"Ladies and gentlemen, I propose that we drink this cup of our beloved Highness Joachim, our loyal ally and candidate for the throne of the Kingdom of Ireland, the pride of the House of Hohenzollern!"

In the brightly lit Sanssouci Palace, the summer resort of the German royal family in Brandenburg, the red-faced Crown Prince William held his glass high in one hand and his brother tightly in the other, and pushed the atmosphere to a new climax with a simple but practical toast. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Facing everyone's admiring and admiring eyes, Xia Shu smiled confidently and drank all the red wine in his glass.

Ireland is a free world to start a new chapter in your life, but this is the only place where you can find the warmth of home today.

After a few moments, the music in the ballroom resumed, and the rhythm of people continuing to mingle and talk happily. Crown Prince William, who was dressed in a beautiful military uniform, pulled Natsuki aside and said in a calm tone: "The French are now our defeated men, we visit France and make overtures to the French, the German people will understand our behavior as a tolerant appeasement of the loser, which is beneficial to us, but if the situation is unstable or there are political contradictions, we should decisively draw a line with the French." Germany and France can never become true friends, this is the iron law of history. ”

Of course, Natsuki knows this, but when it comes to politics and diplomacy, he is still at a stage where theory is more than practice, and he always thinks before making a decision, and carefully consults ministers or staff advisors. After concluding his visit to France, Natsuki deliberately made his way through neutral Switzerland before entering Germany. As Crown Prince Wilhelm said, the German people were not at all annoyed by Natsuki's visit to France and his goodwill to the French, and newspapers and magazines of all sizes praised and welcomed him all over the world.

"Having said that, you chose to visit France at this time, and you did a beautiful thing, the French family was smashed in the war, the economy fell to the bottom, and many people had a problem filling their stomachs, and your Ireland became a good friend of the French in their predicament, and you can make good use of the French market in the future, so that the French manpower and technology can earn wealth for you." Crown Prince William, who was in a good mood, talked to Xia Shu eloquently, it was rare that he was willing to say more good things because he was mean by nature, and there was really a strange effect of distance producing beauty.

Natsuki responded unhurriedly: "Actually, we didn't think about it that much, we just hope that in the future, once there is a war conflict between Ireland and the British, the French will be able to maintain good intentions and neutrality." ”

"Ha, with His Majesty the Emperor and me, you don't need to worry about the military threat of Britain at all, we are cutting off Britain's overseas power step by step, so that it will gradually change from the former world empire to a stable and honest role. Now that the Ottoman Turkish army is massing on the front line of Basra, we have sent two additional divisions of the expeditionary force and an expeditionary fleet, trusting that the Persian king and his government will see the situation and fall wisely to us, and then the oil-rich Persia will no longer provide the British with an inexhaustible source of wealth. ”

What Crown Prince William said, Natsuki didn't just hear about it, but knew the inside information as before. Since the 18th century, Britain has focused on the Near and Middle East as the primary focus of its overseas interests, gradually controlling Egypt, Iran and other countries through military occupation and economic infiltration, and constantly attempting to invade Ottoman Turkey and Afghanistan. Because France and Russia also attached great importance to the colonial interests of the Near East and the Middle East, Britain, France and Russia had a fierce conflict of interests and even a war, so the Entente camp was never monolithic, and it was only because the rise of Germany was too domineering that Britain, France and Russia temporarily gave up the contradictions and united together.

Britain's expansion of influence in the Near East and the Middle East was not originally for oil, in fact, oil became an important industrial resource after the 60s of the 19th century, people first drilled the first commercial oil wells in Pennsylvania, the United States, and then there was the discovery of oil fields in the Caucasus, until the end of the 19th century, the British geologist Reynolds who came to Iran to explore oil discovered oil in southwest Iran, and people had a new understanding of the economic value of the Middle East. In 1901, the King of Iran granted Australian mining tycoon Darcy the exclusive right to exploit the country's natural gas and oil resources for 60 years, in exchange for 40,000 pounds in cash and stocks, plus 16% of the profits from oil extraction. At that time, the British Navy was considering switching from coal to oil as fuel, so it arranged for the Bermacher Oil Company to support Darcy. In 1908, the British built oil wells in Masjid Leman, on the border with Iraq, in 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and an oil refinery in Abadan, Khuzestan province, which soon became the largest refinery in the world. Anglo-Polish oil company signed two contracts with the British government, and the British government invested 2 million pounds in Anglo-Polish oil company, holding 51% of the company's shares; The company supplied 40 million barrels of fuel oil to the British Navy for 20 years from 1914 to meet the government's wartime needs.

At that time, the Iranians did not know how much oil they had, nor did they understand the value of oil. The British took advantage of the ignorance and low level of education of the Iranians and offered bribes to the representatives of the Iranian side who signed the contract, which led to the signing of the unfair contract. Before the outbreak of World War I, Britain and Russia had the privileges of mining, building roads, setting up banks, selling goods, and training troops in Iran, and the Qajar dynasty of Iran maintained a fragile rule almost under the guns of Britain and Russia. The outcome of the war had changed the landscape of the Middle East, with the Germans already using the Berlin-Constantinople-Baghdad railway to infiltrate the Middle East, and the Ottoman Turks interested in oil resources that could bring great wealth, and the two sides joined forces to pressure Britain during the armistice negotiations to force Britain to withdraw its troops from the Suez coast, hand over the Suez Canal to international condominium, and allow foreign companies to enter Iran to explore and develop oil resources, which were included in the overt and secret terms of the London Armistice Treaty.

