When the meeting ended, when Zhou Yongtao returned to the study, it was already past 2 o'clock in the morning.

It's just that it's not time to rest yet.

Lin Shiping had been waiting here for more than an hour, and even he didn't expect to be delayed for so long.

"How's it going?"

Zhou Yongtao only nodded, and after sitting down, he closed his eyes, looking physically and mentally exhausted.

From yesterday morning to now, in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as the beginning of the supper, I haven't stopped, and I've been reading documents when I squatted in the toilet.

Lin Shiping waited patiently for a few minutes, and after noticing that Zhou Yongtao's expression was a little relaxed, he said: "We have long thought that it is a matter of time before we come to this point, otherwise we would not have elected you six years ago, and you would have led the empire to meet the challenge." ”

"If I had known, I would have stayed at the Navy Command."

Lin Shiping smiled, he knew that Zhou Yongtao was just complaining.

"According to what was discussed at today's meeting, after the cabinet plenary meeting tomorrow morning, the relevant preparations will be officially launched, and there will be no turning back after that." Zhou Yongtao let out a long breath and said: "Although there are still some differences on specific issues, an agreement has been reached on major issues. Even if we are willing to compromise and make concessions, there is no way to prevent the outbreak of a global war in the current situation. ”

"The choice of whether to fight or not is not in our hands."

"Nor is it in our hands."

"In any case, we did not take the initiative to provoke this war, and we did not ......"

"What's the point of talking about this now?"

Lin Shiping was stunned for a moment, and then sighed with a wry smile.

"Like you said, this day will come sooner or later, and 10 years ago, when I was elected, there was already a similar judgment."

"The war has not yet broken out, and it may be able to be redeemed."

Hearing Lin Shiping say this, Zhou Yongtao frowned, his eyes were full of doubts, and he suspected that Lin Shiping was still holding a trump card in his hand.

Lin Shiping didn't explain, and glanced at the phone on the desk.

Zhou Yongtao immediately understood, and then shook his head with a wry smile.

Is Lin Shiping asking him to give Chancellor Wolfgang? Reinhardt called.

"In any case, Reinhardt is not an impolite dictator like Hussein, at least he will be reasonable, and perhaps there is room for negotiation."

"If there really was something to talk about, it wouldn't have come this far, at least not my turn to make the call."

Hearing Zhou Yongtao say this, Lin Shiping couldn't help but sigh.

Reinhardt is indeed a reasonable person, but the current situation is obviously not reasonable or a phone call can be resolved.

The point is that Reinhardt did not call Zhou before making a statement.

This is a very clear signal, and there is no need to talk about it at all.

"It's not too early, you should go back and rest early."

"Okay, I'll get back to you when there's any new news."

After coming out of the study, Lin Shiping met Luo Youbin who was guarding outside. He was going to tell Luo Youbin about it, but after thinking about it, he thought it was better to forget it.

Luo Youbin is also just a secretary, so there is no need to embarrass him.

In fact, Lin Shiping came to the Shoufu Mansion and patiently waited for Zhou Yongtao for more than an hour, that is, he hoped that Zhou Yongtao would make this call.

Of course, Lin Shiping did not come empty-handed.

In the past ten days, he has contacted Sims, the intelligence chief of the Imman Empire, through various channels, and received a positive answer, and he can contact Reinhardt through Sims, that is, through the intelligence agency to keep in touch, without worrying about being known by the outside world.

The premise is that Zhou Yongtao has to call Reinhardt and raise the matter.

According to Lin Shiping's meaning, no matter what the future holds, as long as we can keep in touch and negotiate directly with the Supreme Commander, there will always be a day when the peaks and loops will turn around.

Crucially, Sims has revealed a similar will.

It's not intelligence deception, and there's no need for this, after all, the Empire launched a war at this time, not hoping to defeat the Liangxia Empire on the battlefield, just to divert internal contradictions, and it is also possible to control the situation, so as to avoid developing into a full-scale war.

At least in Lin's view, this is a way to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale war.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yongtao's mood was obviously not very good, or he didn't think that Reinhardt was willing to work with him to prevent the outbreak of the war.

Lin Shiping has no reason to fight, and with a strong first assistant, he can't fight for a reason.

In fact, when Zhou Yongtao mentioned the results of the military meeting, Lin Shiping had already thought that it was probably not Zhou Yongtao who was pushing the situation forward now.

It's not that Zhou Yongtao has been controlled by the military, and no general in the empire can control him.

The only thing that can push Zhou Yongtao forward is the "general trend".

