"I'm Eric Adrian, please." Eric used to report his home first so that the other party could speak concisely and to the point.

"Mr. President, I am Stresemann, and now the ambassadors of the United States, Great Britain, Italy, France and several other countries continue to send notes to Germany, and find Rathenau, demanding that Germany immediately withdraw its troops from Italy, otherwise they will join forces to impose sanctions on Germany, please ask Mr. President for instructions." Stresemann's tone was a little anxious, and Eric didn't ask much.

After a moment of confusion, Eric said calmly, "Please wait a minute. ”

Then Eric went to Dinah and Helis's room, put out his arms and hugged his wife, and said, "My dear, I must go back to Berlin at once, the German-Italian war is probably over, and I guess this should be the reaction of England in response to the Danish succession." ”

"My dear, then you should go back quickly, national affairs are important." Dinah is a notoriously virtuous helper, so she says it very sensibly, and then asks Helis to say goodbye to her father.

"Goodbye Dad~" Hellis, who was dragging a small long voice, waved his little hand absentmindedly.

"Goodbye my son! God will bless you! Reluctantly, Eric kissed his son heavily on the cheek, and then took heavy steps towards the car that had been waiting outside the door.

"We'll go back to Berlin at once, and I think things should be over in Italy." Eric told Hans Luther: "The international community now has a different voice, and the language is quite strong, but we must not be swayed by them, we must have our own principles, and we must plan to withdraw part of our troops conditionally." ”

On the afternoon of October 7, Eric returned to the Hanseatic Palace in Berlin with his entourage.

Stresemann and Rathenau were already waiting in the reception hall, and Eric, taking off his coat, hurriedly asked, "Well, did Italy promise us any conditions?" ”

Stresemann's face was not very good-looking, and Rathenau also looked a little angry.

"Only partially agreed." Stresemann was a little apprehensive, afraid that Eric would lose his temper.

"Which part? Say it all. Eric doesn't like to talk like this, and he has to guess half by himself.

"Part of all conditions, including the question of the territory in which we demand that Italy cede Milan." After speaking, Stresemann handed over a temporary transcript of the bilateral conversation.

Eric, who usually does not like to read these long nonsense stories, looks at this long conversation very carefully, and he must watch it carefully, because he has to find an effective countermeasure from it, so as to balance the requirements of Britain, the United States, France, and Italy.

More than thirty minutes had passed, and after reading the long conversation word by word, Eric put down the file with some anger.

"It would be forgivable for us to give up Turin, because France would certainly not want to have another piece of land on our borders here, but Sardinia will have to fight hard. What do you guys think? Eric had always been concerned about German interests in the Mediterranean, and even though Britain was willing to provide some convenience after sharing the Suez Canal, Eric still wanted Germany to have its own forward base here.

After the annexation of Austria, Germany had gained access to the Mediterranean Sea in southern Europe, and Venice had fully acquired it, but the need to cross the Adriatic Sea was a bit of a problem. Once besieged by the British Empire, this outlet to the sea became the graveyard of the German Federal Navy.

"We have repeated our own demands on this, but France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all objected and threatened that such an act would undermine the multinational relationship." Stresemann said. In fact, the concerns of the countries were also here, but Eric was still very concerned about the acquisition of Sardinia.

Although Eric's request was not for all of Sardinia, but for the island of Asinara in the north, this demand was also not accepted by the other powers.

"Dear Chancellor Stresemann, you don't just want to tell me it's all over, do you?" Eric looked very angry.

The outcome of the battle was decided, and the war could not have ended easily if Germany had not received the rewards it had deserved, as Eric had hoped. As for whether Britain, France and the United States will send troops to meet the war in order to protect Italy, there is only one answer in the world, and that is - impossible! Because of the hard-won peace situation, everyone will not easily let it pass in a short gap in time, after all, the war has only passed for less than two years, not to mention that the wounds of the war have not been completely healed. In other words, public opinion in Germany is not optimistic, although it is only a passive defense and turns into this war, if it is protracted, domestic public opinion will also be fiercely opposed. Even the wise and resolute President Eric could not sway the minds of the people.

"Britain and France provided two solutions, and Asinara Bay was settled by British, French, and German troops." Stresemann put the first option out.