"I returned to Germany this time to take the opportunity to negotiate the two warships." Natsuki said to Crown Prince William. The two warships he was referring to were the von der Tann and the Breslau, which Germany had promised to transfer to the Kingdom of Ireland through Ottoman Turkey. According to the Treaty of the London Armistice, Britain's dreadnoughts and battlecruisers in active service, whether they were under repair or had been repaired, were handed over to the Allied powers as war reparations, and once the von der Tann joined the Irish Navy, it would inevitably become Ireland's most powerful deterrent weapon against Britain, and would be very beneficial to Ireland's future recapture of Belfast. The Ottoman Turks were not opposed to the plan to exchange ships with Israel, but the Germans had changed their plans. In order to get Iran's oil resources in the pocket as soon as possible, the German Navy General Staff strongly recommended that the Kaiser send the two warships to the nearest Persian Gulf, and wait until the general situation was settled before considering fulfilling the secret treaty with Ireland, and the Kaiser approved this proposal. Today, the "von der Tann" and the "Breslau" are still under the control of the German naval officers and sailors under the command of German Admiral Wilhelm Zuchon, who are directly under the orders of the German navy, and in the absence of opposition from the Ottoman Turks, the two warships sailed out of the Dardanelles Strait and went to the Persian Gulf together with the German submarines deployed in the Mediterranean, half a month earlier than the expeditionary fleet sent from the German mainland, forming an effective military deterrent to Iran and Britain and Russia.

"Don't mind, my brother, we didn't borrow these two ships for Persian oil. With an inexhaustible supply of oil, our fleet and industrial machinery can be set aboard. Germany is free of oil, and the benefits for Ireland are obvious. Sooner or later, those two ships will join the Irish Navy, I can guarantee that. Crown Prince William patted his chest and said.

Xia Shu flattened his mouth and said: "What is there to worry about the credibility of the German royal family, but I won't tell you, I originally wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of the British Navy to launch a short-term war and recapture the Belfast area from the British. ”

Crown Prince William thought to show his understanding, after all, the Irish had a word to wait until the British army was completely expelled from the island of Ireland before he crowned Joachim King of Ireland. Natsuki could certainly use the support of the army to forcibly ascend to the throne, but doing so would be unjustifiable and would not be good for his future rule.

"The temptation of Persian oil is so great that we have to find another way to compensate Ireland."

Natsuki half-jokingly said, "How about a piece of land in the Persian Gulf under the control of Ireland?" ”

"Okay!" Crown Prince William replied casually, but then he smiled and reversed his affirmation: "But it depends on how big the piece of land is." ”

Natsuki replied in a rhetorical question, "With Ireland's national strength, how much land can you control?" ”

When it comes to practical interests, Crown Prince William has a bit of a businessman's shrewdness, and he replied: "If the oil fields are located, dozens of square kilometers are worth an astonishing amount. If it is an ordinary desert, tens of thousands of square kilometers are not interesting. ”

Natsuki didn't go on, he already had a card in his heart, and the conversation with Crown Prince William was just a foreshadowing.

Crown Prince William deliberately or unintentionally diverted the topic: "Speaking of national strength, I originally thought that after you stabilized the situation in Ireland, you would definitely develop industry and give full play to your advantages in running the shipbuilding industry. With Ireland's present conditions, is it really that urgent to build a new capital? ”

Natsuki explained unhurriedly: "Ireland currently does not have any of the key conditions for building industry, it is better to do a good job of infrastructure honestly, and by the way solve the unemployment problem that has plagued Ireland for many years, so that the vast majority of Irish people have jobs to do, wages to get, and so that they can support their families, which is better than giving free food for a long time!" ”

In front of Crown Prince William, Natsuki didn't need to say it too clearly. Germany did provide Ireland with a large amount of free aid and low-interest loans, these funds can be used to build factories, purchase equipment, hire workers, and can also reduce Ireland's unemployment rate a lot, but ordinary industrial products to the international market must not compete with German manufacturing, sales and profits can not go up, the early industrial investment will be difficult to recover, then Ireland will not be able to get rid of the dependence on German aid, thus losing the diplomatic voice between countries, and it is not conducive to the long-term development of the Irish economy. Therefore, Natsuki's strategy is to stimulate the Irish economy with domestic demand first, the new capital of Limerick is only large enough to accommodate more than 100,000 people, and Dublin was a metropolis of one million people before the war, the Irish government has invested a large part of the German aid funds in the city construction of Limerick and the surrounding water and land transportation facilities new and improved facilities, including the repair and widening of the artificial canal from Dublin to Limerick, in addition to the restoration of Dublin and Cork, two large port cities, is also underway. Together, these jobs, along with the life extension industry, have created nearly a million jobs for the Irish, and unemployment has dropped to almost zero.

Natsuki's plan was to gradually purchase machinery and equipment, transfer civilians engaged in construction to factory work in batches, compete for the civilian market with canned meat and dairy products, compete for the military market with military leather goods, submarines and airplanes, and if the Allied bloc failed to successfully seize the oil resources of the Persian Gulf or Baku, then the next step would be to reconsider the issue of fuel resources needed for industrial development. It seems to be a thousand things, as long as you grasp the main line, it is not as difficult to sort out as you imagined.

(End of chapter)