When Natsuki returned from his visit to Spain, he was arriving at the port of Limerick on the Irish-flagged tanker Dwarf. With 8,500 tonnes of crude oil from the Middle East on board the Pen, Fun & Court, www.biquge.info refinery in Limerick's heavy industrial estate is officially operational, and will continue to provide Ireland's modern industry with a "new source of energy" that is more thermally efficient than coal.

Since the Irish exploration team drilled oil on the island of Bahrain a few months ago, many people take it for granted that the crude oil comes from that distant colonial territory, but this is not the case, and the construction of large oil wells and supporting facilities cannot be completed overnight, but fortunately, Ireland's alliance agreement with Germany includes various economic aid clauses, and obtaining crude oil at preferential prices is one of them.

The crude oil supplied to Ireland came from the Masjed Suleiman field, which Germany had taken over from the British.

In the modern social system, petroleum is an indispensable raw material, the refined gasoline, diesel, kerosene is the necessities of vehicle operation, ship operation and aviation power, and the by-product asphalt is the basic material for the construction of roads, houses and water conservancy projects, and has a specific use that cannot be compared with concrete. As a result, the construction of oil refining facilities has been placed in the priority position of Irish industrial planning, and the construction of two large oil refineries is planned in the Limerick region alone, and the initial plan is dominated by government investment, and then due to the great interest of the expatriate and foreign capital returning to invest in this project, the Irish industrial sector has adjusted the program, and the government investment accounts for only a quarter, and the rapid arrival of capital and equipment and external technical support have shortened their construction period by two months compared with the projection. As a result, there has been a situation where the refinery is built first and the crude oil is purchased later.

The operation of the oil refining facility is a microcosm of the vigorous development of Irish industry at this stage, and the rise momentum of shipbuilding, aviation, automobiles, and military industry has even exceeded Xia Shu's expectations. Of course, this is also inseparable from the fact that the Germans are seriously fulfilling the terms of the Covenant, and without the support of the Deutschmark, the rapid start of the Irish industrial system may still remain in the stage of utopia.

Since the Irish War of Independence, the German government's gratuitous aid to Ireland has reached a considerable scale, but it is the low-interest and interest-free loans provided by German banks, financial institutions and large conglomerates that have really played a sustained role in the development of Ireland's industrial society. The reason why German bankers and chaebols are willing to invest tens of millions of dollars in this new market has a lot to do with the guarantee of the central government of the German Empire and some policy discounts, and the rich returns of the war have also greatly enhanced Germany's originally not very strong financial strength, so that the German financial industry has set off a new wave of colonial development and at the same time has "surplus grain" to invest in this strategic ally with great potential.

However, regardless of whether the loan is low or interest-free, it still needs to be repaid. Ireland's industrial construction has achieved remarkable results, but it is difficult to produce a large amount of capital benefits in the short term, in this case, borrowing new to repay the old is an inevitable means to maintain the operation of credit funds. The Irish government is seeking new loans externally and issuing government bonds domestically. After nearly a year of large-scale construction, the Irish people not only met the basic needs of their families, but also gradually swelled their pockets, and the newly issued government bonds were quickly snapped up under the appeal of the royal family, the government and the lure of generous interest rate returns. Part of the government raised from the government will be used to repay maturing loans, part of it will be used in social services, and the rest will be invested in the construction of the industrial base and derivative projects. With the support of the Irish government, the Limerick vehicle manufacturing plant has quietly become the most capitalized automobile company in Europe, and the Irish National Airways has also become an aviation complex integrating R&D, manufacturing and transportation, and provides major parts for the production of military aircraft in the Royal Irish Arsenal......

Compared to the bad hand of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Natsuki played a much better hand, but he was not happy enough to be carefree. The King of Spain and the central government are overwhelmed by the separatism of Catalonia, and Natsuki also has a restless hot potato on his side: Northern Ireland. The antagonism between religions and beliefs is only one aspect of the divide between the north and the south of Ireland, and the problems left over from history and the uneven interests of reality are the root causes of the conflict.

Natsuki had just returned from Spain when a Belfast autonomy bill was waiting on his desk.

