9,000 kilometers northwest of Rabaul, the largest and most prosperous city on the west coast of India, Mumbai, on the Crabar Peninsula densely covered with European-style buildings and gardens, stands a magnificent and majestic Taj Mahal Hotel.

Facing inland, overlooking the Arabian Sea across a narrow peninsula and backed by boats in the Bay of Mumbai, the hotel combines the Rajput, Islamic Moorish, Florentine and British Edwardian styles of northern India.

Recognized as a veritable landmark in Mumbai when it was completed in December 1903, the Taj Mahal Hotel became India's most luxurious five-star hotel, hosting countless maharajahs and tycoons in the days leading up to the Great War, and in November 200, the hotel became famous for a bloody terrorist attack.

Since May 1916, it has become the headquarters of Marshal Deng Jian, commander of the Indian Theater of the East Asian Coalition Army.

At this moment, in the "Royal Suite" where King George V once stayed, Deng Jian, who was in a reclining chair, was holding a cup of steaming milk tea through the huge floor-to-ceiling arched window, admiring another landmark building in Mumbai in front of Apollo Pier hundreds of meters away, India Gate, with the eyes of a conqueror.

Facing the Bombay Bay, this 26-meter-tall arch resembles a French triumphal arch but is more of a fusion of Indian and Persian architectural features, and was built in 1911 by the British and Indian authorities to commemorate the visiting King George V and Queen Mary, with the intention of allowing His Majesty the British Emperor, who is also the Emperor of India, to pass under the door, to show that Mumbai is the gateway to India.

On the 15th of the month, Deng Jian passed under the arch with his head held high, and was greeted by the chairman of the Provisional National Government of India, Tirak, Prime Minister Gandhi and other high-ranking officials and celebrities, and stayed in this suite, which was full of the addiction of "Indian conqueror".

No, not only the "Indian conquerors", but now, from Yangon in the east to Baghdad in the west, across the continent and ocean of 5,000 kilometers, millions of tons of ships, more than 1 million army and navy generals, 1,000 armored fighting vehicles and nearly 1,000 aircraft are all under the command of Deng Jian.

On the same day that Deng Jian was stationed at the Taj Mahal Hotel, the base camp issued a reorganization order for the Indian Theater of Operations: all army units in the Front Theater were integrated into five subordinate command organs: the Indo-Burmese Front, the Turkish Front, the Red Sea Front, the Third Air Group, and the Fifth Air Group; The naval units attached to the theater were integrated into the Indian Theater Combined Fleet, which has seven command organs: the 1st Fleet, the 2nd Fleet, the Indian Fleet, the 7th Air Fleet, the 9th Fleet, the 10th Fleet, and the 11th Fleet.

The Indo-Burmese Front is now stationed in the former British Indian colonies, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, and the Maldives

As a theater reserve, it is mainly responsible for coastal defense, maintaining law and order in the "liberated areas", and promoting the local "royal road" political and strategic work.

The Front Army Command was stationed in New Delhi, and the first commander, Senior General Yuan Shih-kai, was directly under the jurisdiction of the Front Army: the 155th Division, the 2nd and 4th Siamese Divisions, and the 1st and 2nd Vietnamese Divisions; It has jurisdiction over the 12th, 15th, and 26th armies. 【】【】

The 12th Army is a meritorious unit in the Philippine Raiders, Bengal Raids and Gangetic Plain Raids, with a depth of 1,500 kilometers from the Himalayas in the north to the Godavari River in the central Indian plateau in the south. It stretches to the Siamese border in the east and to New Delhi, Bhopal and Hyderabad in the west, spanning more than 2,000 kilometers.

The headquarters of the group army is stationed in Calcutta, and the current commander is General Feng Guozhang, under the jurisdiction of the 9th, 54th, and 56th armies, with a total of 6 light infantry divisions and a total strength of about 100,000 troops.

The 15th Army, which had previously been responsible for capturing Ceylon and the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent, was stationed on the spot after completing its combat mission, covering the Godavari River in the north and the Maldives Islands in the south; to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east and the Lakshadweep Islands to the west; 2,000 kilometers in length.