To put it bluntly, at this juncture, even Zhou Yongtao has to obey the general trend, otherwise the surging public opinion will crush him to pieces.

It can be seen that this is not a question of whether to fight or not at all.

It was after thinking about these that Lin Shiping did not insist on his opinion.

However, he also knows that there is still a glimmer of hope to prevent a regional war from turning into a global war, and it is not yet time to give up.

In fact, Lin Shiping is not the only one who has this idea.

After he left, Zhou Yongtao called Luo Youbin in.

In addition to instructing Luo Youbin to arrange the cabinet plenary meeting in the morning, Zhou Yongtao also arranged one thing for Luo Youbin to contact Nong Chengpei.

Let Nong Chengpei set off for Switzerland on the western continent with the diplomatic delegation of the special envoy as soon as possible.

As for what to do in Switzerland, Zhou Yongtao did not make arrangements for the time being.

Switzerland is a permanently neutral country recognized by almost all countries, and is the only country on the Western Continent that has not yet joined the Western Continent bloc.

Obviously, if there is a need to resolve disputes diplomatically at some point in the future, Switzerland will need to be turned to.

It can be seen that Zhou Yongtao also believes that there is still a glimmer of opportunity.

It's a pity that, as Lin Shiping judged, when the whole empire was angry at the statement of the Manman Empire, even if Zhou Yongtao was the first assistant with the strongest prestige and appeal after Lian Xusheng, it was impossible to go against the wishes of the 800 million soldiers and civilians, let alone abolish armaments because of unrealistic fantasies!

At the beginning of the meeting, Qin Fenglie had already mentioned that it would be perverse to compromise with the Empire now.

No matter who it is, they can't let the brilliant victory achieved more than 40 years ago with more than 3 million casualties and hundreds of billions of gold dollars be buried for no reason. Those who do stupid things to destroy the Great Wall will inevitably be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.

What's more, the current Riman Empire is no longer comparable to the original Riman Empire.

In fact, Qin Fenglie said this not only to remind Zhou Yongtao, but also to warn Zhou Yongtao not to bet on his prestige in the empire.

If anything, the "strongman era" of the empire has long passed.

Lian Xusheng is the last "strongman Shoufu" of the empire.

The disastrous defeat of the Polish-Iranian War, and the subsequent civil service chiefs, completely buried strongman politics.

It's not that there will never be a strongman like Lian Xusheng again, but that appropriate conditions are needed.

This condition is actually a war of great victory!

To put it more bluntly, if Zhou Yongtao can lead the empire to win this war, even if he wins a few battles in the early stage of the war, he can become a strongman like Lian Xusheng, and he can implement his own policies as he wants, and before that, he still has to be dominated by public opinion.

It's not a nice statement, but it's true.

After 6 years as the first assistant, it is impossible for Zhou Yongtao not to understand the power.

In fact, Zhou Yongtao has always been famous for his political vision, otherwise Bai Zhizhan would not have tried his best to ensure that he sat in the position of first assistant.

The most representative is actually a personal life event.

More than 40 years ago, that is, when the war was about to end, Zhou Yongtao married the eldest lady of the Zhang family and became Bai Zhizhan's nominal niece and son-in-law.

It was from this time that he officially entered the political arena of the empire.

Interestingly, at that time, there were still many people who believed that he would follow Bai Zhizhan and become the fast son-in-law of the empire, marrying the little princess at that time, that is, the sister of the current saint.

If he becomes an imperial concubine, glory and wealth will definitely be indispensable.

But the problem is that as a colt, the highest achievement that Zhou Yongtao can achieve is only to replace Li Mingbo and become the commander-in-chief of the imperial navy after the White War.

If you want to live in the Shoufu Mansion as an imperial concubine, it is basically impossible.

The point is that everyone will see the "colt" as the spokesperson of the royal family, which will shake the political foundation of the empire, or at least affect the basic political structure.

In addition, there is also the suspicion of "unconstitutionality", that is, it violates the original intention of the constitutional reform initiated by Emperor Shiwu.

The point is to pose a threat to the major interest groups.

To a large extent, Bai Zhizhan did not serve as the first assistant of the empire after Lian Xusheng's first resignation, which led to the reversal of the empire's basic strategy at that time, which had a lot to do with his status as a concubine. At that time, including Xue Yuanzheng, they were all opposed to him serving as the first assistant of the empire.

From an after-age perspective, this was the first major decision-making blunder at the strategic level that the Reich made after the war.

