Just after the Chinese New Year, the world's eyes have shifted from Singapore to Turkey. Following Hitler's final warning to Turkey, China, the United States, and Britain also issued an ultimatum to the Vichy government in France at the same time. Roosevelt changed his previous policy of leniency towards Vichy France, and for the first time stated in his address to Congress that Vichy France was becoming an accomplice of the Nazis, and at the same time made it clear that all should be careful of the union of "pan-European socialism"! In the end, he sternly demanded that French Syria and all French overseas colonies lay down their arms and accept Allied jurisdiction, and stressed once again that every effort would be made to ensure the neutrality of the Turkish government, and that any aggression against Turkey would be seen as an attack on the Allied forces!

It must be admitted that with the developed media culture of Europe and the United States, Roosevelt's voice was obviously louder than Yang Qiu's, so the term "pan-European socialism" became the new favorite of the media in various countries for a while, and the spearhead was even more directed at Germany and the Soviet Union. At Roosevelt's behest, American newspapers began to report extensively on the Soviet Union's export of oil, steel, and other important materials to Germany. As soon as the news came out, it immediately caused an uproar, and in the eyes of the angry Americans, Moscow seemed to have become the biggest accomplice in the murder of their soldiers.

At this time, the news of the unknown whereabouts of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet after leaving the port turned the Black Sea upside down in an instant.

As the second largest military force on the Black Sea coast, the Ottoman yellow flower has long since withered, the "Stern" battlecruiser (formerly the German Goben) and the "Abdullah Hamid II" cruiser (built by the British in 1903) are both old ships thirty years ago, the latest two "Adatepe" class destroyers are also small warships built in Italy in 1931, and even the four Class I destroyers ordered from the United Kingdom have also been requisitioned by the Royal Navy. On the other hand, the opponent of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, although the battleships are also the "Paris Commune" left over from the last war, there are 5 cruisers, namely the "Red Caucasus" heavy cruiser, the "Voroshilov" heavy cruiser, the "Molotov" heavy cruiser, the "Red Crimea" light cruiser and the "Red Ukraine" light cruiser, in addition to 16 destroyers and dozens of submarines, the difference in strength is really too great.

Fortunately, although the Navy is in decline. But Kemal, who had worked hard, managed to leave a good army for Turkey, armed with a wide range of weapons, such as Mauser rifles, French Snyder guns, and Maxim machine guns. Kemal also used the country's abundant chrome ore resources to purchase 66 naval "Lifeng" fighters, 18 H-6 bombers, 216 export-oriented 31T (Turkish version) tanks and 500 40-mm anti-aircraft guns from China in 1936, which made the Turkish army the country with the most Chinese tanks after Saudi Arabia and North Korea. After the turmoil in Iraq, Turkey again purchased 500 85mm anti-tank guns and 422 half-track armored vehicles from China to strengthen its own defense capabilities. Moreover, although Turkey declared neutrality before the war, it has been actively adjusting its armaments due to the impact of the war, and has 1.1 million troops so far, of which 900,000 are army forces.

On February 21, the first day after Yang Qiu returned to Beijing. In Turkey, there was big news that Innonu, who had already secured the presidency, ordered the navy to blockade the Bosphorus and Dardanelles and began laying mines in both straits. At the same time, he also transferred the 3rd Armored Division of the elite army, armed with Chinese 31 tanks, from Ankara to Istanbul! The move immediately sparked an uproar in Turkey, with pro-German forces taking to the streets to protest against the blockade of the strait, arguing that it violated the Neutrality Act. But Inonu was unmoved, and sent a special envoy to China and the United States, hoping for more assistance, and finally he ordered the whole country to be over 18 years old. Men under the age of 35 are to be prepared to defend the country, and announced that in early March, the first national mobilization exercise in more than two decades will be held.

"Reckless Ankara" made Hitler very angry, and immediately called Ribbentrop. He was asked to conclude negotiations with the Soviets immediately so that the Germans could take the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and attack the Turkish rear around the straits, and then let Field Marshal von Kruger replace the still ill Liszt as commander-in-chief of the Southeastern Front. And began to send additional troops to the Greek and Turkish borders. In the end, he secretly sent Guderian, who was inactive in Spain, to Romania to lead Army Group B in Yugoslavia to prepare for the attack. Even Mussolini drew 2 armies and 400 planes from Albania to join Kruger's troops.

In just a few days, the situation in the Black Sea has become tense. 1.5 million German-Italian troops are headed for Istanbul! In view of the tense situation, McEnany, commander of the US Middle East Theater, immediately assembled five divisions to launch a general attack on Baghdad, and also asked the 500,000 US troops stationed in Cyprus to immediately enter Iraq from Jordan, so that Turkey could provide more rapid support in the event of an accident.

