“…… At least four Skoda-made giant siege guns and ten Krupp super-heavy howitzers were transported to Ireland through official smuggling channels, where they were secretly transported by rail to military bases far north. It is conceivable that before the military offensive is launched, these powerful artillery pieces will appear in front of Belfast's defending lines, destroying any fortifications standing on the ground with heavy artillery bombardment at any cost......www.biquge.info Signed by Winston Churchill, hum-hum! ”

In his office, Natsuki tossed a newspaper with the latest date on his desk, and instead of annoying him by the uproar that had caused an uproar in Britain, his sneer was full of contempt.

During a previous visit to Ireland, the German crown prince did discuss with Natsuki the issue of lend-lease heavy siege weapons, as long as Ireland promised to launch a military attack on Belfast, Germany could arrange for these cannons and ammunition to be shipped to Ireland, accompanied by technical maintenance and operation personnel, and all this was completely free. The reason why the German top brass wanted Ireland to go to war against Britain was that Russia's withdrawal from the war was a foregone conclusion, and it was difficult for small Japan to make waves, and the Allied camp stood on the stage of the victors, but due to various relations, the military victory was not completely transformed into a political and diplomatic victory.

Clearly, the revenge of the French Third Republic had taught the German top brass a profound lesson. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans gave France a treaty that they thought was harsh, but they did not expect the French to tighten their belts and pay off the war reparations in only a few years, and the German army had to withdraw from France. It took only a generation for France to return to the top power, and to join forces with Britain and Russia to create a strategic encirclement for Germany, putting Germany at a disadvantage of fighting on two fronts at the outbreak of the Great War. Militarily, Germany beat Britain, France, and Russia beyond recognition, but diplomatically, the signing of the London Armistice Treaty was a victory for the British, and with the strong support of the United States, Britain's military strength was restored much faster than that of France in the past -- since the collusion between the United States and Britain had become a major problem in the Allied camp at the moment, at the German Imperial Military Conference, most of the senior generals of the army and navy were in favor of preemptive strike, looking for an opportunity to repair Britain's rather restless neighbor, Completely eliminate its strategic threat to the German Reich.

However, no country is willing to become cannon fodder for other countries for some petty profits, and now Natsuki is first the ruler of the Kingdom of Ireland, and then a member of the Hohenzollern royal family. Looking back at history, Bernadotte, the former candidate for the Swedish throne, was Napoleon's right-hand man, and after becoming the Prince of Sweden, he decisively turned his gun and became a banner of the anti-French coalition, personally pushing Napoleon's empire to the abyss of destruction. Natsuki did not have to be so decisive, and he told the visiting German prince in a clever and unmistakable way that Ireland would find a way to resolve the Belfast dispute by peaceful means, and that Germany's idea of completely settling Britain once and for all was correct, but it was very likely that the military powers outside Europe would unite against the unstoppable German Empire.

Crown Prince Wilhelm did not agree with the belligerent thinking of the German generals, but Kaiser Wilhelm II had the ambition to become the only leader in Europe, so he had to come to Ireland with this mission. Taking advantage of the fact that Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Turkish Empire shared the infamy of the war, he first digested the fruitful fruits of the military victory and the armistice treaty, so that the people could recuperate and recuperate the army, and then seek a higher level of strategic ambition.

In order to mislead the British about the situation of the Belfast dispute, Natsuki and Crown Prince William agreed to provide the British with some false information through double agents, so that they felt that the Irish army had a strong ability to attack fortifications.

On September 14, while Crown Prince Wilhelm was still on his way home, representatives of Germany, Russia, Austria, Turkey and other countries signed a comprehensive armistice agreement in Tallinn. According to this agreement, Russia lost a large area of territory south of the Dnieper-Donets River, the southern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains and the Baltic Sea coast, most of Lithuania, Latvia, and Belarus fell into German-occupied areas, Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of Eastern Europe, was completely divided by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, Azerbaijan fell into the hands of Ottoman Turkey, and Baku, which is rich in oil, became an international free zone, and the six countries of Germany, Austria, Turkey, Italy, and Russia shared the right to exploit it. At great cost, the Russian Empire retained its precarious imperial power, a large number of troops deployed at the front were repatriated to suppress the growing revolutionary movement, and a secret military agreement was signed between Germany and Russia to unite against ambitious Japan in the Far East.

After the armistice came into effect, the fire of war in Europe, which had been burning for 395 days, was finally extinguished, and after the war, the European pattern underwent earth-shaking changes, and the actual control area of the German Empire stretched from the banks of the Dnieper River in the east, to the Bay of Biscay in the west, to the Faroe Islands in the north, and to the Crimea in the south. In addition, the Hohenzollern dynasty also ruled over vast colonial territories in Africa and West Asia, becoming another "empire on which the sun never sets" after the British Empire.

