“Howdy，kidos.” (Are you all alright, little cubs?) )

“Allright，kids，whatisthisdamnpieceofpaper?” (Well, cubs, who knows what this damn piece of paper is?) )

“Thisisafuckingonehundreddollarbill.“ (It's a hundred dollars of B.) Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info)

“Doyouguysknow……… cannotevenwipeyourass?” (Do you know how much it costs the United States to print this piece of paper that doesn't even wipe your ass?) )

“Itcostus…… You’redamnright，fuckingtencents.” (It only cost us ten cents, by the way, it's ten cents for mom B).

"The United States uses ten cents a piece of butt wiping paper, in exchange for hundreds of dollars in other countries, in exchange for a whole bunch of things, Isthisfuckingfair? (Is this fair B?) )

TheanswerisfuckingNO. (The answer is B's unfairness) but, however, why should other countries grit their teeth and accept this unfairness? -------- because of you. ”（Becauseofyouguys.）

“Kidos，youbearthisinyourmind. (Cubs, you remember it for me.) )Whoeverdaretochallengethisdamnpieceofpaper，it’stimetogotowar. (Whoever dares to challenge our butt wipe, you should go to war.) )

The above is a speech by four-star General James A. Van Vliet of the U.S. Army at the West Point commencement ceremony.

Back to that alternate world.

On September 11, 93 of the B century, 13 of the world's major economies established the Global Trade Agreement Organization under the leadership of the MarneRocco Empire and four other countries. Thirteen of the world's 35 major economies joined the organization that year. In 99 of the B century, the number was 29.

The Global Trade Agreement (GTA) is a multilateral international agreement on international trade and cross-border investment rules concluded between the governments of signatory countries, referred to as the "Global Agreement". The purpose of establishing this organization was to promote the liberalization of international trade by reducing tariffs and other trade barriers, eliminating differential treatment in international trade, and making full use of world resources to expand the production and circulation of commodities.

At the end of the real B century, the Saxon-Windsor Empire implemented a completely dismissive attitude towards this organization, not joining, not cooperating, disdainful, going its own way, you trade yours, Lao Tzu, Lao Tzu, Lao Tzu. However, the sharp increase in the number of signatories to the Global Trade Agreement (GTA) has been negatively correlated with the deterioration of the economic situation in the Saxon-Windsor Empire. The sluggish export of goods within the empire and the reduction in the profits of the relevant international trade enterprises directly led to a sharp decline in the production of exported industrial goods (mainly industrial production) and a large increase in unemployment among the workers of the enterprises involved. The tightening of consumption by the unemployed in these foreign trade industries has once again made domestic consumer goods unsalable, and the relevant domestic trade consumer enterprises have been under-employed and have closed down in large numbers. The bankruptcy of a large number of enterprises has transmitted the crisis to the banks, and the banks have no choice but to take out loans in order to protect themselves, and other enterprises are also on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor capital turnover. The capital market, the shortage of money, the rise in interest rates, the serious damage to the credit system, and the bankruptcy of the small banks...... In the second half of the 90s of the B century, a large number of workers in the Saxony-Windsor Empire lost their jobs, enterprises were closed, productivity and products were seriously damaged and lost, and the social economy was gradually paralyzed, chaotic and regressive.

A member of the country's cabinet said: "Since 97 of the Bth century, the situation in the Empire of Saxony and Windsor has been as if it had lost its colonies after losing a war. ”

The collapse of the world's former great power was a strange thing for the rest of the world, just as the economic crisis could not be explained. Now it seems that the answer to all this is simple - because the Saxony-Windsor Empire has lost an economic war in which the main battlefield is a financial war, a currency war. At that time, people did not know about money and finance, and neither side knew that they were engaged in a life-and-death battle with the other.

In fact, the main reason for all this is the Global Trade Agreement.

In order to facilitate international trade between countries, the Global Trade Agreement also has provisions on monetary and financial aspects. At the heart of these financial and monetary provisions is the Treaty on the Secured Swap of Currencies between the Four Major Contracting Parties, or the Monetary Value Treaty. The treaty stipulates that the currencies of the four major contracting parties shall be subject to fixed exchange rates, unconditional currency swaps, and mutual guarantees of the credibility of each other's currencies. The signatories to the Global Trade Agreement can use the currencies of the four major countries as the currency of the settlement countries, and the purchasing power of these overseas domestic currencies is guaranteed by the four countries including the MarneRocco Empire, which means that the signatories can use the currency of any of the four countries to exchange currency or purchase goods at the currency exchange rate agreed between that country and the other three countries. The real lethality of the Global Trade Agreement treaty on the Saxony-Windsor Empire came from the Treaty on the Guaranteed Swap of Currencies between the Four Major Contracting Parties.

