Back to 1939 Sea Wolf

  A Boeing 747 flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to Beijing, China was flying over the vast Indian Ocean. In the business class cabin, Zhou Tianlei was comfortably leaning back in his seat, but he tightly grasped a laptop bag in his hand and locked it to his wrist with handcuffs, covering it with a piece of clothing.

  The flight attendant had asked him to put his laptop bag in the overhead luggage compartment, but after seeing Zhou Tianlei's proof issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she didn't bother him anymore.

  Zhou Tianlei is 32 years old this year. He was originally a mechanical engineering undergraduate at Tsinghua University, but later voluntarily joined the Chinese People's Navy. At that time, his teachers and classmates, friends were all confused, asking him why he would give up his promising future to join the navy. When he heard others' questions, he just smiled and didn't answer. Everyone couldn't get an answer from him, so they speculated that he must have encountered some great spiritual blow, especially whether he had emotional problems. However, he left everyone with one question after another, and amidst all the speculation, he boarded a train heading south.

  Due to his good performance in the troops and also writing many reports, Zhou Tianlei was soon recommended to go to Qingdao Submarine Academy for further study (actually not many people wanted to go, otherwise it wouldn't be so easy to push him). After receiving the admission notice, he jumped up excitedly (actually you just like German World War II ace submarine commander Günter Prien, want to be China's Günter Prien, think it's interesting to fight wits and bravery with enemies underwater and on the surface, that's why I joined the navy, but I'm not sure about that complicated stuff). However, in 2004 China, it was relatively difficult to achieve. Zhou Tianlei pleaded: Big brother, where can I go to make it happen? Hehe, I'll give you a good environment, send you to Germany just to pave the way.

  Here's the translation:

  By the way, everyone knows that the main force of the Chinese Navy is submarines. When the navy was first established, it had a three-word motto: Fast, Stealthy, Flying (fast boats, submarines, aircraft). Someone shouted, and I thought it sounded like "short, flat, and fast". That's right, this was the original short, flat, and fast of the Chinese Navy. There were also some grand words about the navy, but I won't mention them here, anyway, all Chinese people know, so there's no need for everyone to say that I'm just padding the word count.

  But the level of Chinese submarines has always been relatively low, especially in terms of underwater noise, detection and comprehensive command systems. The Americans once said that China's Han-class submarine, as soon as it left the Bohai Bay, the entire Yellow Sea could hear its sound, although this statement is a bit exaggerated, but it must be admitted that the level of the Chinese Navy's submarines is relatively low in the world. China naturally also understands this point, so it has been working hard to improve the performance of its submarines. For example, in the early 1980s, it imported sonar from France and imitated and transformed it, and imported torpedoes from the United States, but the imitation results were not very good. In the 1990s, taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, Russia sold advanced weapons to foreign countries in order to make a living, and China imported Kilo-class submarines, Club submarine-launched missiles and other advanced equipment, and introduced a large number of scientific research personnel and technology to improve and design Chinese submarines.

  This is not the case, Zhou Tianlei's laptop bag had a mobile hard drive inside, which contained a large number of technical documents related to advanced submarines from Germany, France and Sweden (these things are actually publicly available information, published in European academic papers, but just not allowed to be obtained by China). One of Zhou Tianlei's tasks was to sort out these documents with the help of military attachés at the embassy in Europe and bring them back to the country, because the military attachés were not very clear about what kind of intelligence would be useful for the Chinese Navy due to professional reasons. Don't underestimate the work of gathering intelligence, don't think that it has to be like the British 007 in the movies to get intelligence, that's just for show. In fact, a lot of intelligence can be obtained from public sources. So Zhou Tianlei had a lot of information stored on his laptop hard drive as well. That's why he was holding on so tightly, this is all state secrets after all, if it gets leaked, it would be disastrous.

  However, due to a secret mission, the military attaché at the German embassy arranged for him to go to Saudi Arabia first and then return to China from there.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, sorry to disturb you. We have encountered high-altitude air currents ahead. You may feel a bit uncomfortable, please fasten your seatbelts. Our flight attendants will check on you, if you are not feeling well, please let them know in time. Thank you for your cooperation."

  The captain's voice had just fallen. Zhou Tianlei felt a more intense tremor, and although the flight attendants still wore their professional smiles, Zhou Tianlei saw a hint of panic in their eyes. They hastily checked the plane and then quickly returned to their seats. Relying on his years of military training, Zhou Tianlei felt that things were not as simple as the captain had said. However, there was no way to do anything, so he just gripped his computer bag a bit tighter.

  The plane suddenly shook violently, and Zhou Tianlei looked out to see that one of the engines was trailing a long flame. A while later, white smoke began to emerge, but it didn't restart for a long time. Zhou Tianlei knew that this engine was probably done for. Soon, other passengers also discovered the situation. But heaven seemed not to have had enough fun yet. Following that, several other engines also died. Zhou Tianlei cursed in his heart: "What an unlucky day today is, what bad things all happened to me (Hmph, if the plane didn't have problems do you think you could go to that war-torn era?)."

  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We've encountered a slight problem with the plane. We'll do our best to make an emergency landing at an airport in India, but we can't rule out the possibility of ditching in the ocean! Our flight attendants will now demonstrate the use of life jackets and inflatable cushions. Please watch carefully. Thank you."

  Zhou Tianlei looked forward and saw two flight attendants explaining the usage to all the passengers in the business class cabin, while the passengers were staring at them with wide eyes and looking terrified. At this time, Zhou Tianlei saw another flight attendant rushing towards the cockpit and hurriedly signaled her, not waiting for her to come over before rushing up to say: "I am a Chinese naval officer, this time I am going to Germany to execute the orders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the computer bag in my hand has important national data, can you please give it to the captain to put it in your professional safe box? I don't want it to be damaged."

  He took out a certificate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and showed it to her. The flight attendant took one look and hurriedly said to Zhou Tianlei, "You'd better come with me..."

  At this moment, Zhou Tianlei felt a flash in front of his eyes and then he knew nothing!