In the western suburbs of London, about 25 miles on a small hill on the south bank of the River Thames, a magnificent granite castle is the residence of Queen Victoria, Windsor Castle.

After the large-scale workers' riots in London, Queen Victoria and her family came to Windsor Castle to escape the riots. I wanted to wait for the riot to subside and then return to the Hanjin White House in London, but I didn't expect to stay for nearly a year. Even Victoria did not expect that the riots in Great Britain would be so large, so wide-ranging, and so long-lasting, that even the so-called Chartist movement, which had caused a great deal of attention in Europe more than a decade ago, was only a little bit of a stir compared to the workers' uprisings of today.

The reason why he has remained at Windsor Castle for so long, more importantly, Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, is seriously ill. Soon after staying at Windsor Castle, Prince Albert began to fall ill, which became more and more serious, which made Victoria very sad, although not to mention that he did not even care about the state affairs of Great Britain, but he was also distracted and did not pay much attention to state affairs. I just felt that riots were rampant, and the whole of Great Britain was in trouble.

During this period, Victoria's heart has been following Prince Albert's illness back and forth, and a few days ago, Prince Albert's condition suddenly improved, which made Victoria very happy. At this time, the cabinet came with news that under the encirclement and suppression of the newly recruited 200,000 troops, the rioting workers in Great Britain had been put down, although the number of dead and wounded made Victoria a little shocked, after all, this is a citizen of Great Britain itself, but thinking that this mob is likely to succeed in the riot, and put himself on the trial seat or even the guillotine, Victoria is chilled, and feels that these mobs are really innocent.

And let her and her husband Prince Albert hide in this Windsor Castle for nearly a year, and even worse, let her beloved Prince Albert become seriously ill, which made Victoria have no last trace of sympathy for the rioters who started the riots, and some just hated it and hated it, and hated to kill more!

However, if these mobs died some of them, they could restore the stability of Great Britain, and Victoria did not feel that there was anything wrong with it. Therefore, Victoria was very happy to learn that the workers' riots had been completely quelled, and she went out of her way to tell her husband, Prince Albert, who was better and could even get up and walk a few steps, that she thought that she would return to Buckingham Palace in London after he was better.

Unexpectedly, just last night, Prince Albert suddenly became seriously ill, unable to speak, short of breath, and terminally ill. She was frightened and hurriedly invited the court physician of the royal family, but several doctors were helpless one after another, and told her euphemistically that the prince had no cure and could not be cured. And just now, her husband, her cousin, her favorite Prince Albert, left her forever, leaving this world to meet God. At this time, she remembered an old saying in the East: return to the light. Prince Albert's improvement in the past few days turned out to be a return to the light, and she should have understood it a long time ago.

Although Victoria had thought about this situation countless times during the Prince's serious illness, once this cruel reality came, she could not bear it: she grabbed Albert's gradually cold hand, and kept rubbing it on her face to try to warm it up, but it was all so to no avail, Victoria felt her weakness for the first time, the first time she felt the taste of despair, because she had not slept all night, she was so gratebroken that she fainted......

Victoria woke up, but before she could open her eyes, a sad feeling came back to her heart. A person next to him said gently: "Victoria, mourn, relax!" Although the prince is gone, you are not alone, you still have me! I will always be by your side. ”

Victoria snapped open her eyes, and the person who spoke was naturally her valet John Brown, a mysterious man who always wore cotton yarn. Victoria naturally knew what he looked like, and it was precisely because she liked his handsome appearance that she kept him by her side as a valet, especially after her husband Prince Albert was unable to do anything, and she was inseparable from this mysterious manservant. But now, on the day of Prince Albert's death, listening to the strong words of the person in front of her, she felt a sense of weakness for no reason, and there was more disgust. The person in front of him made him extremely disgusted and disgusted!

"Get out of here!" Victoria scolded.

"Dear Victoria, what's wrong with you?" The manservant did not quite believe his ears, and said in what he thought was a more gentle tone: "It's me, your servant, your love, Brown!" ”

As he spoke, he stepped forward to hold Victoria.

"Smack!"

A slap slapped Brown so that a bloodshot shot ran from the corner of his mouth, and in his stunned gaze, Victoria had called two palace guards to drag him out.

Victoria wanted to be alone and quiet with Prince Albert on her last journey, but before she could calm down, there was another knock on the door of her room.

