With the winter wind blowing and the frost and snow blowing, the great wheel of time soon crossed the Christmas and year-end night of 1918, and thus entered a new season.

In the warm room with a roaring fireplace, Fang Yanzheng looked at the cheap father sitting at the top with a respectful look with a hint of expectation; The latter was carefully reviewing a copy of his homework, and his eyes were full of joy and happy smiles. After a long while, Rudolph put down the scroll in his hand and said to Fang Yan with a smile on his face: "Jonas, you have behaved very well in the past month and a half. Mr. Linz is known for his academic rigor and he has a lot of praise for your hard work and achievements during this period. Now it seems that you really have a comforting maturity, and you don't need me to worry about it anymore. ”

"Father, I don't really like to have to deal with these heavy classes all day. It's just that whenever I think of the sad reality that Germany has been defeated, I feel that I should do something for this country with practical actions. Fang Yan said softly. Over time, he has gradually integrated into this new role; In his words and demeanor, he also became like a mature teenager whose mind was suddenly hardened after encountering a catastrophe.

Hearing Fang Yan's words, Rudolph was relieved and moved, he reached out and touched his young son's head, and said with a smile: "Father is extremely happy that you can think like this." In fact, it is precisely because of this tenacious and tenacious spirit that has been carried on by generations of Germans that Germany has achieved great achievements in developing from an inconspicuous Central European state to the largest European power today. I hope that you will keep in mind the current national humiliation in the years to come, and always maintain hard work and self-discipline, because the future of Germany will be your stage. ”

Fang Yan nodded with a straight face. His experience of struggle in his previous life had already made him deeply understand this truth, and he was undoubtedly fully mentally prepared for the path he would take in the future. Seeing Rudolph's relieved but slightly tired face, Fang Yan's heart moved slightly, and said, "Is there a lot of things in the shipyard that need to be dealt with by my father recently?" If you're busy, you can just stay in the shipyard ('you' in Western culture is a term for someone close and 'you' is a polite term for outsiders) and you don't have to worry about the situation here with the old housekeeper in charge of the situation and Mr. Linz supervising my studies. ”

Rudolph smiled with relief, his heart was filled with the warmth of being cared for by his juniors, he shook his head lightly, and said: "It's not a time of war anymore, and there is nothing to do in the shipyard for a long time." The two battlecruisers, the Mackensen and the Freya, have been suspended and will not be commissioned again. The Allies had seized our best 11 battleships and 5 battle cruisers at Scarpa Bay, and their fate awaited almost certainly division by the enemy; These 2 battle cruisers were originally on the list of extraditions, how could the greedy and brutal Britain and France allow us to build this more powerful warship? Now all I have to do is lay off the employees. Seeing that Fang Yan was silent, Rudolph squeezed out a smile and said with relief: "But don't worry, the family's living expenses are still no problem at all." All you have to do is focus on your studies, and that's the best you can do for the Bromes family and Germany as a whole. ”

"Father, I heard from Mr. Linz that the situation outside is terrible right now, is that so?" After being silent for a long time, Fang Yan did not respond to Rudolph's comfort, but opened his mouth to ask about the current situation. Rudolph choked slightly, as if he didn't want to answer the other party's question, but when he saw the look of determination in the young man's eyes, he finally sighed and said, "What you said is not wrong. The present situation in Germany is indeed extremely bad; What I saw in the cities and suburbs was no longer the heyday of the country I was familiar with. ”

With Rudolph's words, a bleak and miserable social scene gradually appeared in front of Fang Yan's eyes.

It is now the new year of 1919, and nearly two months have passed since the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne on November 11 last year. Until now, however, the heavy haze that has hung over the whole of Germany is still raging, and there is no sign of dawn or dawn. The deadly Spanish flu is spreading between cities and villages in Germany, and thousands of people die every day from complications such as coughing up blood, high fever, headache, etc.; Hospitals and clinics are overcrowded, and the limited number of medical staff is simply not able to take effective care of all patients. In fact, this is also an important reason for the collapse of the German war machine last year; The few reservists who had been tortured by the flu disease had lost their combat effectiveness, and they were no longer able to resist the Entente's offensive on the Western Front.

