V4CH34: Naval Crisis

The turquoise waters of the Baltic Sea shone brightly under the sunlight. The razor-sharp bow of the German Navy's Type 9A ocean-going submarine U37 easily split the deep emerald waters and flew over the crests of the pounding waves. The seawater stirred by the bow mixed with countless bubbles danced in the air like countless shining diamonds and pearls, then poured violently on the cold and hard steel deck of the submarine, and finally returned to their turquoise homeland by following the narrow drainage holes on the deck.

　　"Looking at this infinite sea makes me feel how small I am. It is so calm, vast, and inclusive of everything that the human mind feels very calm and restful, it makes me almost forget that there is still a war in the world. Looking at this beautiful scenery I don't even want to think about the brutal duel we will face." Wehrle leaned on the bridge fence and looked at the distant glittering sea horizon and let out a heartfelt admiration.

　　"The sea is an unpredictable child, when it is calm it is like a most peaceful angel, and when it becomes angry, even the most violent demons in hell can not catch up with half of its cruelty and ferocity. And that's what I like about it, only those who have endured that kind of test, faced that kind of danger, and persevered are really strong, those are real men." A handsome young naval officer looked up from his compass and smiled at Wehrle.

　　"Haha, really, I've never been to sea. So I haven't seen the wild side of the sea yet, but I've heard many stories of seamen battling the wind and waves before, and admire the immense courage of those in the stories. To be honest, I don't know if I could be as brave as they were in facing the fury of the sea, which I don't know much about yet. Colonel Rojenkram."

　　"Oh, you've never been to sea before?" The naval captain asked in surprise.

　　"Really, this is my first time at sea; the most I've ever done before was to row a small boat in a canal or go for a swim in a lake. You know my job has kept me from embracing the real ocean, but now I can finally remove my regret, thanks to His Excellency the Marshal." Wehrle replied with a smile, and after the last sentence, he turned his gaze to Xu Jun who was looking into the distance with a telescope in one hand on the left side of the bridge.

　　"So that is the case, then I can say that His Excellency Admiral Wehrle is a natural seaman, I have never seen anyone who would adapt to the oscillations of a ship so quickly on their first trip to sea, especially a submarine in this state of surface travel, even those veteran sailors who have spent time on other surface ships could not adapt to such crazy bumps so quickly." Admiral Siegfried marveled at Wehrle's kind of amazing adaptability.

　　"Hahahaha, Captain Siegfried, you don't know that I can adapt to such bumps because of my poor balance. Marshal Reinhardt has the real adaptability, he's a pilot, and his balance is beyond normal but do you see anything different about him? He was as comfortable on the boat as he was on land. Look at those guys in the back, it's a disgrace to the German army, on land they're all in high spirits and alive but at sea, they're in such a mess." Wehrle shook his head and laughed, then he turned his head.

　　"Randolph! Look what you look like, have you puked enough? You're not even as good as an old man like me, and seeing you in such pain, you might as well just shoot yourself." Wehrle shouted to Randolph, who was convulsively spitting green water while holding the railing on the weapons platform at the rear of the bridge.

　　Randolph weakly holding the railing to raise his head teary-eyed look at standing on the bridge with his head up and spirit floating.

As a result, before a word could be said, he slumped to the railing and vomited heavily. Standing beside him, Hans hastily patted his back, Hans's face is not very pretty now, but compared to the green Randolph is much better. The four storm commandos were lying on the other side of the weapons platform contributing their food to the sea, and now these few heavily armed commandos could not even hold their pistols up, but from the current situation it seems that their bodies should be trying to adapt to this special environment, and in a day or two they will be able to return to their original state.

　　"Colonel Rojenkram." Xu Jun put down the binoculars and turned to the Navy Captain.

　　"Yes, my marshal," Siegfried replied respectfully.

　　"Oh, don't be so formal. You've worked with Muller for a while and should know from him what kind of a man I am. Besides, we met once, at the celebration at Dunkirk."

　　"Yes, my marshal. I was very impressed by your easy-going demeanor then." Siegfried was still a little hesitant, but there was no longer that restrained look on his face.

　　"This time, Admiral Raider sent you here also because I know you, right?" Xu Jun slowly walked to the side of the radio signal receiving antenna, then leaned his back against the fence and looked at Siegfried who was standing in front of the Xu Jun, and smiled.

　　"Yes, Marshal Raider sent me here because I have worked with you before and he wants to show you goodwill, hoping to exchange your trust in him through me," Siegfried replied respectfully.

　　"Oh, yesterday when discussing my plan of action with you, I felt that you were not a simple messenger, and now that you have so easily told me the intentions of that commander of yours, you are trying to test what kind of a person I am, right?" Xu Jun still smiled as he looked at Siegfried.

