Chapter 62: Japan on a Cruise Ship (II)

From west to east, they crossed the entire Eurasian continent and the Sea of Japan, which was wider than the Baltic Sea, to finally reach the mysterious island nation of the East and Germany's ally in this war...... It's a pity that now they have also become client states of the Soviets. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Standing on the pier of Osaka Port, looking at the Japanese ocean liner "Rukawa Maru" that will be captained by himself, Erich. Lieutenant Colonel Top's heart swelled with an inexplicable feeling. As a sea wolf in the Atlantic, he had spent countless free time between battles, thinking about what he would do if he survived the war, and the captain of a civilian ship was obviously a very reasonable career change.

But Erich. Toph never imagined that he would go on a cruise before the war was over! And the contrast between the Soviets and the place of work was the eastern ally of the Motherland in wartime - this contrast is very subtle...... However, the Soviet soldier who "escorted" Lieutenant Colonel Toph to work obviously did not have the heart to consider his emotions, but pushed him behind his back impatiently. Under the rude urging of the other party, Lieutenant Colonel Toph had no choice but to sigh and listlessly board the ramp of the cruise ship "Rukawa Maru".

- Erich. Lieutenant Commander Topp, a German naval officer born in Hanover, has just turned 30 years old, but he is already one of the ace U-boat commanders of the former Nazi German army, commanding the "Red Devil boat" U-552 to sink the world's No. 3 U-boat king with a ship of 200,000 tons...... And the two U-boat kings in front of him have already died in battle, so Erich. Lieutenant Commander Toph is now the world's No. 1 submarine trump card.

However, despite such a glorious record and such an outstanding and successful military career, with the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany, Lieutenant Colonel Toph could only obediently enter the Soviet prisoner of war camp, first for a detailed interrogation, and then to Siberia to reclaim the wilderness and repair the earth - throughout the Soviet era, and even earlier in the later period of Tsarist Russia, the development of Siberia was an extremely important strategic task, and only this barren land could be developed, not just on a map like Antarctica, Only then can Russia truly become a superpower.

However, the development of Siberia required a lot of manpower, and Russia itself was vast and sparsely populated, and Stalin, the iron father, used patriotism and dedication to mobilize the Komsomol members on the one hand, and forced relocation on the other, and on the other hand, he did not have enough manpower. Today, the Soviet Red Army has captured more than 2 million European Axis prisoners in the war, and then many British, Spanish, and Portuguese prisoners, and naturally they are not willing to let go easily - these prisoners of war are all high-class and elite laborers, and their military career has allowed them to develop the habit of discipline to obey orders, learn some basic skills, and finally, their status as prisoners of war makes them arbitrary, and their labor efficiency is much higher than that of ordinary people. Therefore, all German prisoners of war who did not commit serious crimes were basically sent to the collective farms and labor camps in the Far East to cultivate land, as well as to build the Trans-Siberian Railway and other infrastructure. Anyway, the Soviet Union does not raise waste, if you don't work, you can't eat, and if you don't work, you will starve to death and freeze to death!

Thus Lieutenant Colonel Toph said goodbye to his submarine and the waves of the North Atlantic, and went to the reckless snowfields of Siberia to wield a logging axe and hoe. Needless to mention during this period, there was no need to mention all kinds of food and clothing, all kinds of water and soil adaptation, and all kinds of high-intensity labor -- the Soviet Union provided prisoners of war with a small hut to live in a dilapidated cabin, and the food ration was four people sharing a piece of black bread mixed with a lot of bran, and in addition to that, there was only a vegetable porridge made of potatoes, cabbage, and buckwheat, and occasionally a little salted fish to improve the food, but they had to work at least 12 hours a day, which was basically the treatment of serfs.

In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Topp, who was not captured until the defeat and destruction of Germany in four or five years, was the latest to arrive and suffered the least, and the life of the previous groups of prisoners of war was even more difficult. By the four or five summers of Lieutenant Colonel Top's arrival in Siberia and his crew, the food in the POW labor camps had improved considerably, at least the daily porridge for the POWs had become so thick that they could not be poured down with a spoon in it, and then there were small rations of granulated sugar and meat. But despite this, after a winter in Siberia, Captain Top's weight dropped by a full five kilograms.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Toph did not stay long in the Siberian cabin, because in the spring of '46, with the establishment of the Japanese Red Regime and the opening of the [Chrono Vending Machine], the socialist camp suddenly possessed tens of millions of tons of military and civilian ships (all of which were exchanged for the [Chrono Vending Machine]) on the sea surface of the Far East, to the extent that they could use ocean liners as refugee camps. But there was no way to make up so many sailors. The socialist camp, which was forced to do so, even began to recruit seafarers from China and Eastern European countries, which had a small number of sailors, but they were not very needed at the moment, and were temporarily seconded to the Soviet big brother in exchange for aid.