If this were all there was to it, the shock and damage to German society caused by a simple natural disaster was not intolerable; However, the key point is that the Entente camp is also extremely violent in the "man-made disaster" against the defeated country. Although the war had long since subsided, the tight blockade of Germany by the Allies between sea and land continued; Not only are iron ore and other materials that could be used in the war not being brought in, but even medicines to treat patients with the flu virus and food to sustain hungry civilians are still under the same absolute embargo as in wartime! France, Britain and other countries, which suffered the most from the war, resolutely opposed the flow of any bit of material into the East, the source of all evil, and in the words of the French Prime Minister Clemenceau, who was known as the "tiger": "Send supplies to Germany, are you going to let the beasts hatched from the shells use them to heal their wounds and then kill more French soldiers?" "At present there was only an armistice between Germany and the Entente, and the final peace treaty had not yet been concluded; Under such circumstances, the latter, full of national revenge, naturally wants to use all means to attack and weaken the opponent at this time. Only in this way will they be able to gain an absolute advantage in the final peace negotiations and force the other side to accept all the conditions they have put forward!

For the German people, the continued blockade of the Entente has undoubtedly pushed them to the precipice of hell. Long before the armistice, Germany was in a severe food crisis, with more than 200,000 people dying of starvation in 1918 alone; And when they finally ushered in peace, they found that what awaited them was a cold and cold winter with a shortage of food and coal, and an unprecedentedly severe survival situation. Faced with hunger, cold, and disease, more than 60 million Germans were suffocated in agony, and the whole of Central Europe was turned into a hell of misery.

Under these circumstances, bitter hatred began to spread in the hearts of every German. This resentment is directed not only at the murderous and vicious Entente bloc, but also at the republican government currently in power: is it not to blame the incompetence and weakness of the democrats in governing and diplomacy that they have continued to live a miserable life after the war? The Weimar government, which had been pinned on the high hopes of the German people in distress, now brought itself a catastrophe even worse than that of the war, and although it was only a provisional power that had not yet been constitutional, it had already lost the hearts and minds of the whole of Germany in its infancy.

"What do these three bastards want to do, we have handed over the elite core of the fleet and land equipment, and they are still maintaining a tight naval blockade, is this really going to push Germany into the abyss of hell?" In the end, Rudolph's words also carried a hint of anxiety. The situation since the armistice has developed almost beyond all Germans' expectations, and the expected leniency based on respect for Germany's war power has become more and more unattainable; Even the most optimistic people are worried about the future in the current situation.

"Father, this time Germany will most likely not get a decent ending. The French will not let go of this opportunity to take revenge on us, and they will certainly do everything in their power to squeeze and exploit Germany; And the British, who had also suffered heavy losses in the war, had every reason to launch a frenzied act of revenge against us. Now that the main force of the High Seas Fleet has been seized in British ports, and the Army has surrendered a large number of heavy weapons and ammunition to the Allied forces, we will not have any confidence to refuse them if the other side puts forward extremely harsh conditions. Fang Yan spoke carefully, trying to keep his words within the range that Rudolph could understand without being shocked by his biological age. He looked Rudolph in the eyes and said in a deep voice: "The Brom-Forss shipyard, as the core enterprise of the empire in the field of military industry, is very likely to be liquidated by the extremely vicious Entente; I think we should prepare early and try to minimize the damage. ”

Rudolph looked at the young son in front of him in surprise, as if he didn't expect that the other party's age would be able to say such a thing. After careful consideration, the other party's words are not unreasonable: after all, almost all of the most brilliant battle cruiser fleets of the High Seas Fleet were built by their own shipyards, and the British, who suffered from the pain of the Battle of Jutland, are likely to go back to their roots and limit and emasculate their own corporate capital by means of overt robbery and covert robbery. In any case, I will not allow this possibility to become a reality; After 40 years of hard work by two generations, this shipyard has developed to today's glorious situation, and it must not be dismantled by the forcible intervention of external forces and go into decline!

"I'll think about it with my grandfather. Your task now is to focus on your schoolwork and try to get into the best secondary school in this summer's entrance exams. Rudolph said with a grim expression.

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