Undoubtedly, the signing of this agreement made the situation even more difficult for the Saxon-Windsor Empire, already a notorious profiteer. Previously, international trade used the Saxony-Windsor Imperial Dollar (also known as the Imperial Gold Dollar, or Gold Dollar for short) as a popular settlement currency. Countries with import and export trade more or less have to trade with the Saxon-Windsor Empire, or buy or sell, and the Saxony-Windsor Empire has a profit. To put it more clearly, in order to obtain the Saxony-Windsor Empire Dollar (hereinafter referred to as the Gold Dollar) to import the goods needed, sell the products of the Saxony-Windsor Empire at a low price; Sometimes, in order to balance the excessive excess in the international trade balance, the Saxony-Windsor Imperial Dollar was used to buy the country's export materials at a high price.

After joining the Global Trade Agreement, these signatories began to trade with each other according to the principle of comparative economic production advantage in The Wealth of Nations, and no longer traded for the so-called Saxony-Windsor Imperial Dollar, buying high and selling low for their grandchildren. As for the idea of using this Saxony-Windsor Imperial dollar as a foreign exchange reserve, this idea was really a bit cross-cutting at that time, and people at that time did not quite agree with foreign exchange reserves; Governments prefer to reserve gold and silver more than currencies. Even from a modern point of view, the matter of foreign exchange reserves is a little trick of a fool who thinks he is smart - do you reserve this kind of paper-printed imperial gold dollars, and the devil knows how much gold is still in his family's warehouse. If a banknote can't be spent, it's a piece of waste paper.

From 95 years onwards, there were significantly fewer trading partners that could bring real money and positive returns to the Saxony-Windsor Empire. The remaining economies that continued to use the Imperial Dollar as a currency for trade settlements were left with only a few gold standard countries and their colonies.

There are no markets in underdeveloped countries where surplus textiles can be dumped from domestic trade, and even their own colonies do not buy locally produced towels and cloths, the threshold is too low, and people can produce them themselves.

There is no international arms market that can obtain ultra-high profits, and there are many people who can make guns, and they sell them too expensive, and those who can't make them don't buy them from their homes; As for the warships, his family is even more outrageously expensive, he can buy two pieces of gold from others, but it is not enough to buy one at their house, and people only accept gold to pay for warships when they sell them, hehe.

Some things are even worse, the country must use a large amount of imperial gold dollars to buy and purchase goods from colonies or other countries to enrich the lives of its own people, although it is a reserve price, but it is a large quantity; It is necessary to maintain the huge military strength and military industrial production capacity that must be possessed as the boss. These all need money, and the empire needs to print the Saxony-Windsor Imperial Dollar, and then other countries will basically use these extra printed Imperial dollars to buy the resources of their colonies. These resources cannot be sold to the mainland at a low price. In addition, the colonies did not need these pieces of paper money, and colonial merchants and residents often habitually used Imperial paper money to buy gold, which caused the gold price of the country's colonies to skyrocket, and the imperial paper money to plummet.

In October B98, the country's treasury gold reserves fell by 6.2% from a year earlier, and have fallen by 30% compared to the historical peak. However, the country's paper currency release has increased sixfold from the historical peak of gold reserves. Seeing that the so-called gold standard was about to be debunked, the country was forced to sell gold several times from B98 onwards to maintain the value of the imperial dollar. Against the backdrop of declining gold reserves year by year, this bailout model is destined to be a vicious circle. It was time to end or change the gold standard, and the government desperately needed some special historical event as a justification. A war might be a good idea.

At this time, a crucial element of war is changing rapidly. The strategic balance of power between the superpower, the Saxony-Windsor Empire, and a number of other maritime powers is about to be shattered once again.

The strategic balance of power refers to the situation in which the strategic forces of two or more parties are relatively balanced, and it is a state of equal strength in the political, military, economic, scientific, and technological comprehensive forces of all sides, but it does not exclude the distinction between strong and weak, superior and inferior in a certain field. The strategic balance of power is relative and temporary, and each side strives to break through the balance and give its own forces an advantage. Once one side gains the upper hand, the balance of power is broken. Strategic offense, defense, and stalemate are a reflection of the superiority, disadvantage, and balance of power of strategic forces. In peacetime, two blocs in a quasi-hostile or hostile state, breaking the strategic balance undoubtedly means war.

Politically, the Marne-Rocco empire has become the original signatory and de facto leader of the Global Trade Agreement organization, and its political status has long been no less than that of a superpower in the quagmire of economic crisis. Economically, the country's political status and the "Treaty on the Guaranteed Swap of Currencies between the Four Major Contracting Parties" have made the country's actual economic power already above that of the Saxony-Windsor Empire. At this time, the only advantages of the Saxony-Windsor Empire were the flagging military strength and the plausible technological lead.