However, this time it was not her manservant, nor the guard, but her prime minister, Sir Russell.

"Your Majesty, it is a great pity to hear from Prince Albert! This is amazing news! Russell tried his best to make a face, but the latter words revealed his impatience: "I have to report to you another bad news: the whole of the island of Ireland is occupied by Irish rebels. ”

Victoria looked at Russell numbly, and before she could react, after half a ring, her mind turned around, her eyes changed suddenly, her mouth opened, she couldn't say a word, she leaned back, and fainted.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty ......" Russell didn't expect Queen Victoria to react so much when she heard the news, and hurriedly called the palace doctors to rescue her.

Victoria woke up slowly, saw Russell, and burst into tears. At this moment, she was like a peasant woman in the English countryside of Cambridgeshire who had just died her husband, and found that her manor had been robbed, and in her heartache and despair, she could no longer suppress it and cried loudly.

..........

A few hours later, Victoria looked at the cabinet members who were constantly trying to persuade and comfort her, and shook her head: "I already know the situation. But at the moment I was so distraught that I couldn't control it, and I just wanted to spend time with my husband again. The affairs of Ireland are up to you, Sir Russell. ”

Although the Kingdom of Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy, Queen Victoria's influence on the cabinet ministers is very huge, so when encountering such a huge state event, the cabinet members come to the queen for advice.

Victoria said this, but after a change of course, he instructed: "It is now imperative for the kingdom to send troops to Ireland and put down the rebellion and recover it." But according to Sir Russell, it is clear that the Chinese Empire was the backer and plotter of the rebellion in Ireland and in the Kingdom of Great Britain. Must also be colored. It is right to declare war on the Chinese Empire, and it is also right to blockade and ban its trade with the countries of Europe, but whether to go to war against the Chinese Empire at this time will be discussed by the cabinet. It is necessary to call up an army to defend the kingdom, and I can personally take the lead in donating £100,000 for military expenses, and I will also make a public statement asking Parliament to pass a cabinet resolution on the expansion of the army and the recovery of Ireland and the Chinese Empire. ”

The cabinet members, who had received the Queen's promise, immediately rushed back to the Prime Minister's residence in London for some discussion. Continued conscription of troops and urgent dispatch of troops to Ireland was unanimously agreed. But some members of the cabinet disagreed on whether to immediately declare war on the Chinese Empire.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne directly raised his own question: "Prime Minister Russell, I think you must be cautious in declaring war on China!" The current Emperor of the Chinese Empire, Feng Yunshan, is not the Tatar Emperor of ten years ago, and we sanction and blockade their merchant ships in Europe, and in the same way, they will sanction and blockade our merchant ships in the East Indies and the Far East. Unless our navy can completely defeat their fleet and regain control of the East Indies and the Far East Pacific! However, the total annihilation of the Combined Fleet for the Expedition to China, which cost a huge amount of war funds and dispatched hundreds of warships, makes me very suspicious, does the Kingdom of Great Britain still have this ability? Where is the 8.6 million yuan of annual naval funds spent? ”

Justice Secretary Truss also nodded in agreement: "Yes." The loss of trade with the Chinese Empire was even worse for an already sharply swelling budget. Although Fox, who was in charge of trade, was not a cabinet minister, he asked me to help remind you that although Great Britain accounted for 25 per cent of the world's international trade, it accounted for 9 per cent of trade with the Chinese Empire. If, for the sake of the declaration of war, some merchant ships and personnel were seized, and trade with the other side was interrupted, the direct trade volume of our Kingdom of Great Britain would be reduced by more than one-third every year, and for example, tea, raw silk, etc., we could not find a substitute for other places that could produce it, and we had to purchase it, and finally we would have to buy the goods of the Chinese Empire from France or other European countries through several resale times, but it would have to cost millions or even tens of millions of pounds more every year, and finally cheaper than France and even Prussia. ”

Justice Secretary Truss has a close relationship with Fox Focus, the secretary of state in charge of trade, and Truss's family runs a tea distribution store and a Chinese goods trading house, and if trade with China is interrupted, his family will lose a lot, so he will raise doubts.

But his doubts were irrefutable to none of the cabinet members present. Indeed, the declaration of war on China and the interruption of trade with the Chinese Empire were tantamount to the interruption of contacts with the entire Eastern world. This is a great loss for Great Britain.

