Great time travel

Chapter 62, Japan on the cruise ship
Across the entire Eurasian continent from west to east, and crossed the Sea of ​​Japan, which is wider than the Baltic Sea, and finally arrived at the mysterious eastern island country, as well as Germany's ally in this war... It's a pity that they have also become the same now. Servant state of the Soviets.

Standing on the wharf of Osaka Port, looking at the Japanese ocean liner "Rukawa Maru" that he will soon be the captain of, Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp felt an inexplicable feeling in his heart.As a sea wolf on the Atlantic Ocean, he also spent countless times in his spare time between battles, thinking about what he would do if he could survive until after the war, and the captain of a civilian ship is obviously a very reasonable way. Career prospects.

But Erich Topp never imagined that he would go on a cruise ship before the war was over!Moreover, it was a job arranged by the Soviets, and the place of work was the eastern allies of the motherland during the war-this contrast is really subtle... However, the Soviet soldiers who "escorted" Lieutenant Colonel Top to work, obviously had no intentions To consider his emotions, but pushed him behind impatiently.Under the rude urging of the other party, Lieutenant Colonel Top could only sigh, and boarded the gangway of the cruise ship "Rukawa Maru" listlessly.

——Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp, a German naval officer born in Hannover, 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-boat The world's third U-boat king who sank a ship of 552 tons in 20... and the two U-boat kings in front of him have already died in battle, so Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp is now well-deserved The world's number one submarine ace.

However, despite having such a glorious record and such an outstanding and successful military career, with the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany, Lieutenant Colonel Top could only obediently walk into the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp. He was sent to Siberia to reclaim the wilderness and repair the earth - throughout the Soviet era, and even earlier in the late Tsarist Russia, the development of Siberia was an extremely important strategic task, only to develop this barren land, not like Antarctica Only by looking good on the map can Russia truly become a superpower.

However, the development of Siberia requires a lot of manpower, and Russia itself is sparsely populated. On the one hand, Stalin, the father of steel, used patriotism and dedication to mobilize the Communist Youth League members, and on the other hand, forced relocation. The manpower collected is far from enough.Today, the Soviet Red Army has successively captured more than 200 million prisoners of the European Axis powers during the war. Afterwards, there were still many British, Spanish and Portuguese prisoners. Naturally, they would not let them go easily—these prisoners were all first-class and strong. Labor, and the military career allowed them to develop the disciplined habit of obeying orders, and learned some basic skills. Finally, their status as prisoners of war allowed them to be driven at will, and their labor efficiency was much higher than that of ordinary people.Therefore, all German prisoners of war who did not commit major crimes were basically sent to collective farms and labor camps in the Far East to open up wasteland and cultivate land, as well as to build the Siberian Railway and other infrastructure.Anyway, the Soviet Union does not raise waste, and those who do not work cannot eat, and if they do not work, they will starve to death and freeze to death!

So Lieutenant Colonel Top bid farewell to his submarine and the waves of the North Atlantic, and came to the wild snowfield of Siberia to wield a felling ax and a hoe.There is no need to mention all kinds of lack of food and clothing, various acclimatization, and various high-intensity labor during the period-the Soviet Union provided prisoners of war with dilapidated log cabins, and the food ration was shared by four people. Bran black bread, in addition to potatoes, cabbage and buckwheat porridge, occasionally a little salted fish to improve food, but have to work at least twelve hours a day, basically the treatment of serfs.

In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Top, who was not captured until the defeat of Germany in [-], was the last group of people who had suffered the least, and the life of the previous batch of prisoners of war was even more difficult.In the four or five summers when Lieutenant Colonel Top and his crew arrived in Siberia, the food in the labor camp for prisoners of war had been greatly improved. At least the vegetable porridge that prisoners of war ate every day had become so thick that a spoon could be inserted into it. It couldn't be poured down, and then there was a small amount of sugar and meat rations.But despite this, after a winter in Siberia, Captain Top lost a full five kilograms of weight.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Top did not stay in the log cabin in Siberia for long, because in the spring of [-], with the establishment of the Japanese Red regime and the opening of [chronological vending machines], the socialist camp was in the Far East. All of a sudden, tens of millions of tons of military and civilian ships (all of which were exchanged from [age vending machines] by frantically printing money) reached the point where ocean liners could be used as refugee camps.But no matter what, they couldn't gather so many sailors.The socialist camp, driven into a hurry, even began to recruit sailors from China and Eastern European countries—although the original number of sailors in these countries is actually very small, they are not very useful right now anyway, so they temporarily loaned them to the big brother of the Soviet Union In exchange for aid.