For the Saxony-Windsor Empire, it is better to take the initiative to fight than to be fought in the future. On June 31, B99, the gold reserves of the Saxony-Windsor Empire fell by more than five percentage points year-on-year.

On July 11, B99, the Cabinet of the Saxony Windsor Empire held a top-secret meeting, at which the cabinet members unanimously decided to go to war to target the Marnerocco Empire and use war to save the decadent empire from the economic crisis.

The "Monetary Value Treaty", this fuse finally burned to the end, and the Saxony-Windsor Empire could not tolerate the emergence of such a tilt in the strategic balance, and this time he had to go into battle in person.

On July 24, B99, the Saxony-Windsor Empire began to assemble the first batch of attack force components.

On 11 September B99, the Saxony-Windsor Imperial Ocean Attack Force sorted.

On December 30, 99 B century, the attacking force reached the vicinity of the sea off the coast of the destination. The commander of the expeditionary force announced the objectives of the operation: the Marne-Rocco Empire; Combat mission: the capture of the country's important overseas islands, the new center of international shipping cargo turnover, Treasure Island. The island is located just a dozen kilometers west of the international shipping date line, and it can be said to be the first land in the world to usher in the sun.

The battle essay "The Empire of Marnerocco - The Cause of the Fall of the Saxony-Windsor Empire, and the Seven Hatreds of Our Country for the Country" summarizes the contradictions between the two countries as follows:

The first hate, his family has exploded the army combat readiness arsenal of our Saxony-Windsor Empire. Our backlog of Army weapons is crowding warehouses.

The second big hatred is that his family has made our warships backlog for 10 years and cannot be sold. Shipyards have been turned into dry docks for specialized ships.

The third hate, his family runs a shipping center, and my family's business in Cape Rockdel is seriously affected. That Treasure Island is the pirate base that stole our gold.

The fourth hatred is that his family collected reserve gold at a high price, causing me to not receive gold. What about my currency gold standard, so that I have no gold, doesn't this cost me my life?

The fifth hate, his family sells explosives at ultra-low prices, and he has bankrupted all these private explosives factories in my family. There is no choice but to invest in the government in B96.

The sixth hate, his family sells textile light industrial products at low prices, and my textile girls are laid off and stand on the street. Cubs, you complain that you can't find a good woman, and that's the real reason.

The seventh hate, the container ship standard that his family first advocated and promoted, my traditional standard fleet was directly bankrupt. Cubs, this leaves you retired without a professional counterpart.

The above is the country of crusade against evil bandits, the Marnerocco Empire, and the "Seven Hatreds" inscription. (The genuine Seven Hatreds of the text is written by the wild boar skin of the Houjin leader, which is more funny, and you may wish to Baidu if you are interested.) ）

The commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, Duke Sherlock Byrne, inspired his subordinates: to raise troops and suppress bandits, the army of kings, to fight for the country, and to be the army of justice. Look at our mighty fleet! This is what a winner looks like! Our army will win!!

A few hours later, the fleet crossed the date line and entered the sea area where the landing force was scheduled to be unloaded. At dawn on January 1 of the C century, the landing battle on Treasure Island began.

January 1 of the C century, the first day of the new century of mankind, began in the midst of war.

Appendix:

Gold Standard and Bar Standard

(The Imperial Monetary System of Saxony and Windsor was originally based on the gold coin standard, later changed to the gold bar standard)

The gold standard is the gold standard, and the gold standard is a monetary system with gold as the standard currency. Under the gold standard, the value of each unit of money is equal to a certain weight of gold (i.e. the gold content of the currency); When different countries use the gold standard, the exchange rate between countries is determined by the ratio of the gold content of their respective currencies - gold parity. The gold standard began to prevail in the mid-19th century. Historically, there have been three forms of the gold standard: the gold coin, the bullion standard, and the gold exchange standard. The gold coin standard is the most typical form, and in a narrow sense, the gold standard refers to the monetary system.

The bullion standard

The bullion standard and the gold exchange standard are two unsound gold standards that emerged after the stability of the gold standard was undermined. Under these two systems, although gold is used as the monetary standard, only the gold content of the monetary unit is stipulated, and no gold coins are minted, and bank bills are circulated.

The bullion standard is a disguised gold standard that uses gold bars for international settlement, also known as the gold bar standard. Under this system, gold bullion is stored by the state as a reserve; The exchange of various currencies in circulation with gold is restricted and is no longer freely convertible, but when necessary, it can be exchanged for gold bullion in paper money in the prescribed limited quantities to the central bank of the country. It can be seen that this monetary system is in fact a gold standard with restrictive conditions.