"No play! They are playing fake sharing, the real purpose is to control Germany's military dynamics, and I want absolute sovereignty, understand? Absolute sovereignty" Eric repeated his thoughts, because Germany could not now fight for a temporary settlement, and what he wanted was to establish a permanent defensive base on the basis of absolute sovereignty, which could be attacked and defended when retreated. Stresemann understood the president's idea very well, so he said the second plan of Britain, France and other countries: "Otherwise, there will only be the Pelager Islands." With that, he took out the world map that he had prepared for a long time: "This is the location of the central Mediterranean, south of Sicily, and west of Malta." Far from mainland France, but under surveillance by the British Maltese Islands. ”

The Pelage archipelago is only an annex to Italy, isolated from the sea, without the complete natural conditions of Sardinia and the ready-made deep-water port docks, which can be used as a tourist resort, but it lacks construction significance as a naval advance base, and the area is small, which is not conducive to daily supply and wartime defense.

"How small is this island? Speaking of archipelagos, in fact, only Lampedusa is barely suitable for tourism development, and only relatively. Stresemann added.

Eric lay on the map and measured it with instruments for a long time, but the area of Lampedusa could not be increased, 21 square kilometers, only 3.2 kilometers at its widest point and 11 kilometers at its longest point. According to Eric's idea, if a military base for the advance of the Navy were to be built, there would be little room left for a military airfield on this small island, and the number of planes that could be parked would depend entirely on the area left after the runway was built, in addition to the construction of docks, barracks, warehouses, and so on.

Britain was also forced to do so, knowing that it would be disadvantageous for Germany to seek a base in the Mediterranean, but it had to pay attention to and make concessions, so the small Pelager Islands were put forward and hoped to be recognized by Germany.

"It's not enough for me to build an airport in this place." Eric said annoyedly.

"You can't fix the airport." I didn't expect Stresemann to suddenly come to such a sentence coldly.

"Why? Do they still want to restrict my construction on the island? Eric was even more annoyed.

"Lampedusa Island is actually divided into two sections, there is a shallow area more than 30 meters wide in the middle, and when the tide is high, the water area is wider, and the terrain on both sides is high in the middle and low on all sides, so it does not have the conditions to build an airport." What Stresemann means is that the terrain is not very suitable.

"Then what do you mean by mentioning this second plan to me?" Eric didn't understand Stresemann's intention by mentioning the small archipelago, and if it was really as the prime minister said, he shouldn't have brought it up at all, but he was upset.

"Although it may seem like there is no construction significance, we can move mountains and reclaim the sea and expand artificial islands." Stresemann offered his own ideas.

"The intention of the British and French is actually to limit our ability to develop this place, and of course, this place is not suitable for development, but we can use our own mining equipment to fill this place one by one, so that this small island can become the land we need." Naturally, Stresemann is confident in his country's mineral mining machinery.

"Where to fill in? Cofferdam reclamation? "Eric was focused on what the prime minister could do.

"Fill in the shallows between the two islands...... "Stresemann took out his pen and blackened the blank space between the two islands.

"I asked the people of the United Front Work Department to calculate that if this place is filled, an airport can be built on the longest distance on the island, and at the end, a breakwater can be built, because of the depth of the water here, it is no problem to dock large warships, and if it expands 300 meters to the east in the south, it is enough to accommodate 30 large warships to dock at the same time, that is, the breakwater may encounter some difficulties in construction." Strezemann said all this, but he actually suggested that Eric agree to the second offer.

"Two harbors, enough to dock the ships of a fleet. After the island is leveled, it can also build a camp area of 7 square kilometers and a material reserve area of 4 square kilometers. There are also enough places to build fortifications around, but with so much equipment and garrison officers and soldiers, it will definitely be more crowded. After Stresemann finished speaking, he waited for Eric's answer.

"How's the reparations going?" Eric felt that it would be a loss not to cut meat in Sardinia.

"140 billion lira will be repaid for 10 consecutive years in the form of various material mortgages." Stresemann handed Eric a list of reparations.

After reading it, Eric asked, "What do you think are the other things that are different from our expectations?" ”

"Regarding the Lombardy region, Italy is willing to pay 490 billion lira for redemption." This land is temporarily part of our occupied territory, and we have always wanted to get it from the de facto situation.

"You still want to redeem Lombardy for this little bit of money?" Eric couldn't believe that Italy could be so poor.

"I raised the price to 1.2 trillion, but I don't know how the Italian side has negotiated with Britain, France and other countries." Stresemann hastened to tell Eric that he had raised the price.

"That's too much, I'm worried that it will cause unnecessary trouble, about 700 billion, what do you say? Combined, the total indemnity of 840 billion lira is enough for Italy to drink a pot. Eric's idea was very simple, to use Italy's reparations to make up for the losses of the war, and the rest to pay Britain, France, and the United States war reparations.