Immediately afterwards, Truss raised another question: "In addition, Prime Minister Russell said that the rebellion of the native workers of Great Britain and the rebellion of the Irish were instigated and instigated by the Chinese empire behind the scenes, is there any practical evidence for this statement?" It is not possible to conclude that the Chinese Empire in the East is an evil force because of some frivolous speculation or the rhetoric that one or two Chinese people have been beaten into tricks. Of course, I didn't say that the Chinese Empire didn't need to be guarded against and vigilant. Now that it is getting stronger, we in Great Britain should be vigilant or take restrictive measures to weaken the other side and prevent it from continuing to be strong, but it depends on what means, not by forcibly declaring war, cutting off trade, etc.! It is precisely because of the strength of the other party that we have to be cautious. ”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne immediately chimed in, and the two sang in harmony so that the rest of the cabinet had to re-examine it.

Osborne said: "Exactly! With the current Chinese Empire, even if the industrial and economic power is not as strong as that of France, with their population, their warlike and crazy emperors, and the distance of 16,700 miles from Great Britain, it is not known how long it will be in the event of a large-scale war in the event of a full-scale war. Isn't the total annihilation of the last expeditionary force enough to remind us? If we want to defeat the great power in the East, we must have an expeditionary force that is several times stronger than the last time, and can we still assemble such a powerful expeditionary fleet now? Could it be true that Europe, India, and North America are all ignored, and that they should die with the East? Even if I don't understand military affairs and war, I understand that war is made with money!

In a word, the Chinese Empire could not be defeated without a combined expeditionary force of more than 100,200,000 by land and sea. And if you really want to send an expeditionary army of 100,200,000, how high the cost of this war will be, you should think about it. If war were to be forced at this difficult time, with the current revenues of Great Britain, I am afraid that it would not be able to support a war of this magnitude, so I had no choice but to resign in protest. ”

The cabinet members naturally knew that Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne was crying about poverty and threatening everyone, which was an exaggeration, but it was not unreasonable. Great Britain's revenues, although large, have become enormous and unsustainable with the successive wars and internal counterinsurgency in recent years, so everyone looks to Prime Minister Russell to see what he has to say.

Russell's brows were furrowed, and his face was quite angry, but he forcibly suppressed it and did not have a seizure. For Osborne, who was crying poor, he didn't pay much attention to it. During the last expedition to China, Osborne said that he could not provide funds for the war, but in the end it was quickly overdone.

Russell knew that it was Justice Secretary Truss who was really opposed, so he looked at Truss coldly and said: "There have been many witnesses and evidence to prove that the Chinese Empire is the culprit of the troubles that our Kingdom of Great Britain has encountered in recent years!" ”

After a pause, Russell straightened his rhetoric and continued: "Since the Crimean War, not to mention the rest, there is a lady named Nightingale, who had already signed up to organize a group of medical personnel and a large number of drugs to rush to the battlefield to treat wounded soldiers, but was robbed in advance with people with medicines. Because of the loss of Nightingale and a large number of medicines, it is not known how many wounded soldiers of Great Britain died in the Crimean region. In the later Indian rebellion, according to the investigation after the fact, a few Indians spread rumors to incite local Indian soldiers to be dissatisfied with the British Empire, and thus rebelled. And those Indians who had been captured by the Chinese Empire in their early years and spent some time in Guangzhou were probably Chinese spies. The Sikh king in the Indian rebellion was completely a lackey of the Chinese, who was once a servant of the Chinese Emperor Feng Yunshan, and the rise of the Sikh Kingdom was supported by the Chinese Empire.

Later, Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements of the British Empire were occupied. Even the Combined Fleet of the East Indies and the Expeditionary Fleet for the Chinese Expeditionary Fleet were defeated one after another, and in the face of the aggressive Chinese Empire, they were out of control. To this day, the workers' rebellion of the British Empire and the rebellion of the Irish have the shadow of the Chinese Empire behind them. They used their status as consulates and merchants to recruit traitors and scum from Great Britain, to engage in sabotage activities that harmed the interests of the Kingdom of Great Britain, to support the rebellious workers' associations and the Irish, and especially to give the Irish a large supply of goods and money to help them in their rebellion. ”