken away by the military, and supervising the burning of the materials throughout the process. But no one knew that after the photographs were taken, the materials were immediately discarded with waste paper of the same specification and worn-out degree, so it seemed that all the supervision steps were meticulously executed, but the real information was taken away by the accomplices of the aircraft designers in the name of purchasing waste paper.

The entire process of destroying the drawings took two months, during which there would be no problems as long as the government and military personnel were careful and carefully proofread the destroyed aircraft design drawings. As a result, no one found out that the data had been stolen and replaced, and finally these aircraft design drawings were bought by Israel at a high price, specifically to improve the weaknesses of the Mirage fighters, resulting in the defeat of the Arab coalition air force in the Middle East war.

In the "Golden Peony" plan, the performance of the French is equally impressive.

The Banque de France staff sent the gold to the docks and handed it over to the navy for safekeeping, and Nantes was famous for its wines, as were its taverns, nightclubs, and bewitching prostitutes, who were already preoccupied with timely pleasures, and did not think that anyone would do anything under such a tight defense, and only had to wait until they returned to the docks the next day to supervise the gold on board. When the fleet crosses the Atlantic to Canada, the Banque de France staff in Halifax will be in charge of the next step, and they have no direct connection with it.

As a result, on the evening of the 9th, when the box containing gold was delivered to the port of Nantes, the Nanhua agents, who were connected to the warehouse where the gold was stored, quickly exchanged the gold with brass of the same specification, and in order to cope with the inspection of the bank personnel, they did not open the box to inspect the box of gold (the rest of the gold was locked in the iron box), and the whole process took five hours to complete, during which not a single French naval officer or bank clerk thought to visit the warehouse.

On 10 March, the "gold" that had been dropped was put on two cargo ships, and on the 11th the gold ship joined the fleet and sailed out on the 13th.

The second step of the "Golden Peony" plan was to encourage the navy to move in the Azores and destroy the corpses.

In this way, when the salvage is found in the future, the situation is wrong, and no one will know how this trick has changed.

On March 16, the fleet successfully arrived in the Azores.

After determining the target, Vice Admiral Lasatel first disembarked the crews of the two cargo ships, and then ordered the super-destroyer "Triumph" to sink the two cargo ships loaded with "gold".

Two hours after the sinking of the cargo ship, Vice Admiral Lasatyr sent the "bad news" to the Admiralty, the Ministry of Defense and the Daladier Cabinet: two gold ships were sunk in the Azyr Islands by the abominable German submarines! However, the Navy has recorded the location of the golden ship in detail, and it only needs to wait for the government to organize the salvage.

At this time, Daladier was facing internal and external troubles, and where could he still have the energy to take care of this matter, so he instructed the Ministry of Defense and the Admiralty to deal with it themselves. And Daladier himself held the post of Minister of Defense, so the matter actually fell to Admiral Darlan, Chief of Staff of the Navy.

Darlan did not want the gold to fall into the hands of the British, but fearing that the fleet would be criticized by the government and the media when it returned home, so he ordered the fleet to continue to Martinique in the Caribbean Sea to protect the French colonies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In June, the Germans broke through the Maginot Line, and Paris was confirmed to be no longer safe, and the Renault government ordered gold from French banks to be sent to Algiers and Casablanca in North Africa and Dakar in East Africa, with the largest amount of gold being sent to Martinique in the Caribbean for safekeeping.

Martinique is located in the northernmost part of the Windward Islands of the Antilles in the Caribbean Sea between the two continents of South America and North America, covering an area of about 1,100 square kilometers, with beautiful natural scenery, volcanoes and beaches, rich in sugar cane, palm trees, bananas and pineapples and other plants, once known as "the most beautiful country in the world" by Columbus.

Martinique was in the hands of the French as early as the 17th century, and by the outbreak of World War II, Martinique was the largest French military port and garrison in Latin America.

The total amount of gold sent to Martinique was as high as 3,126 tons, which were carried by the aircraft carrier "Béarn" and two light cruisers "Joan of Arc", "Love. USS Beltin and four destroyers on escort duty. On June 4, the gold was hastily loaded onto a ship at the port of Bordeaux and immediately left for the Americas.

