Turkey. In the tent of Major Qi Peng, the training staff officer of the 101st Mixed Wing of the Chinese Army Aviation, Liu Ping took the telegram handed by Qi Peng, and after a brief glance, his eyebrows were slightly furrowed.

In the entire Chinese United Air Force in Turkey, except for the recipient Liu Ping himself, the content of this telegram is known only to Qi Peng, who is carrying the secret of Her Majesty the Empress, for the time being: Zhu Xin, the concubine who was eight months pregnant, gave birth to a baby girl prematurely, and Her Majesty the Empress ordered Liu Ping to leave for China immediately.

"Congratulations to Your Highness, congratulations to Your Highness, this is a sign of prosperity for the royal family, please ...... Your Highness"

"I can't go back yet."

Liu Ping suddenly interrupted Qi Peng's compliment.

"Your Highness, this is the emperor's decree......"

"There is no His Highness here, only Lieutenant Liu Wuwei, the flight officer of the 157th Reconnaissance Squadron of the Army Aviation Corps, I have already received my mission, and I will attack with the team tomorrow, and I will never accept this kind of shame and humiliation of retreating from the battle!"

Seeing Liu Ping's words so resolute, Qi Peng slowed down his tone and turned around and said: "Your Highness is the husband of the princess and the father of the newborn princess. At this time, it is time to show love and kindness, and to be a model for the people......"

Liu Ping said: "There are millions of soldiers in the empire, there are countless parents and wives and children, who dares to say that they do not have a dear and benevolent heart? The so-called love and mercy are shown in the way of pushing and procrastinating in battle, and I think this is to create a model for the defeated and fallen country! ”

Qi Peng scratched his head in embarrassment: "The matter of His Highness joining the army is a top secret, so there is no need to worry about public opinion, and this is not a retreat, just an order." If you don't obey the order, you will disobey the order, which is a taboo for soldiers, please think twice......"

"Then let the emperor cure my crimes, I finally came here, and now that I am about to go into battle, how can I stop here!"

Liu Ping clenched his fists and shouted, but after seeing Qi Peng's sad face, he slowed down his tone slightly and said: "Qi Peng, this is my only chance, if I go back without doing anything, I will definitely regret it for the rest of my life!" For the sake of our ten-year friendship, you should help me as a friend, as if you have never seen this telegram, and when the task is completed tomorrow, I will go to explain to the emperor, and I will bear all the responsibilities myself! ”

Qi Peng saw that Liu Ping's words had already been said about this, so he didn't want to persuade him anymore, but he just sighed, nodded and smiled bitterly: "I know what I said." You keep the telegram for now, and return it to me when you come back tomorrow, until then, I don't know what the telegram is about in Ludao, so it's okay. ”

Liu Ping's legs snapped together, and he saluted in response: "Thank you, Sir Chengcheng!" ”

……

In the early morning of the next day, on the airport runway with roaring engines and dusty winds, Qi Peng, dressed as a pilot, hurriedly passed by the row of "Dongfeng" two-seater reconnaissance planes of the 157th Squadron.

"Staff Officer Qi, are you going too?"

Qi Peng just turned his head and smiled, and hurried to a large tent surrounded by barbed wire and heavily guarded by more than a dozen heavily armed guards behind the group.

A few minutes later, the wooden grille at the entrance was moved away by several guards, the huge tent curtains were slowly opened to both sides, and a biplane single-seat fighter with a simple structure and a beautiful and smooth appearance suddenly appeared from the darkness, and under the four-bladed propeller with a nose almost one person high, Qi Peng gently supported the tip of the paddle that had been polished to a smooth and sharp edge, and smiled to himself like a demon.

"This time, I will use you to protect Your Highness...... It's just you...... No, we have to work together and we can't lose anything more, just start today. Find your original self, your original reason, your original blue sky...... The free blue sky, the blue sky that belongs only to us......"

……

On the western side of the Sea of Marmara, the flagship of the Entente Strait Raider Fleet, the bridge of the battleship "Malaya".

Fleet Commander Martin. Vice Admiral Jeram was silently inspecting the ships of his long-range support force with his hands behind his back: the battlecruiser "Invincible" with a normal displacement of 17,400 tons, the large cruisers "Brave" and "Glorious" of 19,200 tons, the fleet aircraft carrier "Victory" of 19,800 tons, the light cruisers "Conquest" and "Cordelia" of 4,200 tons, and 12 fleet destroyers.

To the north of this task force, which was a fast-striking force, the German . The direct artillery force under the command of Rear Admiral Robeck is regularly pouring tens of tons of large-caliber shells towards the Isthmus of Borayère at the root of the Gallipoli Peninsula - around which five divisions of the Turkish Fifth Army are still stationed - and today Rear Admiral Robeck's formation includes five pre-dreadnought battleships of more than 10,000 tons and 12 shallow water heavy gunboats of more than 6,000 tons, armed with 32 large-caliber heavy guns of 274 mm and 305 mm guns of 35 to 40 times the diameter, 8 x 45x 356 mm guns and 4 x 45x 381 mm guns.

Beyond the mast of the "Conquest" and another destroyer, the outline of Marmara Island to the east of the fleet is clearly visible, and the temporary anchorage on the west side of the island is anchored dozens of ships of the Rear Admiral Mori Aviation Support Force and the Commodore Envi Landing Support Force - including 3 seaplane carriers, 2 seaplane supply ships, 2 dock landing ships, 5 tank landing ships, and various troop carriers and cargo ships.

A makeshift seaplane base was set up next to the carriers and supply ships of the aviation support forces, with engines blaring and Schott-type seaplanes with pontoons under the fuselage taking off and landing frequently on the unusually calm sea, constantly searching for the most dangerous enemy in the sea today, the German Navy U-boats based in Turkey.

