Grand Duke of Moscow Sergei Alexandrovich, according to the original plan, was supposed to come to Berlin in early May, but due to his father's sudden increase in troops on the German-Russian border, which annoyed the Germans, especially Prime Minister Bismarck, the tough chancellor directly vetoed the visit of the Moscow guests.

In the first half of May 1879, a situation of verbal quarrels suddenly appeared between Germany and Russia, which made the European countries look sideways, and the intensity of German and Russian criticism of each other was as if the two sides were ready to roll up their sleeves and start fighting if they disagreed.

Militarily, however, those who are interested have found that the armies of both sides are still training in barracks, and have neither strengthened their armaments nor repaired fortifications on the border.

The economic relations between the two countries were even more intense, and after a powerful inaugural speech by the new chairman of the Russian Imperial Council of Ministers, General Pyotr Shuvalov, the Germans suddenly and quietly lowered the high tariffs on grain for the Russians, although not to the level before 1875, but also far below the previous high tariffs.

As soon as the middle of May passed, when the French government smashed the pot and sold iron, and Grevy was eager to pawn the Elysee Palace for money, the French miraculously scraped together 2 billion francs in a month and handed them over to Alexander II.

Just when the French were rejoicing, hoping that the money would buy a conflict between Germany and Russia, the tense style between Russia and Germany changed strangely.

After the German Emperor Wilhelm I made a friendly speech to Tsar Alexander II, Alexander II changed his previous hardline stance, changed his painting style, and talked about world peace and the traditional friendship between Russia and Germany.

In front of the people of the whole world, the relations between Germany and Russia have directly changed from saber-rattling to a situation of mutual tension.

Even the Russian foreign minister mysteriously disappeared in Moscow early, and there was a rumor in Moscow officialdom that a man who resembled Gorchakov had been haunting Berlin's Schulenburg lately.

In Russia, Alexander II, whose prestige had fallen to a low point because of the damage suffered at the Berlin Conference last year, miraculously rose again with a series of successful military and diplomatic frauds in May, and became the great, all-powerful "old father" of the Russian court, the aristocracy, the capitalists, the army, and even the hard-line nationalist strata of Russia.

Moscow's hard-line newspapers chanted directly on the front page, "Old Daddy is back!" ”

The liberal newspapers, on the other hand, did not go any further, and after analysing Germany's re-importation of Russian grain and Russia's successful receipt of (cheating) 2 billion francs from France, boasted that Alexander II and the chairman of the Imperial Council of Ministers, General Pyotr-Shuvalov, the new political partner was the best combination of emperor and minister in Russia's history, far surpassing the times of Peter the Great and Empress Catherine.

The opposition to the negotiation of a second alliance between Russia and the Germans turned into praise as Alexander II had expected.

This loan was supposed to take place 8 years later, in 1887, by Alexander III, the son of the old tsar, who received a French loan at the time of the collapse of the Second Triple Emperor Alliance, but did not want to be taken by the gods of Alexander II, and advanced it by 8 years.

Amid the rising voices of all Russians who love the great "old daddy", the extremists of the Narodnik and populist parties, who were ready to move, also died down.

The policemen of the Third Department of the Russian Police, for the first time since its establishment, suddenly became easier to work.

This change in Russia is a mixed bag for Germany.

The bad thing is that the increase of Russian troops has brought military pressure to the German Eastern Front, and the threat of the Russians has become a reality from the imagination of the Germans, but this pressure can still be withstood in the eyes of the generals of the German General Staff.

On a good note, Crown Prince Frederick's New Economic Policy (NEP) was a more secure source of food, because of the arrival of Russian grain, the price of grain in the United States, Argentina and India fell by another two percent, and the diet of the German workers increased slightly.

The other is the increase in the personal prestige of Chancellor Bismarck, the old Chancellor has become more indispensable in the hearts of all Germans, and in such a difficult international situation, we can only hope for the precise diplomatic art of the Chancellor, and the opposition to the Three Emperors Alliance within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the German Reich has also come to an abrupt end.

On the whole, Alexander II's performance was a controllable harm and long-term benefit for Germany.

God is fair, some people are proud and some people are disappointed, Alexander II's purely profit-oriented diplomatic approach, not to talk about a win-win game, can only hurt the French in the end.

The ten-year, 2 billion franc loans to Russia basically gave half of France's GDP to Russia that year, although it is said that the loan has interest, and there is a so-called day of repayment.

But if Grevy knew the final outcome of the French loan to Russia in history, he would know that it was definitely a poisonous drink, and that if you want to get back the money you lent to the Russians, it will be as difficult as it is for the leader to speak in a meeting without telling empty words.

The successive tsars in history never repaid the loans of the French, and in the end, the loans became an endless cycle in which the tsars used new loans to repay the interest on old loans. If there had been no World War I in history, France's economy would have been dragged down by Russia.

The money was sent out, and the originally expected conflict and even war between Russia and Germany turned into a Russian-German friendship that lasted forever, and President Grevy collapsed directly on the bed at noon on the day he heard the news, and did not get up from sleeping until the afternoon in bed.

In order to raise the 2 billion franc loan and make it available to the Russians quickly, Grevy personally intervened to force the French government to endorse the loan. This not only hollowed out the French government's administrative and operational budget, but also saddled the French government with additional interest on the loan for the first five years.

The planned operations of the French, such as Annan, Tunisia and Africa, were also forced to halt altogether. According to the original dream of the French, as long as a conflict or war broke out between Russia and Germany, the French could afford to delay the expansion of the colony for two years.

But now that the money has been given, the dream is gone, and people can only stay at home, they can't go out to expand the colonies, and this time France is really a tragedy.

The most tragic Frenchman was not Grevy, nor the money lenders of Paris and Lyon, but the head of the French government, Prime Minister Waddington.