In addition, the Kremlin also played the idea of ​​sailors from various defeated countries.Following Stalin's order, hundreds of thousands of sailors of the Nazi German Navy were pulled out of the prisoner-of-war camp. After screening and eliminating some hardcore Nazis, the rest were given to two by the stern-faced Soviet political commissar. Choice: Either live in exile in Siberia for ten years, continue to eat black bread to repair the earth, and enjoy the treatment of a labor camp prisoner; or go to the still war-torn Japanese waters as a civilian ship sailor for three years, with the same salary and treatment as before being captured On par with officers and soldiers of the Red Navy at all levels, there are extra allowances for going to sea. Relatives in Germany can also follow the treatment of the families of Red Army soldiers and enjoy special food rations. In case of death, there are generous pensions.

Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Top and his subordinates chose to go to Japan to sail without hesitation, and then they were rewarded with a box of cigarettes and a full meal, and then they were stuffed on the road to Vladivostok. gram train.Because of Lieutenant Colonel Top's qualifications, he was directly appointed as the captain of a cruise ship before departure—of course, due to lack of trust, he, the captain, must be supervised by a political commissar at any time, and Lieutenant Colonel Top also said that understand.

Next, for this journey to East Asia, Lieutenant Colonel Top had a strange feeling that as the train got closer and closer to the Japanese front, the food provided to them became better and better.The staple food of the ration suddenly changed from black bread to white bread and sweet biscuits at some point, and the side dishes also grew from scratch, from less to more.At first there were only pickles, then there were small dried fish, and then there was a thick soup of potatoes and bacon.

Especially during the few days when they were stranded in the port of Vladivostok, waiting for the ship to go to Japan, Lieutenant Colonel Top and his subordinates were able to eat a full meal called "socialist sacrament" every day. "goulash with potatoes, plus beer, dessert and fruit-although even the Soviets themselves couldn't explain why they defined goulash as a "socialist sacrament", which is almost the same as when he was an ace captain before It was just as good when I ate it.

And according to the scene he witnessed on the streets of Vladivostok, it was bustling and noisy everywhere, and it was hard to see that the country was in the midst of a brutal war—the streets and alleys in the urban area were clean and tidy, and the streets were full of traffic. Busy, the pedestrians on the road are well-dressed, no one can see that anyone has been hungry, full of vigor and vitality.In the endless shop windows, there are all kinds of exquisite goods, and there are many things that Lieutenant Colonel Top has never heard of... God, is this really the Russia that is famous for its poverty?
In the eyes of the former ace captain Lieutenant Colonel Top, the only thing in the city that can show some traces of war is probably the ratio of men to women on the streets: on the streets of Vladivostok, young and middle-aged The number of men is obviously less. Almost all the clerks in the store are women, and even the bus drivers are all female drivers. Even if there are a few young men who appear occasionally, most of them are wearing military uniforms.

However, compared to the German hometown that has been destroyed into ruins, this place can definitely be called a socialist paradise.

Thinking of those relatives in his hometown who may not even be able to eat potatoes every day, the former ace captain, Lieutenant Colonel Top, couldn't help feeling a little sad, but since he was defeated, he had no choice but to accept his fate... Fortunately, since he volunteered to go to the East Come and set sail, the loved ones at home should be able to get some treats, and maybe send some money and food parcels in the future to help them survive this difficult time...

——All the glory, ideals, and dreams have disappeared 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 just after they arrived...

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It was pitch black in the empty engine room of the ocean liner "Rukawa Maru".The knocking sound echoed in the darkness. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Top, several former U-boat sailors of the German Navy sat with their feet spread apart on the oil-stained steel floor, competing with a generator set. Work hard.Everyone had a flashlight in their mouth, and the ground was covered with tools such as wrenches, screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, and several complicated circuit diagrams.

After tossing and tossing for a full two hours, until the battery of the flashlight was about to run out of the last bit of power, the generator set that was originally dead finally started to run rumblingly, and the dark cabin suddenly became brightly lit.The sailors threw the tools in their hands to the ground one after another, and let out a tired breath.

"...Oh, thank you so much! Now our ship can finally generate its own power, and we don't need to connect cables from the shore anymore."

