1230 Beat Germany

On the calm sea, a transport ship full of black coal mines was sailing slowly. Because the ship carried a large amount of heavy coal, its speed could be described as crawling. It was driving cautiously, trying to send the cargo back to its homeland.

On the ship, more than a dozen crew members are drinking sake. This kind of transportation work is already commonplace for them. During this year, they have traveled back and forth on this route at least dozens of times, and they are almost familiar. Can not be more familiar.

The Sea of ​​Japan is an important waterway between China and Japan. It is full of cargo ships traveling between Japan and China’s Yingkou and Fushun. Some cargo ships send guns and ammunition produced in Japan to Northeast China, while others transport Japan from Northeast China. There are also coal resources robbed from the Shanxi region and shipped to Japan.

These freighters come and go every day, and they can almost form a straight line. This line is the lifeline of Japan during the war, and it is the most important transportation and supply channel that maintains the domestic industrial production of the Japanese Empire. Power generation and steelmaking are all industrial activities that consume coal. Because of the lack of oil in Japan, Japan's dependence on coal exceeds everyone's imagination.

Another thing that makes Japan run out of transport capacity every day is food. Because most families in Japan have to mobilize their labor to participate in war activities, food has gradually begun to rely on the occupation of food producing areas in China and South Asia for supply and replenishment. Coupled with the troop carrier and the occasional gunboat patrol boat passing by, the entire Sea of ​​Japan is a busy scene.

The coal-carrying ship proceeded cautiously, because it was slightly overloaded, and this small transport ship looked extraordinarily cumbersome. The Japanese sailors on the ship felt the sea breeze blowing comfortably, tasted the inferior sake, and felt the beauty of life.

"Ah... If life can be so carefree every day, maybe it will be very happy without women." Sipping a sip of sake lightly, a chief officer who is over fifty years old sighed to the captain beside him: "I heard that the front line The battle is already very unfavorable, have you ever thought about going to the battlefield?"

"No... my family has only been fishermen for generations. I am lucky to own a transport ship of my own. I helped the military transport it for free in wartime to avoid military service. How could it be possible to go to such a dangerous place on the front line?" The captain's family was very poor. Yes, the purpose of painstaking efforts is not to go to the front line to serve and die, so naturally I will not take risks: "I have already devoted myself to His Majesty the Emperor, haven't I?"

"What about the front line? You have had some contact with the military. Is there any latest news?" The first officer smiled wryly, and after taking a sip of the stuffed wine, he continued to ask: "I heard that the navy... the army It’s not too optimistic over there either…”

"I heard that the base camp is sending more troops to Manchuria... but I haven't heard any news about the unfavorable war. You know, the military has always been very strict about this kind of thing, and there are very few real news. But since it is an increase Bing, it's not good news... Whoever heard that if you win a battle, you don't need newspapers to publicize it,

Instead, what about increasing troops to the front line? If you think about it, those idiots in the base camp would have already yelled after winning the battle, right? "

"Yeah! If they win, even if it's just a small victory, they will brag about it and put gold on their face..." The adjutant nodded after hearing this, and became even more lonely: "My second My son is still in Manchuria... I really don't know if this time will be more or less auspicious."

Suddenly, a sailor on duty hurriedly ran into the cabin where a dozen people were resting and drinking, and shouted in panic: "Hurry up! Come on! We seem to have seen something incredible! There is something big!" It happened! Captain! Captain!"

He yelled incoherently, and everyone couldn't understand what he heard. The captain frowned and stood up, waved his hand, and motioned for everyone to follow: "Go and see! See what happened, put my sailor I was so scared that I couldn't even speak clearly..."

So a group of people bypassed the iron stairs and walked onto the not-so-high bridge, and immediately saw the scene in front of them: life buoys and some wooden deck fragments floating in the sea, as well as some oil stains and other debris. There should be a ship sunk here, and it is a Japanese ship-the name of the Japanese ship is written on the lifebuoy, a transport ship called "Shichibanmaru".

"Qifanwan? Why does the name of the transport ship Qifanwan sound so familiar?" The captain thought for a long time, trying to remember what kind of ship the sinking transport ship was. He was familiar with the name, but for a moment he couldn't figure out where he had seen this transport ship before.

