July 3, Beijing.

The daily meeting of the President's Staff has been cancelled and is held every Monday at 8 a.m., and if there is any serious event or special news on weekdays, or if there is a major event related to the war situation, it will not only be held temporarily, after all, if the regular meeting is held every day, it will not only take a lot of time, but also delay work.

In the president's office, the chief of the general staff, General Fang Zheng, reported to Xiao Zhenlei on the progress of the war in the past few days, "At present, the 29th Army of the First Army of the Middle East Theater has invaded the southeast of the Asia Minor Peninsula, because the supply line is too long, in order to avoid the supply being unable to keep up with the speed of the offensive and causing the front-line troops to run out of ammunition and food, Wu Shiyou has ordered the 29th Army to stop the offensive momentum in Diyarbakir, and sweep the surrounding cities of the Ottoman army, the 18th Army, In addition to leaving a small force of troops to maintain order and security in the Middle East, the main forces of the 25th and 28th armies have all moved north to support the 29th Army and consolidate the current results."

"In view of the fact that the supply line is too long and the attacking forces in the front cannot let go of their hands, Wu Shiyou made a plan, he negotiated with the naval expeditionary fleet, and the naval expeditionary fleet has agreed and agreed to his request to cooperate with the French Mediterranean fleet to unite to clear the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet, and the afternoon before yesterday, Wu Shiyou sent a war report that the joint fleet of the two countries has set off in the direction of the Adriatic Sea, and there is no news yet!"

Xiao Zhenlei didn't want to interfere too much in the command of the front-line generals, after all, he was not on the front line, and he rashly pointed fingers without understanding the actual situation, which would not only easily cause the command system to fall into chaos, but also leave undesirable hidden dangers. Skipping command is a taboo in war, in another time and space during the Republic of China. Lao Jiang often does this kind of thing.

Although Xiao Zhenlei restricted himself from interfering with the command of the front-line generals, he also warned himself not to overstep the command. But that doesn't mean he can't pay close attention to the previous battles, every day he has to know what battle reports are coming from the front, how many enemy troops have been captured, and his own casualties and losses.

After listening to Jiang Fangzhen's words, Xiao Zhenlei was a little annoyed and said: "Did those high-level officials in Britain and France grow up eating?" The size of the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet is a little stronger than ours a few years ago, I don't understand why this war has been fought for more than two years, and they have not solved the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet, and let it swim well in the Mediterranean, and Britain and France are not without the strength to solve the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet. How can it be treated as if you don't see it? ”

Jiang Fangzhen had already studied this issue, and also thought that Xiao Zhenlei might complain about this matter, and said: "President, I was also extremely annoyed at the time, but after I made a detailed understanding of the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet and the Mediterranean Sea, I found that Britain and France did not want to destroy the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet, but it was not so easy to destroy the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet, and there were three reasons: First, the strength of the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet itself was not weak, although its fleet was small in size and small in number. But its ships are all large-tonnage warships, for example, the most representative is that it has several capital ships are dreadnoughts, they are 'United Forces', 'Tegethof', 'Prinz Eugen', 'Istvan', 'Habsburg', these dreadnoughts were built and launched later, and the first dreadnoughts built by Britain, France, Germany and other countries were later. But there were new breakthroughs in design and equipment, such as the installation of Marconi radio equipment and anti-aircraft weapons, and the first dreadnoughts in the world to install torpedo launchers in the bow. The combat effectiveness is stronger than the first dreadnoughts of Britain, France, Germany and other countries, in addition to that. Austria-Hungary also had quite a few heavy and light cruisers, all of which were new-type warships."

"Second. The British Navy's home fleet has to deal with the German naval fleet, not only to defend the homeland, but also to carry out an all-round blockade of the German Navy, there is no extra force sent to the Mediterranean, Britain has only a small number of warships on the island of Malta, and the tonnage is not large, before Italy stood on the side of the Allies, the French Navy and the Italian Navy fought in the Mediterranean, the French Navy fought the Italian Navy out, and it also lost half of its combat effectiveness, and now the French Navy is stronger than the Austro-Hungarian Navy in terms of size and combat effectiveness, But it is unlikely that the Entente will solve the Austro-Hungarian naval warships with France alone, and France itself will be occupied by the Germans, so that they can use all their naval strength to fight with Austria-Hungary? Neither will they themselves! ”

"Third, the Austro-Hungarian naval bases are on the northern shore of the Adriatic Sea, and the Adriatic Sea is a long and narrow sea area in terms of topography, the Austro-Hungarian Navy has laid a large number of mines in the Otranto Strait, and other naval fleets must pass through the Otranto Strait if they want to enter the Adriatic Sea, and without a mine distribution map, the fleet is basically impossible to enter, and the Austro-Hungarian Navy will lock itself up in the Adriatic Sea to claim hegemony, and they will come out when they want to come out, and hide in the Adriatic Sea if they can't beat it, The British and French fleets could not enter without a map of the distribution of mines, and when the British and French fleets left, the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet came out to attack the ships of the Entente unit, and this was the case! ”