The headquarters of the group army is stationed in Colombo, and the current commander is General Li Xinghan, under the jurisdiction of the 26th, 30th, and 0th armies, with a total of 6 infantry divisions including 2 light infantry divisions, with a total strength of about 145,000 troops.

The 16th Army, which was once used to confuse the enemy with the same name as the troops under the jurisdiction of the Southeastern Front, was called the "Twin Forces" internally, and was renamed the 26th Army in April of that year.

The headquarters of the group army is stationed in Mumbai, and the current commander is General Duan Qirui, under the jurisdiction of the 27th, 2nd and 76th armies, with a total of 6 infantry divisions including 2 light infantry divisions, with a total strength of about 145,000 troops.

The Turkish Front, now based in the Persian Gulf region, was tasked with defending the Persian Gulf coast and seeking to provide direct military support to the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which was in great crisis.

The headquarters of the Front is located in Basra, directly under the jurisdiction of the 2nd Armored Army and the 5th Marine Division, and under the jurisdiction of the 14th and 19th Armies.

The 14th Army is composed of meritorious units in the French Indochina Raiders, the Dutch East Indies Raiders, the Bengal Raiders and the Gangetic Plain Raids, and is mainly responsible for garrisoning the vast British colonies and semi-colonies along the coastline of more than 2,000 kilometers in the Persian Gulf, including the southern coast of Persia, which was once controlled by the British-supported "South Persian Rifle Team" after the outbreak of war, the British protectorate Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Trusil Oman, the predecessor of the UAE, and the Muscat Sultanate Oman. and the Al Ahsa region on the Persian Gulf coast, which was taken from the Ottoman Empire by the predecessor of the pro-British kingdom of Najd Saudi Arabia before the war.

In addition to garrisoning various military points along the coastline, the group army is also responsible for the advance of the coordinated army

One of the tasks of the political effort was to move the Kingdom of Najd of the House of Saud to the side of the Allies, or to support the annexation of the Kingdom of Najd by the House of Saud's enemies, the Rashid family, in order to suppress the Kingdom of Hejaz, which had recently gained independence from the Ottoman Empire and gained notoriety in the Arab world for its capture of the holy city of Mecca.

The second was to coordinate with the Caspian Front to turn the Persian kingdom over to the side of the Central Powers.

The third was to cooperate with the Red Sea Front to seize the British Aden protectorate on the border with the Sultanate of Muscat.

Eventually, the 14th Army will also serve as a front reserve, ready to support the 19th Army, which has already entered Iraq.

The headquarters of the group army is located in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, and the current commander is General Wang Shizhen, under the jurisdiction of the 65th and 6th armies and the 3rd army of the Asian and African Liberation Army, with a total of 6 light infantry divisions and a total strength of about 100,000 people.

General Cao Kun's 19th Army was assembling along the vast area of the Euphrates and Tigris River basins, also known as "Mesopotamia", to the area around Baghdad, the capital of the Ottoman Iraqi province, with the main task of entering the Asia Minor Peninsula through Iraq and Syria to support the dying Turkish army, and to try to recover the strait area from the Entente forces, including Istanbul, the imperial capital of the Ottoman Empire, called "Constantinople" by the Entente, when sufficient support was available.

The headquarters of the group army is stationed in Baghdad, under the jurisdiction of the 26th, 72nd, and 73rd armies - the latter two armies are respectively the Malay Peninsula Raider Combat Meritorious Unit and the Dutch East Indies Raider Combat Meritorious Unit, a total of 6 divisions, including 4 light infantry divisions, with a total strength of about 125,000 troops. In addition, one and a half divisions of the Turkish army in Iraq, numbering about 17,000 men, were ordered to accept the command of the Chinese 19th Army from April after the fall of Istanbul.

The Red Sea Front, now massed in major ports on the west coast of India, is scheduled to seize key points around the Gulf of Aden with the support of the main force of the Combined Fleet, and then move north into the Red Sea, threatening the colonies of British Egypt and Sudan, and attacking the pro-British Kingdom of Hejaz, in order to help the Turkish army retreating to Palestine turn the tide.

