Of course, Zhou Lang would not think that the outbreak of the civil war between the north and the south in the United States was very abrupt, and he even felt that it was strange that it had only broken out now, and it was not a few years in advance.

For the North, it is believed that slavery has always been a cancer of the United States, which has seriously affected the international image of the United States; For the South, the North has always been a tyrant on the head of the South, and successive presidents are Northerners who do not care about the interests of the South. The South had long since seceded, but they needed an opportunity, an opportunity to get the majority unanimous, and the coming to power of Lincoln, the anti-slavery president, was clearly the best opportunity.

If it weren't for Lincoln, the separatist forces in the South would not have found a good opportunity. Even after Lincoln came to power, many slave states did not join the Union and did not secede from the Union, such as the Kentucky government continued to remain in the Union, Maryland declared martial law to prevent secession from the Union, Delaware never considered secession from the Union, in fact, Washington, the capital of the United States, also maintained slavery, if it is counted as an independent administrative state, it is also a slave state.

The Southern Split, Lincoln's declaration of repression, which directly led to the split of the American states into three factions instead of two opposing ones.

The two opposing factions, of course, are the Southern Alliance that resolutely breaks away from the United States, and the northern forces that resolutely suppress it, but there are still a large number of centrists, who do not want to see the South secede, nor do they want war to break out, but now that the South has seceded, the Federation has announced a crackdown, and at this time the centrist began to split into two factions, one faction believes that the South has the right to secede, and the other faction believes that secession is wrong.

This complex internal concept, agitated conflict, is most violently manifested in Virginia, which even split itself first because of its choice; Virginia was a free state, but he opposed the Union's use of troops against the South, insisting that the South should have the right to choose. As a result, the state legislature voted to join the South, but some western Virginia states and counties quickly seceded from the state government and declared the creation of West Virginia.

The war made the complex United States form two major opinions, and finally because of the defeat of the South, the worldview of this country was condensed into one, and this country was really born, and before, the United States was basically a union of states, not a normal country.

In addition to creating two ideas within the United States, the division of a country of this size has also produced two attitudes in the international community: supporting the South or supporting the North, supporting the Union or supporting the Federation, and all countries in the world have to make a choice.

The choice abroad is easier than that within the United States, because the US states are forced to choose sides, and they have no choice but to do either/or. If you choose the north, you will be attacked by the south, and if you choose the south, you will be attacked by the north, and if you don't choose either side, you may be attacked by both sides at the same time. There are no such problems abroad, there is a third or even a fourth option, that is, neither side chooses, wait and see what happens, and whoever wins will recognize whom; Or choose both, add fuel to the fire, and supply arms to both sides for the Americans to bleed each other. Either non-interventionism, which allows Americans to decide their own destiny, or actively intervenes, hoping that the American Civil War will develop in the direction of its own design.

The British remain politically neutral because the British government is extremely conflicted at this time, and he does not want to see the United States divided, because the United States is now a pawn, a thug, and an ally of Britain in the United States against China, and the strength of the United States helps to share the pressure on Britain. The United States is strong in the North and weak in the South, and supporting the North can quickly quell the chaos and maintain the unity and strength of the United States. However, the United States competes with Britain, the South cooperates with Britain, the North of the United States is an industrialized region, and light and heavy industries compete with British goods, and the South is an agricultural region, which is Britain's largest producer of raw materials for the textile industry and the largest export market for industrial products.

Supporting the North allows Britain to reap political benefits and harm economic interests, and supporting the South allows Britain to reap economic benefits and harm political interests, which makes the British government lose no matter how it is elected, because no matter how it is elected, it will offend relevant interest groups.

Therefore, the British government can only choose, the British government does not choose, but the British businessmen will not choose, and their attitude is basically to choose both sides, because the money on both sides is money. As a result, British arms dealers, like cats that smell fish, actively sell arms to both sides.

Not only the British, but also most of the merchants from other countries were chosen by both sides, providing all kinds of military supplies to both sides and making a fortune.

This is destined to be a gluttonous feast for arms dealers, because the scale and tragedy of this war are destined to be the largest after the Franco-Prussian War.

Of the 43 million people in the United States, 25 million are in the North and 18 million in the South, which is much smaller than the historical gap. Historically, there were only more than 9 million people in the South, and 3.8 million were slaves, and now among the 18 million people in the South, the slave population is extremely large, but only 8 million, and 10 million free whites. Historically, the industry in the north was developed, with 1.3 million workers, and the industry in the south was weak, with only 110,000 workers. But in this history, the number of workers in the north is as high as 3 million, and there are also 500,000 workers in the south, mainly relying on the spinning industry of cotton processing, and the south has not only exported cotton, but has begun to turn to export cotton yarn.