In the early morning of February 25, the Iraqi coalition forces stationed in Baghdad were routed by the US forces, Baghdad was lost, and tens of thousands of remnants of Iraqi troops retreated to Kirkuk in the north. Just an hour later, the Jordanian Legion, consisting of 20,000 British soldiers, 10,000 Free French soldiers, 20,000 Greek soldiers and 30,000 local tribal soldiers who had retreated here, launched a surprise attack on French Syria and captured Damascus in one fell swoop.

In the evening, the 1st Marine Division, also protected by 12 warships, quickly occupied the most important seaport in the West Bank. Although the Vichy French government strongly condemned the invasion, the Governor of French Syria announced its surrender a few hours later, and the 2,000 French Foreign Legion soldiers stationed in Syria subsequently announced that they had joined the Allies and were under the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle of Free France.

On February 26, another good news spread in Southeast Asia, Zhang Zizhong led 80,000 soldiers including the Borneo Autonomous Army to successfully annihilate the 117th Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Bandar Seri Begawan and Senganda after three days and three nights of fierce battles with the cooperation of the Second Fleet, and declared the liberation of Brunei and Sarawak after 33 months of occupation. At this point, except for a few areas such as Balikpapan in East Borneo, the rest of Borneo was liberated. Upon hearing the news, King Ahmed Dan Zuttin of Brunei, who was staying in Beijing, burst into tears, immediately bid farewell to Yang Qiu, and set off for China on a light cruiser of the Chinese Navy.

But while the Allies continued to fight small battles, the powerful German army, led by the commander-in-chief of the North African Corps, General Kleistet and Rommel, had regrouped 12 divisions to launch a final assault on the fortress of Tubrug, which had been held by the Anglo-Australian forces for five months.

On February 27, in order to seize the most important seaport fortress west of the Nile, Rommel, who was in command at the front, not only brought a large number of new aircraft, including FW190, JU87 and JU88, but also two SS armored divisions that had just arrived in North Africa, and two K5 train guns in one go. The intention was to take the fortress and cross the Nile in one fell swoop. But this time he underestimated the rapidly growing naval and air power of the Allies in the Eastern Mediterranean! After learning that Tubrug was attacked, Auchinlek immediately ordered 50,000 soldiers to defend it! Cunningham and the U.S. Task Force 6 stationed on the island of Cyprus were then appealed to for help, hoping to bombard the German armored forces with naval guns.

The British Mediterranean Fleet, having suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Crete, has fully recovered its strength after purchasing 2 Anhai-class battleships and 2 escort aircraft carriers from China. What's more, the US Sixth Task Force stationed in Cyprus also has 8 escort aircraft carriers, including 2 Avenger-class and 6 Borg-class, and 52 ships, including 11 cruisers, and has also deployed nearly 1,000 B25 and B24 bombers in Cyprus, Alexandria, Cairo, and other places, as well as 1,200 fighters of various types. Therefore, on the second day of the offensive, Rommel was violently attacked by the naval and air forces of Britain and the United States, and in just one afternoon, the Allies dispatched 972 naval and air bombers of various types. Indiscriminate bombardment of the North African Corps.

In order to save the army, on the morning of March 1, the German and Italian air forces stationed in Benghazi and Crete and other places participated in the battle, and more than 200 fighters, including 66 FW190s, fought to the death with the Allied forces in the skies over Tubrug. Although the German pilots were still heroic, the FW190 fighter, which they called the "butcher's bird", had two opponents this time.

The first is the U.S. Army Aviation P43 "Tanuki" fighter from Alexandria, which was urgently imported from China at a high price in October 1940, and the fighter similar to the F6F was stuffed to the Army Air Corps, which was in urgent need of powerful fighters, because the U.S. Navy refused to equip foreign aircraft, and was given the U.S. military number P43. The Americans also named it after the "tanuki cat" that is unique to China. It is this fighter that was rejected by the Navy. However, it has shown extremely strong combat capability, especially its thick armor and thick and sturdy body, which well protects the inexperienced US pilots. And the second is the F4U Corsair fighter of the US Marine Corps. This kind of "junk" fighter because of its "long nose" was also considered by the US Navy to be unsuitable for aircraft carrier take-off and landing, and was finally stuffed into the Marine Corps, but it shined together with the "Tanuki" in this battle. In the siege of the city for half a month**, 76 German aircraft were shot down, including 19 of the cutting-edge FW190, but only 17 were shot down themselves.

