"Hmm...... This dish is delicious! It's been a long time since I've eaten such authentic Chinese food! I can't believe it! Am I really in Stockholm? ”

Natsuki gave a thumbs up in amazement, and in front of him was a plate of delicious food, crispy duck, sweet and sour fish, salt-baked chicken, boiled shrimp, boiled loin, roasted sea cucumber, braised beef, and hot white flowers...... Dumplings!

Such a fantastic oriental meal actually appeared in the royal palace in Sweden, which really surprised Natsuki. www.biquge.info At the end of his trip to Germany, he came to Stockholm with an Irish delegation with the intention of strengthening friendship with this Nordic powerhouse rich in iron ore resources, so as to obtain a contract for the supply of iron ore at a favorable price to meet the needs of Ireland's future industrial development. With the help of his long-time friend Prince Gustav, Natsuki had a great conversation with Gustav V, then King of Sweden, and Adolf, the Crown Prince of Sweden, and after an orthodox Swedish feast, the Swedish Crown Prince invited Natsuki to taste his private dinner.

"That's because I have the only authentic Chinese chef in the whole of Northern Europe." The Swedish crown prince snapped his fingers into the inner hall with a bright smile, and a moment later, a slightly chubby Oriental man wearing an apron in a coat walked up, his appearance did make Natsuki feel a sense of intimacy that he had not felt in a long time, but before he could speak, Natsuki noticed a long whip dragging behind his head.

Didn't the Qing Dynasty fall four years ago?

Natsuki thought about it, and instead of asking so many questions or showing off his Chinese, he quietly listened to the Chinese chef introduce the dishes and their origins in Swedish, which sounded awkward.

Swedish and German belong to the same Germanic language family, and they can understand six or seven points just by listening to words, but there are certain differences in grammar. Gustav, who was sitting next to Natsuki, kept whispering in German, but his move was clearly superfluous. For Natsuki, these dishes are not unfamiliar at all.

After the Chinese chef invited by the Swedish Crown Prince Adolf took a lot of effort to introduce him, Natsuki nodded at him with a smile and said "thank you" in German. The other party bowed deeply and turned to leave, the jet-black whip was very piercing.

"If there is no shortage of authentic ingredients, Mr. Wang can still cook more delicious dishes." Adolf explained.

Natsuki looked at his friend Gustav: "It's already quite remarkable!" It's not inferior to the Chinese food we eat in Chinese restaurants in London. ”

The crown prince looked at his brother with some curiosity: "Oh? Have you ever eaten authentic Chinese food in London? Is it in Chinatown in Limehouse? ”

"Well, that was a few years ago." Gustav replied disappreciatively.

"It was exactly 10 years ago, when the 9th King's Cup Water Race was held." Natsuki didn't mean anything special when he said this, but Gustav patted his head and deliberately said loudly, "Oh, yes! It was the year His Highness won the King's Cup and I finished runner-up. Speaking of which, at that time I was still deeply attached to Princess Louise of Germany, ha, time flies so fast! I'm already a father, and Her Royal Highness Princess Louise is still single. ”

"Don't you still think about her now?" Adolf said coldly, his tone seemed to be complaining.

Gustav casually raised his glass: "Come, my sincere brother, for our friendship of more than ten years, for us to be reunited here, this toast!" ”

Before coming to Sweden, Natsuki didn't know that Gustav had ended his marriage to his wife of six years last year. In Europe in this era, divorces from commoners were common, while royal marriages were much more cautious. Perhaps Crown Prince Adolf's anger was due to the damage that Gustav's divorce would have done to the reputation of the Swedish royal family, and perhaps there were other reasons. Natsuki was an outsider, so it was inconvenient for him to ask too much, so after drinking with Gustav, he quickly changed the topic and asked Adolf when he began to study oriental culture.

Speaking of something he was proud of, Adolf immediately opened up the conversation: "Exactly ten years ago, my grandfather gave me a very precious wedding gift, a pair of 18th-century Chinese porcelain vases. I had never seen such exquisite handicrafts before, and I was fascinated by them almost at first sight, and I became interested in the country and the culture in which they were made. Soon after, I began to collect Chinese porcelain, and as the number of items in my collection grew, so did my curiosity and yearning for Oriental culture. Later, by chance, I came across Chinese bronzes from more than 2,000 years ago, which were very different from the ones we dug up in Uppsala (a city in central Sweden), and had a great and indescribable historical beauty. Nowadays, most of my collection is housed in the National Museum of Sweden, and His Highness is always available to visit him if he is interested. ”

Gustav muttered through the strength of his wine, "Hey, there are a lot of antiques there that have been bought from London and Berlin at great expense." If I were to auction them all, I think it would be enough to buy a King-class dreadnought. ”

"Even if the council approves the Navy to order a dreadnought, what is the point of us wanting it? Carrying one or two thousand sailors around the Baltic Sea with nothing to do, or traveling around the world, visiting forty or fifty countries a year that most Swedes have not even heard of by name? Adolf sneered at each other, the two sides did not have a tense momentum, so it looked more like a bickering between brothers, but both of them were of a strong age, and it was still possible to do something out of the ordinary under the stimulation of alcohol.