Around the anchorage, more than a dozen small ships were guarding the anchorage, and behind each telescope stood an attentive observer, as if something would emerge from the sea in the next second.

The island is dusty, and the Royal Engineer is rushing to repair the field airfield for Rear Admiral Murray's shore-based air force, and although a lot of construction machinery has been put in, it is said that it will not be operational until two weeks at the earliest.

Two weeks later? Is it necessary for the Royal Navy to remain in this "Churchill's bath" after two weeks?

The Sea of Marmara, Turkey's inland sea, is no more than 270 kilometers long from east to west and 70 kilometers wide from north to south. The area is only 11,000 square kilometers, equivalent to the size of China's four and a half Taihu Lake, is the sea of the world, southwest through the 61-kilometer-long Dardanelles Strait to the Aegean Sea, northeast by the 31-kilometer-long Bosphorus Strait into the Black Sea, is the Black Sea out of the Mediterranean Sea must pass through, but also the natural dividing line of the two continents of Europe and Asia, since ancient times is the throat of the Eurasian must be contested by the great powers.

Since the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Sea of Marmara has been the forbidden imperial garden of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, strictly restricting the entry and exit of foreign ships, and in the 19th century, surrounded by foreign powers, the Turkish authorities in 1841 and 1871 successively formulated regulations for the passage of merchant ships and warships through the strait and the Sea of Marmara. the right of free navigation".

Tsarist Russia, a powerful neighbor of Turkey and the legitimate successor of the Byzantine Empire, had always harbored great resentment towards the Straits region, including Constantinople, and in the eyes of the Russians, Turkey was the greatest obstacle to Russia's access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic, and controlling the straits would make it easier for them to extend their furry paws into the Balkans and the Middle East.

The Russian bear has always wanted to do it, and in the eight Russo-Turkish wars from the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, the Russian army won many battles. Step by step, one after another, they cut off Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and the North Caucasus from the huge "sick man of West Asia", but in the Ninth Hungry Earth War, that is, the Crimean War, the Russian bear, who mistook the situation, was beaten by Britain and France, and the coalition troops landed on the Crimean Peninsula and captured the Black Sea Fleet base Sevastopol, and the Black Sea Fleet was completely destroyed. The resulting Treaty of Paris provided for the neutralization of the Black Sea, and Russia lost the right to own a fleet in the Black Sea, undoing Russia's century-long efforts to expand in the Black Sea.

Twenty years later, in 1877, the relieved Russian bear took advantage of the Balkan Slavs' war of national liberation. Under the banner of "liberation", he marched into the Balkans, once in Constantinople, and saw that he could fulfill his long-cherished wish, but failed to succeed under the intervention of Britain, which was the tenth Russian-Turkish war. After the war, Serbia and Bulgaria regained their independence, Romania relinquished its dependency on Turkey, and Russia seized the opportunity to acquire southern Bessarabia and part of the territory south of the Caucasus Mountains.

"History is full of irony that what our politicians have been trying to avoid for half a century is now being achieved by our own hands......"

Lieutenant General Jeram just opened his mind and muttered to himself, but was listened to by Lieutenant General Allenby, commander of the Army's Third Army and commander-in-chief of the Strait Theater Coalition Forces, who came to his side at some point, and asked with a smile: "You mean we are making wedding dresses for the Russians?" ”

Jeram nodded slightly, "It's obvious, they've always wanted to get here, and now is the opportunity, if I were the leader of Russia, I'd have grabbed the advanced army of Constantinople anyway—'Behold, as the rightful heir of Roman civilization, we have finally recovered the Byzantine imperial capital after five centuries'—such glory they have fought for for two or three hundred years with guns and bayonets. ”

Allenby fiddled with his gloves and shook his head with a smile, "They want land, we want freedom of navigation and trade, and there is nothing wrong with each taking what he needs." ”

"You're in a good mood today." Jerram deliberately digressed the subject.

"It's not as good as it seems, I'm actually worried about your fleet."

"What? Which new continent have you discovered? ”

Allenby put on gloves and squinted his eyes behind his back: "I still care about the intelligence about the appearance of Chinese naval aviation units in Turkey, no matter what, this small bathtub is really not suitable for a large fleet activity like yours." ”

Jerram sneered, "You think I like it here? Not yet to cover the landing of your 10th Army at Mireftai? What I don't understand is that less than a hundred nautical miles away is the defenseless Constantinople, and the campaign effect of capturing Constantinople is the same, but the strategic effect is immeasurable, and we have to go around in the narrowest corner of this bathtub, isn't it like putting a piece of meat in the toilet waiting for a fly to sting? ”

Allenby shook his head with a wry smile: "Now the elite of the Turkish army has been assembled in the northern part of the Gallipoli Peninsula, if they can be annihilated in one fell swoop, the Turks will no longer be able to organize effective resistance in a short time, and this passage will be in our hands unimpeded." Constantinople can be taken at any time, but if the opportunity is missed, this elite corps may retreat to the fortified strip on the border with Bulgaria and continue to pose a threat to our army with the support of the Central European Allied bloc - of course. As you say, the Russians want to get their long-awaited glory, and the gentlemen of Downing Street should have more or less taken this into account. ”

"I don't care who enters Constantinople first, I just wish we could leave this beautiful but heart-pounding little bathtub sooner rather than later, and return to the ocean where we should go back, face the enemies we have to face, and regain what we have lost in the Bay of Bengal......"

Before Lieutenant Admiral Jeram's lyricism could be drawn, the bridge hatch was hurriedly pushed open, and a young staff officer hurriedly handed Lieutenant General Jeram a scribbled telegram: "The reconnaissance plane on duty of the Victory reports that a large group of enemy aircraft has been found in the southeast!" ”

——V