The F6F "Hellcat" that was supposed to appear was lost by the Chinese "Tanuki Cat", and the US Navy, which had a headache and no planes available, lit up when it saw this. They began to study the possibility of the "Corsair" on the ship, and the US Army and Air Force also demanded an increase in orders because of the outstanding performance of the "Tanuki". But the move caused displeasure among American aircraft manufacturers such as Republic and Grumman, as the former's P47 had already begun mass production. Grumman's F6F was thrown into the trash by the "Tanuki Cat" just after it was put on the drawing, and he was full of anger and had nowhere to vent. There are also complaints within the military, because according to the agreement, it wants to pay thousands of dollars in patent fees to China's Airbus for every P43 produced. In the end, Roosevelt intervened to coordinate the increase in P43 production on the condition that the P47 order would not be cut, and in the end a total of 8,323 P43 fighters were produced, and Ba Yuzao and Zhou Houkun's Airbus Company earned a huge profit of 25 million dollars on this alone, laying a solid financial foundation for the more fierce air race after the war.

Under the attack of the P43 "Tanuki" and the F4U "Corsair", the German and Italian air forces encountered a head-on attack again after the English Channel, and Auchinleck was also very happy when he learned about it, and urged Cunningham to strengthen the offensive and dispatch troops to prepare to use the air supremacy advantage to give Rommel a severe blow. At this time, Rommel was a little difficult to ride a tiger, and in the whole seven days of the offensive, he had lost nearly 30,000 troops in the face of the obvious superiority of the Allies, and the difficult Tubrug seemed to be getting farther and farther away from Germany. At this time, the commander-in-chief of the North African Army, Admiral Kleist, was particularly determined, while asking Rommel to continue the offensive, and at the same time sent a telegram to Berlin asking the Italian Navy to dispatch the repaired battleships "Veneto" and "Litorio" in the name of the high command to harass Cunningham and divert the British and American fleets.

"Are the Germans crazy? There are ten aircraft carriers there! ”

On 5 March, in the corridor of the Italian Navy Headquarters, which was covered with oil paintings, the treacherous Campuoni returned Raeder's telegram to the fleet commander, Admiral Anzuacchino. To be honest, he had no interest in cooperating with the North African Corps, because he was well aware of the combat capabilities of the Allied aircraft carriers. At present, the British and US navies already have 10 aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, and a few days ago, the aircraft carrier "Jiangxi" and two Anhai-class battleships of the Indian fleet of the Chinese Navy have also returned to the Red Sea to rest and recuperate, and they can enter the eastern Mediterranean at any time to fight. 11 aircraft carriers, more than 600 carrier-based aircraft, 4 battleships, 15 cruisers and nearly 40 destroyers, even though the German and Italian air forces in Malta and Crete had more than 500 fighters, still did not make him feel safe.

"Go and reply to our hot-headed Prime Minister that Italy is not a stupid German and should not put the 'Veneto' and the fleet in an unsafe environment!" Campuño exasperated: "God! Didn't he understand how Bismarck was finished? ”

Admiral Aquino was a confidant, so Campuño did not hide his dissatisfaction with Mussolini in front of him. "Marshal, but we are allies. If the Germans fail in North Africa, we will also be enveloped under the wing of the enemy. ”

"Okay." Campuño stopped, sighed, and picked up the telegram again. Just as he was about to take a closer look, Admiral Aquino pulled out another piece of paper from underneath: "This is handed over to me by the Germans themselves, I hope it will be helpful to you." ”

"It's God! When did they get it done? The mysterious little note made Campuneo's mouth open wide and his expression in disbelief. Two days ago, the Germans were very secretive this time. Admiral Aquino shrugged his shoulders and said heavily: "The Germans deceived us, and they deceived the world. I'm sure the enemy will be taken aback! Maybe it's a good opportunity to kick Cunningham's ass once, a time! "Admiral Aquino, like all Italian navymen, hated the Englishman who had plotted a sneak attack on Taranto and repeatedly rode on the head of Italy to.

After hesitating for a long time, Campuoni slipped the note into his pocket: "Fill up the tank and have Colonel Tassinia immediately take his submarine and the 'pigs' to Rhodes Island to stand by." Anzu, protect our warships. ”

"Okay, I'll do my best." Admiral Aquino nodded, saluted, and turned to leave. Six hours later, he left the harbor with the restored battleships "Veneto" and "Litorio", protected by five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and 17 destroyers. A few hours before the fleet's departure, an underwater fleet that had first appeared in the Mediterranean Sea had quietly arrived on Rhodes Island south of the Asia Minor peninsula.

Almost at the same time as the Italian fleet departed from port, the Chinese naval transport fleet, consisting of 41 10,000-ton cargo ships and 37 wartime standard ships, sailed into the Strait of Hormuz again after a lapse of two years under the protection of more than a dozen warships...... (To be continued......)