No one knew that the gold had been dropped before it was put on board, and on June 25, the fleet arrived in Martinique without incident, but due to the armistice signed between the French Provisional Government and Germany and Italy on this day, the British and American fleets were wary of the French fleet in Martinique, and the clouds of war hung over the French colonies in the Americas.

The total of these two batches of gold is more than 6,000 tons, accounting for almost 77% of the total gold in France. Throughout the operation, the three major intelligence organizations of the Anyi Group cooperated with each other, using more than 1,200 intelligence personnel, and the government, army, banks, railways, docks and warehouses and other places all had their own people, tracking the movement of the gold throughout the whole process, and finally took down the gold without danger.

However, the "Golden Peony" project does not end there.

After all, it is very difficult to secretly transport so much gold back to China. The gold obtained from the port of Nantes had been sent to the Portuguese port of Funchal for secret storage, and in mid-June, together with the gold obtained from Bordeaux, it was all transported to a submarine and embarked on the road home under the cover of the American merchant fleet.

Due to the increased inspection of the Atlantic route by the British, they stopped and stopped along the way, and by the time they passed the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, it was already early July.

Subsequently, when the fleet was on the road again, and due to the surrender of the French government, the French navy, which controlled the west coast of the Indian Ocean, was full of vigilance against the British and Americans, and as a result, the French navy sent ships to inspect the section from the Cape of Good Hope to Madagascar, and the movement could be described as turtle speed, and it was only in mid-July that the journey across the Indian Ocean began.

At this time, the *** Navy had completely controlled the hegemony of the Indian Ocean, and the submarine fleet stumbled all the way, and only after reaching the waters east of the island of Diego Garcia did it part ways with the merchant fleet and embark on the road home alone.

The good news reported by Wu Zhefu is that the submarine fleet has entered the waters of the Beibu Gulf and is expected to enter the Yalong Bay Naval Base this evening.

An Yi walked around excitedly, and said again and again:

"Gold is a devil, enough to drive anyone crazy! French gold is the product of hundreds of years of global colonization, including the efforts of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America, including Chinese, and was an important pillar for France to maintain the world's third largest economy before the war, and now, most of this gold has fallen into our hands...... With so much gold as collateral, we can issue at least another 20 billion Chinese dollars!

"No! I want to reward them and give credit to all those involved in the operation! The successful completion of the 'Golden Peony' plan is the result of the close cooperation and cooperation of our various intelligence departments, and it can be said that it is an unprecedented large-scale exercise in the intelligence and military systems. ”

It was the first time for Du Yi, Shen Fengdao and Wu Zhefu to see An Yi so excited and looked at each other, but each of them had a proud smile on their faces.

An Yi does have a reason to be excited.

If history had not changed, all the gold that the French had shipped to the Americas would have ended up in the pockets of the Americans, plus the British gold reserves worth eight billion dollars (more than 8,000 tons of gold), which would have been turned into guns, warships and planes for Britain and the Free France by the end of World War II.

After the war, the United States relied on this gold, and pushed the dollar to the king of currencies on the grounds that Eurasian countries lacked sufficient gold reserves and could not maintain their currency credibility, while the dollar became unprecedentedly stable because of the huge strength of its international gold reserves. You must know that in order to promote the development of the global economy, it is necessary to require a unified currency, gold as the most important currency for international settlement, has an irreplaceable role in restoring economic stability, but now Eurasian countries do not have enough gold, so the Americans will lend them the dollar with a gold background for them to issue currency, but the Eurasian countries must put their gold in the US central bank, through the exchange ratio with the US dollar, to determine the value of each country's currency. So, in this way, the dollar officially became the settlement currency, and between the coming and going, the dollar officially gave the symbol of gold, commonly known as the US dollar, and all national trade must be settled in US dollars, and the United States has secured the position of global economic hegemon.