In the face of strong criticism and accusations from the parliament and the media, President Grever resolutely and affirmatively threw the blame on Waddington, on the grounds that the loan was organized by the French government, the plan to lend money to Russia was approved by the government, and the Russian-German conflict did not occur because the government did not promote it effectively, in short, everything had nothing to do with the president.

The French Prime Minister, who is the fuse of the French president, finally played his biggest role, and the French parliament formally impeached French Prime Minister Waddington.

Fortunately, democracies also have a lot of advantages, especially the complex and factional forces of public opinion, they are powerful, and Mr. Waddington, who can become the prime minister of France, is not a good stubble, and began a Jedi counterattack through a newspaper that is friendly to him. In short, I will not take the pot that the president threw at himself, and the vast number of French people, you must keep your eyes open, the truth of the facts is.....

A common in a democratic country, a bloody war of public opinion began, from whether the private life was happy or unhappy, all the way to who had body odor, from how many mistresses there were to who the illegitimate children were, in short, any private matter between Grevi and Waddington was taken to the sun, and repeatedly observed and interpreted by the media with a magnifying glass.

When the German newspapers reported truthfully in late May about the embarrassment of his sworn enemy and neighbor France, Joey couldn't help but laugh at the newspaper, because the important enemy of his African development plan was to stay at home, and the Germans had hope of getting the colonies that belonged to the French. Moreover, in Annam, the French did not have the money to expand, so it would be easier for the Minister of Barand in the Qing State to squeeze the French.

As for the French lending money to the Russians, it was not a particularly terrible thing in Joey's eyes, the source of the French support for the First World War and the post-war revival was the vast colonies, and now the French do not put their minds on the colonies, but slow down in the colonies in order to lend money to the Russians, this unwise behavior can only make Germany one step ahead of France in the African colonies.

As long as France is slow, Joey is confident that there is a way to make France slow down.

Besides, Russia is most worried about the British when it receives huge economic aid from France, after all, the current Anglo-Russian hegemony, and the next Anglo-French hegemony is the main theme of the world, Russia and France are so close, Britain should be more worried.

In this atmosphere of happiness in Russia, calm in Germany, and sad in France, the Grand Duke of Moscow, Sergei Alexandrovich, who had originally visited Germany in early May, finally made his trip at the end of May.

Compared to the joy of his father, General Shuvalov, and the Russian people, Sergei was anxious and lost.

In April 1874, five years earlier, Sergei accompanied his father on his first visit to Germany.

During that visit, 17-year-old Sergei met 11-year-old Princess Elizabeth for the first time, and since the first meeting at that time, there has been an inexplicable emotion that has been haunting Sergei's heart, and in the past five years, Sergei wrote in his diary, and wanted to say the most to Princess Elizabeth, to describe this emotion: Elizabeth, you are mine!

In May 1879, the most difficult May of Sergei's life, the time of the visit was postponed again and again, and in the days when Russian-German relations deteriorated, the news came from Germany that his beloved Princess Elizabeth was in love with the disabled prince who had fought with him five years ago, and this news was like a knife, cutting Sergei's already bleeding heart every day.

Originally, when Sergei thought that Russian-German relations would deteriorate to the point that he would never have the opportunity to visit Germany again, and he could no longer have Elizabeth, the world was turned upside down again, and Russian-German relations became a family again, and the already distant trip to Germany suddenly became just around the corner.

After receiving the news of his visit to Germany, Sergei immediately turned into a wind-up alarm clock and began to ring non-stop in the Grand Kremlin and in the office of the chairman of the Reich Council of Ministers, constantly urging the relevant personnel to make the trip immediately, and even kept sending telegrams to Foreign Minister Gorchakov to determine the specific time of the visit.

In short, the Moscow aristocracy now knew that the youngest son of the old tsar had now fallen madly in love with a German princess.

Regarding this matter, the new chairman of the Reich Council of Ministers, General Pyotr Shuvalov, as a well-known pro-German leader in Moscow, is very, very happy to see it, believing that this is a continuation of Russian-German friendly relations in the royal courts of the two countries, although Princess Elizabeth already has a lover, but if Sergei can snatch love, this is also a matter of putting gold on Russia's face, as long as Sergei succeeds, it is always a good thing for his prestige to increase.

For Ignaev, the former chairman of the Imperial Council of Ministers, who was already a victim of the new political struggle in Moscow, this was absolutely bad news, but as a veteran politician, Ignaev was still familiar with the technique of turning bad things into good ones.

Although Ignaev himself has been kicked out of Moscow's political circles, as the leader of the pan-Slavist party, the Slavists have once again pushed him back into the spotlight in Moscow through the populist actions of Russian men to marry Russian women.

So for General Shuvalov, a marriage between nobles turned into a wrestle between political enemies, and if he could not help Sergei marry Princess Elizabeth, then he would lose points as a pro-German leader.

As a princess from Germany, Duchess Pavlovna, who was also the standard-bearer of the pro-German faction, it became her mission to prevent the next German princess from marrying into Russia. Duchess Pavlovna even openly refuted the idea that General Shuvalov and Sergei wanted to marry a German princess at a ball hosted by her husband, Grand Duke Vladimir, for which the pro-German faction in Russia was also very unhappy.

The hot-tempered Duchess Pavlovna even wrote a private letter to Prime Minister Bismarck, in which she bluntly stated that she would do everything possible to ruin the marriage, and asked the old prime minister to stand on her side, otherwise what to do......

The old prime minister was also very helpless and didn't care about it, but when he thought that Duchess Pavlovna was his biggest and most important stump in Moscow, he could only bear it.

Against such a chaotic background, the Grand Duke of Moscow, Sergei Alexandrovich, finally stepped onto the platform of the Berlin railway station.