　　"No, my Field Marshal, I am not trying to test your intentions in the slightest. I was thinking that instead of letting you speculate on the final conclusion it would be better to simply tell the whole story from the beginning, which would better prove our Navy's support and loyalty to you."

　　"Didn't Raider want to remain neutral? When he made his overtures to me through Kanaris, I suspected that Kanaris was teasing me. Yesterday there were too many people for me to question you closely about this, and now that there are only our people here, you can tell me why the Navy has suddenly fallen in my favor. When did Raider suddenly become courageous enough to confront that man." Xu Jun still kept his smile, both eyes fixed on Siegfried, expecting Siegfried to give him a satisfactory answer.

　　"In fact, it was that man himself who forced the navy to this path. The navy was forced by him to the point where they had to protect themselves just like the army." Siegfried showed a sad expression, he continued, "He forced the Admiralty to take a stand with him in order to prevent the Navy from falling back to you, and you know that Marshal Rydell took delaying tactics against him at first. Obviously, Marshal Rydell's response did not sit well with that man. As a result, the man sent a special investigation team into the Admiralty, which did whatever it wanted in the name of investigation, and many officers were suspended and even arrested without reason.

　　The man used his power to replace a number of outstanding naval officers, and now the guys sitting in those important positions are all loyal to him, some of them have not even seen the sea. The navy has completely lost its normal command, a large number of ships were strictly ordered to withdraw to their respective ports, and the manufacture of many ships came to a halt. Your planned blockade of the British mainland now existed in name only, for there were no more battleships or submarines patrolling the Atlantic. Although the operational reports say that they are continuing the blockade of Britain, in fact, they are all in their respective ports under the scrutiny of those Reich Security Services.

　　And all this information was strictly blocked by that person, and many of the junior naval officers did not know that this was actually an operation for the whole navy, otherwise, a mutiny would have already happened. We also did not disseminate the truth because we considered that it might cause incalculable damage to the Navy. We don't want those good naval officers and men to be arrested by those brutes for showing any dissatisfaction after knowing these things.

　　The U37 you are now on, which was supposed to be on patrol near Iceland right now, was withdrawn to the naval base in Denmark to be investigated after those investigation teams entered the naval command. But it was because of this that Marshal Rydell was able to get them transferred to Danzig so quickly. Otherwise, we really don't have any way to find three ocean-going submarines for you to go in a day's time."

　　Hearing Siegfried's words, Xu Jun couldn't help but be astonished. The navy was in big trouble, yet he still knew nothing about it. Although his own intelligence network in the navy is relatively weak, not to the point of not even knowing about such a big event, it can be seen how high Hitler's blockade was, in this matter.

　　Hitler once again overestimated his own power, thinking that he could consolidate his control over the navy again by the same means as when he first came to power. He did not take into account that his enemies were not the same small groups as before, but that his enemies were as powerful as he was, and even had power over him. He did not get the results he wanted, because now the Navy has another choice besides him.

　　He had pushed the Navy into rebellion, a tyrant who had once again helped himself by pushing into his hands yet another powerful group in the German army, a tomb he was working hard to dig for himself.

　　And Siegfried provided another piece of news that made Xu Jun feel very worried. The navy had surprisingly lost its normal command, and the blockade of Britain had been artificially stopped. Xu Jun felt a coldness sweeping behind him, what was that man's mind thinking, what was the difference between this practice and collaborating with the enemy. Although the British in the first part of the battle were downtrodden by their own defeat, they still had a firm will to resist. Did that man think that by eliminating the British battleship fleet, he could easily make Britain bow down? Now is the most critical period to force down Britain, that person surprisingly at this time, decided to stop the blockade of Britain, now giving Britain a chance to breathe, this once sunsetting empire will soon recover from the heavy blow of the previous battle, those losses of personnel and equipment will be compensated by those overseas colonies and those federal countries of her support. Soon she will be able to reap the benefits of this German negligence, and Germany may pay a heavy price for having made this foolish mistake.

　　Xu Jun is now more anxious to solve this matter quickly, he wants to correct this mistake before it has caused irreparable damage to Germany, because according to his knowledge of this history if it is not too late to go to correct it, he definitely did not want to let Britain draw new blood.

　　Looking at Xu Jun, who was pondering, Siegfried secretly let out a long breath, he could see from the marshal's tightly frowning brow that the marshal had fully understood the seriousness of the matter, and he saw the crisis hidden behind this matter. Siegfried felt that the stone that had been blocking his heart had finally fallen to the ground, he believed in the ability of this deputy head of state, as long as he began to think about countermeasures, that means the Navy will definitely be saved.

　　"Why are you telling me this now, why didn't you tell me yesterday, why didn't you tell me when you were joking with Wehrle in front?" Xu Jun suddenly raised his head, two eyes stared closely at Siegfried's eyes coldly asked.

