Chapter 631 The road is long 1

The curved crescent moon hangs obliquely in the sky, reflecting the sand grains around it, giving people an indescribable sense of desolation.

This is the Sultanate of Muscat (now Oman), the Kuliamur Islands, 75 kilometers north of the port of Salalah. From here, you can reach the Nej region controlled by Ibn Saud, but only if you cross about 600 kilometers of barren sand dunes to reach the oasis of Riyadh.

Usually, there are few people in this desert, but today a camel team came, but strangely, there is no cargo on the camel's back crawling in the gravel.

A bonfire flickered in the sea breeze. Several men wrapped their whole body in their robes and chatted around the fire, but the eyes under the face towel looked at the sea from time to time.

Sanjani will open the can. He doesn't know the words on the can, but the beef inside tastes very good. I heard that this is a canned military beef from the East.

He is a regular visitor to this dune, between Muscat and Riyadh. On the surface, he is just a businessman, but in fact, he is serving the great Ibn Shat Emir, helping him raise funds against the Hashim family and the Ottomans. His camel team has brought countless wealth to the Emir, because he is familiar with the road. So this time I was secretly sent here to pick up a group of oriental guests.

But what kind of guests will arrive at night?

And this is not a harbor. It is surrounded by shallow talks and reefs. It is desolate and frightening. How can they come here? I heard that the British have blocked the sea. Are they driving warships?

Sanjani took the opportunity to eat beef and looked at a few people next to him. He wanted to ask, but he was afraid of getting into trouble, so he simply closed his mouth.

However, he still admires these people from the East who like to claim to be the dragon country. You know, it is precisely because of their appearance that they have quietly changed the Arab world.

As the owner of one of the best camel teams in this desert, he is not a fool who only knows how to read scriptures all over the years. He knows very well that this desert, which seems to be isolated by war, has long been surging with a dark tide, although the whole Arabian Peninsula from here to the west also nominally belongs to the Ottoman Empire, in fact Arab chiefs, including the Emir, have long wanted to leave the Ottomans, but the current war situation is still unclear. Except for Hanzhi, who has already announced that he has joined the treaty abroad, no one dares to stand up and express his attitude.

Especially with the declaration of war by Xinhua, and the recent accession of Brunei, Ecuador and Peru, the strength of the Allies increased. The long series of warship wrecks all over the Pacific Ocean was enough to make these little chiefs temporarily clinging to Britain.

Now the Emir of Ibn Saud no longer need to worry about funds and weapons, because before the outbreak of the war, the Chinese brought tens of thousands of rifles and thousands of boxes of bullets, and I heard that the princess of the Emir had gone to the East to study and lived in the palace to fall in love with the prince, which is equivalent to giving His Excellency Emir a great support. Mountain.

Of course, all this is secret, because the emperor does not want the Emir to change his mind now, and the Emir does not want to make a statement at this time, but it is said that everyone has a tacit understanding that Xinhua will help completely defeat the Hanzhi Rashid family and take over the whole peninsula after the war.

Sanjani ate beef and squinted like the most cunning fox, as if he had seen the picture of the revival of the Arab world under the leadership of the Emir, but before he began to fantasize about what position he could get, a series of beeps suddenly sounded from the side.

The sound made him hold his breath immediately, because he had heard it in the telegraph station set up by the Chinese in Riyadh.

Sure enough, several people next to him immediately took out something similar to the square box of the telegraph station from their backpacks. One of them put on headphones. After listening for a while, they kept tapping with their fingers. After the sound came again, they turned off the radio station and stood up.

Sanjani did not dare to approach the radio station, but came to the man holding the telescope. Seeing him coming, his Chinese partner smiled at him and pointed to the distance.

Sangjani climbed up a big stone while swallowing his saliva. Through the moonlight, he saw a large amount of water suddenly appeared on the sea in the distance. After a while, when two huge shadows slowly surfaced like a monster under the sea, he was so scared that he almost fell down.

On the sea, several dolphins jumped back and forth around the submarine. This scene made Captain Zhu Changshan laugh and cry. Fortunately, it was night. If it was during the day, I'm afraid that such a strange situation had already attracted the Allied [***] ships all over the Indian Ocean.

After seeing the flashing red signal from the periscope, Zhu Changshan immediately ordered to open the hatch. As several leather boats quickly swelled up after inflating, several night eagles with backpacks drilled out of the hatch.

One, two, three.

If anyone else sees this scene at this time, I'm afraid they will be shocked. More than 50 night eagles have drilled out of each of the two huge submarines.

Watching the soldiers board the kayaks and row to the shore in batches, Zhu Changshan couldn't help but be a little proud. I'm afraid that there are only these two submarines that can transport so many soldiers all over the world.

This is part of the submarine attack plan actively promoted by Qin Shou, the commander of naval submarines. According to this plan, the navy will build more than 20 super-large submarines, each of which must ensure that it can carry 100 fully armed light infantry and has a range of at least 2,500 nautical miles.