With the signing of the Tallinn Agreement, Japan, which had taken the initiative to extend an olive branch to the camp of the Allies, suddenly became an out-and-out laughing stock, and although the armistice talks held in Berlin had not been declared broken by either side, they had actually come to a standstill, because Germany and Austria and other countries had reformulated the terms of the armistice that were unacceptable to the Japanese. Once all privileges acquired in China and Korea were lost, Japan, with its exceptionally poor native resources, would revert from a new power to its late-19th-century state, and it would not be long before its existing fleet would become obsolete.

However, Japan is a country far away on the other side of the world, and the profound lessons of the Russian expedition are still vivid, and Wilhelm II and his government did not really consider sending a huge army to the East, and even because of the fear of Japan's military power, Germany has not formally taken over Hong Kong and Singapore from the British, and the German expeditionary force that arrived in the Persian Gulf has also put on a cautious defensive posture......

Some people say that the excitement of diplomatic occasions is no less than any spy war drama, and this is true. Just a few days after Russia withdrew from the front, the Japanese delegation in Berlin uncharacteristically hardened, threatening that if the two sides continued to be at war, the Japanese fleet would consider sending troops to occupy Hong Kong and Singapore, which had de jure German protectorate, and that Japanese naval surface assault ships could appear in the southern Indian Ocean or even the Atlantic.

How could the self-confident diplomatic representatives of the Central Powers endure the diplomatic threat of an Asian country, and they left their seats in anger, and the protracted negotiations all but collapsed. Later that day, German Chancellor von Batemann met with Japan's chief negotiator at his official residence, and the two men had a nearly two-hour conversation that saved the armistice negotiations from a near-aborted ceasete. The Japanese know in their hearts that although the assistance promised by the United States and Britain can raise Japan's military strength to a higher level, it is still too difficult for Japan to confront the Allied bloc across Europe and Asia with the strength of one country, and it is better to maneuver flexibly between the two major forces and pursue their own interests to the greatest extent than to be pushed to the front by the United States and Britain as cannon fodder.

On 5 October, three weeks after the signing of the Armistice Agreement in Tallinn, Japan, which had been embroiled in the war with a robbery mentality, was able to get out, and the last country to withdraw from the war paid a great price for the belated peace: all the colonies and protectorates seized by the Japanese government from the Germans were returned, and war reparations equivalent to 45 million Reichsmarks were paid to Germany and Austria. Japan had to pay a small price for its mistaken adventures in the summer of 1914 compared to the harsh punishments that Allied politicians had hatched, so much so that many in Japan were glad that they had escaped this catastrophe, but they did not know that this luck would eventually lead them into the abyss of no return.

As the smoke of the war died down, the disillusioned British government turned its main energies back to Ireland. Over time, there are clear signs of easing the mood of ordinary British people towards Irish independence. Thanks to the repeated efforts of the Irish side, Britain and Ireland, which are deeply estranged, finally established formal diplomatic relations, and the British government also sent Lord Eisen, who has a Francophobic and pro-German tendency, as a diplomatic ambassador to the Kingdom of Ireland, which seems to be sending a signal of reconciliation to Ireland. But behind this deceptive façade of peace, the two sides grit their teeth and refuse to give in to each other's disputes over the Belfast dispute. While secretly expanding its air force and using the United States to develop and equip tracked combat vehicles, Britain deliberately created public opinion, and trumpeters such as former Admiral Winston Churchill and former Foreign Secretary Gray raised their voices through the press to draw attention to the sinister plot of the Irish to use the Belfast dispute to drag Britain back into the abyss of war.

As Natsuki personally reads this newspaper, Churchill pointed out in the article that the Irish government, at the behest of certain European powers, circumvented the restrictions of the London Armistice Treaty and secretly carried out military preparations for an attack on the Belfast area -- the elite units of the Irish Army were practicing the tactics of attacking fortifications day after day, the training of naval ships was deepening day by day, the size of the air force was almost doubling every month, and now Ireland received the heavy siege artillery that had shown its skills in Liège and Verdun. If this continues, within three months, the Irish army will be in action against Belfast.

Three months, which was indeed the deadline that Natsuki envisioned to use to settle the Belfast dispute, except that the timeline was pressed more than a month ago on the day of the signing of the Armistice Treaty in Tallinn, which meant that he planned to wear the crown of Ireland before Christmas. However, with the old spiciness of British politicians, it is not easy to do this, and Xia Shu is not completely sure in his heart. He thought for a long time, turned to look at the gilded invitation on the table, and once again the delicate and handsome face appeared in front of him.

(End of chapter)