At that time, the domestic and foreign situation between 110 and 115 of the new calendar, after Lian Xusheng left office, if Bai Zhizhan was appointed as the first assistant of the empire, it was very likely that the empire would avoid the quagmire of the next war and would not be involved in the war of independence of the Boi country when the Republic of There was unsustainable.

If anything, the Boi country will not even break out into war because of independence!

According to later declassified information, the Boi National Independence Movement organization chose to take a risk, because it felt that the civilian chief assistant after Lian Xusheng lacked decisive decision-making ability, and may not dare or be willing to send troops to the war at the first time, so it hoped to take this opportunity to gain independence in advance. Deceived by the outside world, the leaders of the Boish National Independence Movement have always felt that politicians who play with power will not deliver on their promises.

Do not forget that according to the agreements signed during the war, it will only take a few more years for the Poi region to hold a referendum on whether to establish an independent state.

If it was a white cessation of war, the leaders of the national independence movement in Boi would never dare to make such a judgment.

Moreover, the credibility of military leaders is certainly above that of politicians.

During Lien Xusheng's reign, the situation in the Boi region remained stable, and the National Independence Movement had high hopes for the empire.

From this point of view, the Empire's hegemony can be perpetuated and weakened by strengthening its control over Posha Bay, and weakening the other two superpowers.

If anything, there won't even be a three-legged situation.

It's a pity that Bai Zhizhan couldn't live in the Shoufu Mansion.

Of course, fundamentally speaking, this is also the responsibility of Lian Xusheng, whose post-war reconstruction plan, as it is often called, was too radical.

Although everyone knows that Lian Xusheng proposed to help all war-torn countries, including the defeated countries, to rebuild after the war and restore the world to normal order, not only to obtain long-term peace, but also to seek benefits for the empire, and long-term peace itself is the greatest benefit, but no one can deny that in the post-war environment, in just a few years, take out funds equivalent to the total military expenditure of the war, and all of them will be borne by the imperial authorities, and help the defeated countries to rebuild. Few people can accept it.

Otherwise, Lian Xusheng would not have been forced to resign from the post of first assistant when the entire cabinet was opposed and the two houses were ready to initiate impeachment.

It was this incident that made Zhou Yongtao realize that unless he wanted to work in the navy until he was old, he had to learn to be smarter.

This is the current situation.

Although it is not dangerous, before he can achieve a major victory, that is, gain enough prestige, Zhou Yongtao must focus on the overall situation.

In the words that Bai Zhizhan taught him, before gaining the prestige of surpassing Xue Yuanzheng, he had to keep a low profile.

This means that you must fight a few battles, or more precisely, win a few battles before you are qualified to stand up and shout the slogan of leading the empire.

It was precisely because of this that Zhou Yongtao did not let Lin Shiping break his words.

Of course, at the previous military meeting, Zhou Yongtao had also emphasized that even if he had to fight to the death with the Empire on a huge land battlefield, he must strive to win the victory on the side of Posha Bay as quickly as possible, and he must also defeat Iraq, which is no longer just as simple as liberating Kuwait.

Previously, it was possible to stop after the liberation of Kuwait, and after the outbreak of full-scale war, Hussein had to be killed.

For this reason, Zhou Yongtao did not emphasize that he must win within a month.

According to Zhou Yongtao's meaning, in the next month, we can ignore the ground war, continue to exert force on air strikes, and send war materials to the front line to ensure that the Hussein regime can be overthrown in one fell swoop. When a major war breaks out, the Empire is justifiably mobilized for war, and after the reservists and even paramilitaries are in service, they will be able to mobilize enough troops to wage a ground war.

As for the air strike, it was carried out according to the original plan, and there was no need to make too many adjustments.

Of course, given the need to increase investment in the northwestern and western theaters, it is certainly impossible to continue to deploy additional air forces to the Posha Bay area.

At the right time, I am afraid that it will be necessary to reduce investment, especially to withdraw the Navy's aircraft carrier battle group.

Finally, and most crucially, it is necessary to make the necessary strategic retrenchment for the sake of a global war.

Not a strategic retreat, but only a shortening of the Empire's strategic line of defense before the outbreak of a major war, avoiding the expenditure of valuable forces in a direction of little significance.

As for whether it can prevent the outbreak of a global war at the last moment, before the situation gets completely out of control.

Zhou Yongtao can't say for sure, all he can do is to let Nong Chengpei go to Switzerland as a special envoy and keep in touch with the senior management of Changman through Ambassador Huiman.

No matter how slim the hope, you can't give up!