According to the plan, submarine troops can depart from Hawaii to major countries on the Pacific coast, and then use the submarine's sudden surname to send at least 2,000 infantry to the enemy's coast. According to the plan, the navy allocated two large ocean-going submarines with a displacement of 3,600 tons for experiments. .

The result is disappointment. It's not that you can't carry so many soldiers, but that you can't install too many weapons after loading so many soldiers. In addition, the natural speed disadvantage of submarines makes soldiers need to stay in the stuffy tank for too long. In addition, their own survival ability also has problems after the Ally countries began to use deep-water bombs. The most important thing is that if there is no follow-up support, the landing operation will almost end in failure. As the aircraft carrier began to join the navy, the plan was abandoned.

Later, some officers proposed to change the two submarines into underwater carriers, carrying three or four seaplanes, but in the end, they were not realized because of various difficulties.

At that time, Li Mo also knew the plan, but he did not interfere, because the navy needed all kinds of ideas. It was impossible for the navy to make progress after others. The price of two experimental boats was nothing in front of new ideas, so he chose to watch.

After the plan was aborted, the navy was reluctant to give up these two submarines. At this time, Li Mo told them that in fact, it was not possible to use diving to carry soldiers to land on a large scale, but it was a sharp weapon for small-scale infiltration, so the two submarines named Killer Whale-class were finally retained. After the torpedo cabin was reinstalled, the residence cabin that can carry 50 people was retained.

Standing on the narrow deck, Wen Xiu's eyes were burning. Originally, the Nighthawk's plan was to go to West Siberia, but it was still snowy there, so he thought of using these two submarines to land from the Arabian Peninsula, and then take Mesopotamia into the Caucasus to enter Russia.

"Captain Wen, I'm waiting for you." After the informant who came to answer the salute, he immediately handed over the traditional Arab robe. Wenxiu did not refuse. It was not a problem for him what to wear.

"How many days will it take from here to the Caucasus?"

"Use a camel for about 20 days." The intelligence officer said: "There is no big problem in Neizhi, but you have to be careful after the Great Kuwait. Three days ago, the Allied forces suddenly strengthened their offensive. They bypassed Hamadan and tried to attack Baghdad from there. At present, they have been blocked by the Ottoman army, but recently they have been killed like chicken blood, and Russia is also He began to gather heavy troops in Baku to prepare for a counterattack on Erzurum. The situation was not very good.

"Oh? What about the Second Marine Division? After getting dressed quickly, Wen Xiu and the intelligence officer rode on the camel side by side and said, "Is there a big problem?"

"A little bit."

Speaking of the Second Marine Division, the intelligence officer's face was not good. He shook his head and said, "The Allied forces have been attacking Avas, and the troops have suffered a lot of casualties. Moreover, yesterday the British navy also tried to attack the Bay of Musabal. The Seventh Fleet desperately resisted and sank three cruisers, but he also lost two destroyers. At present, he We are considering giving up the Musabal Bay base and making every effort to defend the port of Kuwait.

As soon as he heard that the situation in Kuwait, which was still calm before departure, had changed so much in a short period of time, Wen Xiu couldn't help but change his face slightly and quickly asked, "Have these situations been reported?"

"I reported it, but I heard that the General Staff could not come up with a good way, because the Strait of Hormuz has been completely cut off by mines, and even Britain's own fleet in the Gulf can't get out for the time being, and the ability of the Ottoman army is too poor. Once facing the Allied countries, they will retreat desperately. Now the north of Avas to Hamadan was occupied by the Allies. It was originally heard that the superiors were going to persuade Ibn Saud to join the war, but it was rejected, so the Second Marine Division fought very hard and did not receive any assistance and supplement at all.

Wen Xiu took a deep breath and had the idea of leading troops to help the Second Marine Division, but rationally told him that he must not stay here, because the task he shouldered this time was too important. If he succeeded, it would completely change the current war situation.

And the general and the emperor will certainly not watch the second division be surrounded, but the road in front of them is really too difficult to walk. There are more than 1,500 kilometers from here to Greater Kuwait. There are no railways or roads along the way. They are all deserted deserts. It is very difficult for the army to walk, even if the motivation is super The strong armored division is also a little difficult.

In the final analysis, Xinhua has the best equipment, but the incomplete infrastructure of various countries cannot afford advanced equipment. If in Xinhua, relying on relatively perfect transportation, it is not a problem for the armored division to run four or five hundred kilometers in a day, but one or two hundred kilometers in such a place. It's enough to have a headache!

What's more, submarine landing can be reached secretly. Once the operation of the large force is absolutely hidden from the Indian fleet, it is thousands of nautical miles from Singapore, and the pressure of naval escort is very great.

"Can the Lu Second Division support the arrival of the large army? What kind of good method will the emperor come up with? Watching two killer whale submarines slowly sink to the bottom of the sea, Wen Xiu withdrew his eyes, and there was also a long journey of more than 3,000 kilometers in front of him.

(to be continued)