In addition to this, the Kremlin also played the idea of the seamen of various defeated countries. With Stalin's order, hundreds of thousands of sailors of the Nazi German Navy were pulled out of the prisoner of war camp, and after screening and eliminating some hardcore Nazis, the rest were given two choices by the Soviet commissar with a straight face: either exile in Siberia for ten years, continue to gnaw black bread to repair the earth, and enjoy the treatment of prisoners in labor camps; Either they went to the war-torn waters of Japan for three years as sailors on civilian ships, and according to their original military ranks before they were captured, their salaries were on par with those of officers and men of all levels of the Red Navy, and there were additional allowances for going to sea, and their relatives in Germany could also enjoy special food rations according to the treatment of the families of Red Army soldiers, and they would also receive generous pensions in case of death.

Without hesitation, Lieutenant Colonel Topp and his men chose to sail to Japan, and were rewarded with a box of cigarettes and a full meal, and then loaded onto a train to Vladivostok. Because of Lieutenant Colonel Topp's qualifications, he was appointed captain of a cruise ship before he had even set off - of course, because of his lack of trust, he was subject to the supervision of a political commissar at all times, and Lieutenant Colonel Toph understood.

Then, Lieutenant Colonel Toph had the strange feeling that as the train got closer to the Japanese front, the food provided to them was getting better and better. At some point, the staple food of the ration suddenly changed from black bread to white bread and sweet biscuits, and the side dishes were also made from nothing, from less to more. At first, there were only pickled cucumbers, then small dried fish, and then a thick soup made of potatoes and bacon.

Especially during the days when they were stranded in the port of Vladivostok and waiting for the ship to leave for Japan, Lieutenant Colonel Toph and his men were able to eat a full meal of potato goulash, known as the "Socialist Holy Communion", plus beer, dessert and fruit every day - although even the Soviets themselves could not explain why the potato goulash was defined as a "socialist sacrament", which was as good as when he was an ace captain.

And according to what he witnessed on the streets of Vladivostok, there was a lot of bustle and noise everywhere, and it was almost impossible to see that the country was in the midst of a brutal war - the streets and alleys of the city were clean and tidy, the streets were busy, the pedestrians were well-dressed, and no one looked like they were starving, and they were full of vigor and vitality. In the endless shop windows, there are all kinds of exquisite goods, many things that even Lieutenant Colonel Toph has never heard of...... God, is this really Russia, which is known for its poverty?

In the eyes of an observer, Lieutenant Colonel Topp, the former ace captain, the only thing that shows some signs of war in the city is probably the ratio of men and women on the streets: in the streets of Vladivostok, the number of young men is noticeably smaller, the shop staff are almost all women, even the bus drivers are women, and even the occasional young man is mostly dressed in military uniform.

However, compared to the ruined German homeland, it is definitely a socialist paradise.

Thinking about the relatives in his hometown who may not even be able to eat potatoes every day, Lieutenant Colonel Topp, the former ace captain, couldn't help but feel a little gloomy in his heart, but since he had been defeated, he had no choice but to accept his fate...... Fortunately, since I volunteered to sail to the East, my family should be able to get some things to do, and maybe send some money and food parcels to help them survive this difficult time......

-- All the glory, ideas, and dreams have vanished with the defeat, and the only thing that needs to be focused on now is how to survive!

Of course, these benefits did not come for nothing, no, they were dragged to start work as soon as they arrived at the ground......

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In the empty engine room of the ocean liner Rukawa Maru, it was pitch black at this time. The clatter of knocks echoed in the darkness, and a few former German Navy sailors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Topp, sat on the oil-stained steel floor with their feet crossed, struggling with a generator set. Everyone has a flashlight in their mouth, and the floor is littered with wrenches, screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, and other tools, as well as several complex circuit diagrams.

After tossing and turning for two hours, until the flashlight battery was about to run out of the last trace of power, the originally dead generator set finally rumbled into operation, and the dark cabin suddenly became brightly lit. The sailors threw their tools to the ground and exhaled tiredly.