Belfast's autonomy was enshrined in the formal terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which the Irish Government was obliged to fulfil, but the Agreement only set out the basic scope and duration of self-government, and did not specify the form and extent of self-government. After the withdrawal of British troops, the Irish government carried out a military takeover of Belfast, and all internal affairs were temporarily taken care of by the local councils formed by the Protestants themselves, and then the self-government plan was discussed through mutual consultation and international supervision.

The document on Natsuki's desk was a self-government bill by the Belfast Local Council, which demanded full autonomy from the Irish government - including executive, legislative, judicial and final adjudication. In addition, the Home Rule Government, although not in charge of foreign affairs and defence, requires the Irish Government to obtain their consent before making important diplomatic and military decisions, and the military deployment of the Irish army in the north is limited to 30,000 men and is to be deployed at a location of their choosing.

Anyone who looks at this bill from the standpoint of the Irish government must be indignant at the demands of the so-called Belfast local council, even Natsuki, who has cultivated many years in character and bearing, when he first read these demands, he felt that this group of people was simply unreasonable, but after calming down and pondering carefully, it is not difficult to think that people with ulterior motives are deliberately provoking the Irish government, whether the Irish government is brutal or reluctant, they will fall into the trap of the other party, and the only way is to use their wits to thwart the other party's conspiracy.

After some repeated considerations, Natsuki summoned his confidant ministers and told them his ideas.

Prime Minister Fritz Horders, War Secretary Aimo Perev, Admiralty Wilhelm Grientz, Chancellor of the Exchequer Bender Warrant, and Industry Secretary Marco Trincs are several hardworking and dedicated German officials who occupy very important positions in the Irish military and political hierarchy today, and Foreign Secretary Raul McLean is the only orthodox Irish in this inner circle, but he spent his youth in Berlin, Germany, where he obtained a doctorate in law, and then traveled to various European countries, working as a university professor and lawyer, government consultant, and has also published two law books, and the richness of experience is difficult for ordinary people to achieve.

Maclean's first to speak: "The Anglo-Irish Pact of Belfast includes only three counties - less than three strictly speaking, and we have taken the initiative to extend the scope of self-government to six counties, not to mention its practical effect, and I am worried that this move will make our own people think that we are showing weakness to the Protestants in England and the north, and I am afraid that the international community will have a similar opinion." ”

Natsuki said confidently and wittily, "If it were someone else, our subjects and foreigners might think so, but who am I? ”

The ministers smiled knowingly, and with Joachim's name and his victories in the military, political and diplomatic fields, no one with a modicum of memory would have thought that he might easily make concessions on Belfast's autonomy.

At the beginning of the Kingdom of Ireland, the British army was entrenched in the Belfast area, and nearly a million Protestants originally distributed in the northern counties of Ireland either managed to leave Ireland or withdrew to the three counties of Belfast with the British army. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the gradual withdrawal of British troops from Ireland, many Protestants went to Britain, and finally the number of Protestants who chose to stay in Ireland dropped sharply to more than 500,000.

At first glance, the expansion of autonomy from Belfast to the six northern counties of Ireland would weaken the Irish government's grip on the northern part of Ireland, potentially deepening the division between the north and the south of Ireland, and adversely affecting the unity of the country. There are now about 800,000 inhabitants in the six counties of northern Ireland, and if a part of the population were urgently mobilized, the population of the six counties under the scope of self-government could be increased to more than one million, so that the proportion of Protestants was only about half. Natsuki's idea was to give the six counties complete equal autonomy and to form a joint council of six counties above the county council, thereby weakening the Protestant control over the northern autonomous regions by non-force and reducing the chances of foreign powers using religious beliefs to stir up secession in the autonomous regions.

As long as the religious and political balance in the north of Ireland is maintained and stabilized, when the industrial scale and economic level of the central and southern parts of Ireland surpass that of the northern part of Ireland, and the expansion of foreign trade channels greatly reduces the dependence of the Irish economy on the British, the geographical superiority of the inhabitants of the north of Ireland will gradually disappear, and at that time, self-government will turn around as an obstacle to the economy, and people will naturally spurn self-government without the need for the Irish government to suppress it. I can't wait to join the rolling trend of national development and enjoy the fruitful fruits of the country's rise and economic prosperity. As long as they live a prosperous life and have no worries about food and clothing, who will have the leisure to engage in politics and make contradictions?

(End of chapter)