Historically, the South, with a population of 9 million, fought a civil war with the North for five years, and now the South, with a population of 18 million, will fight with the North for a few years?

And because Virginia joined the South, and the Confederates moved their capitals from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia, which resulted in only a little more than a hundred kilometers between the two capitals, as well as railroad connections, the two sides were destined to engage in a bitter tug-of-war around the capital. And it will be fierce from the beginning, using the main forces for a decisive battle.

Sure enough, as soon as it began, the South was rapidly advancing to the vicinity of Washington, D.C., and Lincoln was even planning to move its capital to Philadelphia in the north. Fortunately, the hastily conscripted Northern Army held back the Southern Army, which was always limited by insufficient numbers, and the plan to quickly occupy Washington after the war failed.

The war was extremely tragic, and a few years ago we saw in the war between Russia and Austria and the Ottoman Empire, the ultra-high lethality brought by rifled rifles reappeared, and the US military retained the backward tactics of queuing and shooting, but the weapons had evolved to the era of breech-loading rifled guns.

Of course, at the beginning, the Americans were still equipped with a large number of old front-loading rifled guns, especially the Northern Army, which was equipped with a large number of old rifles, not because the United States could not make better guns, but because it was difficult for Congress to approve the replacement of equipment for the military in peacetime. As a result, after the outbreak of the war, the Southern Army, which relied on imports, became more advanced in weapons.

At this time, the north and the south were still able to do trade, imports and exports were not cut off, and the north tried to blockade the south, but this was difficult to do, because the south also had a large fleet. In the U.S. Navy, although most of the soldiers are northerners, because of the north's ocean-going traditions, there are more sailors in the north, and the navy soldiers are recruited from sailors. However, because the United States built its navy on a large scale, it was mainly worried about the security of the Caribbean backyard after the opening of the Panama Canal, so a large number of warships have been stationed in the south, and after the outbreak of the war, the southern states seized these warships nearby, expelled the northern soldiers on board, and incorporated the warships into the southern navy. Of the 60 ironclad ships of the United States, the South got 23 of them.

Although the North received more, it did not have an absolute advantage, and it was basically impossible to blockade the long southern coastline.

The only obstacle to the import of weapons by both sides is mainly the financial issue. The United States is a country where state power is greater than federal power, and the federal government's main revenue comes from tariffs and the sale of public land, which can only maintain the government's normal operations, which is only a drop in the bucket for the huge military spending. The Confederate States of the United States issued their own constitution, but the content of the constitution was even copied word for word, and the division of powers between the Union and the state governments remained unchanged compared with before the separation from the United States.

President Lincoln of the North announced measures to raise funds by imposing personal income tax and raising tariffs, but found that the levy could only cover less than one-tenth of military spending, and borrowing money was inevitable.

The financial industry in New York is so developed that the U.S. federal government can get war financing on the scale of the Civil War by relying only on the New York market, and the U.S. national debt has soared from $65 million to $2.756 billion during the Civil War, an expansion of 43 times.

There was no financial market in the South, and before the war, the financing of the South's import and export trade mainly relied on bankers in New York and New York Harbor, and the relationship with the South was even closer than that of the North, because cotton was the most important export product of the United States, and the South was the most important customer of the New York financial market. So in the beginning, New York was anti-war.

When the war began, the South was unable to do business with New York, leaving many New York bankers resentful of the Union. But the South is in a difficult situation, and the North cannot solve the problem of military spending by taxation, let alone the South, and the governments of the South have begun to seek international loans, although diplomatically, they have not been recognized by any of the major powers, but they have sent representatives in many countries to meet with countries unofficially.

Even borrowing from private bankers through private channels, the Southern Alliance has openly sought help from the Rothschilds, but failed. The Rothschilds believed that lending money to the South was too risky speculation and did not conform to the Rothschilds' investment philosophy. But they found Emile Erlanger in France to help them finance it, and Emile Erlanger helped them design a bond that would be secured by cotton from the South of the United States, and as long as the cotton from the South remained, the bond would be solvent.

As one of the world's most powerful exporters of capital, the South of the United States naturally turned to Chinese financial institutions, mainly to connect with American companies, which are the largest international financial groups in the Americas.

The American Company was willing to provide a war loan, but made one demand: emancipate the slaves!