After listening to Jiang Fangzhen's introduction, Xiao Zhenlei suddenly realized that the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet could not be entirely blamed on Britain and France, but he remembered one of these problems and immediately asked: "Since the British and French fleets cannot enter the Adriatic Sea, how can our expeditionary fleet and the French fleet enter the Adriatic Sea?" ”

Jiang Fangzhen smiled when he heard this: "This is because our intelligence officers got a mine distribution map of the Otranto Strait from Austria-Hungary!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei said with a smile after hearing this: "I see, then pay close attention to the naval battle between the expeditionary fleet and the French fleet and the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet, and quickly send the battle report over after the results are obtained!" ”

"Understood!"

Xiao Zhenlei asked again: "How many people from the Second Army went to the battlefield of Tsarist Russia?" ”

"The Korean Legion and the Troika Legion, which is composed of Japanese prisoners of war, Bhutanese and Nepalese soldiers, have arrived and are currently resting and training!"

Xiao Zhenlei nodded and said: "That's fine, send it over first, while training, getting familiar with the environment, and waiting for equipment and ammunition, this is very good, we must send more people over as much as possible!" ”

"Understood!"

??????

Adriatic Sea, the sea near the west of Durrës.

The combined fleet of the two countries used the map of the mine distribution of the Strait of Otranto obtained by Chinese intelligence officers to cross the Strait of Otranto into the Adriatic Sea without danger, and the fleet sailed at a very low speed for a day before reaching the waters west of Durrës, Algeria.

Tang Li is a passive sonar listener on the cruiser Golden Pomfret , he is twenty-two years old this year, he has been different from other children since he was a child, because his ears are particularly sensitive to hearing, he can hear a small sound dozens of meters away, and can distinguish the difference between many small sounds, he originally had no culture, since he was recruited into the navy the year before last and studied in the navy night school, he has made a lot of progress in the past two years, he can know a lot of words, and he can read newspapers.

Being a sonar monitor is a very boring job. Sonar is divided into active sonar and passive sonar, both of which are equipped on Chinese warships.

Active sonar, also known as echolocator, is a general term for various sonars that actively emit underwater acoustic signals and obtain target parameters from the reflected echoes of targets in water. Passive sonar, also known as noise sonar, is a general term for various sonars that receive and process radiated noise or sonar signals from targets in water to obtain target parameters.

Generally, naval surface warships or submarines cannot emit active sonar when cruising or sailing, but turn on passive sonar devices for monitoring. The principle of reception is the same for active and passive sonar. The difference is that active sonar is that the detector actively emits sound waves, and then detects by echoes. Passive sonar, on the other hand, only receives sound waves. The advantage of active sonar is that it has a long detection range and has a strong ability to find targets, but it is easy to be detected, and once it emits active sonar, it will reveal the position of its own ship. The benefit of passive sonar is that it is silent and does not reveal its position due to use. However, the performance is much worse, especially if the noise of the measured target is close to or even less than the background noise of the ocean, it is basically blind.

The sonar device was invented by the British naval officer Lewis in 1906, he invented a passive listening device, which was mainly used to detect underwater icebergs at that time, and was not long ago equipped by the British Royal Navy on several cruisers to detect underwater submarines hidden under the sea surface, but the Chinese side had already equipped the sonar system to every ship two years ago and the enemy underwater submarines, not only passive sonar, but also active sonar system, The instrument was much more advanced than the British passive sonar listening device, and at present, only the Chinese naval fleet and several British cruisers were equipped with sonar systems, and other countries did not know that they had this technology, and they were not equipped for the time being.

Although only British and Chinese warships are now equipped with sonar systems, the Chinese Navy Command still requires that each warship cannot turn on active sonar during normal cruising periods, which can easily expose its position to enemy submarines hidden under the water, and can only turn on passive sonar devices to monitor the surrounding sea area.

Tang Li sat motionless in his chair with his eyes closed and his headphones, he was analyzing the various encounters coming from the headphones, some of these noises were caused by ocean currents below the sea surface, and some were made by big fish in the sea, these noises belonged to the background noise of the ocean.

At this time, Tang Li suddenly sat up straight, he did not open his eyes, he focused all his attention on hearing, he carefully distinguished each noise, his ear hearing system had the ability to distinguish the difference between the background noise of the ocean and the noise made by enemy submarines.

Finally, he took off his headphones and shouted: "Sir, there is a situation, abnormal noise has been discovered, it is suspected that the enemy submarine is suspected to be more than 6 nautical miles!" (To be continued......)