On the premise of ensuring the smooth progress of its main tasks, the Front Army will also use a part of its forces to attack and harass or attack the colonies of the Allied countries such as British East Africa and French Madagascar, coordinate the advancement of political and strategic work, disrupt and disintegrate the colonial order of the Allied countries on the African continent, and obstruct and sabotage the plans of the Allied countries to obtain war resources from the "backyard" of Africa.

The headquarters of the Front is temporarily stationed in Mumbai, under the commander of Senior General Luo Kun, directly under the jurisdiction of: the 1st and 2nd Marine Corps, the Marine Corps Armored Corps, and the 99th Mobile Task Force of the Army; Subordinate: 21st and 31st Armies.

General Song Xing, commander of the 21st Group Army, is mainly responsible for the task of attacking the Red Sea coast, and is under the jurisdiction of the 70th and 79th armies and the 2nd Army of the Asian and African Liberation Army -- the first two armies are meritorious units for the Burma Raid and the Bengal Raid, and the latter is the French Indochina Raider and the Malay Peninsula Raider Meritorious Unit.

The commander of the 31st Army, General Liu Haiqiao, was mainly responsible for including Abyssinia and Somalia

The East African Raiders, as well as the possible Madagascar Raiders, are under the jurisdiction of the 57th and 74th Armies and the 4th Army of the Asian-African Liberation Army, the three armies are: Hong Kong Raiders, French Indochina Raiders and Burma Raiders Combat Meritorious Units; Burma Raiders Combat Meritorious Troops; Meritorious Troops of the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies.

Each of the two armies consisted of six light infantry divisions, with a total strength of about 100,000 men each.

The Army's Third Air Group and Fifth Air Group in the Rationed Theater have fought in Indochina, Malaya, Burma, and Bangladesh, and have achieved brilliant results and high morale.

Among them, the number of flight squadrons belonging to the Third Air Group of Lieutenant General You was reduced from 29 to 21, and the number of aircraft was reduced from 329 to 260. Although Lieutenant General Ma Hengming's Fifth Air Group still has 13 flight squadrons and 153 aircraft, the ratio of skilled pilots to new combat aircraft has dropped markedly.

Now the main forces of the Third Air Group are massing in the Persian Gulf to support the actions of the Turkish Front; The main forces of the Fifth Air Group were assembled in the Sultanate of Muscat in the southeastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, preparing to provide air support for the upcoming Aden Raid operation.

On the naval side, the commander of the 1st Fleet is Admiral Sa Zhenbing, commander of the East Asian Combined Fleet, and is under the command of the 1st, 2nd, and 5th battleship squadrons, the 5th squadron of the mounted patrol, the 1st and 2nd squadrons of light patrol, and the 4th and 7th squadrons of expulsion.

As the main artillery combat force, the 1st Fleet has a total of 43 warships of various types, including 10 main warships, 4 Pinghai-class, 2 Zhenhai-class, 4 Yangbo-class, 2 fast armored cruisers, Taihang-class, that is, Kunlun-class modification, 10 light cruisers, 9 Leopard numbers, 1 Leopard number change, and 21 destroyers.

General Li Dingxin, commander of the 2nd Fleet, former president of the Naval University, and the second batch of students studying at the Fujian Shipbuilding School, is under the jurisdiction of: the 1st Battle Patrol Team, the 1st Air Patrol Team, the 3rd Mounted Patrol Team, the 6th Light Patrol Team, and the 5th and 6th Combat Teams.

As a mobile reconnaissance and aviation support force, the 2nd Fleet has a total of 2 warships of various types, including 4 battle cruisers of the Thunder class, 2 fleet aircraft carriers of the Dapeng class, 4 fast armored cruisers of the Kunlun class, 4 light cruisers of the Leopard number, and 14 destroyers of the Yang type.

General Ma Seung-woo, commander of the Southeast Front Fleet, is under the command of the 3rd, 4th, 15th, and 16th battleship squadrons, the 4th squadron of the mounted patrol, the 6th squadron of the Japanese mounted patrol, the 2nd squadron of the Korean mounted patrol, the 2nd squadron of the Japanese light patrol, the 4th air squadron, the 2nd and 3rd squadrons of lightning strikes, the 1st and 2nd squadrons of Japanese lightning strikes, and the 2nd squadron of Korean expulsion.