The political commissar of the Japanese Communist Party and the former acting captain of the "Rukawa Maru", a short and lean lecturer at a Japanese university, spoke in very broken German, with an exaggeratedly humble tone and a sense of relief.

——Before, he resolutely led a group of rookie crew members, took instructions and blueprints, and fiddled with the engine room many times, trying to get the cruise ship's turbines, at least the generators, to run.But practice and theory are completely different things. The appearance of the generator on the ship is completely different from what he has seen in the school laboratory. There are many more switch handles and switches. Watches, and other watches, dazzled their eyes.What's more terrible is that there are unimaginably many large and small pipes of various calibers intertwined above and below each partition, hanging plate and movable deck.It's not like the cabin of a ship, but like the belly of a whale!Although the pipes of various systems are painted in different colors, rookies like them can't tell the difference even with the manual. Someone was electrocuted, but fortunately at least there was no fire, otherwise everyone on this boat would have been roasted...

Because of making a cruise ship full of thousands of refugees so dangerous, the relevant departments have issued many times to severely reprimand and even circulated criticism.But in the face of such a mess, this former university lecturer, who is completely out of professionalism, is completely helpless and devastated. Recently, he has been having nightmares for a week... Fortunately, now a professional from Germany has finally come, and he The layman can also abdicate to the virtuous.

Therefore, at this moment, the political commissar of the Japanese Communist Party really had a "saved" expression, and respectfully handed Captain Top a clean towel, "...the welcome lunch has been prepared, please wash your hands. Change your face and change your clothes, come and eat with me!"

Then, in one of the well-decorated small dining rooms on board, Captain Top and his men, almost dumbfounded, enjoyed a luxurious feast-long tables covered with crisp white linen tablecloths, decorated with vases and silk Made of fake flowers, copper cups and cutlery that shone like gold.All kinds of exquisite meals are dazzling, as if this is not a refugee ship, but a real sea hotel: golden and crispy roast chicken, juicy and delicious steak, fragrant cream cake, more than a dozen varieties of canned fruits... …there was even a gramophone playing during meals.

Although there is no alcohol on the table because of the ban, soft drinks, coffee and black tea are all open, and the coffee and black tea seem to be of the highest quality, so that since the war, the tongue has been full of artificial coffee (like margarine, both Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp, a special product of Nazi Germany, baked with barley, soybeans, and chicory), couldn't help being overwhelmed with emotion for a while, and didn't know what to say.

If you hadn’t seen the ruins of a city full of ruins on the shore before, just looking at the scene of ample food and clothing and pampering on the boat, I’m afraid it would be hard to imagine that you are in a turbulent country that is still ravaged by war, right?

At the same time, looking at the cargo ships with sickle and hammer flags coming and going on the sea outside the porthole, he couldn't help but sigh deeply, not only lamenting the strength of the Soviet Union, but also lamenting that the Soviets helped the little Japanese brothers The exaggerated intensity of the Japanese battlefield—it can be seen from today’s dining table that even the battlefield can eat so extravagantly. The various supplies that the Soviets aided the Japanese battlefield must be an unimaginable astronomical figure!

However, it is a pity that the facts are not what Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp imagined, but even more unbelievable-the current situation is not at all that the Soviet Union is gnashing its teeth and selling kidneys to Japan for blood transfusions, but on the contrary. Thousands of tons of military and civilian supplies were transported from Japan to Vladivostok by ship after ship, and then transported to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway to supply the daily needs of the socialist military and civilians throughout Europe... …Due to the limited capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway, a lot of materials were silted up in Vladivostok and could only be consumed locally. As a result, the deformed prosperity of that Far Eastern port city was increasingly caused—although before that, thanks to the Because of the frequent Japan-Soviet trade, it was already very prosperous there.

But Lieutenant Colonel Erich Topp didn't know the truth behind all this, and the vast majority of Japanese citizens naturally didn't know these secrets either.According to the acquiescence of the wartime base camp and the propaganda of the Japanese Communist Party, everything that these refugees eat, live and live comes from the generous assistance of the Communist International. Therefore, many Japanese refugees who were originally displaced and hungry and cold were all moved to tears , and the public opinion base of the red ideology has also expanded rapidly.

Then, after a while, as the operators of the ocean-going cruise ships and cargo ships were basically in place and started to get started, Erich Topp, who had gained weight rapidly after eating and drinking all day long since boarding the ship, The lieutenant colonel received the order to lift anchor and set sail very suddenly...