Gustav took a large sip of liquor and vented very aggrievedly: "If we have a strong enough navy, the Russians will dare to dictate our internal affairs?" Do your advisors still need to scam and collect antiques in the Far East? Let's not forget that we were once the lion of the north that made the continent tremble, the richest country in all of Northern Europe! ”

Crown Prince Adolf did not argue loudly with Gustavus at this time, he generally gave people the impression of a steady, old-fashioned, calm and elegant royal nobleman, and he was not suitable for yelling and arguing with people with a blushing face.

"But that's history!"

"New brilliance is waiting for us to create at any time!"

"Most Swedes are tired of war, the parliament longs for peace, the common people want peace, and only the nobles want to use war to restore their former power and honor. Don't you see how my father's call to rearm for war was met with cold reception and even ridicule? ”

"That's because people are afraid of Russia's military power and think that we can't take the first step anyway, but what about reality? Such a first-class power as Britain and France has already been defeated, and the total defeat of Russia is only a matter of time, but we dare not use this opportunity to seek to seize even the slightest bit of territory that originally belonged to us, cowardly! ”

"We cannot only see the potential benefits of war and ignore the threats that lie behind it. Have you ever considered that a difficult war could ruin Sweden's economic balance and the political balance between the crown and parliament? ”

……

Listening silently to the brothers' arguments, Natsuki pondered Sweden's current situation and strategy, which in turn led to Ireland's national strategy. Sweden has long passed the heyday of its history, they failed to become a trading power like Denmark and the Netherlands after the opening of new shipping routes, nor did they occupy and dominate large colonies like Britain and Portugal, all colonial activities ended in failure, and then they were defeated by Russia, and gradually lost their hegemony in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. After the arrival of former French Field Marshal Bernadotte in Sweden, Sweden joined the anti-French alliance and acquired Norway from the long-declining Denmark, but Norway took the opportunity to declare independence and promulgate a constitution, and Sweden forced Norway to agree to submit to the Swedish king as a country through a brief war. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden completed the industrial revolution, and the country's strength has been greatly improved, although there is still a big gap with Britain, France and Germany, Sweden with a population of more than 5 million in the economy, industry, and military aspects than Ireland with a population of more than 4 million.

Sweden's family background is certainly quite solid, but as the two princes mentioned in the debate, the Swedish bourgeoisie controls the state power through parliament, and the royal power and aristocracy are excluded, and their status is precarious, and there is even a fear of being overthrown. On the eve of World War I, Gustav V made a final attempt to regain royal power, choosing the question of national defense as a breakthrough, advocating the strengthening of military power and shouting "My navy" at mass rallies...... My Army ......". As a result, he was bored and ridiculed by the Social Democrats and the Liberal Party. The frustrated Gustav V never again asked about politics, and the affairs of the state were handled entirely by the government.

Gustav's plans for a large navy came to naught. During the war, the Swedish parliament only increased the military budget for the purchase of some shore defense guns and lightning-striking ships, and increased the size of the army and navy by one-third.

The two Swedish princes were unable to convince anyone, and after a while, they finally realized that there was an important guest present today, and they each calmed down. Of course, there has been some gossip about the dispute within the Swedish royal family, saying that Crown Prince Adolf is married to a British princess, Ostaf is married to a Russian princess, and Gustav V's wife, Queen Victoria of Sweden, is a German princess. In the early years, before the contradictions between the European powers intensified, the life of this family was relatively harmonious, but as the Balkan disputes heated up, especially after 1911, the two camps were tense, and the atmosphere within the Swedish royal family also changed. Gustav V has always been pro-German, the queen is naturally a husband and wife, the crown prince Adolf has always shown a neutral attitude, and his English wife is also quite passable, and Prince Gustav particularly admired Germany's mechanical technology, hoping to follow Germany's vigorous development of the navy, as a result, with his wife, Tsar Nicholas II's cousin Grand Duchess Pavlovna had a falling out, and finally ended in divorce.

(End of chapter)