　　Looking at those eyes that emitted a vague cold light, Siegfried felt like he was practically freezing.

　　"No, my marshal, please listen to my explanation. You must believe me, I have no intention to deceive you or conceal this information." Siegfried was startled by the strong sense of oppression that Xu Jun gave him, and at that time he suddenly had a feeling that if he could not give this marshal a reasonable explanation he would end up in a miserable situation, and he hastily shook his hand to explain: "It is because Marshal Raider ordered me that unless I must need to use this in exchange for your trust in us, it is best not to report these things to you in the presence of other people It is best not to report such matters to you in the presence of others, especially in the presence of other naval officers. I was not at liberty to speak of it yesterday with Captain Gilse present, and I am not at liberty to speak of it now with Admiral Wehrle on this bridge."

　　Hearing Siegfried's explanation, Xu Jun smiled faintly, and that strong sense of oppression disappeared into nothingness in an instant, as if it had never existed, which made Siegfried almost think that the sense of oppression just now was only his own illusion. But he knew clearly that it was real, and Siegfried couldn't help but add a touch of awe to Xu Jun.

　　"Colonel, I believe in your words. Don't worry, as long as you make me feel that you are worthy of my trust, I will give you my trust in you without reservation. Now that you have passed my test, you are indeed a very capable naval officer." Xu Jun smiled and said to Siegfried.

　　"Thank you, my marshal, it is my greatest honor to gain your trust." Siegfried respectfully bowed his head in greeting to express his gratitude.

　　"Don't worry about the navy, I believe Marshal Riedel can still hold out for a while, at least there is still Kanaris and his Intelligence Bureau to support him in the dark. The trouble now is that Britain may take this opportunity to get a breather, and they are the most troublesome problem for me in this matter. We must solve this problem now before Britain has had time to catch its breath."

　　"Yes, Field Marshal." Wehrle on the side nodded his head and spoke. Since listening to Siegfried's report in front of him, Wehrle's mind had not stopped in analyzing what the consequences of this matter would be, and the results had begun to chill even the wise chief of staff.

　　"My marshal, I think we can't change this situation no matter what we use now, there is only one way to solve all the problems, and that is to solve this matter we have now as soon as possible, then all things can go back to their right track," Wehrle said indifferently.

　　"Well, now there is only this solution. We need to reach our destination as soon as possible. Colonel Siegfried, how many more days do we need to arrive." Xu Jun asked to Siegfried.

　　"According to the plan, if there is no accident, we should arrive in France within four days. But now that the British warships are patrolling the North Sea again, I don't know if we will encounter their destroyers."

　　"That's not a problem, we are now a submarine formation, we still have the ability to resist against that kind of single destroyer patrol." Xu Jun looked towards the two submarines on the side and back.

　　"I don't know, my marshal, our submarines have never been in a formation before, but come to think of it, three submarines should have a little greater survival rate than one, though the rate of being detected increases accordingly. Not only do we have to dodge local patrol ships, but we also have to dodge our own air force's patrol reconnaissance planes. It's not a good road ahead." Wehrle said worriedly.

　　"Please rest assured on this point, Admiral, we will go around all the potentially exposed waters, and UU read the book www.uukanshu.com If we really can't hide, we can still dive and sail covertly. It should be possible to remain undetected." Siegfried smiled and comforted Wehrle.

　　At this time, with a clear sound of metal clashing, Dorgan hurriedly climbed out of the submarine.

When he climbed out of the entrance and stood up, he immediately stood at attention and said seriously to Xu Jun, "Marshal, we are now going to enter the Danish Mattegat Strait, and in order not to be discovered by our own and Swedish patrol ships and planes, we are now going to dive and sail stealthily. Captain Gilse asks you to enter the submarine at once."

　　"Oh, I see, thank you for coming to inform me, we have had enough time to breathe, so now we will obey the orders of the Captain and go down obediently." Xu Jun smiled and said to Wehrle and Siegfried.

　　"Then I will go down first, and I will help you below." Siegfried sharply slid down the hatch with both legs holding the vertical ladder. Then Xu Jun was also supported by Wehrle slowly climbed down the ladder, and Siegfried met below and drilled into the command tower.

　　After Dorgan sent Wehrle into the hatch, he turned around and shouted to the men on the weapons platform at the back, "We're about to dive, so get into the submarine quickly. Look at you, you still look like strong German soldiers. Move quickly, everyone is waiting for you, don't disgrace the Field Marshal."

　　Dorgan then pointed at Randolph and said coldly: "Especially you, Randolph, I'll warn you again, if you go in and vomit in front of the marshal again, I'll have Captain Gilse put you in a torpedo tube and fire you out. I believe you should scare the British more than a torpedo, and at least the torpedo won't vomit on them."