"Qifanwan? Didn't you see it once in Lushun? A troop carrier of the army was converted from a passenger ship. That time you praised that the ship was too big!" The first officer suddenly remembered the origin of the ship, Said to the captain.

But after he finished speaking, it was as if his throat was stuck by a fishbone, and he found that he couldn't say another sentence: The sunken Shichibanmaru troop carrier was quite huge, and it was full of people leaving Japan at any time. Or those who returned to Japan-now that the ship has sunk, how many people died, then really only Amaterasu himself knows.

"Strange! Why didn't you receive a signal for help?" The captain looked at the sea in doubt and asked to himself. He didn't expect anyone to answer his question, he just lamented that he missed a chance to save someone.

But as if someone was deliberately trying to answer his question, after he asked this question to himself, he saw something moving on the surface of the sea. The Japanese captain was taken aback for a moment, then rubbed his eyes and looked again, only to see a white tumbling wave rapidly approaching his ship.

"Nani?" He narrowed his eyes, trying to see clearly what the thing that was approaching his boat was. But when he saw clearly what it was, he was frightened and fell down on the deck beside the side of the ship.

"Fish...torpedo!" He pointed at the direction where the torpedo was coming, and shouted loudly at his subordinates, but the torpedo obviously didn't slow down because of his shouting. Within two seconds, it slammed headfirst into the side of the Japanese collier.

"Boom!" The huge explosion broke the slightly overloaded Japanese transport ship into two pieces, and then the Japanese ship sank to the bottom of the sea in an instant because of its heavy weight. Less than ten minutes later, the sea once again returned to calm, and there were still white waves rolling out of the sea, and all kinds of messy things floating around, no one could tell that it was here What have you been through.

...

"I said, captain, is it really good for us to record these unarmed ships that don't even have escorts and convert them into combat results?" A notepad was in hand, recording which ship was sunk The non-commissioned officer who looked like a Japanese collier raised his head and asked Captain Prien.

From the heavily fortified Iceland route and the east coast of the United States to the Far East, Germany's 20 submarines feel like they have come to heaven again: since they have changed the theater countless times, they have attracted the attention of the Allied forces, and finally set up in various sea areas After the tight defense and escort ships, they have never encountered such a relaxed hunting environment.

That's right, the German submarine commanders will fight in the waters of Japan and become "hunts". Because they found that Japan did not deploy enough anti-submarine forces in this sea area at all, or more intuitively, there were no Japanese anti-submarine destroyers in this sea area at all.

In the past few days when Prien and his partners sailed into the Sea of ​​Japan, every submarine has achieved amazing results: they have sunk dozens of Japanese transport ships, some of which transported coal and transported people Yes, there are food transporters. However, these slow-moving and loose-moving Japanese ships simply did not take effective countermeasures.

The Japanese army didn't even know what happened. All they could do was let the gunboats patrol the nearby waters and record what happened. A few days passed, and the Japanese side finally confirmed the existence of the German Navy's submarine force, but they were still helpless against the German submarines, and even the number and scope of activities of the German Navy were not clearly summarized.

"These Japanese are really strange. They were sunk nearby a few hours ago, but there are still ships passing by here..." The sergeant recorded and described the sunk coal ship. Features, while checking some old photos of Japanese ships, trying to find similar ships so that they can be sorted out.

"In any case, this is a very suitable sea area for submarine activities." Prien said to his first officer with a smile: "I don't know why the Americans didn't use the Far East base to attack the Japan Sea transportation line when the Soviet Union was still alive." ...It’s a good thing we’re here, otherwise such a pleasant place would really be wasted.”

A disaster of transportation lines in the Sea of ​​Japan has begun. What the Japanese base camp cannot believe is that, relying on a secret base of German submarines with incomplete facilities in the Far East and 20 submarines, they easily strangled Japan's fragile maritime supply lines. .

The entire Sea of ​​Japan was turned upside down, and every Japanese officer was devastated. Looking at what was happening in front of them, they didn't know what to do. The strength of Germany made it difficult for everyone who knew about it to have a good solution. It seems that there is only one path left for Japan to choose: that is to "defeat Germany".