“…… Oops, thank you so much! Now our ship can finally generate its own electricity, and there is no need to connect cables from the shore. ”

The political commissar of the Japanese Communist Party and the former acting captain of the Rukawa Maru, a short and thin Japanese university lecturer, spoke in a very broken German language, and his tone was exaggerated with humility and a sense of relief.

-- Before, he took a group of rookie crew members, with explanatory documents and drawings, and tinkered in the engine room for countless times, trying to get the ship's engines, or at least the generators, running. They were dazzled by the fact that the generators on the ship looked completely different from those he had seen in the school laboratory, with far more brake handles and switches, and all sorts of dials with hands attached to them—ampere meters, volt meters, and other watches—that dazzled them. What's worse is that above and below each partition, suspension and movable deck, beans are interwoven with an unimaginable number of pipes of various calibers and sizes. It's not like a cabin, it's like a whale's belly! Although the pipes of the various systems were painted in different colors, they rookies couldn't tell the difference even if they held the manual, but there were countless accidents: the light one was sprayed with oil, the heavy one was electrocuted, and fortunately, at least there was no fire yet, otherwise the people on this boat would have been cooked......

Because a cruise ship full of thousands of refugees has become so dangerous, the relevant departments have repeatedly issued documents to severely reprimand and even circulate criticism. But in the face of such a mess, this completely inappropriate former university lecturer is simply helpless and anxious, and has recently had nightmares for a week...... Fortunately, now that a German professional has finally come over, he, as a layman, can step down and make way for the virtuous.

Therefore, the political commissar of the Japanese Communist Party really had a "saved" expression at this moment, and respectfully handed a clean towel to Captain Topp, "...... Your lunch is ready, so please wash your faces, change your clothes, and come with me to eat! ”

Then, in one of the ship's well-decorated dining-rooms, Captain Toph and his men enjoyed a sumptuous feast almost dumbfounded—long tables covered with white linen tablecloths, decorated with vases and fake flowers made of silk, and brass cups and cutlery shining as gold. The variety of exquisite meals is dazzling, as if this is not a refugee ship, but a real sea hotel: golden and crispy roast chicken, juicy and delicious steaks, fragrant cream cakes, more than a dozen varieties of canned fruit...... During meals, there is even gramophone music.

Although there was no alcohol on the table because of the ban, sodas, coffee, and black tea were all served openly, and coffee and black tea seemed to be of the highest quality, so that Erich, whose tongue had been plagued by artificial coffee (which, like margarine, was a specialty of Nazi Germany, baked with barley, soybeans, and chicory) since the beginning of the war. Lieutenant Colonel Top, for a while, couldn't help but sigh with emotion, and he didn't know what to say.

If you hadn't seen the ruins of the city on the shore before, just looking at the well-fed and pampered scene on the ship, I am afraid it would be difficult to imagine that you are in a turbulent country that is still suffering from the ravages of war, right?

At the same time, looking at the freighters flying the sickle and hammer flags outside the porthole, coming and going on the sea, he could not help but sigh deeply, not only lamenting the strength of the Soviet Union's national strength, but also lamenting the exaggerated strength of the Soviets' assistance to the Japanese little brothers -- just from today's dining table, it can be seen that even the battlefield can be eaten so luxuriously, and the various supplies that the Soviets have provided to the Japanese battlefield must be an unimaginable astronomical amount!

Unfortunately, however, it is not Erich. What Lieutenant Colonel Toph imagined was even more bizarre -- the current situation was not at all that the Soviet Union was gritting its teeth and selling its kidneys to Japan for blood transfusions, but on the contrary, thousands of tons of military and civilian materials were transported from Japan to Vladivostok every day, and then to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway, to supply the daily needs of the military and civilians of socialism throughout Europe...... Due to the capacity constraints of the Trans-Siberian Railway, much of the goods were accumulated in Vladivostok and had to be consumed locally, which led to an unorthodox prosperity in the Far Eastern port city, which had already flourished until then, thanks to frequent trade between Japan and the Soviet Union.

But Erich. Lieutenant Colonel Toph did not know the truth behind all this, and the vast majority of Japanese citizens naturally did not know these secrets. According to the acquiescence of the wartime base camp and the propaganda of the Japanese Communist Party, everything they fed and lived for these refugees came from the generous assistance of the Comintern.

Then, after a while, as the operators of the ocean-going cruise ships and cargo ships were basically in place and initially got started, Erich, who had been eating and drinking all day long since he got on the ship, quickly gained weight. Lieutenant Colonel Top, very suddenly, received the order to lift anchor and set sail......