Chile's siege of Iquique was completely arranged in accordance with the ancient oriental philosophy of warfare, and in China's siege warfare, it was said that the siege must leave a way for the enemy to live, and the purpose was to make the enemy unable to fight against the water to avoid the battle of the trapped beast.

The north side of Iquique City has always been open, and the two fortresses here have no effect at all, and there is not a single Chilean army in front of them during the whole artillery bombardment, but countless Iquique civilians fled north from here when the battle began, and they actually became spectators during the whole battle.

In the northwest corner of the city, at the top of the fortress near the sea, a middle-aged white man dressed as a civilian was watching the battle on the sea, and behind him a colonel of the Chilean Army stood respectfully.

"Mr. Henry, thank you for your support of the Peruvian nation, we will definitely go down in history after this war!"

"No, no, no...... Dear Colonel, I am just a businessman, and I will leave it to you to leave my name in history, and I warn you that my name does not want to appear on any paper, nor do I want it to be praised in people's mouths!"

"All I want is money, the most beautiful gold...... I'll help you find so many warships, you just have to be prepared to pay, hahaha......"

This merchant was Henry, a British arms dealer and the largest arms supporter of Chile in the past.

The attitude of Europe towards the war in Central America is interesting, that is, there is basically no attitude. Yes, this former Spanish colony, which has been on the edge of the international order since the independence movement, is a wild country in the eyes of Europeans, and that land is not important in their national strategy, except that archaeological teams and explorers can often bring back some bizarre legends to add some mystical elements.

Compared with the heavy dependence of human beings on mineral resources after globalization in the 21st century, in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, European civilization only relied on the supply of raw materials from North America, Africa and India.

As for the dumping market, Europeans still focus on places like China and India, and no one really cares about the vast and sparsely populated poor territory of South America.

It is precisely because the strategic position is very low and there are no urgent interests to be protected, so Britain, France, and other countries do not care about this war at all, and no matter who wins or loses, it is enough to send an official document of diplomatic concern when the time comes.

The only thing worth paying attention to is saltpeter, and before synthetic saltpeter technology was popularized, saltpeter from the Atacama Desert became the most sought-after hot commodity in the world's arsenals.

But Europe still has little interest in this war, because they know very well that no matter which country holds the saltpeter mine, Europe and the United States will always be the largest customers, and the best saltpeter here will still be sent to the arsenals of Europe and the United States.

Since the result is the same, what harm is there in the fierce fight between the three countries? On the contrary, the longer the war drags on, the better it will be for Europe.

Behind the British arms dealer Henry is actually standing behind the British government, Chile has formed an ironclad navy twice the size of Peru, and without the nod of Britain, it will not be able to pick up goods from European shipyards.

In this struvite war, the object of British support was Chile, not that Britain had any good impression of Chile, and the only reason why it chose to support Chile was because Chile was a relatively weak party.

Bolivia and Peru joined forces against Chile, and without foreign aid, Chile would certainly not be able to hold out for long, and a brief conflict would not be in the interests of Britain, let alone arms dealers.

Can you make the same amount of money if you fight a war for three months as if you fight it for three years? And the most important thing is that as soon as the war breaks out, the three South American countries will be very dependent on Europe's support, whether it is diplomatic or war borrowing, they will not be able to do without Europe.

The longer the war drags on, the more foreign debt these three countries will have, and European capital will be able to erode a large number of mining companies in these countries, and eventually they will privatize those mining companies that belong to the country little by little at a very low price, and when the European plutocracy secretly owns more shares, who cares how those governments change.

Henry sneered in his heart, "The war has just begun, these three countries have not fought to the point of cornering, my friends and I have not plundered the biggest cake and have not eaten the most shares, will we let this war end?"

"I'm not going to let this war out of our baton, and today in Iquique, I'm going to teach Chile a lesson...... Without the full support of our Europeans, you small South American countries are all rubbish!"

"Think you can change the tide of the war by hiring a group of veterans from China? Dream on, I'll keep you awake!"

Henry, an arms dealer, looked at the rumbling artillery battle on the sea, he was in a very comfortable mood, he turned his head and gave the colonel a Cuban cigar, lit it and said with a smile: "Remember, these warships were purchased by you from neutral Belgium, they do not belong to any country, and the soldiers on them are only pirates at the moment, remember!"

The Peruvian colonel smiled flatteringly, "Everything is as you wish, it's too dangerous here now, I'll escort you out!"

Henry nodded and walked off the fortress lookout, and after a while, more than two hundred war horses galloped forward along the road along the coastline in the north of the city, running towards the Peruvian plateau.

Merchants have no country in their eyes, only capital, and when Chile is weak, they will use all their connections to help Chile procure the most advanced warships in Europe, so as to create a navy twice that of Peru.

But when Chile becomes so powerful that it even seeks foreign aid from China in an attempt to end the war quickly, its original allies will immediately turn their backs.

Behind Henry's back, there are a large number of common rentier plutocracy, these people have terrible energy in their hands, and within half a month, they forced the Ecuadorian, Colombian, and Mexican navies to eliminate a number of old warships, and the company that bought these warships belonged to Panama.

The Panamanian company soon sold the ships to Canada, which in turn sold them to the Netherlands, and then to a Belgian company.

In this bewildering series of contracts for the change of ownership, the names of the ships were changed more than a dozen times, and the owners were changed more than a dozen times, and by the time the Peruvian military finally bought the ships, it was difficult to find any clues in these contracts.

In other words, no one can find the shadow of Henry and those big conglomerates from this series of transactions, obviously the warships are only a short voyage from Central America to Lima, the capital of Peru, but de jure these warships have already bypassed more than half the world.

What is even more strange is that there is also a stateless Central American mercenary army that has come to Peru with the warship, and they will fight for Peru as long as the Lima government pays a good salary.

The Chilean intelligence network did not know about all this, and they did not expect that it was Henry, the arms dealer who had betrayed them, who had been the friendliest to them.

This is the cruel law of the jungle, there is no morality, there is no warmth, only interests!