As the escort of the ship group and the fire support force on the opposite shore, the Southeast Front Fleet has a total of 56 warships of various types, including 5 main warships, 2 Longwei-class, 2 Dongyue-class, 1 Beiyue-class, 6 old-style warships, 4 Ruixiang-class, and 2 Feidian-class

6 armored cruisers, 2 Miao-class, 2 Suzhou-class, 2 Fuyun-class, 5 light cruisers, 4 Qiuma-class, 1 Tiger, 2 sea-plane carriers, 32 destroyers and small destroyers, Yangzi, Yuezi, Shuizi, 4 Murayu-class, and 4 Chaochao-class.

Rear Admiral Zhang Dong's 7th Air Fleet is mainly responsible for the air escort of the Indian Ocean sea lines of communication and the reconnaissance and patrol tasks of the forward islands, and its deployment range extends from the port of Karachi in the north to the Maldives Islands in the south, and it is under the jurisdiction of the 12th Air Force: the former has 7 water planes and 24 floating airships, and the latter has 105 land-based aircraft.

Vice Admiral He Kai's 11th Fleet is a diving fleet specially attached to the Indian Ocean, with the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th diving fleets under its jurisdiction, and 4 to 64 submarines of various types.

The 9th Fleet is composed of special amphibious landing ships of the Navy and a fleet of requisitioned transport vessels, which are specially designed to carry marines and army units to carry out large-scale amphibious landing operations, and the landing support force includes 100 torpedo boats, armored gunboats, minesweepers and other support ships.

The 10th Fleet is composed of special supply ships for the Navy, refurbished escort auxiliary vessels, and requisitioned transport fleets, which are used for the transportation of ship groups along the Indian Ocean lines of communication in peacetime.

The warships of the 9th and 10th fleets without a fixed attachment refer to destroyers and their "fleet warships", which are assigned escort ships by the theater joint fleet command according to the situation when performing specific tasks, but the fleet usually includes a number of "aviation escort auxiliary tankers", and each ship carries a mixed carrier-based squadron while transporting fuel to provide air defense and anti-submarine support for the ship group.

In the next six months, Deng Jian's mission was to use a combination of forces and weapons to save the crumbling Ottoman Turkish Empire, open up the Middle East and Balkan communication lines between China and Germany, and try to destabilize and even destroy the Allies' colonial order on the African continent.

The Indian subcontinent at your feet is just the starting point, and at the front of the journey are Europa and Africa.

"Commander, the envoy of the base camp has arrived."

The adjutant cautiously reminded Deng Jian, who was full of ambition and boundless thoughts, back to reality.

"Please...... Wait a minute, draw the curtains first. ”

Subconsciously, Deng Jian was reluctant to let the representative of "that woman" from Jingshi share with him the privilege of admiring the "Gate of Indian Rulers" from the best angle.

……

In the Mediterranean, in Alexandria, north of Egypt, on the foredeck of the 31,000-ton British Royal Navy's "Revenge"-class battleship "Resolve", under the muzzle of the 15-inch main gun of the Black Hole, Winston. Churchill was strolling through the rare sunshine in England, accompanied by three lieutenant generals and a navy general: Maude, commander of the Straits Expeditionary Force, Murray, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, Allenby, commander of the new Cyprus Expeditionary Force, and the Allied Mediterranean

Commander of the Combined Fleet and Aegean Detachment - Jeram.

"I love the Mediterranean sunshine just as much as I hate the fog in London."

Churchill lifted his gentleman's staff and tapped the brand-new steel deck beneath his feet, and as the Navy was in dire need of a new capital ship to enter service, the Resolve did not have a wooden floor on the steel deck, as had been done with other capital ships built before, but hastily painted with non-slip paint.

"It's time to calm down the Mediterranean."

Mo Ming's sigh, the flying seagulls, the forest of masts, the hunting and fluttering naval flags, something is ready to go.

"General Allenby, how much do you know about Alexandretta?"

……。

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