However, now South China, due to trade with Britain and France, has successfully arbitraged more than 800 tons (about 800 million US dollars) of gold, of course, in order to stabilize the value of the currency, Britain and France are not afraid to use monetary reserves, so the later trade is in the form of debt.

However, with the fall of France, the British could no longer manage so much, it would take half a year for the US Army to be armed, and even a year for the Air Force, and only South China had the arms that John Bull needed most, so Britain resumed paying with gold again, and a large number of weapons and equipment frantically poured into Britain. By now, in less than two months, Nanhua has earned 300 tons of gold (about $300 million).

It can be said that this is completely a trade and financial war, and everything revolves around the fully mobilized military industry in South China.

So far, there are as many as tens of thousands of factories involved in military production in Nanhua, and due to the use of standardized production, similar weapons can be assembled with each other, which greatly saves production time. In particular, a total of 984 aircraft assembly and spare parts factories built in Syria, Luzhou, Zhaotong, Gejiu, Taiyuan, Haiphong, Xinjing, Vinh, Hue, Bac Ninh, and Taiping are the top priority of Nanhua's military industry.

Just when An Yi was thinking about it, Du Yi said with some regret:

"It's a pity, that is, France, it is difficult for Britain and Germany to penetrate into it, their military and political systems are very strict, coupled with the unity of thought, the same pace, not at all like the French, like a plate of scattered sand, even in the end, did not form a unified voice! According to our intelligence department's analysis of the situation in North America and Britain, Britain has been transferring gold and securities to North America on a large scale, but Hitler has not noticed the small actions of the British, and is still bombing Britain indiscriminately. ”

An Yi nodded, he knew that the British and Germans were not so calculating, so they could only rely on normal trade to make a profit.

Now the Battle of Britain is in full swing, the largest air battle in history, completely dyeing the skies over the British Isles completely blood-red.

Germany's first large-scale air war against Britain began as early as early July, and before the large-scale air war, German planes at various airports in France and Belgium continued to use reconnaissance and exploratory attacks to harass British convoys in the English Channel and British southern ports, and then, throughout July and early August, Germany dispatched a total of more than 5,230 planes with the core purpose of destroying the British Royal Air Force, including S3 high-altitude reconnaissance planes, A25 and A26 fighters provided technology by South China, Mosquito fighters and bombers, ab26 medium-range bombers.

Of course, these planes have been partially modified in appearance to be more in line with the aesthetics of the Germans, and at the same time they have taken official German names, and the British do not yet know that the fighters equipped by the Luftwaffe actually contain the content of Nanhua's aircraft manufacturing technology.

So far, all the ground radar stations of the British facing the European continent, the shipyards and ports in the eastern and southern regions, the important industrial bases and military factories have all been devastated, but because the British purchased the A25, GI (Mosquito), G2 (AB26 foreign trade) and the latest G3 (A27 foreign trade) fighters manufactured in large quantities in South China in time, the Germans did not completely control air supremacy.

There is another important reason, the British fought on their homeland, and the pilots could be rescued in time after parachuting, but after the German pilots landed, they were all arrested and even killed by the angry British people, so the losses of the Germans were very large, and there is a faint phenomenon that can not be maintained.

However, in general, the Luftwaffe dealt a greater blow to the British, and the direct consequence was that Britain could not produce guns and aircraft on its own, and could only rely on foreign trade imports, which was also the main reason for the large increase in South China's foreign trade volume in the past few months!

To the exhilaration, the Germans were thrilled that their air force had destroyed the town of Bletchley in Keynes, Milton, England, sending all the codebreaking geniuses of the British to heaven, and Hitler, after receiving the exact report from the air force in Berlin, publicly stated that the nightmare that had been pressing on his heart had finally disappeared and that he could sleep well.

~~~~~~~~~~

A.M.A., it must be said, the French are really not rigorous, there are serious problems in many respects! Therefore, from the perspective of that era, with the help of the Jews, the Golden Peony Project should have a chance of success, and of course it will not be as childish as written in this chapter.

Finally, it's January 5th, and it's almost the fifth of January.,Double *** will end soon.,Everyone has *** remember to vote for "Iron Bone".,Thank you!